Understanding the Unique Aspects of Suicide Grief

Understanding the Unique Aspects of Suicide Grief

Summary

Understanding the Unique Aspects of Suicide Grief explores the unique challenges of coping with suicide grief. The author, who lost her son to suicide, shares her personal experiences, her emotional journey, and provides resources for emotional support and understanding. The post includes a collection of articles and professional resources for parents grieving the loss of a child to suicide.

Introduction

Understanding the Unique Aspects of Suicide Grief is a poignant exploration of the unique challenges of grief after suicide. The author shares her personal emotional journey, emphasizing the profound impact such grief can have. By including personal experiences, expert quotes, and professional resources, this post offers authenticity and serves as a compassionate guide for those navigating similar heartaches.

Photographs from the Author’s Gardens

The use of high-quality images, photographs from the author’s gardens, adds visual appeal and complements the written content, offering a genuine and heartfelt exploration of a complex and sensitive topic.

About This Blog, My Forever Son

My Forever Son: Healing After Losing a Child to Suicide emerged as I began sharing my grief journal entries online in 2015, three years after my son’s tragic suicide. My early blog posts capture the intense rawness of my sorrow as I grappled with the overwhelming void left behind, desperately seeking even a glimmer of hope in the aftermath of such a devastating loss.

I write as a means to heal from the profound grief of losing my only child, my 20-year-old son Dylan, to suicide on June 25, 2012. In 2019, I started crafting poems that express my journey through the anguish of child loss, some of which are featured in My Forever Son. By 2022, I began composing songs that reflect my sorrow and the healing power of music as I navigate this painful journey. Now, more than a decade after Dylan’s suicide, I carry a blend of heartache and love that continues to guide me.

About the Author

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: The author, a mother who lost her only child, her twenty-year-old son, to suicide eleven years ago, is an award-winning writer whose book of poems about losing a child to suicide has received widespread acclaim and recognition. The book, Bury My Heart: 19 Poems for Grief and Healing After Losing a Child to Suicide, is available now on Amazon Kindle.

OF SPECIAL NOTE: The beautiful photographs of flowers, shrubs, and trees in bloom throughout the seasons are from my gardens. Gardening, taking photos, and writing poems, blog posts, books, and songs bring serenity to my now upside-down world after losing my son to suicide.

My Forever Son: Healing After Losing My Son to Suicide

I want to share a deeply personal story about my son, Dylan, who I lost to suicide on June 25, 2012. He was just 20 years old and my only child. At the time, he was a sophomore in college, studying Digital Media at a prestigious university on a full academic scholarship.

Dylan was an incredible young man—always at the top of his class and navigating that challenging transition from high school to college with such promise and potential. He brought joy and purpose to my life, serving as my reason to rise each morning with hope in my heart.

Over the past 12 years, I have navigated the unique challenges of grief that accompany the loss of a child to suicide. Yet, within that sorrow, I have experience glimpses of hope and healing. My narrative embodies loss and resilience, highlighting the unbreakable bond between a mother and her son.

Related Reads

• Self-Blame and Guilt-I Couldn’t Save My Son
• Is Suicide Really a Choice? Breaking the Stigma
• What to Say to Parents Who Lose a Child to Suicide
• Navigating Grief After Losing a Child to Suicide: Essential Resources
• Understanding Suicide: It’s Not a Choice

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My Forever Son

Table of Contents

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Suicide Grief is Different: Understanding the Unique Aspects and Challenges

Losing a loved to suicide is one is one of life’s most painful experiences. The feelings of loss, sadness, and loneliness experienced after any death of a loved one are often magnified in suicide survivors by feelings of quilt, confusion, rejection, shame, anger, and the effects of stigma and trauma.

Suicide Bereavement and Complicated Grief, National Library of Medicine

Suicide Grief is Different Because Loss Survivors…

1. Blame Themselves for what they did, what they missed, and what they did not do to prevent their loved one’s suicide.
2. Feel Responsible for the suicide of the loved one they lost and thus guilty for their loved one’s suicide.
3. Wonder Why over and over again, even knowing there will never be an answer why their loved one took their life.
4. Move through the Stigma and Trauma attached to a loved one’s death by suicide. Religious and community acceptance or conversely, their shunning of suicide, especially when addiction, alcohol, or substance abuse disorders are involved, can make suicide grief more difficult.
5. Question Everything. Suicide is not a choice, though it seems a preventable death. Suicide awareness and prevention can compound loss survivors’ grief.

