“My best friend died by suicide and I keep asking why”
After a death by suicide, the questions can be relentless: why, why then, why didn't they say, what was missed. Grief comes mixed with shock, guilt, anger and sometimes relief, and people around may not know what to say, or say nothing. Some feel a stigma that keeps them from naming the cause. What matters most is how much of the grief is taken up by the search for a reason, how much by blame, and whether the person's own safety is holding.
What to check first
Before reading it as a pattern, it helps to check the person's own safety. People bereaved by suicide carry a raised risk themselves, and thoughts of joining the friend or of not wanting to go on call for talking to someone today. It also helps to notice whether anyone who knew the friend can talk about them openly.
What could be going on
Bereavement after a suicide: Fits if the grief is tangled up with the search for why and with other people's unease about how your friend died.
Bereavement guilt and regret (Li and Stroebe): Check whether your mind keeps going back to a last message or call, and what you think you should have done.
Hindsight bias: Check whether the signs you see now were clear at the time, or only line up looking back.
Traumatic grief after a sudden or violent death: Fits if images of how it happened, or of finding your friend, keep breaking in.
Rumination and worry: Fits if your mind goes round the question of why for hours without settling.
Warning signs of suicide risk and self-harm: Check whether you have thoughts of dying or of joining your friend. If so, talk to someone today.
Telling them apart
Bereavement after a suicide: The grief may carry a particular weight: the search for why, a sense of being rejected or not enough, and other people's discomfort with the cause of death. Some people hide how the friend died. The questions may keep coming long after the funeral.
Bereavement guilt and regret (Li and Stroebe): The mind may fix on the last conversation, a missed call, a text left unanswered, a sign that seems obvious now. The person may feel they should have been able to stop it. Suicide often follows a struggle kept hidden from those close by.
Hindsight bias: Looking back, small things may line up into a clear warning: a withdrawn week, a gift, an odd message. At the time they were scattered among ordinary days. Knowing the outcome makes the signs look clearer than they were.
Traumatic grief after a sudden or violent death: If the person found the friend, or pictures how it happened, images of the scene may intrude with horror and a racing heart. Sleep may break around them, and reminders may be avoided. The shock may sit on top of the grief and make the missing hard to reach.
Rumination and worry: The thinking may go round and round the question of why, with each answer leading to another question. It feels like work toward understanding and leaves the person more drained. Hours may go into reading old messages.
Warning signs of suicide risk and self-harm: The person's own thoughts may turn to dying: wanting to be with the friend, feeling that life is pointless now, making plans. Hopelessness, giving things away or saying goodbye point toward real risk. These call for talking to someone today, whatever else is going on.
Questions to carry
- When the question of why comes back, what was I doing or looking at just before?
- Who is one person who knew my friend that I could talk to about what happened?
Also said as
- my friend killed himself and i keep asking why
- lost my brother to suicide
- guilt after someone took their own life
- should i have seen the signs
- angry at my dad for taking his own life
- how to cope after a suicide in the family
Losing someone to suicide raises the risk for the people left behind, and it can be very lonely. If thoughts of ending your own life come up, please talk to someone today: a doctor, a crisis line or someone close. In the US, call or text 988. In the UK, Samaritans are on 116 123. If it's happening now, call 911 or 999. Elsewhere, findahelpline.com lists free, confidential helplines by country.