9/1/2023 0 Comments Friend committed suicideThis may be the first time that you have seen them emotionally vulnerable and it can be very distressing. In addition to dealing with your own grief and confusion, you may also find yourself dealing with a remaining parent who is grieving for their partner. The loss of a parent can have a particularly damaging effect on our self esteem. It can invoke feelings of abandonment or rejection when someone who holds a key caring and guiding role in our lives takes their own life. The death of our parents is always challenging but even more so when they die by suicide. Twins may feel an even more extreme sense of loss – emotional and physical – and may feel further isolated as so few will have a shared understanding of their experience. But each time I went into the village everyone, without exception, asked me how my mum was, as if I had no feelings about it at all” This can feel very isolating but is worth remembering that sometimes people find suicide a difficult topic and so they may use an indirect question to start to a conversation – “how is your mum?” – which may then lead to a more direct conversation. Brothers and sisters may also feel overlooked when attention is directed towards the parents by others: “I was completely devastated. Siblings may find that they become isolated in the family – perhaps because the parents seek to protect their remaining children by not sharing or involving them in the experience or it could be that remaining brothers and sisters do not share fully with their parents because they do not want to provoke worry or distress. You may feel very guilty that you did not do enough to help them or that you are still alive when they are not. Many siblings share a deep, protective connection. When you lose a brother or a sister, you lose someone who shared many experiences and memories and who you may have expected to be with you for most of your life. You may find that it is difficult to contemplate developing new relationships in the future. You may also find that your social life is impacted too – the world may suddenly feel as if it is made for couples. There may need to be major changes to your life – changing or giving up your job, moving to a more affordable house or becoming a single parent. In addition to the emotional impact of your bereavement, you may have practical concerns as a result of now having to cope with finances, home and family single handedly. “This wouldn’t have happened if (s)he hadn’t been with you…” If you have children, you may find that you have to manage your experience of grief as a spouse alongside supporting your children through the loss of their parent. This may be unintentional but sometimes people voice explicitly where they think that the blame lies. It is likely that you will be grieving alongside your partner’s birth family and it may be that their reactions leave you feeling blamed in part or whole for the suicide. You may find yourself questioning other aspects of your relationship and worrying about how others perceive you as a partner or spouse. Or if there were indications, you may feel guilty that you did not do enough. If there were no indications of their intentions, you may question yourself about how you could not have noticed or feel that they deceived you by hiding it. “I felt I was not good enough to stay alive with…” You are likely to have had one of the closest relationships with the deceased – physically and emotionally. When you lose a partner to suicide it is not unusual to experience strong feelings of rejection or betrayal – a sense that they broke your shared commitment, that they chose to leave you or that they did not feel that they could look to you for help. Losing the person you have chosen to share your life with can destroy your hopes and expectations for the future.
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