Understanding Suicide: It’s Not a Choice

Understanding Suicide: It’s Not a Choice

Summary

The article, Understanding Suicide: It’s Not a Choice, affirms with well-documented research that suicide is not a choice, but a tragic outcome of intense emotional pain and distorted judgment. The stigma surrounding suicide persists, hindering understanding and perpetuating the misconception that it is a selfish act. Suicide epidemiologists emphasize that suicide is not a decision, but a desperate attempt to escape unbearable suffering, often exacerbated by limited resources and support.

Introduction

ABOUT THIS POST: Understanding Suicide: It’s Not a Choice leads an in-depth discussion about why suicide is not a choice, featuring an article by John Ackerman, PhD, Nationwide Children’s Hospital and including current research on understanding suicide. The author reflects on her own journey of navigating grief after losing her son to suicide. She confronts the raw emotions of a grieving parent who loses a child to suicide: Depression, Guilt and Self-Blame, and Questioning Why Her Love Wasn’t Enough.

Related Reads

• Understanding Suicide: Why the Pain Matters
• Understanding the Pain of Suicide Loss
• Twenty Years of Love: Dylan
• Is Suicide Really a Choice? Breaking the Stigma
• Understanding the Unique Aspects of Suicide Grief

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My Forever Son

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Table of Contents

Is Suicide Really a Choice? Breaking the Stigma of Suicide

I hope that someday we will have a better understanding – one that perhaps permits us to give grace to the one who took their life and see it as something that happened to them, rather than something they did to themselves and others.

Anonymous

Author’s Message: Challenging the Stigma and Misconceptions of Suicide

As much as I respect and value online resources and support for parents who lose a child to suicide, I vehemently disagree with any resource that states suicide is a choice. Suicide is not a choice; suicide is not a decision.

For all the strides we’ve made forward with understanding mental health, the Stigma of Suicide and the myths surrounding suicide as discussed in-depth in the article, Is Suicide Really a Choice? Breaking the Stigma, still persist.

This thinking is naive and outdated. Suicide is not a choice any more than death by any other disease is a choice. Mental illness is not “all in your head thinking” anymore than physical illness is “all in your body” thinking. We don’t choose disease states, we don’t choose mental illness, and “Suicide is not a blot on anyone’s name; it is a tragedy,” as author Kay Redfield Jamison discusses in her book, Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide.

Current research absolutely supports the validity of mental illness. Current research and researchers in the mental health field know indelibly that suicide is not a choice your child makes.

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Suicide Is Not a Choice

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Don’t Say It’s Selfish: Suicide is Not a Choice

Losing a Child to Suicide: There Are No Words

There are no words that adequately describe the devastating loss and utter tragedy that losing a child to suicide brings. None. Adjectives fall short. Cliches and trite sayings ring hollow in light of parents’ deep grief. Understanding the Unique Aspects of Suicide Grief explores the unique challenges of grief facing those grieving the loss of a child to suicide.

Insights from Suicide Epidemiologists

“Don’t Say It’s Selfish: Suicide is Not a Choice”

John Ackerman, PhD, Don’t Say It’s Selfish: Suicide is Not a Choice, A Blog by Pediatric Experts, Nationwide Children’s Hospital, The Center for Suicide Prevention and Research

Understanding Complex Issues In and Surrounding Suicide

Suicide epidemiologists collect, study, and research data about suicide to understand the complex issues in and around suicide. And it is suicide epidemiologists who assert firmly that suicide is not a choice.

Nationwide Children’s Hospital Center for Suicide Prevention and Research in Columbus, Ohio employs a dedicated team of pediatric specialists who function as suicide epidemiologists, responsible for the systematic collection and analysis of data concerning pediatric suicides. These experts strive to grasp the intricate dynamics of suicide with the objective of effectively lowering its prevalence among children.

Viewing suicide as a choice promotes the misunderstanding that people who engage in suicidal behavior are selfish.

