Why Suicides Spike in Spring and Summer

Why Suicides Spike in Spring and Summer

Cusp of Summer Spike

There is a common belief that suicide occurs most often in the cold months, especially around Thanksgiving, Christmas and other winter holidays. This is actually a misconception, however, as suicide rates often increase during the spring and summer.

Centerstone, How Summer Affects Suicide Rates

The end of June through early July typically means shifting weather and at times, great thunderstorms and torrential downpours. Unpredictable weather. Perfectly wonderful, 65-70 degrees one day, 85 plus degrees the next, muggy and humid and sticky kind of prickly hot.

Derecho: A Storm Out of Nowhere

Summer, cusp of summer. I lost my son to suicide on June 25th 2012. Monday. 1:52 a.m. Only just having entered summer. The day of his funeral, it was 103 degrees at 11:00 a.m. Then the wind started heaving, the skies drew black, great gusts and howling winds downed trees all over central Ohio. By 3:00, the temperature had dropped to 71 degrees. Only later would I learn the storm was a Derecho. Derecho: A Storm Out of Nowhere. I’ve always thought God was grieving for Dylan, too, that nature wept as well.

June 29, 2012–Funeral for my son. 101 degrees dropping to 73 degrees in a matter of minutes. Whirling wind. Gusts of whipping wind. Snapping wind. Dark skies. Clotted clouds. Midday sun going away–suddenly. A piercing dark. A turbulent sky. Trying to get to the car before the rains came. Things blowing. Paper across parking lots. Light going out. Light extinguished. Darkness on the wings of violent winds. 60-80 m.p.h. Trees cracking. Branches breaking. Traffic lights swaying to and fro. As if in a dream I couldn’t break. A nightmare I’d have to live out the rest of my life.

June 29, 2012–My son’s funeral was on a day heaving itself pellmell, uprooting itself, shaking lose all grounding, breaking all that held it dear, all that called it life, all that depended upon it to be as it had always been.

A day rupturing earth in a storm violent and of epic proportion. Derecho. Unpredictable. Violent. Sudden. Never knowing we were in the path of such a storm. Having never seen let alone been through a storm capable of damaging this much to so many.

The noise of the wind. As if it were screaming. Over and over, rising and hissing, falling and rising, screaming and moaning, cracking and casting itself broken. Falling down. Tumbling down. The sudden downing of it all. Power down. Wires down. Caught in the catastrophic exhale of sky, earth, trees, and now, even light extinguished.

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Why Suicides Spike in Spring and Summer

Overwhelming evidence suggests that inflammation from various sources, including allergic reactions, can cause or worsen depression. Our immune system spends the winter trying to ward off viral infections, but not trying to ward off allergies, which affect more than 50 million Americans each year. Seasonal allergies in the spring put a large number of Americans at a higher risk for depression.

Adam Kaplin, Johns Hopkins psychiatrist, Suicide Rates Spike in Spring, Not Winter

The Heaviness of Winter

If not summer, forever summer, then where am I? Suspended–time out of time. Numb? Shut down? Maybe just holding my breath. Dylan attempted suicide 5 times, 1 suicide attempt per month, January through May. Here, now, in the midst of our very real cold January freeze where it is 7 degrees, I feel the same. There is no sap running through my trunk. I’m dormant for winter, hollow, carved out, stark against the full on-front of winter’s attack.

There is no sap running through my trunk. I’m dormant for winter, hollow, carved out, stark against the full-on front of winter’s attack.

Beth Brown, My Forever Son

A Not-Quite-Anything Season

But I’m okay in this strange kind of not-quite-anything season. I’m okay because this is what it is. Because I cannot change this–the mammoth drudge of winter, the enormity of nature and earth and life cycles. This is what I must endure, come through, hunker down in, carve out a life in. This season now, this passing the through my own death-birth cycle.

Reconstructing A Self

I died in summer 2012 when Dylan died, and I am busy reconstructing a self hearty enough to endure and live out the rest of my “seasons” without my son. And so it is winter–and please God and oh no–don’t bring me through all those living nightmare of Dylan’s 5 suicide attempts, psych wards, medications, doctors, treatment centers, critical care units, ER rooms, breathing tubes, ad infinitum.

But in the end, what choice have I? None really, save to do what brings me a sensible calm and some semblance of peace and connection. I live right here, right now, just for this moment in time, in nature, in whatever season it is. Tonight it is the season of cold. I am headed out to meet a friend for tea.

Why Suicides Spike in Spring and Summer

I believe that those who may have spent the winter depressed find themselves, in the spring, still depressed, but with the energy and motivation to take their own life.

I also think spring is particularly tough for people who are depressed because after a largely solitary winter, those people emerge into a world full of rebirth, rejuvenation and revelry. In contrast, they feel dark and sad.

Adam Kaplin, Johns Hopkins psychiatrist, Suicide Rates Spike in Spring

Summer, Forever Summer

But summer? I have not yet reconciled summer. I dread even thinking about it, hold my breath when others mention it, still practice avoidance. I hate Summer. Summer took my son.

