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Angela Shaw’s husband, Robert, died by suicide while serving in the British Army. A tribunal judge determined that service was the predominant cause. In the years after, she threw herself into raising and protecting her three children, all too aware of the damaging stigma around military suicide.
After years of rejection and re-traumatisation, Angela found SSAFA’s Bereavement Support Groups in 2019. The group for military families affected by suicide brought her the acknowledgement, inclusion, and support which she feels would have greatly helped her in the years prior.
Now she is empowered to raise awareness of the group and make it the first port of call for any military families bereaved by suicide.
Angela is inspired to share her story to help shift attitudes around military suicide and honour her husband in connection with his life’s service.
When the worst possible thing happens, it’s important to have support.
Angela and Robert met when they were 18 and attending schools in the same city. Upon the precipice of adult life, each were about to embark on their own adventures. Robert was bound for Uruguay and Angela was off to Italy. Yet the two remained in contact for over a decade. Then, on a short break from a tour in Northern Ireland, Robert went to visit Angela in Italy and the timing was finally right. Their love blossomed, and the couple later wed in Florence, Italy.
As for many military families, their life together was shaped by Robert’s service. All three of their children were born abroad during postings in continental Europe. The rhythm of moving from posting to posting conditioned their life. As Angela says, "You'd spend six months unpacking and then spend a year getting to know the place and then six months packing up."
The constant moving also prevented the family from developing roots and deep friendships in the communities in which they lived, some of which were NATO postings.
"It was quite isolating," Angela remembers. "You quite often don’t have the comfort of knowing other people around you. When my husband was on operations in Iraq at the height of the insurgency, most of the camp was empty because all the husbands were away. The children weren't at school, so you didn't have the interaction through that. It was a very worrying and lonely time."
"Moving around all the time, you realise how you haven't been able to build up a rooted community around you," she explains. "Especially when my husband died, you realise how important it is to have that. When the worst possible thing happens, it’s important to have support."
There are no words to describe anything to do with finding my husband after his death
In 2013, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Shaw was 52 years old when he died. Robert had served in the military for three decades, with operational tours in Northern Ireland, Iraq, and Kosovo. At the time of his death, he was deputy commander of the Land Warfare Centre at Warminster, Wiltshire.
"There are no words to describe anything to do with finding my husband after his death," Angela says. After Robert’s death, Angela’s focus went to her children and a need to protect them. In addition to the stress of relocating her grieving family, she also saw the stigmatisation of suicide and the lack of will to engage and support military families and children bereaved by suicide.
Though society values and embraces families whose loved ones have died in combat and honours their service in military memorials and ongoing events, there is no template for how to acknowledge and support people whose serving loved ones have died by suicide.
I no longer had the emotional capacity
This uncertainty, paired with the stigmatisation of suicide, produced repeated moments of shaming and rejection for Angela. There was no safe space for her experience or her family in military bereavement because of damaging attitudes stemming from the misconception that suicide is a rational choice that can be blamed on an individual.
Five years after Robert’s death, Angela took the time and space to begin focussing on herself. She decided to create a resource support families like hers and explore developing services for them. Though Angela had been proactive about seeking information for her family, she hadn’t been referred to any services specialising in military bereavement by suicide.
Through an internet search she found SSAFA’s Bereavement Support Groups. She recalls her immediate thought was "What, there’s a SSAFA group and it started in 2018? Why haven’t I been referred to this by anybody I’ve spoken with?"
Angela was invited to join an upcoming meeting, but she knew that doing so would require putting herself out there, not without risk. She remembers her concerns: "I thought I just could go through the whole thing again to maybe be disappointed. I no longer had the emotional capacity to take on something that might have had some sort of short-sightedness in it."
It was incredible. I was astonished.
Angela had been repeatedly closed down by encounters with people and organisations – even those with good intentions – which did not understand military suicide or the need to support families affected by it.
"I was really exhausted, and I couldn’t face the rejection of my bereavement and my husband’s life again," she remembers.
Yet what Angela found at SSAFA’s Military Families Affected by Suicide support group was what she had been looking for all along: a community, regular point of reference, and professional support.
"It was incredible. I was astonished." she recalls. "Within the first couple of minutes, I heard the thing that I’d never heard in all those years before: 'We’re here for you and if we can help, we will, and if we can’t we’ll direct you…' I was completely blown away."
I actually want to get up and I want to tell my story
SSAFA’s support group offered Angela the opportunity to exist for the first time in a space that acknowledges families like hers, amongst others who had walked paths of grief, bereavement, and trauma like her own. It was a lifechanging experience.
Within the safe space of the specialised support group, members were given space to speak and listen.
"We talked. We all got up, but we didn’t have to," she recalls. "Suddenly I thought, 'Do you know? I actually want to get up and I want to tell my story because I know this group will value his life and our loss.’"
There’s the misconception that it’s something to be ashamed of
The group participants are diverse, representing different military services, lengths of bereavement, ranks, and relationships. At the meeting, Angela connected with other group members, some of whom had been bereaved for longer than herself.
"It dawned on me this is why this group is here," she shares. "It’s because people are still affected. There’s the misconception that it’s something to be ashamed of, and so you shouldn’t talk about it, which is very isolating and deeply unfair to a person’s life. But there we were, all telling our stories. It was very cathartic."
Angela found that the group allowed her a space where she could let her guard down after so many years of protecting herself and her husband’s memory.