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Self-Blame and Guilt

“Vastly Overestimating Our Role” of What We Did or Didn’t Do As Parents

What More Could I Have Done?

“What’s Your Grief” is an informative blog about all things related to grief. The excerpt below is from the blog post, “Grieving After a Suicide Death” by Eleanor Haley.

It is not uncommon for themes of personal blame to arise, as the person questions their role in their loved one’s suicide and what they could have done to prevent their death. Unfortunately, the bereaved may vastly overestimate their role and others’ role[s] (i.e., what family and friends did or didn’t do).

Eleanor Haley, “Grieving After a Suicide Death,” What’s Your Grief?

What Did I Miss?

• I never really knew [them]
• [They] didn’t feel comfortable confiding in me.
• [They] were in intense pain.
• I’m to blame. I should have done more to prevent [their] death.
• They didn’t love me enough to live.

Eleanor Haley, Grieving After a Suicide Death, 
Understanding Grief , What’s Your Grief?

The Harsh Truth of Hindsight Is Always 20/20

Understand that Hindsight is Always 20/20: The insight for parents who lose a child to suicideis always in hindsight. And hindsight is always 20/20.

Perfect parenting is an illusion.

We can’t be aware of everything our child is doing, thinking, feeling, or struggling with. We can’t be with our child every second, minute, and hour of every day.

Battling Self-Blame and Guilt

Guilt is the one negative emotion that seems to be universal to all suicide grievers, and overcoming it is one of our greatest obstacles on the path to healing. Guilt is your worst enemy, because it is a false accusation. You are not responsible for your loved one’s suicide in any way, shape, or form. Write it down. Say it to yourself over and over again, (even when it feels false). Tattoo it onto your brain. Because it’s the truth.

Grief Handbook, Jeffrey Jackson, American Association of Suicidology

Self-Blame Gets Stuck On Repeat

Self-blame, regret, and blaming others can play a significant part in processing our grief after suicide loss. “Grief is the internal part of loss, how we feel. The internal work of grief is a process, a journey,” writes grief and loss expert, David Kessler (Grief.com).

Processing self-blame, guilt, regret, and anger after suicide loss can quickly become cyclical. These are heavy feelings that come with repeat cycles in our minds: we weigh options; replay scenarios; go over responses and reactions; and perhaps most importantly, second-guess ourselves about what we cannot (and did not) control–the suicide of our loved one.

Seeking Answers

Self-blame, a deep sense of regret, and intense anger when we feel others are to blame for the suicide loss of our loved one can be a considerable part of processing our suicide grief. These feelings can consume us as we search desperately for answers to understand why our loved one died by suicide.

Self-blame points the guilt towards us–we are somehow culpable in a loved one’s suicide. We feel that we failed to live up to our loved one’s standards. And we feel we failed ourselves. Self-blame and guilt haunt loss survivors for as long as it takes until they find a way to move beyond this part of suicide grief.

Parents face the potential for unique forms of guilt. While they might forgive themselves for being unable to intervene in the suicidal act, they may blame themselves for some perceived mistake made in raising their child. Parents need to understand that children—even young children—are not entirely of their parents’ making. Outside influences from friends, school, culture, and the world at large also shape each child’s psyche. And the emotional condition that made them vulnerable to suicide has neurobiological roots that are far beyond their control.

Jeffrey Jackson, A handbook for coping with suicide grief

Coping with Self-Blame and Guilt

It’s important to find ways to cope with feelings of self-blame, guilt, regret, and anger in suicide loss. Here are some ways that can help you cope with guilt and self-blame:

• Seek counseling one-on-one with a therapist
• Join local and online suicide loss support groups; connecting with others who have experienced similar loss
• Practice self-care; it can help you process self-blame and guilt

Regret in Grief Means Longing for a Different Outcome

Regret involves painful self-reflection where we look back, experience painful thoughts and feelings about past actions, and long for a different outcome. We ruminate about what we could have done differently to bring about a different outcome, and in the process, blame ourselves.

Some grievers feel the need for a culprit, again out of a reluctance to place responsibility on the suicide victim. “It’s the doctor’s fault.” “His wife/mother/brother drove him to it.” “If only the government had a better program…” Some even pour their frustration into crusades against some perceived social evil that is responsible for their loved one’s suicide. While these people seem to have a productive focus for their grief, they may only be hurting themselves by making their road back to peace longer and rockier through this misdirected anger.