John Ackerman, Ph.D, is a key contributor to Nationwide Children’s Center for Suicide Prevention and Research. Here is what Ackerman asserts about viewing suicide as a choice that is “selfish.”

“Don’t Say It’s Selfish: Suicide is Not a Choice”

Viewing suicide as a choice promotes the misunderstanding that people who engage in suicidal behavior are selfish. Selfishness has been defined by Merriam-Webster as ‘seeking or concentrating on one’s own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others.’

Suicide does not generate pleasure, advantage or well-being. People who take their own lives commonly feel like a burden to others or experience intense emotional pain that overwhelms their capacity to continue with life. Making others feel guilty is typically the furthest thing from their mind.

John Ackerman, PhD, Don’t Say It’s Selfish: Suicide is Not a Choice, A Blog by Pediatric Experts, Nationwide Children’s Hospital, The Center for Suicide Prevention and Research

Understanding Suicide: It’s Not About Wanting to Die; It’s About Wanting the Pain to Stop

Understanding Suicide: Why the Pain Matters

Understanding Suicide: Why the Pain Matters explores the pain and grief surrounding suicide, emphasizing that suicide is not a conscious choice but a desperate attempt to escape unbearable suffering.

We often underestimate how many factors contribute to an outcome as complex and final as suicide. Those who experience the kind of emotional pain associated with suicide do not typically want to die; they wish for an end to unbearable emotional pain and, often, the resources that allow them to hold on aren’t available.

Individuals who struggle with thoughts of suicide usually have a hard time thinking flexibly and their ability to see an end to pain and a life worth living is greatly compromised.

John Ackerman, PhD Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Center for Suicide Research and Prevention

[Suggested Read]: When Love Is Not Enough: ‘Ode to Suicide: That We Might Understand’ is a poignant exploration of the complexities surrounding the topic of suicide, intricately challenging the prevalent notion that suicide is simply a choice made by individuals in despair. Beth Brown, the author of the powerful treatise, “Ode to Suicide: That We Might Understand,” delves deep into the emotional and psychological dimensions of this tragic phenomenon, emphasizing the inevitability of death for all, regardless of the circumstances or causes that may lead one to that final resolution. Her poetic reflections and deep discussions including current research on understanding suicide converge to illustrate why and When Love is Not Enough.

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Why Does Suicide Seem Like a Choice?

A choice usually involves making a selection based on multiple factors or preferences. Sadly, an inability to make rational, life-affirming decisions is a hallmark of suicidal thinking. Intense emotion pain, hopelessness and a narrowed, negative view of the future interferes with balanced decision-making.

John Ackerman, PhD, “Don’t Say It’s Selfish: Suicide is Not a Choice,” Center for Suicide Prevention and Research, Nationwide Children’s Hospital

Few things can so devastate us as the suicide of a loved one, especially of one’s own child.

Fr Ron Rolheiser, Suicide: When Someone is Too Bruised to Be Touched

Understanding the Pain of Suicide Loss: “When Someone is Too Bruised to Be Touched” offers a compassionate view of understanding suicide and the profound pain that suicide loss brings to individuals and families alike. The article features Father Ronald Rolheiser’s insightful piece, “Suicide–When Someone is Too Bruised to Be Touched,” which delves deeply into the complexities of grief and the unique struggles faced by those left behind.

The Grief of Parents Who Lose a Child to Suicide

Shock, Denial, Guilt, Anger, Depression-and guilt, over and over again guilt, have churned through me since losing my son. There hasn’t been anything resembling an orderly process through each of these difficult feelings. When Dylan died in June of 2012, I felt complete shock and an overwhelming numbness. I felt shut down and as if in a mist or fog-or perhaps even behind a veil-where nothing felt quite real. I functioned as if on autopilot.

After Suicide

Feelings of shock, denial, guilt, anger, and depression are a normal part of grief. These feelings can be especially heightened when a child has died by suicide.

