Grief

after Suicide
Grief after suicide
Your grief after a suicide may feel quite different than
the grief you have felt after other kinds of losses.
Usually the death of someone from suicide has a
much more intense and long lasting impact. When
someone you know dies from suicide you struggle
with complex social, emotional and cultural issues
that can make your grief overwhelming and isolating.
You will experience changes and challenges in your
personal relationships, your spiritual beliefs, and
in your concentration and memory. Your emotions
and general health may also become unsettled and
fragile. Grief affects all realms of your life.
Things to know about suicide
• No one thing, person or event leads a person to choose
suicide.
In your grief you will search desperately for a reason why your
loved one chose to die. It is important that you understand that
this act was the result of many factors in this person’s life and not
one particular event or discussion. People who choose suicide feel
completely hopeless about themselves and their lives. Suicide is
seen as the only release from a life full of chaos and despair.
• Often the person who chooses suicide has withdrawn
from friends and family.
Sometimes once a decision about suicide has been made the
person seems preoccupied, remote or even really happy. In the
days before the suicide you may have felt out of touch with this
person, or had trouble reaching them, either in person or by
phone. It is as though life stops before it stops.
• The suicide note only reflects the person’s state of mind
at the time that it was written.
Suicide notes are generally left to: identify or explain the person’s
level of despair; accuse or blame someone else; give away
personal belongings; alleviate any responsibility that others might
assume; or say goodbye. If there was a suicide note you may hope
that it will explain why this happened. However, the person’s
frame of mind when they composed the note doesn’t necessarily
reflect their frame of mind when they developed a plan for suicide
and followed through with it.
• People who die from suicide are not necessarily mentally
ill or from abusive and neglectful families.
Although the person’s mental and social stability is something
that friends and family may question intensely, it is important
not to assume that because the person choose suicide, she was
unloved or ‘crazy’. People who die from suicide are more likely to
be perfectionists who are highly critical of themselves and have
low self-esteem. They often fear that they will not be able to cope
with a major life change or feel that they cannot live up to their
own, or others’ expectations.
Things to know about grief after suicide
Your feelings
• You may experience intense anger.
This may be directed at people whom you perceive to have been
negligent: such as counsellors, friends, doctors, and yourself.
Survivors of suicide often feel in hindsight that they missed or
ignored some earlier call for help or warning signal. It is common
to feel angry with the person who died: it seems now that they
did not value their life and your relationship as you did. You many
now feel angry that they just gave up or that they didn’t consider
how devastating this loss would be for the people who cared
about them.
• You may feel tremendous guilt and blame.
You may feel that something you did or didn’t do contributed
to the despair that they felt when they chose suicide. If your
relationship with the person who died was conflicted you may
accuse yourself of being the cause of their unhappiness. Or you
may have been aware of this person’s history of mental illness or
risky behaviour, such as previous suicide attempts, drug or alcohol
abuse, but given up trying to help them for reasons of your own
health or happiness.
• You may feel ashamed or judged by others.
Many people think that people who die from suicide must have
been mentally ill or from dysfunctional families. Although this isn’t
generally true, some people may still be critical of you and your
family. Others, who genuinely care about you, may stay away
because they don’t know what to say or how to be helpful.
• You may fear that other friends or family will choose
suicide.
When someone you care about makes a choice to die in this
way, you may worry that other people in distress will follow suit.
‘Copycat’ suicides have been a concern in schools and other close
communities.
• You may feel betrayed or abandoned by the person who
died.
You may have thought that they were living a normal and
reasonably happy life. Now, you wonder whether your entire
relationship was based on false beliefs and lies. You may feel hurt
and wonder why they didn’t share their troubles with you.
• You will experience deep sadness.
The feeling that someone you cared about felt hopeless and
desperate enough to believe that suicide was their only option will
magnify your sadness.
• You may feel relief.
If your relationship with them was difficult and draining, part
of you may be relieved that they will no longer be causing you
distress.
• You may feel peace or acceptance.
If they had been suffering for some time and it seemed as
though nothing would ever improve, you may understand their
desperation and their decision.

