Silent Grief is a book for and about "suicide survivors" - those who have been left behind by the suicide of a friend or loved one. Author Christopher Lukas is a suicide survivor himself - several members of his family have taken their own lives - and the book draws on his own experiences, as well as those of numerous other suicide survivors. These personal testimonies are combined with the professional expertise of Henry M. Seiden, a psychologist and psychoanalytic psychotherapist. The authors present information on common experiences of bereavement, grief reactions and various ways of coping. Their message is that it is important to share one's experience of "survival" with others and they encourage survivors to overcome the perceived stigma or shame associated with suicide and to seek support from self-help groups, psychotherapy, family therapy, Internet support forums or simply a friend or family member who will listen. "Silent Grief" gives valuable insights into living in the wake of suicide and provides useful strategies and support for those affected by a suicide, as well as professionals in the field of psychology, social work, and medicine.

Honest, gentle advice for those who have survived an unspeakable loss—the suicide of a loved one.Surviving the heartbreak of a loved one's suicide - you don't have to go through it alone. Authors Beverly Cobain and Jean Larch break through suicide's silent stigma in Dying to Be Free, offering gentle advice for those left behind, so that healing can begin.

Suicide would appear to be the last taboo. Even incest is now discussed freely in popular media, but the suicide of a loved one is still an act most people are unable to talk about--or even admit to their closest family or friends. This is just one of the many painful and paralyzing truths author Carla Fine discovered when her husband, a successful young physician, took his own life in December 1989. And being unable to speak openly and honestly about the cause of her pain made it all the more difficult for her to survive.With No Time to Say Goodbye, she brings suicide survival from the darkness into light, speaking frankly about the overwhelming feelings of confusion, guilt, shame, anger, and loneliness that are shared by all survivors. Fine draws on her own experience and on conversations with many other survivors--as well as on the knowledge of counselors and mental health professionals. She offers a strong helping hand and invaluable guidance to the vast numbers of family and friends who are left behind by the more than thirty thousand people who commit suicide each year, struggling to make sense of an act that seems to them senseless, and to pick up the pieces of their own shattered lives. And, perhaps most important, for the first time in any book, she allows survivors to see that they are not alone in their feelings of grief and despair.

Too often people suffering the aftermath of a suicide suffer alone. As the survivor of a person who has ended his or her own life, you are left a painful legacy -- and not one that you chose. Healing After the Suicide of a Loved One will help you take the first steps toward healing. While each individual becomes a suicide survivor in his or her own way, there are predictable phases of pain that most survivors experience sooner or later, from the grief and depression of mourning to guilt, rage, and despair over what you have lost. You may be torturing yourself with repetitive questions such as "What if...?" "Why didn't we...?" and "Why, why, why?" Healing After the Suicide of a Loved One will steer you away from this all-too-common tendency to blame yourself and will put you on the path to healing and recovery. Remember, your wounds can heal and you can recover. Filled with case studies, excellent information, valuable advice, and a completely up-to-date reading list and directory of suicide support groups nationwide, this valuable book will give you the strength and hope to go on living.

At bottom, life and death are our greatest teachers--if we shall but listen. Iris Bolton's personal story of her son's suicide is a deeply moving, poignant one. It is a story of both a devastating tragedy and an exquisite triumph--and the agonizing, relentless, conflicted process connecting these two oppositional pulls. We in our Western, ultra-scientific and technological society are just beginning to discover that death, from the beginnings of time, has always been present. Life and death are inextricably bound together in the process of living. All of us have known this all the time, but we have pretended that we didn't know what we knew. Until recently, we have chosen to keep death in the shadows and separated from the light of life. As a result, we have made ourselves more vulnerable to its pain and destruction. That this is true is well documented in this book. I celebrate our growing consciousness that death is a Presence always present in all our lives. And living life in this manner of awareness gives us a new sense of personal power and freedom. We are better enabled to live, explore, experience, and know God's universe and Love as He intended--and thereby be more adequately prepared for the final journey . . . Home. Iris Bolton's book is a powerful step in that direction.