The Compassionate Friends, Surviving Your Child’s Suicide

Guilt came nearly immediately for me

• What had I done?
• What had I missed?
• What if I had been there with my son?
• Why couldn’t I keep him safe?
• Why couldn’t I protect him?

The suicide of a child can raise painful questions, doubts and fears

The suicide of a child can raise painful questions, doubts and fears. You may question why your love was not enough to save your child and may fear that others will judge you to be an unfit parent. Both questions may raise strong feelings of failure. Many bereaved parents wrestle with these feelings. . . .

The Compassionate Friends, Surviving Your Child’s Suicide

Nothing can prepare you for what happens when your child dies by suicide

Nothing can prepare you for what happens when your child dies by suicide. It is truly living out a nightmare from which you cannot awaken. Indeed, “grief is an extraordinarily powerful constellation of emotions that can initiate a chain reaction of biochemical events in the body” (Understanding a Broken Heart – The Physiology of Grief)

Beth Brown, Struggling with Guilt After Your Child’s Suicide-A True Tale of Two Mothers, My Forever Son

Parents of children who die by suicide often battle an added type of guilt

Parents of children who die by suicide often battle an
added type of guilt. Even if they do not blame themselves
for not directly intervening in the suicidal act, they often feel
guilt over some perceived mistake in raising their children.
“Where did I go wrong?,” “I pushed them too hard.” and
“If we hadn’t gotten divorced…” are just a few on the list of
self-recriminations. 

But parents need to remind themselves
that, while they have great influence over their children’s
lives, they do not personally create every aspect of their chil-
dren’s being, as a sculptor carves a statue. From their earliest
years, children are shaped by an assortment of outside influ-
ences beyond the control of parents. Even children and
teenagers have to bear responsibility for their actions.

Jeffrey Jackson,  A Handbook for Coping with Suicide Grief, American Association of Suicidology

Navigating Depression in Grief After a Child’s Suicide

Depression settled immediately into all that I am

Depression settled immediately into all that I am when I learned my son died by suicide.

Why didn’t my son want to stay? Why wasn’t I able to stop him from taking his life? Wasn’t my love enough?

I lost my past and my future the day my son died. Grief has taught me to live in the now. Focus on this moment as is, as now. Radical acceptance in healing grief terminology. Mindfulness in wholistic circles. Surviving my son’s suicide, in my own words.

I lost my past and my future the day Dylan died. My only child. A love like no other. A forever love beyond the limitations of words here. “If Only” haunts me even now, and guilt? My depression and guilt are one and the same.

Parents’ grief after losing a child to suicide oftentimes includes depression, guilt, and self-blame. Working with a grief counselor can help, as can joining a support group for bereaved parents.

Depression and Guilt in Suicide Grief

Depression

Lack of energy, sleep problems, inability to concentrate, not wanting to talk with others, and the feeling there is nothing to live for are all normal reactions in bereavement. Situational depression, as opposed to clinical depression, should eventually subside. This type of depression can be helped by integrating moderate physical activity, plenty of rest and water, and a nutritious diet into a daily routine.

Try to allow family and friends to take care of you. You don’t have to be strong. Try to stay connected with people you value and trust. Talking with others who have been through a similar situation may also help you to cope. If the depression does not appear to lessen over time, you may want to talk with a qualified professional who can determine how best to help you.

The Compassionate Friends, Surviving Your Child’s Suicide

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Navigating Grief and the Journey to Healing

There is no hell and there is no pain like the one suicide inflicts. Nobody who is healthy wants to die and nobody who is healthy wants to burden his or her loved ones with this kind of pain.

Ronald Rolheiser, Suicide-Love Through Locked Doors

Learning to Want to Live Again

I am in my tenth year of learning to keep on keeping on after losing my only child, my beloved 20-year-old son, to suicide on June 25, 2012. My life forever changed that day and who I was died too.

