Suicide support group forms in Moses Lake

MOSES LAKE - Nancy Thorne, of Moses Lake, said the pain of her brother's suicide never really went away, and she spent a long time trying to come to terms with his death.

After almost two decades, Thorne said she found comfort talking with others who had lost family or friends to suicide in a support group based in Wenatchee. Thorne is one of the people working to start a group for suicide survivors in Moses Lake.

The group's first meeting is scheduled for May 20. The support group will meet for six weeks, and registration is required.

Meetings are at 6 p.m. The location will be given to participants when they register. The group can accommodate about 10 people, said Karen Sheppard, executive director of Grief Place - North Central Washington Loss Support, the sponsoring organization.

Meetings will include facilitators who have had family members or friends who committed suicide, she said. The facilitators are not licensed counselors, she said, but do have some training for the group.

Sheppard said suicide often leaves not only grief but also confusion and guilt in its wake. "There are a lot of what-ifs" for family and friends, she said.

"They (survivors) just don't know where to begin," Sheppard said. Often they have questions they can't answer, and in those situations someone who has been there can help, she said. "They can relate," Sheppard said.

"It helps in a way that nothing else has, or can," Thorne said. Her brother Mark Timm, who was 28, committed suicide 19 yeas ago, while stationed in Idaho for Navy service. Thorne is one of the three facilitators.

It's a tough subject, many people don't know how to approach it, and so they don't say anything. "It's like the off-limits topic," Thorne said.

But Thorne said she found silence really didn't work because the sense of the loss always stayed with her. "If you don't deal with it, it's there. You might bury it, but it's there."

The memories of her brother ebbed and flowed, but never left. "Every year, for years, his birthday was the hardest day of the year for me."

That changed a little over time, but last year a friend committed suicide and the funeral was the day after her brother's birthday, Thorne said. In the wake of that she joined the support group. "This (the support group) was the only thing that helped me work through that issue," she said.

"You have so much guilt. What if? Why didn't I? And they haunt you until you deal with them," said Janiel Edmondson, of Moses Lake, Edmondson also is a facilitator, whose 28-year-old daughter, Nicole, committed suicide in Spokane about 14 months ago.

Edmondson said people are afraid of saying the wrong thing, but silence doesn't help the survivors either. With silence "you're not going to move past it - or through it, I should say. Because it's a journey."

The ability to talk other survivors was a crucial part of the healing process, Edmondson said. "Amazing. It's just amazing. It really helped. I probably wouldn't have been here without it (the group)," she said.

Some participants couldn't cope with the process at first, but Edmondson said she discovered it was important to keep trying. "If you start and you can't finish, come back. It's never too late to get help," she said.

"As bad as you're feeling now, it will get better," Edmondson said.

All conversations in the group are private, Sheppard said. "It's all confidential. What's talked about in the group stays in the group."

Grief Place has a program in Wenatchee, Sheppard said. "Recently we had some participants travel from Moses Lake to Wenatchee to attend the group. They expressed a need for the Moses Lake area and then took the facilitator training that we offered so they could facilitate a group," she said.

She said she learned from the Grant County coroner there were eight suicides in Grant County in 2011, 12 in 2012 and so far three in 2013. King County had the highest number of suicides, 243, in the state in 2011, the latest year for which DOH statistics are available. Columbia and Garfield counties each had no suicides in 2011.

In central Washington, Adams County had two suicides, Douglas County three, Chelan County 18 and Okanogan County 16. Yakima County had 28 and Benton County had 26. There were 10 suicides in Kittitas County in 2011. Spokane County had 64.

Nationwide, there were 38,350 suicides committed in 2010, ranking it as the tenth leading cause of death in the U.S., according to the Center for Disease Control's website.

The organization is considering establishing a continuing support group after the six weeks is up, Sheppard said. They will offer additional six-week sessions, she said.

People who want to register for the class can call 509-989-8041 or by email at ksheppard@griefplace.org.