Gentle content note: This article discusses suicide, traumatic loss, and complex grief. If you feel activated while reading, please pause, breathe, and come back when you feel ready. If you are in immediate danger or worried about your safety, call or text 988 in the U.S. for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline or use online chat at 988lifeline.org.
I wish no one had to die by suicide, but wishing won’t spare us from sitting with this deeply painful and complex process. I have lost multiple colleagues to mental illness, and the most recent loss has rocked me to my core. I did not expect my beloved colleague to die by suicide, and I think that’s partly because of how capable she seemed and partly because I didn’t know her as deeply as I wish I had.
While I would consider this colleague a friend, she’s not someone I knew intimately. When we were together, I was always in awe of her. She was, quite honestly, one of the most successful people I’ve ever met, and by far the most successful woman in mental health that I personally knew. She was a psychiatrist who had created a thriving practice that spanned the state of California and beyond, but beyond that, she somehow managed to be everywhere and do everything. She attended every one of the events we held at our office and sponsored numerous events and retreats, hosted a podcast, facilitated media nights, all while seeing her own clients and overseeing dozens of psychiatrists. And these are just a few of her professional activities. She was also an involved partner and parent, speaking about her family with great pride and love. The pedestal I put her on kept me from knowing her as well as I wish I had, which is one of the many regrets I still live with.
In my last memory of her, I was at a retreat she had created for group practice owners, a retreat that I had come to early. She had invited me to join her and her friends for the evening before the other guests arrived, and they all spoke to her with such love and admiration; she seemed so buoyant and full.
All of this made the shock of her death even harder to reconcile. When I learned that she had died by suicide, I was convinced that everyone was mistaken. I want to be clear that I am not a stranger to suicidality or death by suicide. I have worked with countless dear clients who have struggled with thoughts of suicide and have lost a client early in my career, who I still think of and hold in my heart. I am someone who is open about my own struggles with depression, which have included frequent thoughts of death and suicide. But this colleague did not look like she was struggling, and I did not know that she had ever struggled. After her death, I felt blindsided and regretful and angry, both with myself, and at times, with her. Her death showed me my own vulnerability, something I had staunchly denied, and my own blind spots.
After her death, I began working with three other mental health providers to create a peer support group for providers. This was born from our shared grief, and we hoped to make space for folks in our field to show up in their most human forms and to be held, too. We just had our first event last week, and it was incredible and moving. Afterwards, we talked about how we knew it was something she would have loved, with smiles on our faces. And then during my drive home, I broke down and cried and cried, because this act of love did not undo my grief. It did not bring her back to us. And I realized that I wasn’t being honest with myself before about acknowledging that that’s what I wanted most of all.
I’m still in the thick of this grief, and maybe that’s exactly why I want to offer something to others who are too. My beloved colleague’s death taught me that suicide doesn’t discriminate based on success, profession, or how put-together someone appears. It reminded me that even those of us who work in mental health are not immune to mental illness or to missing the signs in people we care about. Grief is never simple, but grief after someone dies by suicide has its own particular weight and complications.
What Is Complicated Grief, And How Does It Present After Suicide?
Grief is a natural response to love. For many people, feelings of grief gradually soften and become integrated into daily life over time. However, sometimes grief can remain intense, persistent, and disruptive. When this happens, it may be classified as complicated grief or complex grief. This can show up as relentless yearning, intrusive thoughts about the death, avoidance of reminders, and a sense that life cannot move forward. Research indicates that about 10-20 percent of people who are bereaved experience complicated grief. The rates are higher after a suicide loss, which is associated with a greater risk for persistent symptoms and functional impairment compared to other forms of bereavement.
Suicide grief is layered and disorienting. Alongside sadness and longing, people carry guilt, shame, anger, rejection, confusion, and the shock of trauma. Research describes suicide loss as a qualitatively different experience, which helps explain why profound sorrow can feel so consuming and why the usual supports may not be enough.
What deepens the complexity is the context around the loss: unanswerable “why” questions, a sense of ambiguous loss, sudden or violent circumstances that overwhelm the nervous system, self-blame that takes hold, and stigma that can silence support in families and communities. These layers make it harder for mind and body to find footing, which is why suicide-informed care is especially helpful and important.
