Manuels parting
voluntary into death
What goes on inside the mind of someone who is contemplating suicide? How do people cope when a close friend or family member chooses death? Suicide, still a strongly taboo topic, affects countless people every year. In Germany, suicide claims more lives than accidents and drug use combined. Still, what happens when an individual decides, in the end, to end his or her life? How do families deal with such a loss? How do we reconcile ourselves with the loss of a loved one who has chosen death? Self-help groups, talking things through, and reliance on faith: a family from southern German tells how they have sought to come to terms with an inconceivably tragic event. Siblings and parents: each has a different approach to working through grief. One may become active in a self-help group, another may remain in silent self-communion, while still others never manage to accept the finality of death, even after years.
