Historian Arnold Toynbee once wrote, “Two parties always experience a death: the person who dies and the survivors who are bereaved.” Unfortunately, many survivors of suicide grieve alone and in silence. This silence often complicates the healing that comes when others encourage them to mourn.
Because society places stigma on suicide, survivors feel the pain of their loss but may not know how—or even whether—to express it. Yet the only path to healing is to mourn. Like anyone grieving someone they love, suicide survivors need space to talk, cry, and sometimes scream in order to heal.
Fear and misunderstanding often leave survivors of suicide feeling abandoned at the very moment they need unconditional support and compassion. Suicide survivors suffer in several ways. First, they need to mourn the person who died. Second, they must face a sudden and often traumatic loss. Third, they are frequently shunned by a society that refuses to enter into the pain of their grief.
How Can You Help?
If you want to help a friend or family member who has experienced the death of someone loved from suicide, this article will guide you in ways to turn your cares and concerns into positive action.
Accept the Intensity of the Grief
Grief after a suicide is always complex. Survivors don’t simply “get over it.” Instead, they learn to accept its reality with support and understanding. Do not be surprised by the intensity of their feelings. They may feel overwhelmed by grief when they least expect it. Accept that they may struggle with explosive emotions, guilt, fear, and shame. These reactions often go far beyond what people experience after other types of death. Be patient. Be compassionate. Be understanding.
Listen with Your Heart
Assisting suicide survivors requires you to break the painfully heavy silence around them. You help most effectively when you choose to be an active listener. Your presence and your willingness to listen without judgment serve as powerful tools. In fact, your willingness to listen offers the best support to someone who needs to talk.
The survivor’s thoughts and feelings may feel frightening or hard to express. Do not worry about finding the perfect words. Instead, focus on the words they share with you.
Your friend may repeat the story of the death many times. Listen closely each time. Understand that repetition plays an important role in healing. Simply listen and offer understanding. And remember, you do not need to provide answers to their questions. Your listening is enough.
Avoid Simplistic Explanations and Clichés
Words, particularly clichés, can be extremely painful for a suicide survivor. Clichés are trite comments often intended to diminish the loss by providing simple solutions to difficult realities. Comments like, “You are holding up so well,” “Time will heal all wounds,” “Think of what you still have to be thankful for” or “You have to be strong for others” are not constructive. Instead, they hurt and make a friend’s journey through grief more difficult.
Be certain to avoid passing judgment or providing simplistic explanations of the suicide. Don’t make the mistake of saying the person who suicided was “out of his or her mind.” Informing a survivor that someone they loved was “crazy or insane” typically only complicates the situation. Suicide survivors need help in coming to their own search for understanding of what has happened. In the end, their personal search for meaning and understanding of the death is what is really important.
Be Compassionate
Give your friend permission to express his or her feelings without fear of criticism. Learn from your friend. Don’t instruct or set explanations about how he or she should respond. Never say, “I know just how you feel.” You don’t. Think about your helping role as someone who “walks with,” not “behind” or “in front of” the one who is bereaved.
Familiarize yourself with the wide spectrum of emotions that many survivors of suicide experience. Allow your friend to experience all the hurt, sorrow and pain that he or she is feeling at the time. And recognize tears are a natural and appropriate expression of the pain associated with the loss.
Respect the Need to Grieve
People often ignore the parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, spouses, and children of those who died by suicide. This happens because families sometimes keep the death a secret. When people cannot speak openly about the death, the wounds of grief cannot heal.
As a caring friend, you may be the only person willing to stay close to the survivors. Your presence and your willingness to listen give them a foundation for healing. Allow the survivors to talk, but do not push them. Sometimes you may sense that they need space. If you notice this, step back and wait. Let them know you are ready to listen whenever they feel prepared to share their thoughts and feelings.
Understand the Uniqueness of Suicide Grief
Keep in mind that suicide survivors face a unique form of grief. No one reacts to the death of a loved one in exactly the same way. Although survivors may move through similar phases of grief, each person responds differently and carries the influence of their own life experiences.
Because this grief is unique, show patience. The grieving process takes time, so let your friend move at his or her own pace. Also, avoid criticizing behaviors that seem inappropriate to you. Remember that a suicide death shatters a person’s world. As a result, your friend actively works to rebuild life after an emotional collapse.
Be Aware of Holidays and Anniversaries
Survivors of suicide may have a difficult time during special occasions like holidays and anniversaries. These events emphasize the absence of the person who has died. Respect this pain as a natural expression of the grief process. Learn from it. And, most importantly, never try to take the hurt away.
Use the name of the person who has died when talking to survivors. Hearing the name can be comforting and it confirms that you have not forgotten this important person who was so much a part of their lives.
Be Aware of Support Groups
Support groups are one of the best ways to help survivors of suicide. In a group, survivors can connect with other people who share the commonality of the experience. They are allowed and encouraged to tell their stories as much, and as often, as they like. You may be able to help survivors locate such a group. This practical effort on your part will be appreciated.
Respect Faith and Spirituality
If you allow it, a suicide survivor will teach you how they feel about faith and spirituality. If faith plays a role in their life, let them express it in whatever way feels right to them. And if they feel angry at God, encourage them to talk openly about that anger.
Remember, feeling angry at God still reflects a relationship with God. Therefore, avoid judging. Be a caring and supportive friend.
Survivors may also need to explore how religion has complicated their grief. For example, they may have learned that people who die by suicide are condemned to hell. Your role is not to explain theology. Instead, you should listen and learn. In every situation, your presence and your willingness to listen without judgment remain essential helping tools.
Work Together as Helpers
Friends and family who experience the death of someone to suicide must no longer suffer alone and in silence. As helpers, you need to join with other caring persons to provide support and acceptance for survivors who need to grieve in healthy ways.
To experience grief is the result of having loved. Suicide survivors must be guaranteed this necessity. While the above guidelines will be helpful, it is important to recognize that helping a suicide survivor heal will not be an easy task. You may have to give more concern, time and love than you ever knew you had. But this effort will be more than worth it.