“Inspiring, tragic, and at times heart-rendingly funny.” —PeopleUnsentimental, unexpectedly funny, and incredibly honest, Tragedy Plus Time is a love letter to every family that has ever felt messy, complicated, or (even momentarily) magnificent.Meet the Magnificent Cayton-Hollands, a trio of brilliant, acerbic teenagers from Denver, Colorado, who were going to change the world. Anna, Adam, and Lydia were taught by their father, a civil rights lawyer, and mother, an investigative journalist, to recognize injustice and have their hearts open to the universe—the good, the bad, the heartbreaking (and, inadvertently, the anxiety-inducing and the obsessive-compulsive disorder-fueling).Adam chose to meet life’s tough breaks and cruel realities with stand-up comedy; his older sister, Anna, chose law; while their youngest sister, Lydia, struggled to find her place in the world. Beautiful and whip-smart, Lydia was witty, extremely sensitive, fiercely stubborn, and always somewhat haunted. She and Adam bonded over comedy from a young age, running skits in their basement and obsessing over episodes of The Simpsons.When Adam sunk into a deep depression in college, it was Lydia who was able to reach him and pull him out. But years later as Adam’s career takes off, Lydia’s own depression overtakes her, and, though he tries, Adam can’t return the favor. When she takes her own life, the family is devastated, and Adam throws himself into his stand-up, drinking, and rage. He struggles with disturbing memories of Lydia’s death and turns to EMDR therapy to treat his post-traumatic stress disorder when he realizes there’s a difference between losing and losing it.Adam Cayton-Holland is a tremendously talented writer and comedian, uniquely poised to take readers to the edges of comedy and tragedy, brilliance and madness. Tragedy Plus Time is a revelatory, darkly funny, and poignant tribute to a lost sibling that will have you reaching for the phone to call your brother or sister by the last page.

“A moving and riveting memoir about one family’s love and tragedy…beautifully researched, and expressed” (Anne Lamott).Early one Tuesday morning John Brooks went to his teenage daughter’s room. Casey was gone, but she had left a note: The car is parked at the Golden Gate Bridge. I’m sorry. Within hours a security video showed Casey stepping off the bridge.Brooks spent several years after Casey’s suicide trying to understand what led his seventeen-year-old daughter to take her life. He examines Casey’s journey from her abandonment at birth in Poland, to the orphanage where she lived for her first fourteen months, to her adoption and life with John and his wife, Erika, in Northern California. He reads. He talks to Casey’s friends, teachers, doctors, therapists, and other parents. He consults adoption experts, researchers, clinicians, attachment therapists, and social workers.In The Girl Behind the Door, Brooks’s “desperate search for answers and guilt for not doing the right thing without knowing what it was reveals the utter helplessness of suicide survivors” (Kirkus Reviews). Ultimately, Brooks comes to realize that Casey probably suffered an attachment disorder from her infancy—an affliction common among children who’ve been orphaned, neglected, and abused. She might have been helped if someone had recognized this. The Girl Behind the Door is an important book for parents, mental health professionals, and teens: “Rarely have the subjects of suicide, adoption, adolescence, and parenting been explored so openly and honestly” (John Bateson, Former Executive Director, Contra Costa County Crisis Center, and author of The Final Leap: Suicide on the Golden Gate Bridge).

Every seventeen minutes, someone, somewhere, chooses death by self-murder. In the wake of this horrific decision, other people are left to cope with the ripples caused. This book will provide knowledge and resources for those left in the wake of suicide.Aftershock is a recovery book that will provide encouragement and support for survivors. Examining the complex emotions involved in grieving a suicide death, readers will come to realize they are not alone in their grief and will not be alone in their healing.

