Reflections From a Suicide Loss Survivor-Eleven Years After

Survivor

noun

a person who continues to live, despite almost dying.

a person who is able to continue living their life successfully despite experiencing difficulties.

A person's survivors are the members of his or her family who continue to live after he or she has

died.

Personal story and introduction

If you are reading this blog post, then there is a chance you too are a survivor of suicide

loss or perhaps know of someone who is. If you are a survivor, let me say upfront, that I

am deeply sorry for your loss. You have, without consent, been thrust squarely upon a

winding, oftentimes dark path of grieving without a guide or compass to lead you home.

I know how lost you feel, because I have been walking the same path for eleven plus

years. Today, as much as my path leads me through long swaths of light, I can’t escape

the darkness that at times, still looms around the next bend.

I lost my beloved husband, Charlie, to suicide in 2015. The devastation that his choice

left in its wake was absolute and total. The tidal wave of grief and loss washed over me

and all who loved him like a tsunami; tumbling us to and fro before spitting us back up

into a surreal world we no longer recognized. Nothing would ever be the same again.

And after eleven years of being a suicide loss survivor, I can attest to the fact that

nothing was ever the same. It never will be. But it has been different.

In 2019, I published Love Loss Light-Illuminating the Path Through Grief. I felt

compelled to share my story; choosing at the time, not to delve too deeply into the

suicide aspect of Charlie’s passing, but rather, how I navigated the profound grief that

enshrouded me and weighed me down like a cloak of steel. After writing and publishing

my book, I went on to become a grief and loss coach, in tandem with hosting a weekly,

live, radio podcast, Speaking of Grief.

In June of 2022, while hosting Speaking of Grief, my mom passed away. I hosted my

final podcast the following month. After seven years of healing from my grievous loss,

coupled with the more recent deaths of Charlie’s brother and his wife in 2021, and then

my mom, I began feeling emotionally drained and overwhelmed and decided that other

than grieving these significant losses, I had little energy or motivation to do much else,

which resulted in me cocooning for a year. Well, that year turned into four more years.

There is a saying, “We plan, and God laughs.” As I write about in Love Loss Light, it is

the silence where we begin to hear that still, inner voice; the voice of our higher self that

guides us to a deeper knowing of how best to move forward into the flow of life. And

God only knows, those ensuing years since I began cocooning were filled with many,

many days of silence and stillness.

As much as I had been convinced my grief work was done, I began hearing that still,

inner voice speaking to me…and it was saying, “suicide survivor.” That is what we all

became the moment we received “the call” telling us our loved one had taken their own

life; a suicide survivor; a mantel we were charged with picking up and carrying

regardless of our readiness or willingness to do so. None of us were given a choice. It

was a label we simply inherited in that moment.

I had learned over these eleven years to listen to that inner voice and knew at once that

my work around my book; my story was incomplete that I now needed to reposition

Love Loss Light in the marketplace in a way that was more representative of my

truth that my husband had committed suicide. I felt strongly that there were many

people who were themselves survivors of suicide loss, and that perhaps my story could

help them better navigate the complex, dark path of grief and grieving they suddenly,

without warning, found themselves traversing.

But how? I had no clue as to where to begin. So, what I did was to simply pray on my

wish, my intention, and allow Universe to figure it out. I know this may sound “woo-woo”

to many people, but trusting in God or Source, or Universe, whatever one wishes to

label The One, was truly the pathway to finding the light again after Charlie died.

And so it was, that about one month after I set my intention, I awoke one Monday

morning to an email that brought tears to my eyes. It was from a woman named

Gabrielle, and she was a Book Visibility Strategist. She outlined everything she could do

for me to help bring Love Loss Light into the hands of more readers.

When I published my book in 2019, such a person didn’t exist. A self-published author

was pretty much on their own trying to figure out how to best market and promote their

book. I believe there are no coincidences, and I also believe in miracles. This was

indeed a miracle.

And so, my collaboration with Gabrielle began, and now, my story is positioned

differently than it had been for the past seven years. The description of my story is

aligned closer now to my truth. That my beloved husband committed suicide, and that I

am a suicide loss survivor.

This shift in perspective regarding my story, made me ponder, now, eleven years later,

some other interesting insights. For instance, I began asking myself how I felt and feel

about being a suicide loss survivor. How has my journey from that perspective

unfolded? How has Charlie’s suicide impacted my grieving process? What issues have

been raised in me? What did Charlie’s decision say about me, and by extension, our marriage? Having been “stamped” with this new, unwanted label, how have people

whom I’ve met along the way, perceived me after learning how Charlie passed?

This is all good fodder for another blog post. But alas, what I did know then, and is

something that sadly, is timeless, is this: death and dying is greatly stigmatized in our

culture, and suicide deaths even more so, as is mental illness. Also something to

ponder is just how these stigmas have impacted me both internally and externally as I

healed and moved forward in life? What role did therapy and support groups play? Did

they help, or did they hinder?

One thing I have come to know, is that the profound grief we feel over losing our loved

one to suicide is indeed made far more complex. In my experience, it added additional

“steps” to the 5-step grief model made famous by psychiatrist, Elisabeth Kübler Ross,

M.D. in her book, *On Death and Dying: denial, anger, bargaining, depression,

acceptance.

For me, a few additional steps have been guilt, shame, self-recrimination, fear, and

embarrassment. Perhaps many of you can relate to these feelings, and perhaps you

have experienced added complexities and layers that grieving a death by suicide brings

to our grieving and healing process.

Like you, I am simply one person who has had to endure, as best I can, the unthinkable,

unimaginable experience of having someone I loved deeply take their own life; and

subsequently, the experience of what it feels like to be left behind to pick up the pieces

of my shattered heart and shattered future.

I want you to know you are not alone on this journey. I pray that what I have learned and

come to know along the way, and as I wrote in Love Loss Light-Illuminating the Path

Through Grief, will inform your unique journey, and bring you some measure of comfort,

peace, and healing.

I began this blog post with the dictionary’s definition of the word, “survivor.” This is YOU.

This is ME. You ARE a survivor! I AM a survivor! We have been left behind, and we are

coping as best we can with the incomprehensible experience that was laid squarely at

our feet—and together, side-by-side, we will continue to move forward, and we will

continue to survive. This is my fervent prayer.

*Dr. Ross published On Death and Dying in 1969. Since then, her model of the five

stages of grief has now moved to seven, which is widely accepted as more inclusive

and accurate to what people experience. The seven stages are as follows: Shock and

Denial, Pain and Guilt, Anger and Bargaining, Depression, The Upward Turn,

Reconstruction and Working Through, Acceptance and Hope.