A great and terrible Tsunami swept in and through everything I knew and loved and cared about in life, and all that I was and loved and cared about was swept out into a violent, retching ocean, infinite fathoms deep, defying any earthly description here, blacker than a starless night. I couldn’t hear, see, be, hold onto, reach for, grasp, touch, feel anything familiar or loved or comforting.

I couldn’t find my son and reached, grasped, searched for him for days, weeks, months on end. When I came to, I realized that somehow, I was still alive and that Dylan had been washed out to sea. I had finally surfaced from the ferocity of the storm and there I was, alone without my son. I didn’t want to live without him.

For more than a decade of grief and healing, I have held on to hope, even when hope seemed farther than I could reach

I have had to learn to live again. To learn to want to live again. I’ve gone deeply within the darkest, blackest, starless night, oceans deep, galaxies wide, to get my insides outsides, to release the soul screams, to hold clasped hands and fractured body, mind, and soul over a heart raw and weeping.

I have wept infinite tears, carried the weight of mourning and grieving, fallen apart, kept on keeping on only because of my family and friends’ carrying me when I could not take a single step forward. I have been awash in grief, alive in my life’s greatest tragedy.

A deep, deep soul ache settles in that never goes away. Not in the first year of grief, not in the 2nd and 3rd years of my grieving, not even now after nearly a decade of grief. Wanting to live past my son’s death seemed impossible. Especially in the beginning. Especially in that first year. I had to be reminded to breathe-just breathe.

Beth Brown, My Forever Son, Just Breathe, excerpt from Suicide Changes Everything-Struggling to Survive Grief After the Suicide of My Son

Hope Means Hold On, Pain Eases

But I have held on to hope, even when hope seemed farther away than I could reach. I have joined support groups, including online support, and I continue to read books and online resources for support for parents whose child has died by suicide.

Some days are easier than others

Some days are easier than other. Today is not such a day. Today’s a day I awakened in tears, my head buried in shame in my pillow, my heart wide open and longing and grieving for a child and son and cusp-of-young-adult man I love and adore with all that I am, all the time, in everything I do.

I only know to do what I know how to do, routine, ritual, move–even when all of me is grinding down, step feet out of bed, push through, make tea, make something–eat, read, come to. . .come to.

This too shall pass, but when? When? It is mid-afternoon and still this hangover of depression, of living in the glare of my son’s death by suicide, of wide-open grief.  I look to my cat. She opens her eyes for the picture, then right back to dozing.

A cat’s life, slumbering through the day, 18-plus hours of napping, drifting off, a hazy, filtered kind of life.

Living in the Surreal Fog

I know this kind of life now. 18-plus hours a day of living in the surreal fog, this veiled shroud of living each breath as the mother of a suicide. There are simply no words to describe this kind of numbing out, this haze through which I must glimpse the world.

I’m here, but not here. Not really when all of me either surfaces and spills over wide open in sorrow and pain or else numbs out and assumes the facade I must wear and be to even marginally fit in. I am always with Dylan, even when seemingly not so.

These are two disparate states of being–either faking it and wearing the masque of living in the moment, or else cracking open in despair and hopelessness. I wish I could choose–like clothes to wear or whether or not to clip my hair back–to numb out and feel detached and separate from, or to just be real and let my insides outside.

Disillusionment

In the end, I know Dylan struggled with this too, because my confusion and torment between living between who I am inside and who I must be outside is not just about grieving his death by suicide.

Dylan was saddled–and I am saddled, with depression, that ugly sick monster who feeds off sucking you dry from everything you knew you loved. The one with daggers for horns and an unquenchable fire to consume all that you once knew of life–a childlike joy, a fascination for a new day, gratitude to be here now, fun in the moment, the ability to laugh, love, play, let go, take it easy, follow through, achieve, desire, plan, hope, dream, do, be.

Dylan made it 15 years in the jowls of depression, all the while being chewed up and spit out repeatedly in an effort to chew the living life out of my son. And then, and then. . .sigh . . .
June 25th, 2012.