Jeffrey Jackson, Grief Handbook, American Association of Suicidology

Parents Blame Themselves

“Suicide bereaved parents themselves are inclined to blame themselves in the deaths of their children, no matter what,” writes Caren Chesler in The Washington Post. “They cannot help themselves from wondering,” Chesler goes on, “[W}hat if I had done this, called or visited at this time, given more aid, done this or that, just before the death, if this would have meant the difference in saving the life of their child. This wonderment, guilt, and endless speculation is especially keen among mothers.” (After Child’s Suicide, Parents Can Be Engulfed in Self-Blame and Guilt, The Washington Post, July 15, 2023).

Self-Blame and Guilt: I Couldn’t Save My Son

I received many compassionate words, cards, embraces, and acts of service when my son died. Dylan’s friends and family flocked to our house the morning of his death. They brought pastries from a local bakery, coffee, and huge condolences.

Dylan’s friends gathered in our driveway, sequestered together the way teenagers do, talking about the shock of his death, when they had last texted Dylan, when they had last seen him. Sharing grief. Horrified. Shock. Numbness. Disbelief. Suspended disbelief. Tears and great sadness. And a shared sense of self-blame and guilt:

• What If?
• Should I have?
• Could I have?
• What did I miss?
• What didn’t I see or do?
• What could I have done to have prevented his suicide? If only…

Suicide Loss Survivors “blame themselves for not anticipating and preventing the actual act of suicide”

Suicide loss “survivors show higher levels of feelings of guilt, blame, and responsibility for the death than other mourners (‘Why didn’t I prevent it?’). . . More frequently, they blame themselves for not anticipating and preventing the actual act of suicide ….”

Suicide Bereavement and Complicated Grief, National Library of Medicine

Self-Blame and Regret: Should’ve, Would’ve, Could’ve

Parents who lose a child to suicide have “an overestimation of one’s own responsibility, as well as guilt for not having been able to do more to prevent such an outcome.” They blame themselves.

Suicide Bereavement and Complicated Grief, National Library of Medicine

Weighed Down with Feelings of Guilt and Responsibility

Parents who have lost a child to suicide can be especially afflicted with feelings of guilt and responsibility. Parents who have lost a child to suicide report more guilt, shame, and shock than spouses and children. They often think ‘If only I had not lost my temper’ or If only I had been around more.’ The death of child is arguably the most difficult type of loss a person can experience, particularly when the death is by suicide. Parents feel responsible for their children, especially when the deceased child is young.

National Library of Medicine, National Center for Biotechnology Information, Suicide Bereavement and Complicated Grief

The Importance of Finding Support

The author-researchers of Feelings of Blameworthiness and Their Associations With the Grieving Process in Suicide Mourning conclude “mothers are socialized to feel completely responsible for the welfare and well-being of their children. . . .If one dies or falls sick, they feel they have failed abysmally from performing their time honored role as mother, keeping their child alive at all costs.”

‘the tiniest lack of support or compassion expressed by intimate family members goes a long way toward engendering greater guilt and blame in the fragile mind of a suicide or drug death bereaved parent.

William Feigelman and Julie Cerel, Feelings of Blameworthiness and Their Associations With the Grieving Process in Suicide Mourning, National Library of Medicine, National Center for Biotechnology Information.

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Feeling Responsible

Losing a loved one to suicide is one of the worst blows someone can experience, psychologists say. It’s not just dealing with grief, which is hard enough, it’s the terrible guilt, especially so when it’s a child.

Caren Chesler, After child’s suicide, parents can be engulfed in self-blame and guilt, Washington Post, July 15, 2023Caren Chesler

Suicide Grief is A Grief that Speculates

And then the peculiarity of grief after suicide loss: a grief speculating if they could have done something, been somewhere, told someone; a grief blaming themselves, each individually and at the same time, as the same kids who had grown up together with Dylan; a grief questioning their role in his death; a grief that will linger and challenge them beyond the youth of their years; a grief that breaks apart completely their truth of the inherent order of life.

‘As a parent, we want to think that we could have saved them, we could have protected them, it could have turned out different. And there’s no answer to that. And I think that’s part of the torture of when you have a child die by suicide is you just don’t know.’

