Grieving For Our Child Who Experienced Mental Health Problem

One of a series of leaflets published by The Compassionate Friends Unanswered questions and feelings of guilt or anger We may have feared the possibility of our child’s death for some time. Alternatively, their death may have been sudden and unexpected. Tragically, suicide is common among people who suffer from serious mental health problems, and our child may have previously tried to take their own life. If they died by suicide, this could have been planned or it could have been impulsive. There are often no warnings or clues that someone is planning to end their life, and they might even have acted as though things were getting better. On the other hand, their death might have been accidental, perhaps a desperate attempt to find a few hours of peace through drugs, alcohol or other means. No matter how our child died, many of us feel guilty, turning over in our minds whether there was anything we could have said or done to prevent what happened or to help with their mental health issues. We may look for explanations – a broken relationship, inadequate mental health treatment, the adverse influence of our child’s friends or other people they had met. We may blame ourselves, wondering whether our parenting, our own relationships or way of life might have contributed to the development of their illness. At times we may feel angry with our child for dying. Such anger might seem illogical, but nevertheless, it is one of the emotions many of us experience in our grief. Questions run endlessly through our minds. Unfortunately, we can rarely find answers or peace in the search. If our child had spent years struggling and suffering, we may sometimes feel relieved that their long nightmare is over.