A Library Journal Best Memoir of 2016An award-winning poet offers a multi-generational portrait of an American family—weaving together the lives of his ancestors, his parents, and his own coming of age in the 60s and 70s in the wake of his father’s suicide, in this superbly written, “fiercely honest” (Nick Flynn) memoir.The fifth of eight children, Chris Forhan was born into a family of silence. He and his siblings learned, without being told, that certain thoughts and feelings were not to be shared. On the evenings his father didn’t come home, the rest of the family would eat dinner without him, his whereabouts unknown, his absence pronounced but not mentioned. And on a cold night in 1973, just before Christmas, Forhan’s father killed himself in the carport.Forty years later, Forhan “bravely considers the way he is and is not his father’s son” (Larry Watson), digging into his family’s past and finding within each generation the same abandonment, loss, and silence in which he was raised. Like Ian Frazier in Family or Frank McCourt in Angela’s Ashes, Forhan shows his family members as both a part and a product of their time. My Father Before Me is a family history, an investigation into a death, and a stirring portrait of growing up in an Irish Catholic childhood, all set against a backdrop of America from the Great Depression to the Ramones.Marrying the literary scope of memoirists Geoffrey Wolff and J.R. Moehringer with the intensity of family novels like The Corrections and We Are Not Ourselves, My Father Before Me is the kind of epic, immersive memoir that comes along once in a decade.

Practical supportive advice for bereaved parents and the professionals who work with them, based on the experiences of psychiatric and religious counselors.

What do you do when your father dies by suicide while you are in the hospital awaiting the birth of your triplets?What do you do when you can't attend your father’s funeral because physician orders include complete bed rest? What do you do when you realize that you experienced a devastating loss and that you are not alone in that experience? You write a book and dedicate your life to helping others affected by suicide! Barbara Rubel's fictional characters in "But I Didn’t Say Goodbye" are a compilation of what individuals may experience throughout their lifetime as a suicide loss survivor. But I Didn’t Say Goodbye: Helping Families After a Suicide tells the story, from the perspective of an eleven-year-old boy, Alex, and his family, as they are rocked by suicide and reeling from the aftermath. Through Alex’s eyes, the reader will see the transformation of feelings after going through death by suicide.New to the third edition, each chapter ends with Alex reflecting 10 years later on his experience, introducing family members and friends in his recollections. Barbara Rubel has combined our modern academic theories of grieving, and the research that supports those theories, and then translated them into a readable story for anyone bereaved by suicide. The revised edition is an evidence-informed and contemporary treatment of a devastating form of loss that uses the artful device of a hypothetical case study to render it in human terms. Through the story, the reader will understand what losing someone to suicide might be like for a family, how to make meaning in the loss, and ways to experience personal growth. This self-help book was revised to provide guidance and education for clinicians (e.g., mental health providers, social workers, psychologists, school counselors, and case managers) and families to help suicide loss survivors.Part 1 offers a basic understanding of suicide postvention, suicide loss survivors, complicated grief, mourning theories, the American death system, and the impact on clinician survivors. Chapters have been substantially updated, based on mourning models and the latest research. The chapters in Part 2 build upon one another sequentially, from the day of the suicide to the anniversary of the death. At the end of each chapter, there are follow-up questions to explore in counseling sessions, support groups, therapy sessions, or at home. Also, at the end of each chapter, Alex, at the age of 21, reflects back on how his father’s death by suicide has changed his life, wounding him, but also helping him to grow.

Andrew Solomon’s National Book Award-winning, bestselling, and transformative masterpiece on depression—“the book for a generation, elegantly written, meticulously researched, empathetic, and enlightening” (Time)—now with a major new chapter covering recently introduced and novel treatments, suicide and anti-depressants, pregnancy and depression, and much more.The Noonday Demon examines depression in personal, cultural, and scientific terms. Drawing on his own struggles with the illness and interviews with fellow sufferers, doctors and scientists, policy makers and politicians, drug designers, and philosophers, Andrew Solomon reveals the subtle complexities and sheer agony of the disease as well as the reasons for hope. He confronts the challenge of defining the illness and describes the vast range of available medications and treatments, and the impact the malady has on various demographic populations—around the world and throughout history. He also explores the thorny patch of moral and ethical questions posed by biological explanations for mental illness. With uncommon humanity, candor, wit and erudition, award-winning author Solomon takes readers on a journey of incomparable range and resonance into the most pervasive of family secrets. His contribution to our understanding not only of mental illness but also of the human condition is truly stunning.

For anyone who has experienced the suicide of a loved one, coworker, neighbor, or acquaintance and is seeking information about coping with such a profound loss, this compassionate guide explores the unique responses inherent to their grief. Using the metaphor of the wilderness, the book introduces 10 touchstones to assist the survivor in this naturally complicated and particularly painful journey. The touchstones include opening to the presence of loss, embracing the uniqueness of grief, understanding the six needs of mourning, reaching out for help, and seeking reconciliation over resolution. Learning to identify and rely on each of these touchstones will bring about hope and healing.