Caren Chesler, After child’s suicide, parents can be engulfed in self-blame and guilt,
Washington Post, July 15, 2023

An Unfathomable Loss

Feelings of self-blame can distract you from grieving and, in the process, from healing.
What lies beneath your self-blame are the terrible facts that you cannot control: Suicidal forces overtook your loved one. You have suffered an unfathomable loss. You cannot turn back time, do it over, do it differently. Each of these is a loss.

Mourning these losses is the essence of grief. Your grief deserves your compassion.

Alliance of Hope for Suicide Survivors, Tips from Survivors: To a Mom Who Blames Herself, Susan Auerbach

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Questioning “Why Suicide”?

Losing a loved to suicide is one is one of life’s most painful experiences. The feelings of loss, sadness, and loneliness experienced after any death of a loved one are often magnified in suicide survivors by feelings of quilt, confusion, rejection, shame, anger, and the effects of stigma and trauma. [They] are at higher risk of developing major depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and suicidal behaviors, as well as a prolonged form of grief called complicated grief. Added to the burden is the substantial stigma, which can keep survivors away from much needed support and healing resources.

Bob Baugher and Jack Jordan, After Suicide Loss: Coping
with Your Grief.

Why? What made him do this? Did he leave a note?

Still teenagers. Knowing their friends don’t die. They are at an age of invincibility. This can’t be happening to them. “Why?” they question. “What made him do this?” “Did he leave a note?” “Why?”

Parents who have lost a child to suicide struggle with ongoing feelings of guilt, responsibility, and blaming themselves. The stigma surrounding a child’s death by suicide can cause feelings of shame to linger.

“It just isn’t right,” say some.

“Maybe it wasn’t suicide,” say others.

“Didn’t that happen a long time ago?” asks your friend.

“He wouldn’t want to see you so sad” says your community.

Beth Brown, Living in the Glare of Grief: A Mother’s Poetic Journey, My Forever Son

Parents Feel Responsible

Parents who have lost a child to suicide can be especially afflicted with feelings of guilt and responsibility. Parents who have lost a child to suicide report more guilt, shame, and shock than spouses and children. They often think “If only I had not lost my temper” or “If only I had been around more.”

The death of child is arguably the most difficult type of loss a person can experience, particularly when the death is by suicide. Parents feel responsible for their children, especially when the deceased child is young. Indeed, age of the suicide deceased has been found to be one of the most important factors predicting intensity of grief.

Suicide Bereavement and Complicated Grief, National Library of Medicine, National Center for Biotechnology Information

Books and Videos About Breaking the Myths of Suicide

When It’s Darkest: Why People Die By Suicide and What We Can Do to Understand It is a recently published book by Rory O’Connor about understanding suicide.

When It’s Darkest: Making Sense of Suicide, YouTube, is an excellent video by Rory O’Connor. As a first step in understanding suicide, Rory O’Connor wants to dispel the myths of suicide.

These Myths of Suicide are excerpted from suicide researcher and author, Rory O’Connor: “When It’s Darkest: Making Sense of Suicide” video

Understanding Suicide: Facts and Insights of Suicide

1. Those who talk about suicide are not at risk of suicide.
2. All suicidal people are depressed or mentally ill.
3. Suicide occurs without warning.
4. Asking about suicide ‘plants’ the idea in someone’s head.
5. Suicidal people clearly want to die.
6. When someone becomes suicidal they will always remain suicidal.
7. Suicide is inherited.
8. Suicidal behaviour is motivated by attention-seeking.
9. Suicide is caused by a single factor.
10. Suicide cannot be prevented.
11. Only people of a particular social class die by suicide.
12. Improvement in emotional state means lessened suicide risk.
13. Thinking about suicide is rare.
14. People who attempt suicide by a low-lethality means are not serious about killing themselves.

Read more here about Understanding Suicide Myths: Facts and Insights:

Understanding Suicide Myths: Facts and Insights

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Understanding the Differences of Grief After Suicide

Stigma and Trauma of Suicide

Because of the stigma associated with suicide, survivors may feel they are unable to secure enough support from friends or family, but may benefit from attending support groups with other survivors who uniquely share their experiences and offer a haven for survivors to feel understood.

Suicide Bereavement and Complicated Grief, National Library of Medicine

Is Suicide Really a Choice? Breaking the Stigma

Suicide is not a desire to end life. It is a need to end pain. This is the single most important thing for you to remember about suicide. People who take their own life have been suffering — through no fault of their own — from a condition that amplifies and sustains emotional pain to a degree that makes life unbearable. Because of this, it’s inaccurate to even think of suicide as a “choice.” In the words of Adina Wrobleski, in her book, Suicide: Why?, “Choice implies that a suicidal person can reasonably look at alternatives and select among them. If they could rationally choose, it would not be suicide. Suicide happens when… no other choices are seen.”