"You didn’t have to have all those defences out. It was like a weight, a rock, that had just been lifted."
I know why I’m being triggered and how to deal with it
The activities in the group helped Angela to examine her own experience. She incorporated some of the exercises in her life, which helped her learn more about herself and the trauma she had experienced around and from Robert’s death.
The perspective she’s gained has been empowering. "Now I know certain things are a protective reaction. I now know when I’m triggered. I know why I’m being triggered and how to deal with it," she shares. "I now know the language to use when somebody is being ignorant or trying to blame or shame me, my husband, or the children. I’ve got the tools now, and so I feel far more comfortable in myself to address the trauma and, importantly, the imposed stigma."
The tools Angela has gained through her participation in SSAFA’s support group have given her a foundation for growth. "I actually address the trauma now because I have a safe platform," she shares. "I’ve got that tranquillity, whereas before I was in this dark horrible hellhole, and I didn’t know what was happening to me. I just became really energetic and active and looked after my children and completely forgot about myself, basically."
I thought, 'Somebody values my husband and family.'
In June 2023, SSAFA signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS), a US charity that provides comfort, care, and resources to people grieving the death of a loved one who served in the US Armed Forces.
SSAFA invited Angela and her children to participate in one of the programmes which brings together American and British military families. This programme was specifically targeted at families affected by suicide and Angela was immediately keen to participate, particularly to involve her children, now young adults.
"I thought 'What a wonderful way to see how my husband’s service, their father’s service, actually is valued by somebody,'" she says. "We’d never seen that before. It’s really important for all my children to see that." Angela was joined by her youngest son for the programme.
Like in the support group, they were able to embrace the experience without defensiveness or fear. "We met up with all the families knowing that nobody would say anything hurtful, that there wouldn’t be the stigma or shaming or all those awful things that you have to fight against, and you don’t have any more energy to do that."
Instead, the event allowed Angela and her son to celebrate Robert’s service in a way they never had before. "We were able to feel that he was with us and that he and we were valued in a semi-military context for the first time. We were carrying a picture of him with us."
The activities included a cultural exchange to connect the participants. The families attended an American NFL football game and afternoon tea. They were also honoured with a reception at the American ambassador’s residence, which was a profoundly powerful occasion for Angela.
"It was such a respectful, touching event," she shares. "We went in and there were all our loved ones’ photographs on a round table. They’d gone to the trouble of putting them there with some beautiful lilies and flowers. I thought, 'Somebody values my husband and family.' This is extraordinary for me because this is all we want: for them to be acknowledged rightly as something of value and not devalued, shamed, or put aside."
"All the Brits were emotional. The ambassador and the founder of TAPS gave a speech saying, 'We will not forget your loved ones because we value their service and we’re here to remember them.' Things like that make you realise how attitudes wrongly prevent you from connecting with your loved one and their service. There is a huge bridge that we need to build between the initiatives and conversations around wellbeing and mental health and its effects, particularly suicide."
The event with SSAFA and TAPS showed Angela a model of honouring the service of a loved one in the armed forces that works across bereavement, whether by suicide or other cause.
This was a breakthrough for her, and she wants to highlight the radical potential of the shift in mindset: "If the language is about giving value to the service and value to the families who have supported that service, and in fact have served themselves, then you de-stigmatise suicide. You de-stigmatise mental health."
It’s the value of his life and his service which is an immense source of pride
Angela’s husband served in the military for thirty years. While Remembrance is a difficult time of year for her, Angela makes it a point to go to services. Her presence is a sign of her strength as she defies other’s narratives and stigmas.
She has raised her three children, now young adults, to celebrate their father’s service to his country: "I encourage the children to wear his medals and go to local services and they’re very proud of that because I’ve brought them up saying 'It’s the value of his life and his service which is an immense source of pride and example and his death should not be the subject for other people’s opinion.'"
Thankful for SSAFA’s approach to and provision of bereavement support groups, Angela is now determined to continue to challenge the stigma and exclusion around military suicide. As she says, "I'm that sort of person, if something I can see is not right, I'm not just going to sit back and take it."
While there is a strong societal awareness of military bereavement, its focus is often exclusively on the deaths of service personnel who have died in combat. This leaves no room for military families affected by suicide. Some programmes set up for military bereavement may use language which centres combat-related bereavement and thus doesn’t include other types of military deaths.
I think sharing experiences might change attitude.
"All families want is to celebrate their loved one’s life and service with dignity and respect," Angela explains. "If, for whatever reason, somebody's not comfortable with suicide, at least there should be some formula to change the language of military bereavement.
"In excluding these families, you're preventing the healing and the growth from trauma to a lot of people, and you're withholding that which you offer to the other bereaved. You're putting a hierarchy on a person's death."
Angela acknowledges the challenges of her advocacy but remains determined. "It’s very difficult to challenge an attitude, but I think the presence will actually change attitude. I think sharing experiences might change attitude. So, you have to have the presence."
It's about telling the story
SSAFA’s Military Families Affected by Suicide support group is part of this presence for Angela. Participating in the group inspires hope that she and others can work together to change social attitudes toward military suicide.
"It's the presence that creates the awareness," Angela explains. "It's about telling the story, however much you get retraumatised by it. It's telling it over and over again, so people understand that your bereavement isn't less, your husband's life and service absolutely isn’t less worthy. its only right that families can honour and remember their loved ones within the context of the life of military service they gave themselves to. That's the only way you're going to change attitudes."
