JOURNAL

 

An open-access journal for research, clinical reflection, and practice-oriented writing about suicide.

UNDERSTANDING SUICIDOLOGY: RESEARCH & PRACTICE  ·  VOLUME 1  ·  ISSUE 4  ·  JUNE 2026

The Last Pages of the Self: A Narrative and Phenomenological Case Study of Suicide Through Diary Entries

Matias Gay, RN  ·  Understanding Suicidology: Institute for Research and Practice

 

ABSTRACT

Background: Suicide may be understood not only as a behavioral outcome or symptom expression, but also as a crisis in identity, meaning, temporality, and relational value. Personal writings can offer a rare, though ethically sensitive, window into how suicidal suffering is narrated over time. Purpose: This article examines how suicidality was voiced across a longitudinal corpus of diary entries and suicide-proximal writings attributed to “Katie,” using the Existential Network of Suicidal Identity (ENSI) as a narrative and phenomenological framework. Approach/Methods: A qualitative, single-case narrative-phenomenological design was used. Fifty-five published writings were analyzed through an interpretivist and constructivist stance. Coding combined open narrative-phenomenological reading with ENSI-informed analysis of identity layers, the Fractured Self Continuum, the Suicidal Pursuit of Goals, and Controls of Self-Deception. Reflexive memoing, code-to-quote matrices, negative case analysis, and peer debriefing supported analytic transparency. Findings/Argument: Katie’s writings appeared to shift from self-correction, spiritual repair, and future-oriented striving toward narrowed time horizons, relational uncertainty, polarized self-appraisal, affective containment, and closure-oriented language. Across the corpus, anchors of purpose, belonging, worth, and felt safety appeared less stable. Defensive patterns also seemed to shift from denial and projection toward splitting, repression, and reaction formation, suggesting movement from protective coherence toward reduced flexibility and closure. Implications: ENSI offers a layered vocabulary for interpreting how suicidal meaning may become organized in language without claiming causation, universality, or diagnostic certainty. The study supports identity-and-meaning-informed approaches to suicide formulation that attend to temporality, relational value, defensive style, and narrative possibility.

Keywords: suicide; diary; phenomenology; narrative identity; ENSI

Cite as: Gay, M. (2026). The Last Pages of the Self: A Narrative and Phenomenological Case Study of Suicide Through Diary Entries. Understanding Suicidology: Research & Practice, 1(4). https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.24039598

Download the full issue (PDF)  ·  DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.24039598  ·  All issues

Published by Understanding Suicidology: Institute for Research and Practice, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. Open access.