Those left behind: Parents who lose a child to suicide

MARSEILLE - "Why didn't I pick up on his pain?" asked Marie-Noelle Cullieret, whose 24-year-old son killed himself after he failed a pilot's exam.

Losing her only son was like being hit by "a bomb", she said, and she is still struggling two years on.

"You can never prepare yourself for the death of a child... But when it happens like this, it's the incomprehension, the why" which is so hard.

"Why did I not see?" asked the flight navigator, who wants to lift the silence on the suffering of those left behind to pick up the pieces after a suicide.

"We had a lovely relationship, we talked..." the 57-year-old told AFP.

A photo of her son surrounded by candles and flowers sits on a shelf in her home in the southern French city of Marseille.

Bastien dreamed of being an airline pilot. But just after failing an exam he killed himself.

"He was stressed," she said.

Neither his mother nor Bastien's friends could have ever imagined that someone so "joyful" would take his own life.

- 'Weight of guilt' -

Every year more than 700,000 people kill themselves globally, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

For young people between 15 and 29, suicide was the fourth most common cause of death in 2019. The Covid lockdowns have since taken a toll on teenagers' mental health, the WHO warned.

"In France alone, some 1.6 million children and teenagers suffer from psychological disorders," Adeline Hazan, the local head of UNICEF, the UN's children's agency, estimated. "But only 750,000 to 850,000" are getting appropriate treatment, she said.

In the United States, South Africa, Finland and Guyana -- some of the countries most impacted by youth suicides -- thousands of parents a year are floored by the death of their child.

The WHO calls them suicide's "survivors".

"It's an earthquake. You have to start again from zero," said Belgium-based Fabrice and Helene de Carne, whose daughter Lou, a political science student, killed herself in 2021.

Often parents find themselves alone to deal with the "gigantic weight of guilt... and the infernal question, 'Why?'" said psychiatrist Christophe Faure.

They also run a higher risk of killing themselves than others going through grief, he added.

- Taboo -

"When a child dies in hospital it is terrible, but there is a team of carers around you," Cullieret said.

"There was no one to help me when I had to go to the police station to get Bastien's things and then go find a coffin," she said.

To make it worse, "sometimes other parents avoid you because of the fear suicide stirs up in them," she added.

Suicide remains a major taboo. Indeed it is still a crime in 20 countries and was only decriminalised in Ireland in 1993.

Even countries where prevention plans have been put in place, past stigmas -- often religious -- have left their trace.

In France, as in many other countries, "there are very few therapy options... and not many voluntary groups trained to help suppport people through post-suicide grief," said Marie Tournigand, of the French charity Empreintes.

After the death of their daughter Lou, the de Carnes sought help from psychologists at work. But being specialists in burnout, they were unable to help.

They were finally taken on by psychiatrists at the Centre for Suicide Prevention in the Belgian capital Brussels, who are trained to help devastated parents.

- Mutual support -

Unable to work after her son killed himself, and close to going over the edge herself, Cullieret finally found succour from other parents who had gone through hell like her.

A support group called La Point Rose (The Pink Dot) brings together parents from the south of France who have lost children.

Its founder Nathalie Paoli welcomed a group of them for a "family day" on the sunny terrace of her home in Cabries, north of Marseille.

Croissants and traditional orange flower biscuits were laid out on tables with tea and coffee. A circle formed around Paoli, 55, whose daughter Carla-Marie died from leukemia aged eight.

"The first year you have to accept you cannot control anything," she said. "Often the second year is even harder because people are less understanding, they think you should have the gumption to get yourself back on our feet."

Tears flowed as parents shared their stories, but there was always a hand on a shoulder or a word of comfort.

"The pain is there, but so is life -- in the here and now," Paoli insisted.

Just then a chicken walked past Paoli's cats lazing on the grass.

You have to "appreciate the simple joys", Paoli added as everyone smiled, "the passing seasons, walking, doing DIY or making pancakes... Plant the seeds to repair yourself," she urged.

- Talking about death -

During a watercolour class, grieving parents put words to their pain with people who have lived through the same things.

Others often avoid talking to them about their loss, for fear of reopening the wound. "But talking is cathartic," said Fabrice de Carne. "So friends who bring up the subject in a straightforward manner help us."

"It should not be scary to talk about the dead. We have to change the culture," pleaded Cullieret, who fondly remembered an evening with her son's friends exchanging memories of Bastien.

"It was funny and joyful," she said. "Grief can also be that."

"When we talk about Lou it is not to rehash old painful memories," said Helene de Carne. "It is also about how we can rebuild ourselves, how suicide prevention is now at the heart of our lives."

She and her husband are spreading the word about a French emergency helpline for those with suicidal thoughts.

Cullieret wants to bring the message to schools and universities. "It will get me out of bed in the morning if I can stop others doing what Bastien did," she said. - Isabelle Wesselingh / AFP