Introduction
If you’ve lost someone you love to suicide you’re not just grieving – your entire nervous system has been shaken.
Even years later, you may find yourself startled by everyday things, struggling to focus, reacting with intensity, or feeling utterly numb.
This isn’t just emotional pain. It’s trauma living in your body.
The Impact of Suicide Loss on the Nervous System
Research is gathering to show that suicide loss is a uniquely devastating form of grief. It comes with layers of shock, shame, guilt, and isolation, and often no space to process any of it safely.
Your nervous system – especially if the death was sudden or traumatic is wired for survival. And when something happens that’s beyond what the brain and body can comprehend, it shifts into survival mode. You may recognize some of these signs:
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Feeling chronically anxious or emotionally flat.
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Flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, or a looping sense of “what if.”
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Physical exhaustion, brain fog, or panic attacks.
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Being hypervigilant with your children or avoiding emotional closeness altogether.
These are not signs that you’re broken. They are signs that your nervous system is still trying to protect you.
Why Time Doesn’t Always Heal Trauma
You may have heard it said: “Time heals all wounds.” But in suicide grief, especially when trauma is involved, time alone is not enough.
Without safe processing and body-based healing, your nervous system can stay stuck in a state of freeze, fight, or flight – long after the funeral, taking the children to school every day, and the check-ins have stopped.
That’s why traditional talk therapy doesn’t always help suicide survivors fully heal. You need more than words.
You need tools that reach the body, not just the mind.
What It Means to Heal Through the Body
As a psychologist, EMDR therapist, and grieving mother myself, I’ve learned the importance of integrating the nervous system into grief work. Healing suicide loss isn’t about “moving on.” It’s about:
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Rebuilding internal safety,
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Learning to regulate overwhelming emotions,
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Processing the trauma gently, layer by layer, and
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Making space for both your pain and your purpose.
And you don’t have to do that alone.
If You’re Parenting Through Suicide Loss
Many of the people I support are raising children after the suicide of someone. They’re holding it all together for their kids, while quietly falling apart inside.
If that’s you, I see you. You’re doing an impossible job – parenting in grief, without a map, while your own nervous system is still trying to survive.
This blog (and my programs) exist to give you compassionate, body-based support – because you deserve to heal too.
You’re Not Alone, and You’re Not Beyond Repair
I know first-hand from parenting teenagers after losing my brother to suicide that your grief is not something to fix – but it is something you can learn to carry with more ease. Your nervous system can recover. Your life can still hold meaning, connection, and even peace.
In future posts, I’ll share nervous system-based tools, EMDR-informed practices, parenting reflections, and real stories to guide you gently forward.
You don’t have to outrun the pain to heal – you just have to stop running alone.
Let’s Start the Conversation
If this post resonated with you, I’d love to hear from you.
- What does your body still carry from the day everything changed?
- What does safety mean for you now?
Feel free to share a comment or DM me on IG or FB or subscribe for future posts grounded in real, embodied grief support.
And always remember, we are
Stronger Together.
With Love