There is no single timeline. Some studies suggest it can take years, often three to five, before grief settles. Integration does not mean forgetting; it means learning to carry both pain and joy at the same time, and letting memories stretch beyond the final moments.
How Do Stigma And Silence Shape This Grief?
Silence surrounds suicide loss. People avoid the word itself and reach for euphemisms instead. Messages go unanswered. Even certain rituals that used to bring comfort can feel complicated after a suicide. Experts call this disenfranchised grief, a kind of grief that is not fully recognized or supported. Across multiple studies, people bereaved by suicide report higher levels of shame, judgment, and pressure to conceal the cause of death compared with other bereavements. That forced isolation can delay healing and increase the risk of depression, post-traumatic stress symptoms, prolonged grief, and suicidal thoughts.
Changing this begins with plain language and presence. It can help to work on saying “suicide” without lowering your voice. You can ask others how they are holding up today, or check in with yourself. Sitting with others while sorting the mail or making dinner. Sharing resources if it feels right, but not assuming readiness. These small gestures matter because they communicate that grief does not need to be hidden. Belonging and safe disclosure buffer depression and prolonged grief over time, and can lower risk for some of the complications that follow suicide loss.
Why Do We Blame Ourselves After Suicide Loss?
Our minds are wired to protect us by searching for patterns that help us make sense of the world. After a suicide, that instinct can become an exhausting hunt for answers. People describe replaying conversations, scanning for signs, and bargaining with imagined do-overs. Research shows this drive to understand is common, and it often pairs with overestimating one’s responsibility. Even among people already seeking help for complicated grief, suicide-bereaved mourners report more self-blame and worse work and social functioning than others, which suggests that self-blame is not just common, but a treatment target in its own right.
Another layer is the sense of abandonment or rejection by the person who died. Parents, partners, children, and close friends may ask why their bond was not enough. It is a devastating question, and it comes from love. It also comes from a misunderstanding of suicide itself. This question can be especially painful and confusing for children and young people who have lost a parent or sibling to suicide. Young people may carry these questions for years, often without the language or support to process them. If you are a young person reading this, please know: your love mattered, and the death was not your fault. You deserved better circumstances, and you deserve support now.
Studies consistently find that suicide is most often linked to diagnosable mental health or substance use disorders. Conditions like depression, bipolar disorder, and trauma can distort perception and narrow options until death feels like the only way out. When someone reaches that place, no amount of love or care, however deep, can erase the illness itself. The death was not about the strength of the bond. It happened because of illness and suffering that were larger than any relationship.
That does not make your love any less important. On the contrary, it matters profoundly. The compassion you offered was real, even if it could not prevent the outcome. A painful but necessary reframing is learning to separate caring for someone from controlling their choices. Self-blame loosens when this distinction lands in the body and not just the mind.
How Does Suicide Grief Move, And How Do We Move With It?
Grief moves in waves. Anniversaries, holidays, birthdays, and firsts can send you falling through air. An ordinary afternoon with no obvious triggers can surprise you, too. But none of it means that you are back at the beginning of your grieving process. It just means that grief is nonlinear, and your nervous system is still doing its best to protect you. The mind toggles between confronting pain and taking breaks from it. Most models of grief now honor that natural back-and-forth. Suicide grief follows the same movement, with more spikes from trauma and stigma layered in.
Healing is never about fully getting over it. It is about carrying the love and the loss at the same time and learning how to regulate when you’re getting pulled under. The goal many survivors describe is integration. Memories that stretched only to the final hours begin to widen again. A song evokes an entire life, not only the end. People speak their loved one’s name and notice that their throat is beginning to soften more.
Meaning can begin to grow here, too. Some people find greater empathy and patience for themselves and for others. Some step toward advocacy and community care. Some deepen relationships and rediscover appreciation for the ordinary. Guided meaning-making has been linked with lower complicated grief and more post-traumatic growth in suicide-bereaved people, because rituals, narratives, and legacy projects become places where love can live.
There is no right way to grieve your loved one who took their life. Anger may sit beside relief. Guilt may wash over a morning that started with laughter. Fear may arrive when you are trying to sleep. Take the time you need. Anticipate tender dates when possible. Let others know that those days may be different. Let yourself be different on those days too.
