[Alffe]

"Suicide is a different kind of death and only survivors understand. Other kinds of death are treated with sympathy and compassion. Ours is treated with reactions of horror, questions and distancing, blank stares. Our challenge is to mourn without understanding, without knowing why and learning to live without answers.

An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal. I'm not sure that some Mental Health Counselors who have not gone through this would approve. A therapist I know thought there was something very wrong with her client because she was still going to the cemetery six months after her child had died.

Sometimes, when survivors seek professional help, they may be expected to grieve within a neat time frame of one or two years maximum. It does not help to hear that. It might, in fact, put that already vulnerable survivor in yet a more vulnerable position to ask, "What is wrong with me that I'm not getting on like my counselor says I'm supposed to?" As survivors of suicide, we do not fit the models of grief that are found in psychology books. Our grief is life long. Our task is to learn how to live with it and to become able to resume a meaningful life. This will take a very long time, longer for some than others. Being in the physical presence of other survivors has therapeutic value beyond any other way of resolving grief for psychologically healthy people."

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JoAnn Chavez excerpted from Surviving Suicide Newsletter..Spring 2005
published by The American Association of Suiciodology