The second edition of But I Didn't Say Goodbye was written in 2009. In 2020, the author, Barbara Rubel, wrote a third edition, But I Didn't Say Goodbye: Helping FAMILIES After a Suicide. The revised third edition offers more content related to suicide postvention with an updated enhanced story.

From acclaimed poet and novelist Jill Bialosky, the New York Times bestselling exploration of her sister’s suicide and the lifelong impact it had on those left behind—“a beautifully composed, deeply reflective work” (Publishers Weekly).“It is so nice to be happy. It always gives me a good feeling to see other people happy…It is so easy to achieve.” —Kim’s journal entry, May 3, 1988 On the night of April 15, 1990, Jill Bialosky’s twenty-one-year-old sister Kim came home from a bar in downtown Cleveland. She argued with her boyfriend on the phone. Then she took her mother’s car keys, went into the garage, closed the garage door. She climbed into the car, turned on the ignition, and fell asleep. Her body was found the next morning by the neighborhood boy her mother hired to cut the grass. Those are the simple facts, but the act of suicide is anything but simple. For twenty years, Bialosky has lived with the grief, guilt, questions, and confusion unleashed by Kim’s suicide. Now, in a remarkable work of literary nonfiction, she re-creates with unsparing honesty her sister’s inner life, the events and emotions that led her to take her life on this particular night. In doing so, she opens a window on the nature of suicide itself, our own reactions and responses to it—especially the impact a suicide has on those who remain behind. Combining Kim’s diaries with family history and memoir, drawing on the works of doctors and psychologists as well as writers from Melville and Dickinson to Sylvia Plath and Wallace Stevens, Bialosky gives us a stunning exploration of human fragility and strength. She juxtaposes the story of Kim’s death with the challenges of becoming a mother and her own exuberant experience of raising a son. This is a book that explores all aspects of our familial relationships—between mothers and sons, fathers and daughters—but particularly the tender and enduring bonds between sisters. History of a Suicide brings a crucial and all too rarely discussed subject out of the shadows, and in doing so gives readers the courage to face their own losses, no matter what those may be. This searing and compassionate work reminds us of the preciousness of life and of the ways in which those we love are inextricably bound to us.

This is the second edition of this highly popular book. It has been expanded from 67 to 156 pages which includes a chapter on helping children cope with a suicide loss. Readers have described this book as:...a practical guide for coping with suicide, from the first few days through the first year and beyond. Another reader stated: I encourage anyone who has experienced the pain of suicide, even if it was many years ago, to read this book, share this book, and then read it again.

"Healing The Hurt Spirit" speaks to survivors about the crucial stages of recovery from suicide loss, offering hope and peace of mind.

When a loved ones completes suicide, the reaction to such a sudden and final act can sometimes delay the healthy grieving process. This new book describes and offers guidance for each emotion and issue that one encounters following a suicide.

Written with the same graceful narrative voice that made his bestselling National Book Award finalist The Big House such a success, George Howe Colt's November of the Soul is a compassionate, compelling, thought-provoking, and exhaustive investigation into the subject of suicide. Drawing on hundreds of in-depth interviews and a fascinating survey of current knowledge, Colt provides moving case studies to offer insight into all aspects of suicide - its cultural history, the latest biological and psychological research, the possibilities of prevention, the complexities of the right-to-die movement, and the effects on suicide's survivors. Presented with deep compassion and humanity, November of the Soul is an invaluable contribution not only to our understanding of suicide but also of the human condition.

As a former Family Therapist, Gary LeBlanc was a man who daily dealt with issues of grief, guilt and failure in the lives of others. It was not until the suicide death of his son, Shawn, that Dr. LeBlanc and his family had to directly confront these same feelings, as well as the many questions which emerged from this painful tragedy. In Grieving the Unexpected: The Suicide of a Son, Dr. LeBlanc openly discusses his family's struggle to survive such a dreadful event, the variables that sustained them during the initial shock and the healing process that enabled them to commence their journey towards wholeness. Honest and insightful, Grieving the Unexpected will help those who minister to hurting people better understand what families and individuals experience when confronted with terrible loss, and will testify to the sustaining comfort of God's presence. Dr. Gary LeBlanc received his Ph.D. in Family Studies from Florida State University. He is Professor of Sociology at Atlantic Baptist University, in Moncton, N.B. Canada.