Depression hurts. Left untreated, depression kills. Even treated, depression rallies and rails against any sort of containment. Depression lies in wait. Dylan was seeking help. Starting medications. But depression is an illness. And illness never waits for medications to work–And death waits for no one.

Effective Strategies for Navigating Depression in Grief

The ideas below are ones that help me cope with my grief. Perhaps they will help you too.

These ideas appear in full at “The Compassionate Friends”, Surviving Your Child’s Suicide

• Talk about your child’s death with family members and discuss your feelings of loss and pain. Talk about the good times you had as well as the times that were not so good. It can be helpful and therapeutic to express feelings rather than to internalize them.
• Ask for help. Don’t be afraid to let your friends know what you need when they ask; they want to help.
• Consider becoming involved with a self-help bereavement group such as The Compassionate Friends. Through sharing with others who have walked a similar path, you may gain some understanding of your reactions and learn additional ways to cope. Seek professional support and family counseling if necessary.

Give yourself time, time and more time

Give yourself time, time and more time. It takes months, even years, to open your heart and mind to healing. Choose to survive and then be patient with yourself. In time, your grief will soften as you begin to heal and you will feel like investing in life again.

The Compassionate Friends, Surviving Your Child’s Suicide

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Author’s Note: A Poetic Quest for Healing After Losing My Son

Twelve years ago, I lost my 20-year-old son, Dylan, to suicide, a heartbreaking event that shattered my world and plunged me into a dark period of grief.

During those long months, I found myself grappling with overwhelming emotions and thoughts, questioning everything around me and struggling to make sense of what will never make sense. I entered into a deep grief filled with solitude and despair, a darkness so bleak I questioned ever being able to see light again.

In the beginning, I had no words. No voice. No ability to express the grief I was feeling.

My words were lost in torrents of tears, in stark contrast to the vibrant discussions I used to lead in my college composition and literature classes.

Perhaps it’s important to preface that I was teaching college composition and literature when I lost my son to suicide, a tragedy that shattered all of me. The irony of discussing the complexities of human emotion with my students while grappling with my own profound sorrow was not lost on me.

Each day, I faced the challenge of maintaining my professional facade, all the while battling an internal tempest that seemed insurmountable, wondering how to bridge the chasm between my role as an educator and the personal devastation I was enduring.

My Life Before Losing My Son

Books, lectures, teaching—I once felt empowered by my voice, a resonant tool for sharing ideas and knowledge. It was a time when I believed in the strength of my words and the influence they carried, inspiring others to think deeply and engage in meaningful conversations.

I reveled in the connections I forged through sharing my thoughts, feeling a sense of purpose in my contributions to the world. But when Dylan died by suicide, I felt consumed by my grief. My heart collapsed inward in sharp pain, I retreated from the outside world, and my words eluded me.

Teaching was impossible. Losing Dylan shattered my life, leaving me, on the outside at least, grappling with an overwhelming silence that echoed louder than any lecture or written page.

On the inside, I was screaming sounds I did not recognize as my own.

The Depth of My Loss Brought My Life to a Standstill

The vibrant energy that once fueled my passion for writing vanquished, and I found myself questioning everything without being able to lend voice to the confusion and overwhelming feelings I was moving through in my grief.

The depth of my loss silenced the joy I once derived from sharing my thoughts and connecting with others.

All of my life came to a standstill as I entered a place of deep grief. It is only in retrospect and in these twelve years past my son’s suicide that I see how all-consuming my grief was.

Diminishing the confidence that fuels expression, my grief stifled my voice completely. It’s been a difficult battle to reclaim my sense of self amidst such sorrow.

A Poetic Quest for Self-Forgiveness and Healing

Journaling was awkward. I couldn’t put all the pain I was feeling into words that did justice to the enormity of my heartbreak. But I kept writing. Slowly, in keeping a record of my grief, I realized I was creating a poetic journey about losing a child to suicide.

