Grief is not the same for everyone, no experience can be. Losing a loved one suddenly can add a multitude of layers and complicate our grieving process.

Death by homicide can leave the you with intense and sometimes overwhelming anguish. You may feel powerless over your surroundings and the death may often leave you feeling preoccupied about your own personal safety and the safety of your surviving loved ones. Often you can have a mental looping over if you could have or should have protected your loved one lost to homicide. It is important to acknowledge that mental looping is a natural response when your body feels a threat. When you feel afraid, unsure, or insecure, mental looping becomes a coping mechanism. Mental looping is a completely natural response that keeps you in the familiar safety of your life. 

You may also be haunted by flashbacks or images of the homicide even if you were not witness to the death. You may wish you had died or feel that you would have been better off if you had died with your loved one. You can also develop a distrust or a fear related to strangers or may perseverate over the perpetrator(s) returning. Intense rage, anger or guilt are also very common during the grieving process. In some cases, blame or stigmatizing media, law enforcement or health care workers may also enter your grief process.

It has been said that sudden death is hard on you, but easier for your person who died. That same conventional thought process may view death after a long illness as being easier for you as the bereaved, but the truth is much more complex as those of us who remain after any death find themselves grieving. If you have been caring for a loved one with cancer or prolonged illness, your grief process often begins long before your lose your loved one. Your loved one will also begin to experience a grief process as their own death approaches, a process known as anticipatory grief. This anticipatory grief can be accompanied by anxiety, guilt and regret surrounding the illness as there are many decisions to be made regarding treatments. You and your loved one may fret over these decisions and whether they were the “right” decisions. You may wonder had you or your loved one chosen differently, if there would have or could have been a different outcome. 

Caregiving for your loved one moving through a long illness can also complicate grief. As caregivers, we can often feel exhausted, frustrated, isolated, and even resentful at times. Our loved ones receiving care can also be in the humiliating / embarrassing position of relying on us as caregivers to assist with basic, often intimate needs. This perfect storm can activate tempers and things may be said that might be regretted later on. After the death of our loved one, these memories and interactions can haunt us and also further complicate our grief. 

It is natural for us as caregivers to feel a sense of relief after the death of our loved one and this sense of relief can also bring guilt for feeling as much. During this delicate time, it is important to separate the death of our loved one from the relief we may feel from the death of caregiving responsibilities. Being relieved of our caregiving responsibilities does not mean, in any way, that we are happy or pleased our loved one has died.

Death by suicide happens in every culture and is not just the end result of mental health disease. Suicide can also be the end result of complex social, cultural, religious and socio-economic factors. Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States and almost 800,000 people around the world die by suicide each year. 

Losing your loved one in any capacity is incredibly difficult. Nevertheless if you have lost your loved one to suicide, you often have yet another layer of pain to your grief. Shock and anguish often follow a suicide and can often physically, mentally and emotionally overwhelm you. In addition to your layered grief experience, you can also find yourself struggling with a myriad of conflicting emotions and struggling to understand the nature of your loved one’s death. You may feel guilty and continual wonder if you could have done more to prevent your loved one’s suicide. As you are left grieving, you may also feel intensely angry with yourself or others for potentially having missed any clues or signals to your loved one’s intentions. As bereaved, you may be left feeling abandoned by your loved one and feel anger toward your loved one for this. You may even find yourself questioning the relationship you shared with your loved one and often wonder why it wasn’t enough to prevent your loved one’s death. Replaying of your loved one’s final days or moments is also common, leaving you enduring suicidal thoughts of your own.

If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts, please seek immediate medical attention.

Please know that you are so loved.

It is likely that as you are left grieving, you will be left with unanswered questions and the societal stigma that a death by suicide can carry. Death by suicide can conflict with some religious / cultural values and some individuals may feel less sympathy for your loss that was self-inflicted by your loved one. This can leave you left feeling isolated and completely alone.

While it is true to say that perceptions surrounding individuals with substance use disorder (SUD) are beginning to shift, SUD remains deeply misunderstood. SUD is a mental health disease. It is a medical problem that does not define the entire person. SUD is not the entire individual and it is not just something an affected individual “chooses to stop”. 

Losing your loved one to an overdose or substance use disorder (SUD) may be an experience unlike anything you have experienced before. Your grief reaction can be intricate and complex, as the grief process is for so many. You may have experienced a myriad of emotions before your loss, as you were navigating the often complex relationship with your loved one suffering from SUD. After the death of your loved one, often the most difficult of those emotions take center stage during your grief process. 

It is very common for you to feel sadness over things left unsaid or even for things that were said that cannot be taken back. You may often feel guilty and blame yourself or others that are close for feeling like they should have or could have done more. You may continually go over the “if only” in your mind. Remember, our mind would much rather feel guilty than to feel helpless.

You may find yourself feeling ashamed for loving someone with SUD or for even having SUD yourself. Shame teaches us we have to be a certain way in order to be accepted by others. Shame can be limiting, isolating and secretive. In shame, we withdrawal so you may tend to reach out or share less or feel unworthy.

Please know, you are so worthy of love and tenderness.

You may fear judgment from others around you or society as a whole, or fear your loved one will be judged. If you remain in your hesitancy to reach our or share with others, you can become quite isolated. This isolation can further perpetuate a potentially dangerous downward emotional spiral.

You may also experience intense rage or anger at your loved one, or sometimes even yourself. Sometimes, you may even feel relief after the death of your loved one as you will no longer be on the emotionally challenging, sometimes exhausting journey of SUD with your loved one. 

It is also quite common for you to feel frustrated by a perceived lack of support, information or an imperfect system.