Your thoughts
• You may make up false stories about what happened.
You may want to say that the person had a heart attack or was
in an accident. This dishonesty may be because of feelings of
shame, discomfort or fear about the reactions of other people.
Rather than protecting yourself and others, this denial keeps
everyone silent and isolated. Family and friends may have some
intuition or suspicion that the death was a suicide, or they will
hear rumours. Telling a false story will only make your grief, and
that of others, more conflicted and prolonged.
• You will be flooded with WHY? questions.
You may have an insatiable need to examine every possible
reason why your loved one chose suicide. You are trying to
answer unanswerable questions, trying to understand how they
could have chosen this traumatic final way to solve their problems.
You may find that the why questions replay over and over in your
head so that you are unable to focus on anything else.
• You may be haunted by thoughts about the death.
Whether you actually witnessed the death or not, you may find
that your mind keeps replaying the moments before, during and
after it took place. You may be thinking about the things that you
saw, smelled or heard, or you could be imagining these details. You
may even want to go to the place of death and try to ‘act out’ the
series of events that occurred. Horrible as this process is, it is normal
and purposeful. Your mind is trying to understand, accept and
desensitize you to what happened.

Your relationships
You may find it difficult to be with other people for a number of
reasons:
• Your friends and family may be uncomfortable with your
grief and so they either stay away or try to cheer you up.
You may think that they couldn’t possibly understand what you
feel and you are finding it very difficult to talk about this loss. The
absence of the friends or family, who can be with you, may feel like
another loss.
• Your grief may be so intense that you are distracted by it.
It may be impossible for you to focus on anything other than this
death. When you are with others you may find that thoughts,
feelings and sensations about the death invade most of your
interactions with others.
• You may think, worry or detect other people blame you or
your family.
Some people may unjustly blame you out of ignorance or their
own suffering. They may be trying to make sense of the death
and wanting to deflect the blame from themselves. Also, if you are
blaming yourself, you may wrongly assume that other people are
too.
• You doubt your ability to see relationships as they really
are.
When someone close to you dies from suicide, you may suffer from
low self-esteem and a lack of confidence in your own judgment. You
may fear that you will experience more hurt if you continue to love
and care about people.
Your spiritual or religious beliefs
• You may fear that suicide will be unforgivable in the eyes
of God or your religious community.
Consequently you may worry about their salvation and fear that
your religious or other spiritual community will also reject or
condemn you because of this death.
• You may find yourself wondering what, if anything, you
believe.
Any spiritual beliefs or values that you previously had may no
longer feel true. Anger and disbelief may make it difficult for you
to find comfort in the spiritual or religious values that you once
held. You may be troubled by the lack of solace you find in the
words of God or other spiritual mentors.
• You may have questions about the value and meaning of
life.
When someone you know dies by suicide, your confidence in
your own perceptions and ideals can by deeply shattered. You
may wonder what your purpose in this life really is and doubt your
ability to meet future challenges.
• You may consider suicide.
The intensity and suffering of your present grief may drive you to
question whether your own life, which now includes the trauma of
this loss, is worth living. You will question how you could endure
so many struggles when it seems these feelings will always be
there. If you are feeling suicidal it is important that you get help
immediately. (See the support and resources section, listed on the
back page of this booklet).

Your body
• You may experience physical pain or discomfort related
to how the person died.
For example, if the person died after an overdose you may feel
nauseous and light-headed. You also may experience physical
symptoms that are characteristic of normal grief. This may include:
nausea, headache, stomachache, chest pains, shortness of breath
or general weakness and fatigue.
Strategies for living with
grief after suicide
• Gather the facts as soon as you are ready.
Because it is likely that you will go over and over the suicide
in your mind, it is important that you have as much concrete
information as possible. It may be necessary to talk with
emergency response personnel, the police or the coroner. You
may want to ask a friend to be with you when you hear this
information.
• Be honest about what happened.
Explore what you believe to be true about your relationship with
the person who died and the reasons for their death.
• Identify people with whom you are able to be honest
and vulnerable.
Usually these are people who won’t grill you for details or
overload you with their own opinions or ‘quick fixes’. You may find
that friends who can share in the questions rather than give you
their answers are most helpful now.
• Talk with others who have experienced a suicide loss.
Sometimes others who have been there or are working through
similar tragedies are able to understand your sorrow and aren’t
threatened by your volatility. Check out whether there is a support
group for suicide grievers in your area. You may also search the
Internet for relevant discussions groups.
• Go over and over the why questions, the suicide note
and anything else, as often as you need to.
Sometimes writing these questions and the answers that you
discover in a journal is helpful. You will come to a time when the
partial answers are enough.
• You may want to see a counsellor.
Sometimes talking things through with an experienced
professional helps. A counsellor will provide you with the safety,
support and information that you need to fully explore and
understand what is happening for you.
• Accept your feelings.
Find helpful ways to express them.
• Understand that your grief will be intense and sustained.
You are struggling to come to terms with a devastating death and
its impact on your life. There is no ‘quick fix’ that will lessen or
speed up your grief journey.
• It is important that you ‘get real’ about guilt and blame.
When someone dies in this way you will struggle with issues of
responsibility, guilt and blame. It might be helpful to make three
lists: one about what the person who died is responsible for,
another about what you are responsible for and another about
what others are responsible for. You may want to share these
lists with a friend who is able to be more objective. The part that
you feel responsible for is the only part that you can do anything
about.
• Find a way to atone for mistakes that you made.
Even if you cannot undo the mistakes that you’ve made, you can
change your behaviour and ask for forgiveness. You may find it
helpful to pray to God, or talk with a spiritual or religious leader in
your community. You may also want to ask the person who died
for forgiveness by writing a letter or doing something that you
believe she would accept as a symbol of your regret or remorse
about what you’ve done.
• When you are ready, forgive yourself.
If you did make mistakes you must ask yourself how long and
hard you deserve to be punished. Is this self-inflicted punishment
serving any useful purpose or does it only keep you stuck in
painful patterns? It may be helpful to create a ritual of self-
forgiveness that helps you to let go of your guilt.
Digital and print resources
Online resources
Living with Suicide
www.pbs.org/weblab/living
Easy to use website sponsored by the Public Broadcasting
Service (PBS). There is information, a place to read other people’s
stories and you can also include your own. This site also has a
message board where you can post a question or struggle that
you are having and other suicide grievers can respond to you.
Surviving Suicide
www.survivingsuicide.com
Site hosted by a suicide bereaved mom. Has a lot of easy to
access information organized by topic. Also provides links to
many other websites for suicide grievers.
Victoria Hospice
Additional information on books, please go to the Bereavement
Resources section of the Victoria Hospice website:
www.victoria.hospice.org/cb_bereavement.html

