Of course, life rarely stands still to allow us to spot subtle warning signs amid a constant flow of daily events. However, in retrospect, those flashing individual factors seem impossibly clear. Individual factors thus serve as the basis for a guilt known only to survivors, a gnawing sense that “our loved ones might still be alive if only we had been more attuned.” Guilt then functions as more than self-beratement—it also promotes the altogether human fantasy that the act of suicide, like the guilt itself, is under our control.
