Here his how it affects survivors, especially sons and
daughters (from Salon):
Dear Cursed by Legacy,
Your letter made me sad. I get sad when I hear how parental suicide reverberates through the years. I get sad when a person like yourself tries hard to live a decent life but that life must be lived in the margins of trauma, in the echo and shadow of that early blow. I get sad about the terrible theft that is parental suicide, the hollowing out of a child’s emerging self. And I get sad about what may happen if you continue coping with this in the way you are now.
According to a 2010 study, “Those who lost a parent to suicide as children or teens were three times more likely to commit suicide than children and teenagers with living parents.”
You don’t want to leave a destructive legacy.
By committing suicide, the parent is telling the child that the suicide option is okay.