A Message from Ronnie Walker: "If you are like most survivors, you can probably recall the exact moment you learned of the death of your loved one. That moment becomes frozen in our memory. Most likely, a wave of powerful emotions washed over you.
Immediately after a suicide, survivors experience a gamut of emotions including confusion, shock, anger, fear, despair, grief and guilt. These emotions are sometimes accompanied by physical reactions like shaking, crying, screaming, or collapsing. (I shook so hard that I lost five pounds overnight!) At the other extreme, some survivors are so stunned that they cannot react or understand what is happening. (I recently met a mother who was unable to speak for two days after discovering the body of her son.)
You may now be experiencing intense reactions that resemble post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD.) It can take weeks or months for the intensity of these emotions and behavioral reactions to subside and they may linger at low levels for years. Loss by suicide is a traumatic and complicated loss. Research tells us that learning about the nature of trauma is helpful to the healing process.
Immediately following
a suicide ...
"Survivors are not in control of their pain. They are tossed about like a boat on a stormy sea. They are at the mercy of the pain that ensues and engulfs them." -
Fr. Charles Rubey
