The problem with the "Committing"
In Suicide: Consider revising our language?
Many of us have been raised with this terminology, when someone takes their own life, we were taught to say “commit” suicide.
I was too.
But the use of the word, commit, implies a crime.
We commit crimes. We commit sins.
And while I certainly don’t want to encourage suicides, I don’t think that we should continue to think of taking one’s own life as a crime.
Even if you think it is, even that if that is your religious conviction or religion’s teaching, continuing to use this phrase only harms those who are left behind, especially those from the family of the one who is gone.
Not the person who actually completed suicide.
So, this phrasing is yet another reminder that we reserve this taking of one’s own life with a special distinction, a unique type of death where they were wrong to do so.
I believe it’s a form of double victimization.
And, essentially, it furthers the stigma.
I would encourage us all to use “died by suicide” or “completed suicide” in lieu of “committed suicide.”
Took their own life is also acceptable. It’s much more neutral and a fair description of what happened.
Language matters because our word choices carry our values and judgments, even if we don’t think about it, it reveals our ideologies.
I know that not everyone perhaps thinks as much about specific language use as I do, as a Rhetorician. I get that.
But, I do believe that these words are heard and felt by the bereaved.
Essentially, these phrases continue to harm those who are left behind, the family members.
I appreciate if you would modify your language to avoid the use of “committed,” even if that is your personal conviction on the matter.
The subject brings to mind my neighbor’s nephew, a 15 year old who just lost his father to suicide.
Raised in a conservative and religious environment, he asked his grandmother and aunt, “Is my Daddy in Hell now?”
To hear that, it broke my heart.
It’s a hard enough burden to bear for a family suicide survivor, especially for a child.
My mother told me that she thought the same as my father.
We hurt them, others when we take our own life, but the idea of a mortal sin perhaps needs to be revised and reconsidered.
