Book Review: Surviving Ben’s Suicide

In July 1993, after a tumultuous relationship filled with emotions from each end of the spectrum and everywhere in between, C. Comfort Shields’s college boyfriend and first true love, Ben, drove from Washington, D.C. to Maine and shot himself in the head, completing the suicide he’d been flirting with since she met him 18 months before.

What Shields didn’t really know at the time, however, was that the 18 months she knew Ben was just the tail end of a mental hurricane that had spiraled so out of control no amount of love from anyone could have kept Ben alive. How does one compete with an army of prostitutes, years of troubled family relationships, and deep insecurities and confusion galore?

There comes a point when a person’s only hope for life is his will to keep breathing, and Ben just didn’t have that will anymore.

Surviving Ben’s Suicide: A Women’s Journey of Self-Discovery is exactly what the title suggests. It’s the memoir of a woman who doesn’t just survive the suicide of a loved one, but who also grows along the way and becomes more aware of herself, her abilities, and all the things over which she has no control. And, while the journey of self-discovery is never truly complete for any of us, Shields is one of the lucky few who has grown enough to realize her past is an assortment of valuable experiences and memories – some crystal clear and others a bit out of focus – from which she can find guidance but in which she should never remain for too long.

Naturally, Shields experiences a montage of emotions after Ben’s suicide. Like many survivors, she feels somewhat responsible for Ben’s success at killing himself. She wonders if there were anything she could have said or done differently to prevent his death. Shields is also angry, comparing Ben’s exit to the accidental death of her high school friend and wondering why Ben would choose to take his life when her friend’s had been unwillingly taken from her.

She also feels a bit “left out,” as she was Ben’s girlfriend (not his wife), and not only struggles with Ben’s family’s decision to keep some things private from her, but also struggles with finding resources geared toward people who’ve lost girlfriends and boyfriends to suicide.

As the years pass, however, Shields begins to use her experience with Ben and his suicide to handle new situations. She realizes she can’t “save” a depressed friend she suspects may be suicidal and actually backs out of the friend’s life to allow the girl to seek professional help. And, when she almost loses her first son in delivery and does lose a twin during her second pregnancy, she understands even as a mother she can’t fully protect her children or be completely responsible for their development.

Often times we must rely on help from professionals, and sometimes even they can’t control or fix everything.

Reading Surviving Ben’s Suicide is akin to picking up the phone or sitting down to coffee with a friend you haven’t seen in a long while – a friend who’s experienced some pretty intense things in your absence. From the day she meets Ben to the day she marries her husband, Shields covers various time periods in her memoir, informally blending them all together to tell her story. I am very glad I listened.

To learn more about C. Comfort Shields and Surviving Ben’s Suicide, visit ConfortShields.com.

Image: Amazon