Suizid: Das Leben danach

by Elisa Roth

Ein Tod durch Suizid ist besonders. Er ist anders. Die Verarbeitung und die Trauer sind kompliziert. Das Thema Suizid ist immer noch tabu. Betroffene selbst können all die verschiedenen Aspekte eines Suizides meist nur schwer zum Ausdruck bringen. Daher erfahren sie oft nur dadurch Heilung bzw. Erleichterung, Erfahrungen und Formulierungen von anderen zu hören, die das Unvorstellbare ausdrücken. Das Buch erzählt verschiedene Geschichten von Suizid-Betroffenen und auch von an Depression Erkrankten. Die Autorin Elisa Roth hat im Alter von 27 Jahren völlig unerwartet ihre Mutter durch Suizid verloren. Da das Thema Suizid und das Darüber-reden immer noch so ein großes Tabu ist, rief sie vor einigen Jahren mit großen Erfolg den Podcast "Selbstwort" ins Leben, in dem sie andere Betroffene ihre Geschichte erzählen lässt und mit ihnen über alles, was mit ihrer jeweiligen Situation einhergeht, spricht. Nachdem sie durch den Podcast so viele positive Rückmeldungen erhalten hat, ist nun endlich zu dem Thema auch ein Buch entstanden, das Betroffene an die Hand nimmt und ihnen zeigt: Du bist nicht allein.

304 pages, Paperback

Published February 6, 2024

Reviews

[Lore Mata · Rating 3 out of 5]

Life after suicide - people who lost a loved one by suicide, and a few suicide survivors tell their stories. This was a hard read but a very eye opening one. Yes, losing a loved one is always painful, but when they took their own lives, the grief comes with an added deep layer of pain, complexities, unanswered questions and in many cases, anger. Due to the stigma that exists, even today, around suicide, most of those left behind mention feeling shut down, misunderstood, lonely and insecure while processing their loss, and even decades after the fact. People describe how utterly surreal it is to organize a funeral, empty an apartment, and deal with all of the necessary admin only days after going through the worst of nightmares. It was a sad read. This book certainly gave me valuable insights and I would recommend it to anyone close to someone in this situation to be a better friend, partner o colleague to them - or simply, to learn how to be a better human.

Now, while I thoroughly enjoyed this read, from a pure literature standpoint, the format was a little odd. The author's own story takes up more than half of the book, and the rest are stories from people who reached out to share theirs. The author published what she wrote for herself throughout many years, not thinking to write a book, and she is laying bare what she felt, when she felt it, so it feels inappropriate to criticize that. But this is a book review, so I will say: I enjoyed it a lot, even found it funny at parts, but it also felt repetitive sometimes (understandably! The author constantly goes back to the same topics she's working on and still processing). As per the rest of the stories, they were easy to follow, and I got to understand the different backgrounds, personalities and feelings of those telling them. I did feel that the interview format made the second half slow, it killed the flow of the narrative a little bit. This book is very valuable for what it aims to accomplish, which is to create awareness about a very important topic and to remove the stigma around it - it does not intend to win the Nobel literature prize (I assume) so I will still recommend it highly even if I'm not giving it the highest of ratings.