If you are in crisis right now, please call or text 988 — the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline — for free, confidential support, available 24/7. You do not have to be the one in crisis to call; family members and survivors are welcome callers.
There is no grief like the grief of losing someone to suicide. It carries everything that ordinary grief carries — the shock, the absence, the physical ache of missing someone — and then it adds layers that other losses do not: guilt, unanswered questions, anger, shame, and for Catholics, a particular spiritual terror about the fate of the person they lost.
If you are reading this because you have lost someone to suicide, the first thing I want to say is that your grief is legitimate, it is not simple, and it deserves more support than most people know how to give. The second thing I want to say is that the Church’s teaching on this is far more compassionate than many Catholics realize.
What Makes Suicide Grief Different
Suicide bereavement is clinically distinct from other forms of grief. Researchers call it “complicated grief” not because the grieving person is doing something wrong, but because the circumstances of the death introduce complications that make the normal grieving process harder to complete. Suicide loss survivors face elevated risk of complicated grief, depression, and PTSD; the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and the 988 Lifeline’s loss-survivor resources maintain peer-support and clinical guidance specifically for this population.
The guilt is relentless. Survivors replay every interaction, searching for the sign they missed, the conversation they should have had, the thing they could have done differently. This is almost universal among suicide survivors, and it is almost always unwarranted. The reality is that suicidal crises are often invisible even to the people closest to the person, and the decision to end one’s life is driven by a level of psychological pain that distorts perception in ways that are not visible from the outside.
The unanswered questions are a specific form of torment. Why? What were they thinking? Were they in pain? Did they hesitate? Was there a moment when they could have been reached? These questions have no answers, and the impossibility of resolution keeps the grief cycling without finding a place to rest.
The stigma adds isolation to the grief. Many suicide survivors find that people avoid them, change the subject, or offer platitudes that reveal how uncomfortable they are. The result is that the person most in need of support is often the most alone.
What the Church Actually Teaches
Many Catholics who lose someone to suicide are haunted by the fear that their loved one is damned. This fear is rooted in a misunderstanding of Church teaching that needs to be corrected clearly and without equivocation.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states plainly that grave psychological disturbances, anguish, grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide. It continues: “We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. By ways known to him alone, God can provide the opportunity for salutary repentance. The Church prays for persons who have taken their own lives.” (CCC 2282-2283)
This is not a reluctant concession. It is a statement of hope grounded in the infinite mercy of God and in the Church’s understanding that mental illness, trauma, and unbearable psychological pain can compromise the freedom that moral culpability requires. The Church buries people who have died by suicide with full funeral rites. The Church prays for them. The Church entrusts them to God’s mercy — and invites you to do the same.
The Grief Process
Grieving a suicide does not follow a neat, linear progression. It moves in waves, and the waves can be triggered by anniversaries, by seeing something that reminds you of the person, or by nothing at all. Some days you will feel that you are making progress. Other days you will feel that you are back at the beginning. Both are normal.
The guilt and the what-ifs often need to be processed explicitly in therapy. Left unaddressed, they can become a form of self-punishment that prevents the grief from moving. A skilled therapist can help you examine the guilt, name what is realistic and what is not, and gradually release the burden of responsibility that was never yours to carry.
The anger is normal and it deserves space. You may be angry at the person who died — for leaving, for not asking for help, for the devastation they left behind. You may be angry at God. You may be angry at the mental health system, at yourself, at everyone and no one. This anger is not a moral failing. It is grief looking for a target because the real cause is beyond reach.
Supporting Yourself and Others
If you are a suicide survivor, please consider joining a support group specifically for people who have lost someone to suicide. The experience of being in a room with people who understand — who do not flinch when you say the word, who know the guilt and the questions and the particular loneliness — is something that individual therapy and well-meaning friends cannot fully replicate. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention maintains a directory of survivor support groups, including options in the Denver metro area.
If someone you know has lost a loved one to suicide, the best thing you can do is show up and stay. Say the person’s name. Do not avoid the subject. Do not offer explanations. Do not say “they are in a better place” — you do not know that, and it dismisses the agony of the person in front of you. Say: “I am so sorry. I am here. I am not going anywhere.” And then follow through.
At Denver Catholic Counseling, we provide grief therapy for suicide survivors in our Greenwood Village office and via telehealth throughout Colorado. This is sacred, difficult work, and we do not take it lightly.
“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” — Psalm 34:18
He is close to the one you lost. And He is close to you now.