Surviving After a Suicide Loss
A suicide loss support group in Naples, Florida
When you lose a loved one to suicide, you can feel completely lost in your pain and grief. You may feel you are completely alone with no roadmap to guide you out of your pain. If you remain open, the guide will appear and the words you need to get you through that next moment, that next day show up when you need them most.
When we lose a loved one to suicide, one of the many questions we grapple with is where are they? Some survivors have found comfort and understanding through listening to stories from people who died and had a near-death experience (NDE) before they were revived. Their experiences share hope and understanding that our loved ones and the love we shared here on earth continues.
It will always be painful, you will always miss and love the person you lost. But the intensity of the pain and the overwhelming preoccupation changes. And that isn't really your choice. It's a natural organic process that you're not in charge of. The only thing you can do is find ways of supporting yourself to navigate that process as it comes through your system. It’s important to allow that to happen.
The best way I can describe grieving over a child as the years go by is to say it’s similar to carrying a stone in your pocket.
Our group member Ted Robbins lost his sixteen-year-old son Christian to suicide this past April. Ted shares that as part of his family's healing they have decided to try and save other kids from losing their life by way of suicide and mental illness.
Holidays are difficult for all who have lost a loved one to suicide but especially hard for the newly bereaved survivor. The tendency is to remember happier holidays spent with all family members present. As the years go by, our loved one's absence is still difficult, but it becomes less overwhelming. Having a plan for… Continue reading Facing the Holidays
We have all heard the instructions of an airline attendant reminding us to put on our own oxygen mask before we help anyone else with theirs. The advice is often cited as a metaphor for self-care because it so accurately expresses why it is important. It seems to say, ironically, that if you can’t take… Continue reading Self-Care Makes us Stronger
From The Mighty: Losing the will to live is not always standing on a ledge. It’s not always being in crisis mode (for me anyway). It’s a dull ache in my chest that weighs me down constantly. I might laugh or appear normal, but that ache to disappear is there, underneath. Click below to read more.… Continue reading What it Feels Like to Lose the Will to Live
At the expense of dating myself, there is a children's toy played with back in the day called “A Viewmaster.” You would place a round disc of small pictures on it into this plastic viewer, click a lever to advance the pictures around as you would view them. The Stop Technique will have you select one picture… Continue reading The Stop Technique
Guilt is the one negative emotion that seems to be universal to all survivors of suicide, and overcoming it is perhaps our greatest obstacle 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.… Continue reading Survivor’s Guilt