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Beth Brown, Author

About the Author

Beth Brown is a writer, educator, and bereaved mother who shares her journey of healing after losing her only son, Dylan, to suicide. Through poetry, essays, and her blog My Forever Son, Beth offers comfort and hope to others navigating grief, honoring the enduring bond between parent and child and celebrating the small joys that illuminate the path toward healing.

Meet the Author: Writing Through the Abyss

by Beth Brown

There are places that cannot be mapped, only entered—terrains of loss where language falters and the heart, stripped of its certainties, must learn to speak again. I am Beth Brown, a mother whose son, Dylan, died by suicide at twenty. My life, once measured by the ordinary rhythms of teaching literature and nurturing a child, was pierced in two: before and after. In the aftermath, I found myself wandering a wilderness where time bent, memory ached, and the world’s colors dimmed to the hush of grief.

On baby’s breath and angel wings,
You bring me love yet still,
— “On Baby’s Breath and Angel Wings”

I did not choose to become a chronicler of sorrow, but grief, relentless and unbidden, pressed its ink into my hands. I wrote because I could not bear the silence. I wrote because the ache demanded witness. In poetry, I found a way to hold both the weight of absence and the persistence of love—a language for the unspeakable, a vessel for memory, a place where my son’s name could still be spoken.

He left too soon,
Lifting life from June,
Casting torrents of rain.
— “He Left Too Soon”

There are nights when the world tilts, and I am returned to the moment of loss, the fracture that remade me. Yet even in the deepest dark, I have learned to listen for the faint music of hope, the pulse of love that endures beyond death.

Beat still my heart,
Beat still my mind,
Weary though thou art,
Carry his love along with thine,
Though heavy on thy shoulders
Crost fields throughout all time.
— “Beat Still My Heart”

My poems are not answers. They are offerings—fragments of a life lived in the shadow of absence, pieced together with longing and the fierce, unyielding devotion of a mother’s heart. They are the record of a journey through the labyrinth of grief, where each turn reveals both the ache of what is lost and the quiet radiance of what remains.

My child sleeps in a cradle of stars,
Gently rocked by the moon
Lullabies in his heart,
Heavens in galaxies swirl round to the sound
Of a mother and child’s love beating on.

Meteor showers, on the darkest of nights,
Bring comfort and joy to my child’s delight,
Aurora Borealis tints sky blue and green,
Where my child remembers his mother in dreams.

–“Falling Stars in a Moonless Sky”

There are questions that haunt the bereaved: Could I have known? Could I have saved you? The mind circles these unanswerable riddles, but the heart, battered and tender, learns to rest in the mystery.

I’d have reached right in to your dark night’s soul—
I would have held on, I would have clutched you,
I would have never let you go
But you told me “Mom I love you”
Oh my child, if I’d only known.
— “Once Upon a Blue-Sky Moon”

In the landscape of loss, I have discovered that love is not diminished by death. It is transformed—becoming both ache and solace, shadow and light, the filament that binds the living to the lost.

Body, mind, soul, rough and ragged,
Weeping tears falling still throughout time,
Carrying weight of mourning and grieving
Falling broken when thou wert mine.
— “Beat Still My Heart”

I write for those who walk this wilderness with me—for the mothers and fathers, siblings and friends, whose lives have been marked by the unthinkable. My hope is that in these poems, you will find not only the echo of your own sorrow, but also the quiet assurance that you are not alone.

Starlight for a mobile twinkling ‘ere so bright,
To remember his mother that darkest of nights,
When slipped he from her grasp and fell through this earth,
Tumbling still planets, sun, folding time in rebirth.
— “Falling Stars in a Moonless Sky”

That we might understand we cannot separate mental illness from physical illness and that try as we might, we cannot see inside another’s pain.

–“Ode to Suicide: That We Might Understand”

And how my heart keeps on beating
Is a mystery to all,
For without you beside me
Through life’s depth I crawl.

I live now life backwards
My heart beating in time,
To the life that we lived
When you, child, were mine.

Try as I might
I can’t seem to live,
For my dreams all belonged,
To your future forward lived.

—“Bury My Heart”

If you have come here searching for words to companion your grief, I welcome you. My poetry is not a map, but a lantern—casting light on the path we walk, together and alone, toward a horizon where love, undiminished, endures.

But boughs break and love falls through the cracks in the earth,
And the centre can’t hold when orbits, slung far, break their girth,
Gravitational interference, passing stars in the night,
Jetting orbs, falling stars in a moonless sky.
— “Falling Stars in a Moonless Sky”

Grief is wild—untamed, unending, and full of shadows. Yet within its depths, I have found moments of light: a memory, a poem, the gentle rustle of leaves, the warmth of a cup of tea. My words are both ache and love, a testament that even in the deepest sorrow, we can find meaning, connection, and—sometimes—hope. Through poetry, I reach for my son and for all who walk this path. If you find yourself here, know that you are not alone, and that love—like poetry—endures.

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If you wish to read more, my collection, Bury My Heart: 19 Poems for Grief and Healing After Losing a Child to Suicide is available on Amazon Kindle. and many other reflections await you at myforeverson.com.

Bury My Heart

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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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The Story of My Forever Son

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