Bereavement due to suicide
Informal support from family and friends
Those bereaved by suicide have many sources of support available to them. People we spoke with used one or more resources after being bereaved by suicide, including informal support from family and friends, ‘Help and support from professionals’, ‘Help from Cruse Bereavement Care’, ‘Self-help groups, conferences, helplines’, ‘Help and information through the internet’ and ‘Support for children and young people’.
In this section people discuss their experiences with informal support they received from family and friends.
Experiences with informal support from family and friends
Some people we talked to, especially those bereaved many years before, said that they relied on friends, family, and colleagues after their loved one had died. In the past, professional support was not as easily available, and support groups were hard to find.
Some of those who were bereaved when more options for support were available said that they preferred to talk to family or friends rather than professional counsellors or people involved with support networks.
After Alice died Alex did not seek counselling. He spent time talking to close friends rather than looking for external support. He also supported others in the family.
After Alice died Alex did not seek counselling. He spent time talking to close friends rather than looking for external support. He also supported others in the family.
Friends were a great support to Brenda after her son died in intensive care. A friend also helped her husband. They did not want professional counselling.
Friends were a great support to Brenda after her son died in intensive care. A friend also helped her husband. They did not want professional counselling.
And at any point in the hospital or afterwards, would you have, you or your husband, would you have liked to talk to family members who had been through something similar or a counsellor or someone from the hospital, or not from the hospital?
No, me personally not, no I think my husband, he’s more of a private person and would talk to somebody that he really knew rather than a complete stranger he’s not so good on sort of complete strangers. We were offered every single bit of help and to come back and talk to anybody that we need. The offer was there, there was an awful lot of support if we needed it. But I didn’t feel the need to talk to a complete stranger. I knew that I had my friends.
Has your husband been able to cope as well, like in the ways you’ve been thinking?
No, because he doesn’t open up and talk. I make him sometimes. We sit down at the table and have a meal, and I try to remember the things that we’ve done with our son and I look across the table and there’s just tears streaming down his face. As I say, we are all different but he does give much more concern so I can’t, by being stronger, it’s the way I’ve got through it because I’ve got a purpose. I’ve got a purpose for looking out for him and trying to take care of him. And I know I can call on anybody, any of my friends and family, I can have a real good moan to a girl friend and they’ll listen to me and then we can go out and have a cup of coffee and talk about you know other things. But my husband hasn’t really got that soulmate and that’s what I think is very important, really important that you’ve got somebody to talk to. He has spoken to a friend of ours who does a little bit of counselling. She’s not terribly qualified but she’s just one of these natural people that has a flair for situations like this. And he finds comfort in her and he will start talking but not for very long.
After Tom died Maurice and Jane supported each other. Maurice found he could talk to colleagues at work about what had happened. He did not want formal counselling.
After Tom died Maurice and Jane supported each other. Maurice found he could talk to colleagues at work about what had happened. He did not want formal counselling.
You said you went back to work, how did work colleagues handle this, did they know what had happened?
Yes, oh well yes, I’ve already said that one work colleague told me actually what had happened in detail because he’d been listening to the police radios. Yes the colleagues were very good, the colleagues yes, were very good yes. When I say that they were supportive I suppose. They were willing to talk about it, well some of them were, not the youngsters, we had, I was working with the youngsters and older people. It was generally the older people who would talk about it not the youngsters, they, they, they were not willing to talk about it.
Mm.
Although in fact we were, I’d probably told them, I did find I was telling people what had happened, and whether they liked it or not.
Mm.
And then one saw their responses, so people yes the work people were good, but work was, work was good, I’m, I’m fortunate in that I enjoy the work I do, did, and I think that that was, very, I was very lucky to that extent, and probably that’s why it was much harder for Jane who was not, who although she was in fact, again, well yes she had her horses, and I think her horses helped her too, as occupations somehow, other occupational therapy.
Did you seek support anywhere else?
I didn’t no.
You didn’t have any formal counselling?
No, I had no formal counselling; probably you know I’m a bit reluctant and a bit cynical about counselling.
Some people received tremendous support from family or friends. Bob, for example, said that when Darren died his neighbours cooked them meals and did their shopping.
When Dominique died, Lucreta’s friends cared for all her physical needs and helped her overcome her fears.
Friends from church looked after Lucreta for a while after Dominique died. They invited Lucreta to stay at their home and helped her to continue to work.
