Author Susan Meachen’s death was declared on her Facebook profile more than two years ago, and she appears to have returned to the platform to confirm her survival.
According to Insider and Rolling Stone, Meachen’s online friends and followers assumed she had died in late 2020 after someone purporting to be her daughter announced the news on her Facebook account. The post was later removed.
The individual claimed Meachen died as a result of abuse and harassment by other members of her book community. Only a few weeks before, Meachen had posted a lengthy note about a failed suicide attempt as she struggled with her profession.
Meachen’s Facebook profile has been used to promote her work and share pieces about suicide prevention since then.
Fans of the page had been led to assume that the posts were authored by her daughter
“I missed it but Happy Heavenly Birthday,” friend Kristen Collins wrote on Meachen’s page in February 2021. “I know you’re dancing in Heaven with nothing but peace in your heart finally.”
However, this week, a person claiming to be the author and using Meachen’s account announced her return to The Ward, a private writer’s Facebook club.
“I debated on how to do this a million times and still not sure if it’s right or not,” a screenshot of the post, which was shared by Twitter user @Draggerofliars, showed. “There’s going to be tons of questions and a lot of people leaving the group, I’d guess.”
“But my family did what they thought was best for me, and I can’t fault them for it,” the message continued. “I almost died again at my own hand, and they had to go through all that hell again. Returning to The Ward doesn’t mean much, but I am in a good place now, and I am hoping to write again. Let the fun begin.”
Members of the group instantly reacted negatively to the message
“I can forgive many things, but I don’t think I could ever forgive you for faking your death,” novelist Karen Hall responded to the Facebook post, according to Rolling Stone.
Samantha A. Cole, an author who claimed to have known Meachen before the events of 2020, posted a video comment to her Facebook page.
“I was pals with this author; we weren’t close friends, but we talked once.””I was friends with this author, I was not close friends with this author, but we chatted once or twice a month for quite a while,” Cole said. “I was devastated when I heard she had allegedly committed suicide. There were a lot of posts on her wall, allegedly from her family, blaming the book world for bullying her mother to the point that she took her own life. Those posts are now gone.”
“There was an outpouring of outrage, support for those who were hurting, support for her family, people did free editing on her last book, so her family could release it for her, in memory of her,” she continued. “There were people who have ripped apart because people started pointing fingers at everyone, blaming people, and I was one of the people being blamed for allegedly bullying her when I had done nothing of the sort.”
“I need to unplug for the next couple of days and wrap my head around all this and get back to work,” she later said.
Cole also stated that she will be more cautious about who she befriends online in the future.
