Luto não reconhecido: uma exploração acerca dos sentimentos dos sobreviventes do suicídio

Abstract

Suicide is considered a public health problem, with an alarming rate of people who take their lives for multiple factors. It is estimated that for each death, many people become bereaved, called survivors, and experience a suffering that influences all dimensions of the Being. Among all the suffering that the survivor experiences, there is the difficulty of finding social support and validation for their I mourn because there is still taboo and prejudice in relation to suicide. Grief that is not experienced for reasons of beliefs, judgments, lack of support and validation can be considered unrecognized grief. In this context, the aim of this study is to describe the implications of the grieving process of suicide survivors, as well as to understand if it is an unrecognized grieving. The participants were five family members who agreed to participate in the research and signed the Informed Consent Form, sent by a co-participating institution. Inclusion criteria were: having experienced grief for the suicide of a family member and being over 18 years old. Participants who had been grieving for suicide for over three years were excluded. For data collection, an interview was conducted with each participant, lasting approximately 90 minutes, which were recorded and transcribed. The analysis framework was content analysis, according to the objectives and theme of the research, based on the theoretical framework of attachment theory. In the characterization of the participants, the following aspects were identified: participant's gender, age, religious belief, loss of which family member and time of loss. The results pointed to the following thematic categories of discussion: a) mourning for suicide; b) Unrecognized grief; c) Feelings involved; d) Social and affective support. In relation to mourning for suicide, the survivors expressed experiences and feelings prior to the losses, such as: suicide attempts, threats and care they needed to make available to their loved ones, such as causing fatigue, exhaustion and ambivalent feelings. The impact of the suicide news, as well as the open and public death, are factors that influenced the mourning process. As for unrecognized grief, it was possible to identify the importance of help and support from family members and specialized services. As for social and affective support for survivors, it is possible to note that external support, such as services and the support network; as well as the internal support represented by beliefs, spirituality, faith and resilience, became important for the healthy mourning process. The final considerations point out the importance of the postvention work. Based on this, support groups for survivors were proposed in order to care for and validate these unrecognized griefs.[resumo fornecido pelo autor]