Friends from church looked after Lucreta for a while after Dominique died. They invited Lucreta to stay at their home and helped her to continue to work.
Well life after suicide, I began to write a book, “Life after Suicide. A mother’s inner cry.” And the days of going to work, ah, they were hell. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t live on my own, I couldn’t sleep on my own, I became a chronic fear, I became ill, my whole life came to an end, I couldn’t go out on my own, my friends from church who I call my adopted parents they, they took me in and, I slept with her in the bed [crying], at night, it’s all right, I slept with her and she comforted me and…
This is a friend from church?
Yeah, and the church, I’m a Christian and the church helped me, I lived with them for a while, I couldn’t live on my own, and I began to write because the counsellor in my work place she encouraged me to write and when she was leaving, so I had to go to work every day, so I lived with them and they would look after me in the morning and push me out the house, and it was really good because it meant, they, they, they really did that to, to, to get me to continue with my life.
After her daughter Rose died, Susan found that Rose’s friends 'worked incredibly hard to find support' for her. She said they were the ones who gave her literature about bereavement.
Kavita’s mother received many visitors after Kavita’s brother died: she said they 'called constantly' and Kavita helped her mother receive them.
After Jenny’s husband died, she made it clear that she wanted to see her friends. They phoned her, met her for lunch, and talked about David, which Jenny found 'enormously helpful'.
David’s friends were supportive too.
Arthur said that one friend in particular came to stay immediately after Leon died, and she 'really brought him back to sanity'.
After Amanda’s son died, she also found that friends helped her with her grief. She found it especially helpful to talk to a friend who had experienced grief themselves. Amanda and her friends did 'normal things together, like retail therapy', and they laughed together.
Others also felt that they could gain particular support from talking to people who had been bereaved in a similar way.
When Michael’s friend died, he found it very helpful to talk to other friends who had been bereaved. Together they re-lived what had happened and shared memories of times they had spent with their mutual friend.
Talking to other friends who had been bereaved by his friend’s suicide was an affirming experience. It made Michael realise that it was normal to feel intense grief after suicide.
Talking to other friends who had been bereaved by his friend’s suicide was an affirming experience. It made Michael realise that it was normal to feel intense grief after suicide.
Was there any opportunity to meet with other people who’d been bereaved, or didn’t you look into that?
I didn’t look into that actually, no. As I said, I knew lots of other people who knew the person who killed himself, and talking to them about it was a great, …was a large part I think of what helped me. Partly because they knew him so we could actually discuss, you know, the actual details of what happened and our memories of him and, you know, like shared, we had a shared history and re-living that was obviously quite a meaningful thing. But also, seeing how other people were reacting was also, was a useful thing as well. I think, as I’ve said, you know, I just felt generally happier when I was with other people than not, and I think that was not, that also was the case when I was with other people who had been bereaved by my friends suicide. Some of whom, you know, were taking it possibly even harder than I was, and in some ways talking to them and feeling that, you know, I was perhaps the stronger one of us was also quite an affirming experience too.
So you felt you were helping them?
Yes. And that was… if felt that, I don’t know, I guess that’s almost like a normal thing in life to do, perhaps that was a, a bit of normality that, you know that was something that brought a bit of almost normality back into my life again as well.
When his wife died Stephen received great support from family and friends. People stayed with him for a few weeks and he found it helped to 'talk endlessly about what had happened'. He 'went over the same ground again and again, but each time the story changed slightly'.
Experiences with a lack of support from family and friends
Close friends and family did not always live in the same area. Some people had moved house shortly before they had been bereaved and so had no local network of friends. Colin and Barbara, for example, largely supported each other when their son Matt died.
Family and friends did not always give much-needed support. Some people we talked to said that friends were initially very supportive, but then gradually 'got on with their own lives' and seemed to expect the bereaved person to recover and feel better much too quickly.
Some people also felt that others blamed them for what had happened. Communication with family members or old friends sometimes broke down.
Other people sometimes seemed to avoid contact or found it hard to talk about suicide, which may have been because they were uncertain about what to say or how to behave (see ‘Other people’s reactions’).
If you or someone else is in immediate danger, call 999 or attend A&E right away. If you or someone else needs urgent help for mental health, call 111 or access NHS 111 online at 111.nhs.uk for help.
If you or someone you know is struggling, help and support are available. See NHS mental health and 'Resources and Information' for more, including help and resources for people bereaved by suicide.
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