After Suicide

One of a series of leaflets published by The Compassionate Friends Surviving As the weeks and months pass, and the inquest has taken place, our family will try to pick up the threads of life again. Things will never be the same, but we will arrive at a new normality without our child. We continue to feel the need to tell our story, and we have to discover which family members and close friends are able to support us in the longer term. We are often surprised at people’s responses, and help can come from unexpected quarters. We have to be prepared to lose some friends who are unable to cope with our situation. We will make new friends who can accept us in our grieving state; we seek out other parents who have faced a similar tragedy, and they are able to empathise with us. It may be a good idea to write down our thoughts at this time, even if we show no-one the results; this can be in the form of a diary, an article or a poem. Writing a letter to our child, expressing our feelings, can also be part of the healing process. If our son or daughter has died in the family home, we may be given advice by well-meaning relatives or friends to move house. We must think very carefully before making any major changes. A move may not stop the flashbacks that we endure after that dreadful event, and sometimes familiar surroundings filled with memories of happier times may help sustain us in our grief journey. It is generally accepted that a death by suicide is one of the most difficult bereavements to cope with. For those of us who lost a child suddenly in traumatic circumstances and/or after ongoing difficulties, we may find that the intensity of grief continues on and on; we remain in a heightened state of mourning. We may find ourselves in the midst of “complicated grief”. Please see the TCF leaflet on Prolonged and Intense Grief for more on this. Meeting other parents through TCF, or other suicide support groups, who have suffered a loss through suicide will give us strength to carry on: we will be able to talk freely to others in a safe environment. This could be in person and/or via a digital forum. TCF has a private “bereaved by suicide” forum, a Facebook page, and holds supportive events for those who have lost children in this way. (See tcf.org.uk/suicide ) .