Jeffrey Jackson, Grief Handbook, American Association of Suicidology

Suicide is not a choice

Losing a child to suicide compounds grief in unimaginable ways. Read more about how grief is compounded here: Prolonged Grief Disorder.

When a loved one dies by suicide, their suicide seems a needless and entirely preventable death. It is not.

Read More : Is Suicide Really a Choice?

Suicide [loss] survivors often face unique challenges that differ from those who have been bereaved by other types of death. In addition to the inevitable grief, sadness, and disbelief typical of all grief, overwhelming guilt, confusion, rejection, shame, and anger are also often prominent.These painful experiences may be further complicated by the effects of stigma and trauma.

Suicide Bereavement and Complicated Grief, National Library of Medicine

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Understanding the Key Differences of Grief After Suicide

Questioning

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 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.

The Compassionate Friends, “Surviving Your Child’s Suicide

Suicide is Not a Choice

Some still perceive suicide to be a choice. It is not. Suicide Epidemiologists who research, study, and track data, know that suicide is not a choice. The following quote is from “Don’t Say It’s Selfish: Suicide Is Not a Choice” at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

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, Don’t Say It’s Selfish: Suicide is Not a Choice, Nationwide Children’s Hospital

Words Matter: Suicide is Not a Choice

“A parent’s worst nightmare,” “a selfish death,” “a sin in the eyes of the church,” “we don’t talk about suicide,” “this grief group does not welcome those bereaved by suicide. . .”

“Well at least you had him for 19 years,” “God will use your tragedy to make you stronger for others,” “It isn’t right,” “Everything happens for a reason…”

“I can’t be friends with you anymore,” “What happened to make him that way?” (implying, of course, that I somehow could have and should have prevented my son’s death, and worst of all, saying absolutely nothing.

Words that hurt beyond belief. Words that would not have been spoken had his death been by another means.

Wanting the Pain to End

Suicide seems like a choice. But suicide is not a choice, and those who die by suicide don’t want to die, they just want the pain to end. Suicide is a tragedy.

11 Years Out

As I write, I reflect on the journey I’ve been on for the past 11 years since losing my beloved son, Dylan, to suicide. It’s hard to believe how much time has passed and how drastically my perspective has shifted since those early days of grief.

Each year has brought its own unique challenges and moments of growth, transforming the way I experience my loss. In my piece, “What Has Changed in 4 Years of Grieving the Loss of My Son to Suicide,” I delve into how the shape of my grief has evolved. I hope that by sharing my story, I can connect with others who may find themselves navigating the complex emotions that come with the loss of a loved one.

Hope means Hold On, Pain Eases.

Grief doesn’t end when you’ve lost a child to suicide, but love shines through the darkness enough to ease your burden of constant pain.

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Key Takeaways: Understanding the Unique Aspects of Suicide Grief

Ultimately, Understanding the Unique Aspects of Suicide Grief comes from the author’s heartfelt and personal reflection as a mother who lost her only child, her 20-year-old son, to suicide. Beautiful photos of flowers from the author’s gardens offer a connection to tranquility, providing relief from the heaviness of thinking about suicide grief.

Suicide Grief is Different Because Loss Survivors:

• Blame Themselves for what they did, what they missed, and what they did not do to prevent their loved one’s suicide.
• Feel Responsible for the suicide of the loved one they lost and thus guilty for their loved one’s suicide.
• Wonder Why over and over again, even knowing there will never be an answer why their loved one took their life.
• Move through the Stigma and Trauma attached to a loved one’s death by suicide. Religious and community acceptance or conversely, their shunning of suicide, especially when addiction, alcohol, or substance abuse disorders are involved, can make suicide grief more difficult.
• Question Everything–Suicide is not a choice, though it seems a preventable death. Suicide awareness and prevention can compound loss survivors’ grief.

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Key Resources for Understanding Suicide

Compassionate Guidance for Navigating Loss

These key resources for understanding suicide and coping with grief provide compassionate guidance for readers as they navigate the challenging landscape of loss. In particular, the “Rain Comes to Heal Us All” Poem: Finding Hope After Loss, offers solace and a new perspective. The journey of coping often means confronting feelings of stigma, guilt, and isolation, intermixed with a complex array of emotions, ranging from anger to relief.