What Routines, Tools, And Rituals Can Make Things More Manageable?
Support Groups
Many people describe suicide bereavement support groups as the first spaces where they did not have to explain themselves. They feel less pressure to defend their grief, and with that, shame lightens. Peer groups and suicide-loss resources can improve well-being and grief, and national directories make it easy to find one in person or online.
Seek Therapy
Therapists with experience in suicide loss can help separate stigma from sorrow and address suicide-specific themes like self-blame and perceived rejection with care. A public health approach to postvention suggests that layered supports work best.
Building Community And Belonging
Studies connect belongingness and safe self-disclosure to lower depression and prolonged grief over time. Building a support network does not need to be grand. Identify the safe people who can sit with your story without trying to fix it. And be specific about needs with them. You might ask for a ride to a support group, a weekly walk, or someone to handle a grocery run when sleep has been hard.
Emotional Regulation Tools
Emotional regulation tools are helpful in every avenue of life, and especially so in grief. Grounding practices that bring you back to the present can soften the sharp edges of intrusion and hyperarousal. Slow breathing with longer exhales nudges the body toward a calmer state. Noticing five things you can see, four you can touch, three you can hear, two you can smell, and one you can taste can bring you back to the room when images crowd in. Journaling can create a container for rumination so that thoughts stop running in your head. These skills do not replace treatment for trauma or depression when needed, but they can support the nervous system while you seek care.
Taking Care Of Your Body
The body needs tending too. Sleep may be very difficult, and your appetite may disappear or surge. Gentle movement can steady mood and sleep quality. Routine medical care helps catch the health effects that often follow prolonged stress. A large meta-analysis outside the suicide-specific literature linked social isolation and loneliness with higher early mortality and worse cardiovascular outcomes. This is why tending to your physical health is part of tending to your grief.
Meaningful Rituals
Rituals give love a place to go. Memory-keeping projects, private or shared, can anchor a day that would otherwise be unbearable. Some people write letters or cook their person’s favorite meal. Others tend a garden, make a playlist, volunteer, or join a remembrance walk. Meaning-oriented interventions show pathways to lower complicated grief and greater post-traumatic growth, and many older adults in qualitative studies say that accessible roles in community, volunteering, and spiritual or cultural spaces provide purpose that eases loneliness and shame after suicide loss.
Setting and Maintaining Boundaries
Boundaries help you protect your emotional well-being, especially around people who might judge or minimize. You are allowed to choose what to share and when. You are allowed to say no to events that feel unsafe. You are allowed to ask others not to speculate about the death in front of you. Early experiences with professionals after a suicide can shape the road ahead, so it is appropriate to request kind, accurate language and practical support from the people who are supporting you.
When Is It Time To Seek Professional Help?
Please reach out to a professional if suicidal thoughts are persistent or feel hard to shake. Reach out if daily life has collapsed and you cannot find your footing. Reach out if substances are carrying you through most days. Reach out if depression or anxiety has settled in for months, or if you notice you are avoiding every reminder and your world keeps shrinking. While these are understandable responses to an unbearable loss, they are also signals that additional support may be needed.
There are effective options. Complicated Grief Therapy (CGT) is the most supported targeted treatment for complicated grief, including after suicide loss. In studies, people bereaved by suicide who received CGT completed treatment at high rates and showed meaningful improvement.
Trauma-focused therapies can be important when post-traumatic stress is involved, and standard care for depression and anxiety still applies. Tailoring the work to suicide-specific themes like self-blame, perceived rejection, and stigma makes the care fit the person rather than the other way around.
Please know that seeking help is a strength. It is a way of choosing your life in the aftermath of an event you did not choose.
Crisis resources: If you are in immediate distress or worried about your safety, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. You can also use online chat through 988. If you are outside the United States, look for local crisis lines through your national health services.
At Take Root Therapy, we walk with people through suicide bereavement and complex grief. Our team is experienced in complicated grief treatment and trauma-informed care, and we can help you find survivor groups, build a support plan that fits your life, and work gently with self-blame, stigma, and the shock that follows suicide loss. If you are reading this and want support, reach out. We would be honored to sit with you and your grief.