Suicide, the deliberate termination of one’s own life, has long been a mystery to medicine and psychiatry. Human beings are, after all, the only species on the planet aware of their mortality and it is that awareness that helps to define our lives. Like every other animal we eat, sleep, breathe, and have sex all in an effort to suicidal person extend our own lives and the life of the species. That makes it all the more confusing and distressing, then, when a loved one decides to commit suicide.