Breathtaking stories of incredible power for anyone struggling to find the meaning in the suicidal death of a loved one?and for all readers seeking writing that moves and inspires. \nAfter author Victoria Alexander?s mother took her life, she spent the next ten years collecting stories from people, like herself, who have walked through one of life?s most difficult journeys. The result is a beautifully written book of powerful, spellbinding stories told by those who were left behind?parents, children, spouses, lovers, friends, and colleagues. In the Wake of Suicide offers survivors the understanding, compassion, and hope they need to guide them on their own path in the wake of this most painful loss.

A psychiatrist shares her professional understanding of suicide and relates her own experiences of anguish, guilt, anger, and healing following the death of her twenty-five-year-old son in a chronicle for survivors, families, and professionals.On November 16, 1984, Sue Chance's son committed suicide. In this vivid personal account of the aftermath of that event, she shares her pain, guilt, and anger, her expertise as a psychiatrist, and her methods for healing. With incredible power and honesty, she speaks to other survivors of a loved one's suicide, as well as to anyone who has ever contemplated suicide, weaving her personal experience with practical information about "normal" reactions among suicide survivors.For nine months following her son's death, Dr. Chance kept a journal. Excerpts from that journal convey the immediacy and intensity of her reactions and chronicle her steps toward recovery. While rich in strategies for getting on with life, the book does nothing to minimize the turmoil and searing grief experienced by survivors.It is estimated that more than 200,000 people in the United States are added to the ranks of suicide survivors each year. These individuals need the message of this book to know that they are, indeed, stronger than death.

Suicide haunts our literature and our culture, claiming the lives of ordinary people and celebrities alike. It is now the third leading cause of death for fifteen- to twenty-four-year-olds in the United States, raising alarms across the nation about the rising tide of hopelessness seen in our young people. It is a taboo subtext to our successes and our happiness, a dark issue that is often euphemized, avoided, and little understood. In our century, psychology and psychiatry alike have attempted to understand, prevent, and medicalize these phenomena. But they have failed, argues Dr. Edwin Shneidman, because they have lost sight of the plain language, the ordinary everyday words, the pain and frustrated psychological needs of the suicidal individual. In The Suicidal Mind, Dr. Shneidman has written a groundbreaking work for every person who has ever thought about suicide or knows anybody who has contemplated it. The book brims with insight into the suicidal impulse and with helpful suggestions on how to counteract it. Shneidman presents a bold and simple premise: the main cause of suicide is psychological pain or "psychache." Thus the key to preventing suicide is not so much the study of the structure of the brain, or the study of social statistics, or the study of mental diseases, as it is the direct study of human emotions. To treat a suicidal individual, we need to identify, address, and reduce the individual's psychache. Shneidman shares with the reader his knowledge, both as a clinician and researcher, of the psychological drama that plays itself out in the suicidal mind through the exploration of three moving case studies. We meet Ariel, who set herself on fire; Beatrice, who cut herself with the intent to die; and Castro, a young man who meant to shoot his brains out but survived, horribly disfigured. These cases are presented in the person's own words to reveal the details of the suicidal drama, to show that the purpose of suicide is to seek a solution, to illustrate the pain at the core of suicide, and to isolate the common stressor in suicide: frustrated psychological needs. Throughout, Shneidman offers practical, explicit maneuvers to assist in treating a suicidal individual--steps that can be taken by concerned friends or family and professionals alike. Suicide is an exclusively human response to extreme psychological pain, a lonely and desperate solution for the sufferer who can no longer see any alternatives. In this landmark and elegantly written book, Shneidman provides the language, not only for understanding the suicidal mind, but for understanding ourselves. Anyone who has ever considered suicide, or knows someone who has, will find here a wealth of insights to help understand and to prevent suicide.

(Foreword by Carl F. H. Henry) This contemporary resource presents the medical, ethical, legal, pastoral, and personal arguments for choosing life rather than death.

