Beyond Suicidal Grief: A Postcard from the Other Side

“Be careful when looking for support online,” I tell my clients. “There is enormous value in finding a community of people who are going through your struggle, other people who identify with your pain. But remember: no one posts when they’re feeling good. They just… disappear.

When we experience trauma, we tend to look for witnesses. Was lonely echoes in the darkness, ghosts walking over and over again in the same area. We need people to notice us, listen to us and help us return to the world of the living.

Support groups, online communities, and (I can’t believe I’m saying this) even places like Reddit can save lives.

Sometimes there are very special, everyday people who can provide loving support as you grieve. traumatic loss. They understand the time frame involved, they can handle the level of horror you bring, and they can’t stand your persistent sadness, self-destruction, rageor repetition in person. They don’t make unhelpful word-shaped sounds at you because they’re uncomfortable (“I mean… don’t you think you should just get over it?”). But such people are rare, and because healing is based on connection – a large part of why you need a therapist you can trust – almost everyone I have talked to who has lost siblings Down suicide at one point she looked for support on the Internet. As it turns out, many more survivors than I could have imagined have found it here in my posts.

I am also aware that over the last few years I have done exactly what I warn my clients against: I stopped logging in to post.

From haunted to ghosts

When my brother ended his life, it became the most important event for me for many years. It was the gravity well I circled around, the place my thoughts always returned to, like a speck of dust floating in a drain. The trauma affected my choices, my behavior, and my ability to trust in the lasting good of anything in the world, others, and myself. Bessel van der Kolk, author The body keeps the result, points out that this is often not the case thing it happens to us, but what is it? discovers about ourselves and our humanity that breaks us. There’s a reason he sold so many books: the man knows what he’s talking about.

I didn’t make a sudden decision to stop writing articles or working on mine mourning book. It happened gradually, gradually. The way you slowly grow out of something, like a familiar item of clothing, until one day you realize you haven’t worn it in years. Exploring death, loss, and trauma began to feel less compulsive. Then less naturally.

The loss I had suffered had, over time, unnoticed, become something like this it happened for me, not something that I was. I wouldn’t be who I am without it, but the same is true of many other experiences, terrifying, transcendent, extraordinary and mundane. Birth and death, taxes and tacos.

Perhaps one day I will feel differently and start writing and researching the topic of suicide grief again. It’s complicated. I really appreciate being able to write useful things for people who need something to comfort them, a future to hope for, and simple confirmation that what they’re feeling is normal. I remember how it felt and I will never stop supporting and encouraging anyone stuck in this godforsaken place. But I’ve gotten to the point where at this point I’m deciding not to spend any more time here because now I can choose.

So how do we get to the other side other than through time and maybe therapy?

Growing stronger

I remember that I once participated in a workshop on working with psychotic thinking. (There is a case that traumatic grief and psychosis have a lot in common). The teacher taught us something called “tree painting”, which goes something like this:

Think of yourself as a tree. The trunk, branches, leaves, flowers, everything above the ground are the thoughts in your head, the content of your mind.

On the other hand, the roots underground are part of the body: working with the hands. Creating art. Walking, running, swimming, dancing, playing sports. Throwing a stick to a dog. Baking a batch of cookies and taking them to a friend’s house.

Learning to survive the mind and memories is the key to healing from traumatic grief. But you must remember that by doing this you add weight to the branch. After a while, more thinking, more living in your head, more trying to fix yourself with the same brain that is struggling, creates additional problems. Without strong roots, the tree becomes too heavy to stand.

Here in New Zealand there is a native tree called pohutukawa. It grows mainly along the coast and blooms bright red for several glorious weeks of summer. Pohutukawa are huge, both above ground and underground. The limbs are so wide that you can hug them without touching them with your fingertips. Root systems are so extensive that literally keep the cliffs in place. You’ll find them attached in the most unlikely places, hazy with sea mist and blooming brightly.

I have come to the conclusion that in order to survive suicidal grief, one must necessarily adopt a pohutukawa approach to existence. Trauma gives you so much to wrestle with in your mind: so many thoughts, so many memories, so many emotions. So much work to do in your head to heal. Your branches, leaves and flowers, so to speak, are already unimaginably heavy. So you have to put down roots. You have to live in the world. Even if you don’t feel like it, even if it’s hard, even if you don’t know where to start. Even if you feel like you are no longer real, you are just a shadow of a dream in the shape of a person that you barely remember.

You can. You have to.

Dying is a tragedy. You know it better than anyone else. But having no life is worse. So in my experience, once you find what you need online, once you draw strength from others who have walked this path, it’s time to log off and touch the grass again.

It’s almost summer and the pohutukawa are starting to come alive. Whoever you are, however you feel, whatever terrible Google search keyword combination that brought you here, I hope you too find a way to move beyond the worst thing that ever happened to you.

To find a therapist, visit Psychology Today’s therapy directory.