“Find Hope Here: Poetic Reflections on Grief and Healing”

Find Hope Here: Poetic Reflections on Grief and Healing is a heartfelt collection of poems and reflections by Beth Brown, the compassionate voice behind the My Forever Son blog. This poignant work navigates the deep, overwhelming sorrow that accompanies the tragic loss of a child to suicide. In her writing, Brown bravely shares her personal journey through grief, revealing how the act of writing poetry and connecting with the beauty of nature became vital sources of comfort and healing for her in the midst of such profound pain.

Through the author’s heartfelt verses, she reaches out with warmth and understanding to those who are journeying through their own sorrows. With her enchanting photography of the trees, shrubs, and flowers that grace her gardens throughout the seasons, Brown lovingly shares a beacon of hope, brightly illuminating the shadows cast by grief.

On Finding Hope: Photographing My Gardens Brings Healing

In nature, I find calm in the wake of profound sorrow and healing in the cycling of the seasons. Predictable. Beautiful in the spring, promising renewal after a long winter’s rest. Brilliant hues in the summer months. Autumn bringing trees and shrubs bejeweled in vivid reds, oranges, and reds. And then the stillness and monochromatic sketch of what can be a too long winter’s sleep.

Winter Wonderland: Captivating Photos in My Gardens

A Long Winter’s Rest for Trees, Shrubs, and Flowers

This dormant season in winter echoes the hopelessness of my grief: everything feels, looks, seems bleak and forsaken.

This dormant season in winter echoes the hopelessness of my grief: everything feels, looks, seems bleak and forsaken. An empty landscape. Gray skies for months. A blanket of snow in white, though only the stark limbs of trees and shrubs. At times, though, red berries appear on some shrubs, supplying food for birds and wildlife. All this to say I can’t see life against this wintry scene.

But in photographing nature through the seasons, I began to see (again), the brilliance of a long winter’s rest for trees, shrubs, and flowers. To study nature and botany is to realize that what appears lifeless is actually the process of life within all of nature renewing itself. Trusting in what I cannot see brings hope and healing.

Spring Brings Hope: Photographs of My Gardens

Spring Brings Beauty and Hope

Even against the cold remnants of a long winter–scattered clumps of snow, a robin redbreast plumped out to keep itself warm against a late March frost, brown dried leaves with nary a sign of color anywhere, spring breaks through. At first just small bits of color. A hint of purple as crocus push through thawing ground, then the vivid yellows of daffodils leaning towards the sun and the suddenness of blue bells. Rhododendron yawns and stretches its lavender limbs to awaken azalea, still sleepy with snow though greening beneath it all.

What seems forever gone in the gray doldrums of winter arrives with an abundance of joy come spring.

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Writing My Way Through Grief to Find Hope and Healing

Snippets of language emerged as poetic reflections

Three years into my grief, I began writing journal entries. Short. A few feelings. About my day and where I was in my grief journey. Then slowly, snippets of language emerged as poetic reflections. Words shaped the deep feelings and emotional longing in my heart, and as I continued writing, I began to find small glimpses of hope in unexpected ways.

Photographing my gardens garnered a way to coalesce all the many feelings and words I’d been unable to express. And the more I photographed through the seasons, the more glimmers of hope I found along the way.

Each poignant poem in Find Hope Here: Poetic Reflections on Grief and Healing is a dedicated blog post in its own right, replete with the inspiration behind the poem.

The poems included in Find Hope Here: Poetic Reflections on Grief and Healing appear below. Each poem is a blog post in its own right, oftentimes replete with the inspiration behind the poem.

Each poem moves the reader through the profound emotions of grief and healing after losing a child.

Many of the poems tell narratives I remember from my son’s childhood. This is significant–reconstructing the narrative of our lives during his growing-up years brings release for all the love and beautiful memories before the trauma of losing him. Writing these poems and narratives, these poetic reflections on love and loss, have helped me learn to carry love and ache together.

Still I write. Still I heal. Still I miss my son.