Book resources for adults

No Time to Say Goodbye: Surviving the Suicide of a Loved
One by Carla Fine
Carla Fine wrote this book after her husband committed suicide
in 1989. She offers her own insights and experience, along with
interviews with other people who have grieved a suicide death.
This book addresses issues that are specific to suicide, such
as stigma and social isolation, as well as the range of powerful
emotions that are likely to follow. There is also an extensive
bibliography and appendix that contain references to other books
and resources.
Healing after the Suicide of a Loved One
by Ann Smolin and John Guinan
These authors rely on their experience in facilitating support
groups to offer a guide for people who are navigating the painful
path of grief after a suicide. There is a chapter devoted to guilt –
the ‘what ifs’ – and other chapters address different emotions and
relationships with the person who has died, as well as challenges
in healing. Recommended readings and resources are included.
Beyond Grief by Carol Staudacher
This book has something for everyone who is grieving or wants
to know about grief. There are general chapters that address the
emotional, physical, social, thought and spiritual struggles that
bereaved people commonly experience. There is also an excellent
chapter on suicide grief.

Book resources for children

After a Suicide: A Workbook for Grieving Kids by the Dougy
Center for Grieving Children
This is an activity book that includes advice from other kids about
how to navigate the journey of grief after a suicide.
But I Didn’t Say Goodbye: For Parents and Professionals
Helping Child Suicide Survivors by Barbara Rubel
This is both a storybook and a workbook for children.
Someone I Loved Died by Suicide: A Story for Child Survivors
and Those Who Care for Them by Doreen Cammarata
This book helps to explain that suicide is not anyone’s fault and
suggests practical ways to cope with grief after suicide.
Living When a Young Friend Commits Suicide by Earl Grollman
This is a book written for teens that are grieving after a suicide
death. It is written in point form and very easy to read. It
addresses most, if not all, of the questions that teens will have
about suicide.
Support and Resources
Hospice Yukon
• Offers supportive services free of charge for individuals facing
life threatening illnesses, as well as support for friends and family
after the death of a loved one. Services include counselling,
support groups and workshops on grieving.
• Phone: (867) 667-7429
• www.hospiceyukon.net
• located at 409 Jarvis Street, Whitehorse

Crisis Services Canada

• 24-hour, confidential and anonymous suicide prevention and
support line.
• 1-833-456-4566
• www.crisisservicescanada.ca

Canadian Virtual Hospice

• Information and support on palliative and end-of-life care,
loss and grief.
• www.mygrief.ca or www.kidsgrief.ca
Depending on your situation, you may be eligible for additional
support services. In Yukon, your family doctor or health care provider
may be able to direct you to services that meet your needs. Your
employer and/or First Nation, as applicable, may have assistance
programs to further support you during this difficult time.

Palliative Care Resource Team

(867) 393-8639
palliativecare@gov.yk.ca

Modified with permission of

Victoria Hospice Society, BC, Canada (2018)
www.victoriahospice.org