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Home |News |Guest blogs Guest blogs At The Compassionate Friends we know that different things work for different people at different times with their loss and grief. You will find below individuals' blogs outlining what has

Years ago, as a newly qualified CBT therapist in the NHS, I was allocated a patient whose notes filled me with dread and anxiety. Two years previously, this patient had lost her son to suicide. I wondered what I could possibly offer this poor woman

With my son’s death, I have come to the painful understanding that he has given me a gift. More than any other I have received, I didn’t expect it and didn’t want it. But I have it now and cannot return it. It is beholden upon me,

If you have recently lost your darling precious child - this is for you…I’ve written a blog for newly bereaved parents because I was that mum not so long ago. I’ve tried to write what I needed to read because it helps to know how

“I can hear your absence in my soul, loud and luminous, sometimes it’s a hushed echo, lingering low and lurking loose but it never fades, it takes a break but it never breaks away.” This is a beautifully written blog about the

People in your life may occasionally say the wrong thing. Some may not fully grasp that you won’t ever get over this and might say something like ‘Time heals all wounds.’...They may talk about their children of a similar

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s eldest son, Nicholas, dies of gastric cancer aged 43.” When I read that headline last weekend, everything around me disappeared and my mind went numb. And then the pain returned. A pain like no other I have ever

I am relieved that ‘letting go’, ‘finding closure’ or ‘getting over’ your loss is no longer an expectation in the way that it once was. Bear this in mind if anyone (friend, acquaintance or

Bereaved siblings have often been called the forgotten mourners, because in the aftermath of a terrible loss they are often the ones whose grief is overlooked. But the sibling relationship is profound, it’s part of how we are formed and who we

All loss is traumatic. But to lose a son or daughter is the most devastating loss – and profoundly traumatic. When our son Joshua died, suddenly and out of the blue, I felt as though I was going crazy, mad with grief. I often felt like