An Open Letter to Any Child Who Lost a Parent to Suicide

You will spend countless hours, days, and years asking why. Why you weren’t enough of a reason for them to stay and fight. Why they were able to end things knowing it would so badly hurt their children and family. Why they chose to abandon their pain… and drop it square into your hands. Why your love wasn’t able to tether them in their storm. Why they didn’t do something, anything, else to save them from their demons. There will be times that you feel you will drown in all of the unanswered questions. You will face judgment. Your loss will be trivialized by people who make cruel, blanket statements about those who commit suicide. Every time a celebrity dies this way and the public receives word, you will, if you choose to look, be exposed to an absolute onslaught of ignorant, insensitive, uneducated comments and opinions that will feel like salt in a wide open gash. You may feel like every one of those nasty statements is directly aimed at YOUR loved one. It will be gut wrenching and infuriating. But you don’t have to be drawn into the fray. While it may seem the right thing to do to defend what you know in your heart is right, sometimes you have to leave others to their own misinformation and lack of empathy, and do everything you can to preserve your own peace, which has already been so fundamentally shattered. Anytime there is word of another suicide, in your personal life or in the public, your wounds that you are so desperately trying to heal will begin to blee...
Source: Psych Central - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Tags: Depression Editorials Essays Family Motivation and Inspiration Parenting Psychology Suicide Coping With Grief Death Of A Parent grieving loss Orphans Source Type: news