Surviving a Suicide Loss  |  Resource and Healing Guide
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If you find yourself so consumed with yearning for your loved one 
and other painful emotions that you’re unable to gradually regain 
functioning in your roles with family or at work, feel disconnected 
from your life or other people for many months to years following 
your loss, consider having a professional evaluation for depression, 
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), or complicated or “prolonged 
grief,” which actually interfere with healthy grieving. Receiving 
specific treatment for these conditions can help your healing and 
your ability to make meaning and honor your loved one for the life 
they lived.
To learn more about treatments for these health conditions that 
can arise during grief and which can disrupt your grieving and 
healing journey visit afsp.org/therapies.
Complicated or “Prolonged” Grief
Most suicide loss experiences have a degree of complexity due to 
the very nature of suicide and the complexity of human relationships. 
What we know about suicide grief is that there is not a set timetable 
or “schedule” for how you experience grief-related emotions. 
However, we do know that the intensity of those emotions, i.e., how 
strongly they are felt, does tend to change over time. As we integrate 
the loss into our daily living, we naturally begin to think of, and connect 
to, aspects of the person’s life other than how they died. We form a 
connection to the person we have lost, beyond their suicide death, and 
begin to recall memories associated with their life and the connection 
we had to them while they lived. This process can take considerable 
time. As time passes, many loss survivors find that while they never 
forget about the suicide loss, they are able to resume a connection 
to life (albeit changed) and connect to positive memories of the 
deceased. Many suicide loss survivors are able to integrate the loss 
with some support from peers, family, friends, and their communities.

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