Everyone experiences death and loss. Suicide is different.
Losing a loved one to suicide is a traumatic experience that turns your world upside down. Suicide brings shock, grief, heartbreak, and pain. Feelings of denial, anger, guilt, yearning or despair wash over you and can get in the way of daily life; leaving you feeling hopeless about the future. Each day you struggle, wading through the fog and aftermath, feeling overwhelmed by day to day tasks. You’re exhausted mentally, physically, emotionally and find yourself unexpectedly triggered by thoughts and memories.
Maybe you wish you would have had more time together, or you feel regret for setting boundaries in your relationship, only to have it come to this end. Each day you wake asking yourself if it was all a dream, only to remember it wasn’t and tumble right back into feelings of sadness and despair.
You look around you, feeling the space in your relationships, detached and numb. Maybe you’ve returned to work or your daily routine on the “outside”, but inside you can’t connect and you wonder if you’ll ever move through this pain. You question how you’ll ever be able to breathe under the weight of it all and can’t imagine life going forward or ever feeling “normal” again.
Grief is a universal experience and you are not alone as a survivor of suicide loss.
You just want to make sense of the death of your loved one.
Compassionate grief counseling creates a space where you can unpack and sort through the overwhelming feelings of grief. We’ll work together to build a path and a culture of healing that works best for you, and the fog you’re feeling will begin to lift. You’ll start to sleep and eat again. The pain and misery will ease, and making decisions get easier, life will become more manageable in the day to day. In time, you will feel stronger, be able to renew relationships and find new ways to move through life while honoring your loved one.
You deserve a compassionate therapist who can support you in these dark days, and I get it - because I’m a survivor of suicide loss too.
No one understands the pain of losing someone to suicide like other survivors. You deserve a therapist who understands the special needs of struggling with the complex grief that accompanies suicide.
As someone who has been there and truly gets it, someone who is familiar with the isolation that can accompany a death of this kind, I create a space for you to speak openly about your grief and loss however you need because there is no one way to grieve. I will help you navigate the complex emotions, thoughts and memories that arise, and allow you to experience the healing process in a safe space.
You will never have to worry about how to talk about your suicide loss.
In our sessions you can...
-
Express your feelings authentically - free from judgment or systemic, familial, societal or cultural expectations
-
Share the details about the suicide and means of death if you need
-
Explore feelings of anger
-
Share photos, writing and special mementos about your loved one
-
Smile and talk about good moments
Together we can work on helping you sleep again, improve day to day decision making, and reduce anxiety and find calm.