Find Support · After a Loss
You don’t have to figure this out today
If you’ve lost someone to suicide, there’s no right order for what comes next. This is a gentle starting point — take only what’s useful, whenever you’re ready for it.
A note before you read on
This page offers gentle, practical starting points from other survivors — it isn’t clinical or legal advice, and it isn’t a checklist to complete in order. Grief doesn’t work that way, and neither does this page.
If you are in crisis or feel unsafe right now, call or text 988 — free, confidential, and available 24/7. For a fuller list of crisis lines and support organizations, see Support Resources.
A Few Places to Start
Wherever you are, this is a place to begin
Right now — today, this week
There’s no wrong way to get through today. If someone else can help carry the practical things — arrangements, phone calls, paperwork — let them, for now. You don’t owe anyone details before you’re ready to share them, and you don’t have to make sense of what happened yet.
In the coming weeks
As the first shock eases, some people find it helps to have somewhere to bring what they’re carrying. Our peer support groups are free, confidential, and led by fellow survivors — you don’t need to know what to say or be ready to share — just come as you are, whenever you’re ready. Not sure what a meeting is like? We put together a page just for that.
In the coming months
Grief from a suicide loss can come in waves rather than steps — good days followed by hard ones, sometimes without warning. That’s not a sign you’re doing it wrong. If people close to you — a partner, a parent, a child — are grieving too, know that teens have their own space in our groups as well. And if you’d like to read or listen on your own time, our community has gathered books and podcasts by survivors and grief specialists.
As time goes on
Anniversaries, birthdays, and holidays can bring the loss back to the surface, even years later — that’s normal, not a setback. Many long-time survivors say the grief doesn’t disappear, but it does change shape, and connection with others who understand keeps helping long after the first year. Whenever it feels right to you, and not a moment before, some survivors find meaning in being that steady presence for someone newer to this loss. There’s no timeline you need to be on.
Have a question, or not sure where you fit in any of this? Reach out — there are no wrong questions.