After the suicide death of her teenage son Ben, author and lecturer Trudy Carlson sheds light into the little-understood symptoms of depressive illness and anxiety disorders in youngsters. Using her son's dual condition as example, she takes a reasonable, no-fault approach to explain the biological nature of these conditions, and maps out a low-cost, effective school based program for recognizing and treating school-aged youth. The correlation between depressive illness and teen suicide is examined. A fresh approach and practical guide for parents and teachers everywhere.

Once every minute, someone tries to kill himself with conscious intent. Sixty or seventy times a day these attempts succeed. Earl A. Grollman has gathered a valuable overview of the statistics and of the religious, philosophical, and psychological viewpoints on suicide. Using this background, he presents guidelines for action directed especially to the "gatekeepers", to those who are in a position to help and are willing to act. He points out some surprising statistics - among teenagers, suicide is the third leading cause of death; among college students, it rises to second place. The suicide rate is higher near holidays and in the spring, especially April. It is higher among professionals. More women attempt suicide, but more men complete the act. And he discusses peculiar modern variations - installment-plan suicide, autocide (or suicidal driving), and the "flameout", or what happens when youthful creative drive slips away and aspiration becomes frustration. Presenting the religious views, he looks at both historical and modern interpretations of the major faiths, then reviews what the theorists say, from Freud's "aggression turned upon self" to Karen Horney's performance suicide. For the doctor, the nurse, the social worker, the clergyman, and the family, this is an in dispensable volume, geared to those who might be able to answer a call for help. Working in terms of Prevention, Intervention, and Postvention, Rabbi Grollman discusses recognizing suicidal tendencies, what an individual can do to help, what community resources exist, and how to help the family and friends of the suicide victim.

This revised edition goes into more detail about teen suicide and the help that is available. Survivors of Suicide also dispels the myths surrounding suicide, based on the latest research and interviews with leading medical experts, as well as with family and friends who have survived the suicide deaths of loved ones, and who offer support, knowledge, and comfort to other survivors. When people lose a loved one to suicide, they feel isolated, as if this has never happened to anyone else. But worldwide statistics on suicide tell a different story. Governments of several countries are making concerted efforts toward greater understanding of depression and suicide, leading to better preventive measures. The historical perspective on depression and suicide is nothing to be proud of, but the understanding today among health professionals, religious bodies, and enlightened citizenry, in itself, offers comfort to the bereaved.

The result of a ten-year search to find and interview loved ones of suicide victims describes their loss and discusses how they have found ways of reconnecting with themselves and others

In this hands-on, interactive workbook, children who have been exposed to a suicide can learn from other grieving kids. The workbook includes drawing activities, puzzles, stories, advice from other kids and helpful suggestions for how to navigate the grief process after a suicide death.

In the last thirty years, the suicide rate among young people has tripled. In this book addressed to the young survivors of this epidemic, Earl A. Grollman, the internationally known lecturer, writer, and grief counselor, and Max Malikow, a psychotherapist and pastoral counselor, offer solace and guidance to adolescents who are confronted with someone of their own age who is contemplating or has committed suicide.

This newly revised edition of the book is designed for adult caregivers to read to surviving youngsters following a suicidal death. The story allows individuals an opportunity to recognize normal grieving symptoms and to identify various interventions to promote healthy ways of coping with the death of a special person. Although the language used in the book is simplistic enough to be read along with children and ultimately stimulating family discussion, it can be beneficial to all who have been tragically devastated by suicide. It is recommended for this book to be utilized in conjunction with therapy.

The death of a friend is a wrenching event for anyone at any age. Teenagers especially need help coping with this painful loss. This sensitive book answers questions grieving teens often have, like “How should I be acting?” “Is it wrong to go to parties and have fun?” and “What if I can’t handle my grief on my own?” The advice is gentle, non-preachy, and compassionate; the author has seen her own children suffer from the death of a friend, and she knows what teens go through. The revised edition includes new quotes from teens, new resources, and new insights into losing a friend through violence. Also recommended for parents and teachers of teens who have experienced a painful loss. Foreword by R.E.M. singer/songwriter Michael Stipe.