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Aug 5, 2022 · In the aftermath of a loved one's suicide, you might feel like you can't go on or that you'll never enjoy life again. In truth, you might always wonder why it happened — and reminders might trigger painful feelings even years later. Eventually, however, the raw intensity of your grief will fade.
- Brace For Powerful EmotionsA loved one's suicide can trigger intense emotions. For example: 1. Shock. Disbelief and emotional numbness might set in. You might think that your...
- Adopt Healthy Coping StrategiesThe aftermath of a loved one's suicide can be physically and emotionally exhausting. As you work through your grief, be careful to protect your own...
- Know When to Seek Professional HelpIf you experience intense or unrelenting anguish or physical problems, ask your doctor or mental health provider for help. Seeking professional hel...
Coping After Suicide Loss. Every year, hundreds of thousands of people die by suicide. Each one, research suggests, leaves behind an average of 6 to 10 “survivors”—spouses, parents, children ...
- Why is losing someone to suicide so uniquely painful?Like any loved one’s death, suicide triggers deep feelings of grief and loss. Someone who has experienced a recent death, from any cause, may feel...
- Why didn’t I know how much my loved one was suffering?After someone dies by suicide, the survivors who are left behind often find themselves overwhelmed by guilt. Thoughts like “Why didn’t I know he...
- Why am I feeling so many confusing emotions?After a loved one’s suicide, it’s common to feel a veritable smorgasbord of emotions: many survivors report feeling devastated, furious, relieved,...
- I feel incredibly angry at my loved one for deciding to kill themselves. Is this normal?Yes. Many survivors of suicide loss feel immense anger toward their loved one—for abandoning them, for causing them such awful pain, or for not t...
- Is it OK to feel relief after a loved one’s suicide?Many who die by suicide spent many months or years prior struggling with serious mental health issues, substance abuse, or other ongoing challenges...
- Is it possible to develop PTSD from a loved one’s suicide?Suicide survivors are at heightened risk of developing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder after their loved one’s suicide. This may be espe...
- Is it normal to have suicidal thoughts after a loved one dies by suicide?Sadly, research has found that suicide survivors are at a heightened risk of taking their own lives . Immense grief can trigger the feelings of de...
- Where can I get help after a loved one’s suicide?Family and friends can be of great help to a suicide survivor’s recovery—offering both emotional and practical support (cooking meals, taking care...
- Why should I visit a suicide support group?Visiting a support group —and hearing others’ stories of love, loss, and healing—can be an effective weapon against the pervasive feeling of isola...
- Overview
- 1. Suicide is more complex than a ‘decision’
- 2. We’re often very, very conflicted
- 3. We didn’t want to hurt you
- 4. We knew we were loved
- 5. It’s not your fault
How we see the world shapes who we choose to be — and sharing compelling experiences can frame the way we treat each other, for the better. This is a powerful perspective.
It was a late January afternoon in 2018, just two days after I had major surgery. Drifting in and out of a painkiller haze, I leaned over to check my phone. There on the screen, I saw a text message from my best friend’s mom: “Call 911.”
That marked the beginning of my endless free fall through grief. That night, my gorgeous friend, whose laughter could light up the darkest room, died in a hospital bed after attempting to take their own life.
A shock wave went through our entire community. And as loved ones struggled to understand what had happened, everyone around me kept asking the question: How could something like this happen?
That was a question I didn’t need to ask, though. Because nearly a decade ago, I, too, had attempted suicide.
It didn’t make the grief any less painful, of course. I still had countless moments of self-blame, confusion, and despair. But it wasn’t as incomprehensible as it was to everyone else, because it was a struggle I knew too well.
People who attempt suicide aren’t always convinced it’s the only option. It’s more often that they have exhausted their emotional reserves to continue pursuing those options. It is, in many ways, the ultimate state of burnout.
That state of burnout doesn’t happen overnight, either.
In order to attempt suicide, a person has to be in the neurological state where they can override their own survival instincts. At that point, it’s an acute state — not totally unlike a heart attack or other medical crisis.
A person has to have reached a point when they feel their capacity for emotional pain has outweighed the amount of time they’re able to wait for relief, at the same moment when they have access to the means to end their life.
The thing I often tell loss survivors is that a suicide attempt isn’t unlike a “freak accident” — because a lot of little things have to align (in a really terrible way, yes) for suicide to happen.
The very fact that someone can progress that far is a much stronger reflection of the state of mental health in our country.
