"My father was much more than someone who committed suicide"

PalmaA phone call announced on January 7, 2001, to Marta Balcells that her father had died. She was not told the cause. He was 55 years old and had heart problems. She inferred that he had suffered a sudden heart attack. She flew from Palma to Barcelona. Upon arriving at the family home, she noticed a very strange atmosphere. “People looked at me in a strange way. I thought it might be due to the impact of the death, but it didn’t add up,” she recalls. A cousin pulled her aside and told her that her father had committed suicide. “I remember those days as something brutal, very shocking. The situation was chaotic because we couldn’t see the body or organize the funeral, as we depended on forensic investigations. It was very painful to think about what he had done, but you also need to understand it”.

Like Marta, hundreds of people have had to face grief over the death of a loved one by suicide. From a psychological perspective, they are considered survivors. To the complex pain of loss, they add unanswered questions, feelings of guilt, and a silence that reinforces the social taboo. In this regard, the Ministry of Health – in collaboration with the Red Cross – has launched a support service for survivors that plans to assist 450 people in the next two years through mutual help groups, workshops, and orientation sessions. The objective is to minimize the emotional, social, and community consequences of suicidal behavior.

25 years ago, Marta did not have this type of resource. In fact, the first suicide prevention and care program in the Balearic Islands was not created until 2015. “The data were already alarming, but the powerful taboo has caused prevention to be delayed. Before, there wasn’t even specific training for professionals,” recalls the head of the Mental Health Coordination and Planning service of the Government, Lola Gabaldón, who was part of this pioneering program as a social worker at the Hospital d’Inca.

Gender bias

In 2024, 98 people took their lives in the Balearic Islands: 77 men and 21 women. The gender bias is explained because they use “more lethal methods, with less possibility of rescue”. They, however, accumulate more attempts and ask for help more frequently. The average age of the deceased is around 48 years, associated with “life changes such as work crises, economic problems or relationship breakups”.

Beyond the cold data, necessary for prevention work, Gabaldón insists that suicide is multifactorial. It obeys a set of risk factors and situations –genetic predisposition, socioeconomic and family situation– and must be combated by dismantling myths like the cry wolf effect. “Talking about suicide does not cause more suicides. It is like thinking that if your doctor asks you if you drink or smoke, you will start drinking or smoking when you leave the consultation”.

In fact, she recommends that healthcare professionals, after a progressive approach on how the patient is doing, ask “the key question”: “Have you ever thought about killing yourself?”. “Many professionals avoid it due to the weight of myths, and we all need to reflect on what we hold with this word and not lose sight of the fact that those who suffer are not thinking about harming themselves generically: they are thinking about their suicide. It is a process: first the idea appears, then the person begins to structure how, where, and when. If halfway through this process, they find a place to talk about it and receive help, they can stop. We must create safe spaces without judgment”, she asserts.

Days before her father's death, Marta spoke to him on the phone. “It was a very deep call”, she recalls emotionally. He told her he loved her. She loved him too, but she sensed something was wrong. “I noticed something strange and I got worried”, she admits. On January 7th, confirmation.

“I needed answers and I didn't have them. At first, everything is confusion. You feel rage. You ask yourself over and over why and the feeling of guilt assaults you. I had the tickets bought to go see him, why didn't he wait for me? Then you understand that that call had been a farewell. I was devastated and I isolated myself. I felt so much pain that I thought that if I told anyone, I would hurt others. People didn't know what to tell me and I didn't want to explain it either. I remember going to work and saying I had allergies, when in reality I couldn't stop crying”, she confesses.

He took refuge in his partner and a couple of colleagues with experience in similar situations. “Those who had gone through the same thing were the ones who helped me the most. I had a conversation with a colleague that was a turning point. She was very honest. She told me that this wound would always be with me, that sometimes it would open up, but that I could continue living. It is completely true,” he adds.

First cause of external death

Suicide is the leading cause of external death, i.e. not caused by illness, in Spain. In 2023, 4,116 people died from it, more than eleven a day. Each of these deaths leaves a profound impact on the immediate environment: experts estimate that between six and ten people – family members, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances – are affected by each suicide. In 2025, Spain approved its first specific national plan for prevention, a national strategy that seeks to coordinate the health and social response to one of the main public health problems. The Balearic Islands have a rate of 7.1 suicides per 100,000 inhabitants, slightly lower than the State average, which is 8.5. Furthermore, the hospitals in the Islands attended more than 1,500 emergencies for suicidal ideation or attempts in 2024, more than 300 of which were in minors.

Despair

Beyond the possible reasons why someone decides to take their own life, “behind it there is a person who is suffering immensely and does not want to die, but to stop suffering”, according to expert Lola Gabaldón. Among all risk factors, she points out two key ones: “The breakdown of bonds, feeling that you are a burden to others, and hopelessness, the feeling that nothing will change.” This suffering is perceived as “infinite and unbearable” and only when the person finds a minimal possibility of relief or support “can they begin to get out of this place”.

Gabaldón warns against the use of ‘well-intentioned phrases’ such as ‘think of your children or your family’ because, “far from helping, they can increase guilt and the feeling of uselessness”. “We must not judge. What may seem insignificant to one person, another may perceive as devastating”, she adds.

Suicide, the expert points out, is linked to a society marked by the rise of individualism and the loss of community fabric. Bonds weaken and, in this context, loneliness and isolation act as triggers for suicidal behavior. And stigma continues to be deeply rooted from a cultural and religious point of view. Until a few decades ago, for example, suicides were buried outside the cemetery walls.

Changing sides

“There are survivors who cannot talk about the subject even with their families, because it is silenced. Everything cracks. It happens in small environments, in villages where people change sidewalks to avoid having to ask when it would be enough to say 'how are you?'. Silencing it has an effect on the other person: it increases shame and guilt. It prevents living grief openly”, she explains.

On this silence, Gabaldón warns that “it is likely that there are more suicides than the figures reflect”, because those that end up registered as accidents or suspicious deaths are excluded. Hence the need to protocolize psychological autopsies or “deeper” epidemiological studies.

For Marta, silence stopped being an option a long time ago. That is why she emphasizes the need for empathy and honesty. For her, therapy has helped her to know herself and reconstruct a complete image of the one who gave her life: “When someone dies like this, you run the risk that their whole life is reduced to this last moment. My father was much more than someone who committed suicide. He was a great person, whom everyone loved and who loved me very much. With the silence of suicide, we do not only silence the death; the person also disappears, as if their life were erased. And that is what hurts the most. Therefore, for me, it is important to continue remembering him and keeping him alive in my life and in the lives of my children”.