Research compassionately underscores that suicide is not a conscious choice, emphasizing the importance of a non-judgmental approach to emotional healing. Engaging with support groups and educational materials can be a source of empowerment for survivors, nurturing community connections and facilitating a path toward healing and hope.

Included are the author’s personal story of losing her child, resources for emotional support, professional insights on suicide’s complexities, discussions on the duration of grief, and a selection of helpful resources for bereaved parents.

Healing After Suicide: Essential Books for Parents

Healing After Suicide: Essential Books for Parents is a comprehensive resource for parents grieving the loss of a child to suicide. The book offers a curated list of books, including practical guides, narratives, poetry, and novels, providing support and understanding for those navigating grief. The author, Beth Brown, shares her personal journey of loss and healing, emphasizing the importance of support groups and educational materials in the grieving process.

Understanding Suicide: It’s Not a Choice

Understanding Suicide: It’s Not a Choice presents a heartfelt exploration of the complex and deeply emotional subject of suicide. The piece invites readers to reflect on the harrowing question of whether suicide can truly be seen as a choice. Insights from Dr. John Ackerman, a prominent suicide epidemiologist at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, shed light on this critical issue.

Dr. Ackerman emphasizes the often-overlooked factors that contribute to suicidal thoughts, stating, “We often underestimate the multitude of factors that impact such a complex and irreversible outcome as suicide. Individuals grappling with the profound emotional turmoil that gives rise to suicidal thoughts typically do not wish to end their lives; they are, instead, yearning for relief from the immense pain often exacerbated by the absence of supportive resources and understanding.”

This poignant examination not only raises awareness but also fosters empathy and understanding, making it a must-read for anyone seeking to support loved ones in need.

Healing After Losing a Child to Suicide: Support, Resources, and Self-Care for Bereaved Parents

Healing After Losing a Child to Suicide, Support, Resources, and Self-Care for Bereaved Parents offers a comprehensive list of resources and support for individuals grieving the loss of a loved one to suicide. It includes personal insights, professional perspectives, and a curated selection of books and support groups. The author, Beth Brown, shares her own experience of losing her son to suicide and emphasizes the importance of seeking help and understanding.

Surviving Suicide Grief: Does the Pain Ever End?

Surviving Suicide Grief: Does the Pain Ever End? offers a compassionate look at and attempts to response to one of the most profound challenges of longterm grief after suicide loss: Does the pain of losing a child to suicide is profound and never fully goes away, but it does change and become a part of one’s life. Finding support through counseling, support groups, and connecting with others who have experienced similar losses is crucial for healing. Grief is a journey with seasons that come and go, and it is possible to learn to live with the pain while honoring the love for the lost child.

To those of you that still feel you aren’t even sure you want to be here and you can’t imagine ever being happy again. The pain does change, it softens. You will want to live again and be able to enjoy life again. It will never be like before but the crushing, all consuming pain you feel right now will soften. You will be able to live with it. It just becomes part of you.

A parent who lost their child to suicide

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Understanding the Pain of Suicide Loss: “When Someone is Too Bruised to Be Touched”

Understanding the Pain of Suicide Loss: “When Someone is Too Bruised to Be Touched” features Ronald Rolheiser’s writings on suicide which offer a compassionate and spiritual perspective, emphasizing that suicide is often a tragic consequence of mental illness, not a voluntary act. He encourages loved ones to release guilt and second-guessing, understanding that they are not responsible for the person’s death. Rolheiser also highlights the importance of remembering the deceased’s life beyond their suicide, trusting in God’s infinite love and understanding.

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Understanding Suicide: Why the Pain Matters

Understanding Suicide: Why the Pain Matters explores the pain and grief surrounding suicide, emphasizing that it is not a conscious choice but a desperate attempt to escape unbearable suffering. The article highlights current research, personal stories, and compassionate support for those struggling with depression and mental health, aiming to break the stigma surrounding suicide. It provides resources and insights into the complexities of grief and the journey towards healing.

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The Backstory to My Forever Son: A Mother’s Grief

The Backstory to My Forever Son: A Mother’s Grief, recounts the author’s harrowing experience of losing her son to suicide. Her story highlights her grief, guilt, and the healing power of writing. The blog “My Forever Son” came about as a way for the author to work through this devastating grief that follows the loss of a child to suicide. My Forever Son blog serves as a platform for sharing experiences and finding healing and solace in community.

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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