A lot of loss survivors look at their loved one’s suicide and ask me, “What if they didn’t want this?”
But it’s rarely that simple. It’s much more likely that they were conflicted, which is why being suicidal is such a confusing state to be in.
Imagine a scale being tipped back and forth until one side is finally outweighed by the other — a trigger, a moment of impulsivity, a window of opportunity that disrupts the precarious balance that allowed us to survive.
That back-and-forth is exhausting, and it muddles our judgment.
This quote helps capture this inner conflict: “We are not our thoughts — we’re the people listening to them.” Suicidal thoughts, once they snowball, can become an avalanche that drowns out the part of us that would otherwise choose differently.
It’s not that we aren’t conflicted, so much as the suicidal thoughts are so incredibly loud.
Personal disclosure: When I attempted suicide, there absolutely were moments when all I could think about were the people I loved.
When my then-boyfriend dropped me off at home that night, I stood motionless in the driveway and tried to memorize every single detail of his face. I really believed in that moment that it would be the last time I saw him. I watched his car until it was completely out of sight. That’s the last memory I have of that night that’s clear and distinct.
I even staged my attempt to look like an accident, because I didn’t want the people I loved to believe I had done it on purpose. I didn’t want them to blame themselves, and by staging it, I did what little I could — in my mind — to lessen their suffering.
I did know, on some level, that my death would be painful for the people I loved. I can’t articulate how heavily that weighed on my heart.
But after a certain point, when you feel like you’re burning alive, all you can think of is how to put the fire out as quickly as possible.
When I did finally attempt, I was so dissociated and had such severe tunnel vision that much of that evening is entirely blacked out in my mind. Suicide attempts are often as much an emotional event as they are a neurological one.
A suicide attempt doesn’t necessarily mean someone didn’t believe they were loved.
It doesn’t mean your loved one didn’t know you cared or believed they wouldn’t get the unconditional acceptance and care that you (without a doubt) had to offer.
I wish that love alone could be enough to keep someone here with us.
When my friend died, we had to have two memorials because of the sheer number of lives they touched. They packed an entire lecture hall at the local university, and it was so at capacity that there was barely standing room. There was also a drag show in their honor, and I’m pretty sure that bar was so packed, we must have violated every fire safety code in the city of Oakland.
And that was just on the West Coast. It says nothing of what happened in New York, where they’re originally from.
If love were enough, we would see much fewer deaths by suicide. And I know — believe me, I do — how painful it is to accept that we can love someone to the moon and back (hell, to Pluto and back), and that’s still not enough to make them stay. If only, if only.
I’m not going to pretend I haven’t blamed myself for my friend’s suicide. I’m also not going to pretend I didn’t do that as recently as yesterday.
It’s easy to fall down the rabbit hole of rumination, wondering what we could’ve done differently. It’s gut-wrenching but also, in some ways, comforting, because it deludes us into thinking that we had some kind of control over the outcome.
Wouldn’t the world feel so much safer if it were possible to save everyone we loved? To spare them from their suffering with the right words, the right decisions? That, through sheer force of will, we could save everyone. Or at the very least, the people we can’t imagine our lives without.
I believed that for a long time. I really did. I’ve written publicly about mental health and suicide for the last five years, and I truly believed that, if someone I loved was in trouble, they would know — without question — they could call me.
My sense of safety was shattered when I lost one of my best friends. Even as someone who works in mental health, I missed the signs.
It’s still an ongoing process for me to fully surrender to the fact that no one — no matter how smart, how loving, how determined they might be — can keep someone alive.
Downloadable Resources. To access and share this information, use the following downloadable PDFs. Suicide Grief: Making Meaning Out of Loss. This flyer provides coping strategies for people who have been touched by suicide. Providing Support to Someone Experiencing Suicide Loss. This flyer discusses appropriate ways to comfort suicide survivors.
The emotions that follow a suicide attempt can vary widely—from relief and hopefulness to sadness, anger, or regret. Some suicide survivors report feeling immediate second thoughts after...
Search Encyclopedia. Navigating Life After a Loved One's Suicide. Grief is complicated. You may have many different feelings at once. It can be long-lasting, too. Grieving the death of someone who died by suicide is in many ways like other forms of grief.
The immediate aftermath of a loved one’s suicide is a challenging, confusing, and painful time. The information below will help get you through the first few days with a better understanding of the things you’re likely to face. On this page. Sign up for email alerts. Receive updates from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Subscribe.
