Sylvia Matuschek fights for consolation: Self-help group for suicide members

Sylvia Matuschek fights for consolation: Self-help group for suicide members

In the gentle hills of the Eifel, a woman has dared to take a important step to process grief and pain after the loss of her husband. Sylvia Matuschek, who lost her husband Ralf through suicide in August 2022, founded a self -help group for members of suicide victims, which was launched in March 2023. Her story started with a radical move - the couple had moved to the Eifel at the end of 2018, looking for a better quality of life. But luck did not last long, because Ralf suffered from depression, increasingly began to fight with panic attacks and finally expressed suicidal thoughts.

What was a calm everyday life for Sylvia Matuschek once turned into a nightmare. Ralf was admitted several times, but he never stood up to the doctors and denied his thoughts of suicide. Sylvia describes how her husband changed over time and how she was increasingly afraid of him. "The relatives often experience stigmatization and feel left alone in misfortune," said Matuschek. Her husband was not only her partner, but also a loved one, and the knowledge of his struggle was difficult to endure.

The way to self -help

"The self -help group offers a protected space for exchange and processing the grief," explains Matuschek. In Germany, the numbers are alarming: around 30 people die from suicide every day, in 2023 around 10,300 suicides were registered, which corresponds to an increase of 6.6 percent compared to the past ten years. In this challenging time, it is important that relatives can support each other. In the district of Euskirchen there are two self-help groups for suicide members, one in the Caritas House Schleiden and an AGUS self-help group in Euskirchen.

"The processing of grief after a suicide is a long, often curvy path", says an analysis of grief and suicide. Feelings have their own laws and change over time. Matuschek emphasizes that psychotherapeutic support is essential, while self -help groups cannot replace them. An important element in mourning processing is to make sense to the loss. "Engagement in suicide prevention can help to create positive changes from painful experience," reports the platform for consolation heroes.

The challenge of the mourning

The mourning itself is not linear - relapses into mourning are quite normal. It is important to have confidence in your own strength to survive and continue to grow difficult moments. Anyone who has suffered the loss of a loved one also has to learn to deal with the feeling of guilt and shame. It is allowed and necessary to feel joy without having to neglect the memory of the deceased. "Activities that do good and connect to life are important," it says, and many affected people discover new perspectives and ways in nature and in exchange with friends to process grief.

Finally, it can be said that Sylvia Matuschek's self -help group is not only a place of pain, but also hope and change. It offers a network that enables relatives to support each other, to learn mutually and finally to find ways to integrate the memory of the deceased into their lives. This is how love remains, even if the pain is part of life.