Grief Awareness, Sibling Suicide Loss and Researcher Positionality
Good things have been happening in my academic life recently, not least the passing of my second PhD two weeks ago. Yet the pride, relief, dare I say happiness that I feel is tinged with degrees of both sadness and guilt; none of the achievements would have occurred without my brother’s passing. Suicide-loss grief has been, and will probably remain, central to my research, approach activity and career now, and that can be difficult to internally reconcile/contend with at times. I silently convey ‘thank yous’ to Martin, but in all honesty that can feel just plain weird – thank you for what? Experiencing pain, suffering? Dying? There can be zero logic in experiences following suicide loss, I find.
“Researcher Positionality -
An Initial Reflection
Writing in
his introduction to When It Is Darkest: Why People Die By Suicide And What
We Can Do To Prevent It, Professor of Health Psychology Rory O’Connor
recounted having experienced what he described as a form of paralysis ‘by
self-disclosure anxiety’ whilst compiling the volume:
“As
someone who has spent all of my adult life endeavouring to portray myself as
competent and self-assured, I kept asking myself why on earth would I risk
exposing any vulnerabilities, uncertainties and neuroses in a book.” (O’Connor,
2021: 6)
Such a
statement reflects the persistent discomfort in academia (amongst academics)
with ‘the personal’ – the dominance of ‘the scientific’ has contributed to an
embedded hierarchy of knowledges in academia within which lived experience
continues to be (however implicitly) regarded as relatively lacking in
authority. In reference to research activities, for all outward facing
pronouncements of support and need for experiential data (particularly in
social science and health-related subjects), it is still the case that
qualitative work is more often than not the ‘add-on’, used to produce
illustration for figures as opposed to an integrated, equal, partner in the
work from the outset (Baum, 1995; Shelton et al., 2018). Given this is
the case in reference to the researched, it is perhaps not surprising that
there has been even less of a ‘narrative turn’ (Goodson and Gill, 2011) in
reference to researchers’ own experiences – judgements directed at
autoethnographic research, for example, of it as always “self-indulgent,
narcissistic, introspective, and individualized” (Stahlke Wall, 2016),
serve as illustration of continuing academy-internal scepticism toward and
discomfort with researcher lived experience, contributing to perpetuation of
‘missing the point’ with regard to what personal knowledges can offer and bring
to research topics.
Accounts
of ‘researcher reflexivity’ customarily appear within the ‘methodological
account’ areas of research write-ups. They are placed as such as means to
explain and justify the conduct of the research as it happened, exploring
researcher-position influences on process decisions and actions, data analysis
and interpretations. My own lived experiences, however, are important to
reflect upon outside of the specifically-labelled research process stages –
they are key to my initial agreement to even undertake this project in the
first place. I sought and undertook this study for specific reasons stemming
from a specific experience, and it is necessary to openly acknowledge this as
part of the originating ‘starting block’ and context underpinning this project
from its outset.
My
witnessing of the mental distress and deterioration of my brother Martin,
difficulties which culminated in his death by suicide, is the over-time
experience significant to my researcher role. Martin experienced mental
distress for several years prior to his death. I noted his deterioration as
connected to a multitude of circumstances, such as a long-term relationship
break-up; an experience of assault; alcohol use, and insomnia. Of particular
significance in reference to the research presented here is the relationship I
viewed between my brother’s mental distress and his experiences of academic
settings. Although not registered as a student at the
time of his death (he had deferred his studies for a year), Martin’s connection
with UKHE and his ‘student identity’ are to me significant elements in the
with-hindsight roadmap to his passing (Sutherland, 2021). My brother appeared to regard his mental state as an
inhibitor of his potential as a student – in a letter draft intended for his
university department 9 months before he died, he wrote the following as part
of an explanation for an extensive number of absences:
“The progress of my
professional/academic career has been continually interrupted and on some
occasions completely forestalled. I received a 1st class degree and a Masters
with Distinction … but my work in both cases was not nearly to the standard
that – had I been ‘well’ – I believe I was capable of. I received an offer to
study for a PhD … but was forced to turn it down after considered reflection on
my mental state … Part of what I experience is what I can only describe as
‘social phobia’, a fear that increases over a period of time, and will often
end up with me isolating myself completely from my peers … I have always had
trouble sleeping but more recently I have suffered from severe insomnia, which
is the primary cause of my recent inability to attend lectures and seminars at
university.” (23rd March 2011)
Furthermore, in an appointment with a Consultant Psychiatrist in November
2011, a month before his death, situations he spoke on seemed to imply direct
negative connection between his university-related experiences and contexts,
sense of self, and mental state:
“when a [PhD] course in
London fell through, he took tablets”
“Martin then went to
[university name] to study [subject] and found that he hardly spoke to anybody
in halls.”[1]
Martin
was, by the time of his death, feeling isolated and socially anxious, relying
on antidepressant medications, though it was recorded by the consultant
psychiatrist he saw just under a month before his death that:
“Martin
is concerned that medication may be treating the symptoms but not the root
cause, which he now sees as an inability to be with people.”[2]
Despite
this note, prioritised was increasing his existing medications - there was no
mention in the report of any other therapy options. Martin took his own life on
15th December 2011[3].