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From Shattered Hearts to Quiet Hope: Poems and Reflections for Parents of Suicide Loss

Find Hope Here: Poetic Reflections on Grief and Healing

If you are reading this, you know the unique and overwhelming grief of losing a child to suicide. This collection is for you—a place to find words and images that honor your pain, offer comfort, and gently invite hope.

Curated by Beth Brown, who lost her only child, her 20-year-old son Dylan, to suicide, these poems and reflections move through the rawness of early trauma, the depths of acute grief, and the slow journey toward healing, even thirteen years later. Each post pairs heartfelt writing with stunning garden photography, inspired by Beth’s own search for solace in nature’s resilience.

Hope can be quiet—listen for it in moments of rest.

You are invited to explore at your own pace. Choose what resonates—whether it’s a poem that mirrors your sorrow, a reflection that offers comfort, or an image that whispers hope. For more resources, stories, and support, visit the My Forever Son blog and discover a community that understands.

Contemplation Prompt:
Pause with a garden image. What does it say to you about survival, growth, or hope?

About the Author, Beth Brown: Writing My Way Through Grief

The love you shared endures beyond loss.

This collection is lovingly curated by Beth Brown, a mother who lost her only child, her 20-year-old son Dylan, to suicide. Over thirteen years, Beth’s journey through the depths of grief has been shaped by poetry, reflection, and the healing presence of her gardens. Through My Forever Son, she shares how nature’s resilience and beauty offer moments of solace and hope, even in the face of unimaginable loss.

Explore These Poems and Reflections at Your Own Pace

You are invited to explore these poems and reflections at your own pace. Each post pairs heartfelt words with stunning garden photography, offering comfort, understanding, and gentle encouragement for wherever you are in your grief. Select what speaks to you—let these pages be a companion on your path toward healing. For more resources, stories, and support, visit the My Forever Son blog and discover a community that understands.

Journaling Prompt:
What memories of your child bring both tears and warmth? Write a few lines, letting your heart speak freely.

You are not alone. Healing is a journey, and hope can bloom—even here.

Message of Hope:
Even in the darkest seasons, a single flower can remind us that beauty and life persist. Let these poems be gentle companions as you move through your grief.

Embracing Grief: A Mother’s Poetic Journey

From journaling to discovering the poetic language that encapsulates my grief, I penned my path to healing, culminating in the creation of my book, Bury My Heart: 19 Poems for Grief and Healing After Losing a Child to Suicide.

The anthology of poems in this book provides a profound and moving examination of grief, intricately intertwining original verses that delve into themes of loss, guilt, hope, self-forgiveness, and the path to healing. Expertly curated, the arrangement of poems invites deep reflection, serving as a treasured companion for those in search of solace and connection during difficult times.

Professional Resources

Online Directory for Coping with Grief, Trauma, and Distress

After A Suicide Resource Directory: Coping with Grief, Trauma, and Distress
http://www.personalgriefcoach.net
This online directory links people who are grieving after a suicide death to resources and information.

Alliance of Hope for Suicide Survivors
http://www.allianceofhope.org
This organization for survivors of suicide loss provides information sheets, a blog, and a community forum through which survivors can share with each other.

Friends for Survival
http://www.friendsforsurvival.org
This organization is for suicide loss survivors and professionals who work with them. It produces a monthly newsletter and runs the Suicide Loss Helpline (1-800-646-7322). It also published Pathways to Purpose and Hope, a guide to building a community-based suicide survivor support program.

HEARTBEAT: Grief Support Following Suicide
http://heartbeatsurvivorsaftersuicide.org
This organization has chapters providing support groups for survivors of suicide loss in Colorado and some other states. Its website provides information sheets for survivors and a leader’s guide on how to start a new chapter of HEARTBEAT.

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Resources and Support Groups

Parents of Suicides and Friends & Families of Suicides (POS-FFOS)
http://www.pos-ffos.com
This website provides a public message board called Suicide Grief Support Forum, a listserv for parents, a separate listserv for others, and an online chat room for survivors of suicide loss.

Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS)
https://www.taps.org/suicide
This organization provides resources and programs for people grieving the loss of a loved one who died while serving in the U.S. armed forces or as a result of their service. It has special resources and programs for suicide loss survivors.

United Survivors
https://unitesurvivors.org/
This organization is a place where people who have experienced suicide loss, suicide attempts, and suicidal thoughts and feelings, and their friends and families, can connect to use their lived experience to advocate for policy, systems, and cultural change.

Professional Organizations

American Association of Suicidology
suicidology.org • (202) 237-2280
Promotes public awareness, education and training for professionals, and sponsors an annual Healing After Suicide conference for suicide loss survivors. In addition to the conference, they offer a coping with suicide grief handbook by Jeffrey Jackson. This booklet is also available in Spanish.

The Compassionate Friends
compassionatefriends.org • (877) 969-0010
Offers resources for families after the death of a child. They sponsor support groups, newsletters and online support groups throughout the country, as well as an annual national conference for bereaved families.

The Dougy Center
The National Center for Grieving Children & Families
dougy.org • (503) 775-5683
Publishes extensive resources for helping children and teens who are grieving a death including death by suicide. Resources include the “Children, Teens and Suicide Loss” booklet created in partnership with AFSP. This booklet is also available in Spanish.

Link’s National Resource Center for Suicide Prevention and Aftercare
thelink.org/nrc-for-suicide-prevention-aftercar • 404-256-2919
Dedicated to reaching out to those whose lives have been impacted by suicide and connecting them to available resources.

Tragedy Assistance Programs for Survivors (TAPS)
taps.org/suicide • (800) 959-TAPS (8277)
Provides comfort, care and resources to all those grieving the death of a military loved one through a national peer support network and connection to grief resources, all at no cost to surviving families and loved ones.

LOSS
losscs.org
Offers support groups, remembrance events, companioning, suicide postvention and prevention education, and training to other communities interested in developing or enhancing their suicide postvention and prevention efforts.

Online resources

Alliance of Hope
allianceofhope.org
Provides a 24/7 online forum for suicide loss survivors.

Help Guide
helpguide.org
Provides resources and tips for how to navigate the loss of someone to suicide.

Parents of Suicides (POS) – Friends and Families of Suicides (FFOS)
pos-ffos.com
An internet community to connect parents, friends, and family that have lost someone to suicide.

SAVE: Suicide Awareness Voices of Education
save.org/programs/suicide-loss-support • (952) 946-7998
Hosts resources for suicide loss survivor including a support group database, newsletter, survivor conference and the Named Memorial Program, which offers a special way to honor your loved one.

Siblings Survivors of Suicide Loss
siblingsurvivors.com
Provides resources and a platform to connect with others that have lost a sibling to suicide.

Finding professional care and support

Find a mental health provider

• afsp.org/FindAMentalHealthProfessional
• findtreatment.samhsa.gov
• mentalhealthamerica.net/finding-help
• inclusivetherapists.com
• afsp.org/suicide-bereavement-trained-clinicians

Find a provider for prolonged grief

• prolongedgrief.columbia.edu

Find additional resources for marginalized communities

• afsp.org/mental-health-resources-for-marginalized-communities

Crisis Services

988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline
988lifeline.org
Call or text 988 (press 1 for Veterans, 2 for Spanish, 3 for LGBTQ+ youth and young adults) or chat 988lifeline.org
A 24-hour, toll-free suicide prevention service available to anyone in suicidal crisis. You will be routed to the closest possible crisis center in your area. With crisis centers across the country, their mission is to provide immediate assistance to anyone seeking mental health services. Call for yourself, or someone you care about. Your call is free and confidential.

Crisis Text Line
crisistextline.org
Text TALK to 741-741 for English
Text AYUDA to 741-741 for Spanish
Provides free, text-based mental health support and crisis intervention by empowering a community of trained volunteers to support people in their moments of need, 24/7.

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