Does grieving ever end?

After a suicide attempt last year, I was enrolled in a partial hospitalization/intensive outpatient program. A girl who was in my program that I had known for a few weeks committed suicide and it wrecked me. I've never personally known anyone that had committed suicide, so it really affected me, especially considering the condition I was in (mentally). I didn't know her for very long obviously and I didn't talk to her that often, but it was still so heartbreaking. It had affected me so strangely, and so differently than any other deaths or difficult experiences I've gone through. I had been suicidal many times and just to know someone who actually went through with it and succeeded (she had tried multiple times) completely shook me up. At the time I felt very sad but at the same time jealous. When you're depressed and you see someone else who is and who actually takes their life, it makes you jealous that they had the courage or the willpower to actually do it and be done with it all. I was jealous that she got out and I was still stuck.

The concept of death is very strange to me. The idea that you can see and talk to a person one day, and the next day they're no longer living just perplexes me. I couldn't handle the fact that I had JUST seen her the day before and less than 24 hours later she was dead. I felt a great sense of guilt that I could have done something to save her. I would have done anything had I known that she was seriously considering taking her life again. I know it was not my fault, I was not responsible for her death, and there was essentially no way I could have prevented it from happening, but I still felt guilty. I still feel hints of guilt now, but not as much as I used to.

As many times as I'd been suicidal, actually knowing someone who went through with it changed my perspective completely. Fantasizing and yearning for death seemed so ridiculous now.

It's been over a year (mid-october) and I still think about her every day. I still cry from time to time. I still feel the heartache and weight of her death on my shoulders. You'd think I'd be over it by now; it's not like we were best friends or anything or like I had known her for a long time. It has gotten more bearable to think about over the past year, but it's still there, you know? Does the grieving ever really end? Or is it something that you just accept and carry with you forever?

I am not so sure it is about grieving for her so much but what it triggered in you. Coming face to face with death and these very difficult issues.

Like with Robin Williams. It affected many people very profoundly. It was discussed quite a bit in these forums.

When someone in a high school commits suicide it has a large impact on others. Even causing other students to go through with it.

I have had ten people in my life I was close to actually go through with it. I have had one attempt myself. I don't really fear death. Those other people didn't have a huge impact on me for some reason. I just totally understood why they would do it.

This may very well be true. It is certainly true when it is someone very close to you like a parent. You never truly get over it but you come to a place of acceptance.

((((BreakFree)))),

Personally, I feel grief has no timeline. Society should not put pressure on people on how they "should" be "over it" by now. I don't really get over anything. It's always there, just buried deep. I never forget anyone that I lost. Sometimes I get reminded by hearing a song by a band they liked, for example.

I loss a friend on here with whom I had a deeper connection than my only real life so called "friend." And one day I got the message from a relative she was gone, just like that. I corresponded with her for YEARS, and everytime I come on here, I think of her. It makes it hard to come to this site now. And it used to be my safe harbor, mainly because of her.

And the cause was a FREAK reason: She choked and couldn't be revived!!! It seemed esp. cruel to me since she was feeling better than she had in a long time, and things were looking up for her. Of course, in the movies, there's always someone around to save the person. But not in real life.

I feel the connection to her was strong enough that I'd "recognize" her on the Other Side, even though I never met her, seen her, or talked to her. I would just know her.

I've lost four-legged friends too, and they are just as "human" to me as any real human, and they love you unconditionally.

Someone I used to know at the gym recently died of lung cancer. I hadn't seen him for years, and I asked other members if they knew what happened. No one did, but eventually one of them tracked him down. He was sick for sometime, but he lasted longer than they predicted.

Even though I didn't know him well, he was a friendly face to see at the gym regularly, as I have no actual friends there. I still can't believe either of them are gone, as I haven't processed it yet.

I'm sure I'll burst into tears suddenly one day, when it sinks in.

Sorry to hear you are still in pain. Welcome to PC
Here is another thread in the grief forum with some helpful stories about dealing with suicide.
http://forums.psychcentral.com/grief...g-suicide.html

so sorry you are going through this. I think some people just accept it and carry it with them for life because they didn't grieve. I think grieving ends but I'm not sure. I hear if you grieve properly then you do get over it~ unlike accepting it. Odd considering accepting it is pretty much never accepting it. Hope that makes sense.

When ever we lose some one we love or care about, it really doesn't make a difference how. Trust me, I've lost many in several ways, suicide, murder, old age, drowning, hit by car, young, old. It always sucks no matter how.

Some of them I could accept and carry on, some of them I could never accept but still carried on.

The closer you are to the person, the harder it is.

Death is a part of life.

Parley it makes sense to me. I think you expressed it very well.

You hit a big one with me in your post. There is no time limit to get over someone. I don't think we ever do. It just gets easier with time. I notice that I try to put a time limit on myself. I tell myself that's its going on a year and I should feel better etc..just makes my anxiety worse! Like I'm not meeting a goal I set for myself.

I think in her last moments she served as a teacher for you. It made you re-evaluate suicide and death. Life is hard and death perplexes everyone, no one knows what death really is. Life and death are unknowns. Everyone is just doing what they can each day with the tools they are provided with throughout life. I also know what it feels like to be in that suicidal state of mind, but there are no guarantees even in death. The only guarantee is that it is coming for all of us. And that's why we need to make the best of this moment, and each moment we have. Whether that's 80 more years, or 1 more week on this planet. People often fantasize about suicide because not only does it provide a form of comfort, it also provides them with a sense of control over their own life and demise. In a world full of uncertainty, fear, and lack of total control.

I agree with one thing cosmic rose said: "I think in her last moments she served as a teacher for you"
I try to treat everyone as a teacher. Those that oppose me and those that support me, those that agree with me and those who never agree with me. That makes me a subtle teacher to others too.