At the risk of appearing dramatic to those happily unencumbered
with the lived experience, whilst also wishing to emphasise the at-core
significance of the detail surrounding my brother’s life and death to my
research approach, watching a sibling endure such distress over years is
deeply, upsettingly impactful. When, furthermore, such an experience concludes
in bereavement by suicide, the already-existing difficult impact has further
layers added – new questions arise and new readings/understandings/explanations
of (even long-past) circumstances emerge, in relation to the person gone, but
also in relation to own and others’ roles in the chain of events. My brother’s
death, however unintentional on his part, ruptured my life and created a
personal sense of disorientation. After a chance meeting with a charity worker,
I began to learn more about suicide (and suicide loss), about mental health
more broadly, about trauma (impacts), and about alternative support options
about which I had no awareness, (from peer support to aromatherapy massage, to
animal therapy, to formal therapies, such as ‘Eye Movement Desensitization
Reprocessing’ (EMDR)). Across the years since my brother’s death, I have begun
to assimilate the experience into a new identity, in part a result of learning
new detail and recalibrating personal assumptions, ideas and stereotypes in
relation to the topics of mental health, mental illness, wellbeing, suicide
etc. – to me these had appeared unchallengeable things and they would have
remained so had I not had the lived experience I have had. Whilst Martin’s
death was horrific in all manners imaginable, his departure has guided me to
continuously reflect on, question, rethink and re-evaluate elements falling
under the labelled category that is ‘mental health’, and he himself remains a
motivation to always think about ‘the layers beneath’, ‘the lines that could be
running parallel’.
Thus, this research and subsequent thesis owes much to the impacts
of my encounter with suicide (loss). This has not only shaped and influenced my
perceptions and views of the broader topic-areas and definitions but formed
into what might be described as a type of ‘person-centred knowledge’ (Gatera
and Singh, 2021, 2023), even prior to development of the specific research
proposal itself. Rather than this being a negative feature in this project,
there is benefit in terms of acute awareness of and attentiveness to elements
that would perhaps be overlooked by those without the lived experience,
elements that can ultimately be integrated with and “work alongside [instead of replacing]
existing knowledge systems in mental health.” (Gatera and Singh, 2021,
2023; Watling et al., 2022; Rittenbach et
al., 2019).”
[1] Cited from Consultant Psychiatrist’s report letter to
General Practitioner regarding Martin Andrew Sutherland, 21st
November 2011.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Martin’s death received a formal ‘Open
Verdict’ coroner’s ruling; the manner of death and what I knew/learned of his
mental states over the years, however, led to my own identification of it as
his having taken his own life. As
recorded by ONS, in 2018, the ‘standard of proof’, i.e., “the level of
evidence needed by coroners to conclude whether a death was caused by suicide”
was changed from ‘beyond all reasonable doubt’, to ‘on the balance of
probabilities’ (ONS, 2020). This may have impacted upon the verdict given for Martin’s
death had this stood in 2011.
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