By Rosemary Peters
Surviving the suicide of a loved one is one of the most difficult and intensely painful challenges a person might ever face.
"In the aftermath of a suicide it is normal that people closest to the person who died go through a roller coaster of powerful emotions," said Paul Myers, director of the University of Portland Health Center.
Myers said those feelings may run the gamut from guilt to anger to sadness to shame to numbness to denial and eventually to a steady acceptance. That acceptance, Myers added, "will always have a heartache attached to it."
UP freshman Aimee Cash, of Spokane, Wash., unfortunately, discovered how difficult arriving at that acceptance can be.
Shortly after graduating from high school, a friend of Cash's committed suicide. Although she and he weren't best friends, they had been friends since seventh grade.
Cash was shocked when she heard of his death. The emotions she experienced were strong and, at times, were overwhelming, Cash said. "I would have done anything to stop it, but I didn't see it coming."
It was especially hard for friends who had been even closer to the student.
Even after the initial shock, the pain of losing a friend remained.
"I was really afraid to get past the grieving," Cash said. But in time, she learned, "It is OK to go on with your life. It doesn't mean you don't care about them."
Many students may be feeling these same emotions in the wake of Ted Karwin's death late last month.
But there are ways to deal with the pain.
"Survivors are best served by engaging in open communication with trusted others," Myers said. "It is important for people to learn that they are having normal feelings about an abnormal circumstance and that the feelings themselves are often beyond our control."
The important factor to remember, Myers said, is that a person can take positive steps to deal with those feelings.
On campus, that might mean turning to the Health Center, which offers a range of mental health services to students, faculty and staff. The center offers counseling with a staff that includes two full-time licensed psychologists and a full-time licensed clinical social worker.
Myers stressed that students shouldn't be fearful about any social stigmas for making an appointment to talk to a professional counselor about what's troubling them. Sometimes people worry that they'll be judged or considered unstable for talking to a mental health provider, Myers said. That worry couldn't be further from the truth, he emphasized.
The Health Center is also able to provide group counseling for any collection of staff, students or faculty, Myers added. A representative from the group should simply contact the Health Center, he said.
Myers said the center has seen an increase in the number of students seeking mental health counseling in recent weeks and continues to be able to provide services for al who contact the office.
The Health Center can be reached at 503-943-7314, and more information about counseling services and appointments is available at the center's Web site. Go to http://www.up.edu/healthcenter/ and, on the left side of the screen, click on Mental Health.
