Suicide grief emotions

Please remember that everyone grieves differently and there is NO right way to grieve. This is a guide of some of the emotions you may experience. This list is not all inclusive and there are so many personal emotions involved in a suicide death. Use this as a guideline for what you are experiencing. Emotions do not happen in any particular order and/or at any frequency. You may go in and out of feelings over different periods of time. We don't like to call them stages like the text- book. These are raw emotions.

suicide grief has so many emotions

the why's

searching

the why's

You ask yourself and others why did they do it. You focus so much time on what made them do this and try to figure out the reason.

guilt

searching

the why's

Why didn't I catch this? I should have done this and that and the other thing all these years. Remembering things or situations you wish you could change.

searching

their personal items

Looking for traces of things and evidence leading up to the act. Searching their electronics, bedrooms and in personal items for clues or the last conversations and texts.

their personal items

Every time I walk past their room I get so much anxiety. I cry and sit in thier room. I don't know what to do with any of these items forever and I need to close the door until I am ready to go in.

anger

their personal items

depression

I am so mad they they left me like this. They didn't say goodbye. How could they do this to me. They didn't love me enough.

depression

their personal items

depression

Alone with your thoughts. Lack of motivation for the things you used to love. Everything is a chore, My body hurts. I don't want to do anything. I feel numb.

shock/denial

Is this real? I think they will come back. I wonder if this is a dream. It doesn't seem like it's hit me yet.

bargaining

shock/denial

If I would have been better, they wouldn't of done it. I will make a deal with myself if I act a certain way I will feel better. I can't accept this. I feel out of control.

acceptance

shock/denial

forgiveness

I am able to accept that this happened. I am going to look for ways to move on but I know I have to do everything differently.

forgiveness

I forgive you. I know you didn't mean to hurt me. This was your choice. You are not defined by what you did.

Dear Alex

a letter to my son who died by suicide. writing letters to release emotions is so healing.

Dear Alex,

I will love you even after my last breath and I hope you will be the first soul I see when I get there. I imagine your soft blond hair and your brown eyes that always saw me, the real me. I remember your hands. Your fingers were long, and your skin was soft. You had the feet of your biological father but your heart, that heart you had. It was mine. Too big, I think. I don’t think you could handle everything that was in it.

Do you know I can imagine your hug? I was lucky to get one almost every day. There was love in our home and our hearts. You were the kind of kid who said I love you when we would part, even if you were surrounded by your friends. That meant something and I was proud of that. That kindness I instilled in you. You had it and you were good at it and it came natural. You had this way about you. A way that made me feel so calm when you were around. I could even feel you when you weren’t there. A connection that few allow themselves to ever experience. I think you did that for alot of people. I think you were an angel on earth. I think you are my guardian angel now. It’s a big price to pay for me to have a guardian angel like you. It means I lost you on the land dimension. It means I have to look for you deep. I have to dig down and tell myself you are still here, even if sometimes I just don’t feel it. And in all your goodness was pain. You had a quick temper, you were impulsive, and you were hurt so easily. I don’t think many people knew that about you, the being hurt easily part.

Do you know that after you died people I didn’t even know you knew reached out to me to tell me how much of an influence you had in their lives? Kids that moved to the area and you were their first friend, people who met you and they knew there was something about you and so many told me you could make them laugh during their worst moments even if they didn’t want to laugh. People got tattoos for you.

I’m proud of you son. And there’s the ones with their own stories that aren’t theirs to tell. Only you know why. Why? Only you know the lies vs. the truth. I guess they’ll just have to sit with that. It’s not my burden to bare. Even in your death I’m proud of you. You did what you did but your mom, I try not to see you that way. I pick away at every bit of goodness you were because that’s the best part. The best part of me that I continue to carry. I will always be your biggest fan and I will always be the one to love you like no one else can. When I get there, the pain that I feel now won’t matter. I promise. Two souls will be joined again. Two people with the same kind of something. I feel you baby. I feel everything that’s left for me. It’s been over 2 years. I hate that. I really hate that.

I love you,

Mom