Surviving a Suicide Loss  |  Resource and Healing Guide
7
Suicide Bereavement 101
Suicide loss survivors often wonder how 
bereavement after suicide compares to 
bereavement after other kinds of death.
There are several features that make suicide grief different from 
bereavement after other kinds of death. 
Understanding why the person died can be a challenge and a 
greater focus for people bereaved by suicide. In some instances, 
suicide loss survivors may focus so much on what factors led to 
their loved one’s death that it can feel consuming and can become 
a challenge to the process of grief. On the other hand, many 
loss survivors who take the time to learn about the complexity of 
suicide through research-informed education may have newfound 
insights as well as ability to hold the ultimate uncertainty of why 
their loved one died. In this way, learning about suicide as a 
complex health issue can help with healing.
Suicide prevention can be a difficult concept to understand, 
especially when it comes to suicide loss. When people hear 
the term “suicide prevention,” they may assume it means every 
suicide can be stopped, which is not the case. Instead, the term 
“prevention” is used from a public health perspective to indicate 
societal investments in research, education, support services and 
new interventions that can help communities reduce the overall 
number of suicide deaths across the population, even if not every 
individual suicide can be prevented.
Suicide loss survivors may experience guilt, blame, and even sense 
of responsibility for the death much more than other kinds of grief. 
Occasionally, survivors may feel that they or others caused the 
death through mistreatment or abandonment of the deceased. 

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