Survived to Thrive Podcast
A podcast designed for survivors of suicide loss. This podcast explores the unique grief experiences that accompany a loved ones death due to suicide, shares insights on how your brain processes this kind of loss, and offers worthwhile and valuable tips you can start today to gain a more joyful and fulfilling life even though your loved one died.
Survived to Thrive Podcast
114: Asking Why: The Search for Answers After Suicide Loss
Why did they do it? This question haunts every survivor of suicide loss, creating a continuous loop of painful speculation that can keep us trapped in grief. In episode 114 of the Survived to Thrive podcast, Amy Miller explores the complex relationship suicide loss survivors have with the question "why" and how it can either deepen our suffering or guide us toward healing.
Our brains desperately seek resolution after trauma, treating unanswered questions like energy-draining open browser tabs constantly running in the background. We believe finding the perfect explanation will finally bring peace. But suicide rarely has a single cause – it's typically a complex interplay of mental illness, psychological pain, and distorted thinking. The concrete answer we're seeking often doesn't exist.
This is where "why" becomes a trap. When our minds settle on explanations like "I wasn't enough" or "I missed the signs," the question transforms from a tool for understanding into a weapon of self-punishment. Amy calls this "grief layering" – when natural grief becomes entangled with guilt, shame, and blame, preventing healing. But through compassionate reframing, we can shift from questions that punish to questions that heal: "What pain must they have been in?" or "What does this loss invite me to do with my life?"
Amy offers a powerful perspective: "Acceptance doesn't mean agreement—it just means you stop fighting what already happened." When we view suicide not as a rational choice but as the outcome of unbearable suffering and distorted thinking, our hearts soften toward our loved ones and ourselves. We begin to forgive what was never in our control. The most liberating step comes when we move from "why" to "what now?" As Amy beautifully articulates, "Meaning is not found—it's made." We don't need complete answers to begin healing or to create something meaningful from our grief experience.
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Website: https://www.survived-to-thrive.com/
Email: amy@survived-to-thrive.com
You are listening to the Survived to Thrive Podcast with Amy Miller, a podcast for survivors of suicide loss. In this weekly podcast, you will learn more about your unique experiences and gain insights on your brain and how it processes grief and loss due to a loved one's suicide. While suicide grief comes in all shapes and sizes, Amy shows you that you still can have a life full of joy and fulfillment even though your loved one died. You don't have to just survive anymore. You can thrive.
Speaker 2:You are listening to the Survive to Thrive podcast with Amy Miller, episode number 114, asking why? The Search for Answers After Suicide Loss. Hey there, friends, welcome to the podcast. I'm your host, amy Miller. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen and to follow along these videos, as I've been putting them in YouTube. It's a new platform for me, so I appreciate your patience.
Speaker 2:I'm thankful each day that I get the opportunity to have these conversations and discussions of suicide loss. I think this is something profound that profoundly affects so many of us who are survivors, who are the ones that are left behind after loss. So thank you again for taking the time and also, if you're new to my YouTube channel, please subscribe. That helps me to get this out. This is a brand new channel, so I know there's not enough, or barely any, subscriptions at the moment, so please share it, share it, share it, subscribe, subscribe, subscribe and help me to help this grow. All right.
Speaker 2:So today we're going to be talking a lot about the question why and how this profoundly affects how we think about our grief and why. This is something that often comes up for survivors of suicide loss and you know our brain is constantly looking for resolution. It's looking for reasons. It's looking for answers. I've shared with many of you before in my podcast how, after my sister had passed, I was left in a lot of bewilderment and confusion, and a lot of it had to do with this idea of trying to understand why. Why did she do this? Why didn't she tell me she was feeling the way that she was feeling? Why couldn't I be the one to help her stop it? And why wasn't I enough for her to make a different choice? And many of us have different variations of these exact questions that run through our minds as we're trying to make sense of something so senseless as suicide loss. So, while this question can haunt us in many instances, like it was for me, this question can also be used if we choose to help us grow, and today we're going to be exploring a little bit more about this question, of the question why, and use insights from David Kessler and the coaching tools that I've been taught, and we'll talk about how asking why can either trap you in some suffering or more suffering, or lead you closer to peace, depending on how you choose to engage with it.
Speaker 2:Okay, so let's begin with asking why we ask why in the first place. I think this is a very fair question to ask, and I think it's an important one to ask and one that we should understand so we can make sense of why we go down this road. The human brain hates, hates any unanswered question. It's like an open browser tab that just keeps refreshing, draining energy in the background. We lose someone we love, especially to something as traumatic as suicide. Our brain kicks into this high gear mode, trying to piece together a story that makes sense. It's like a survival mechanism.
Speaker 2:Now, david Kessler, who I mentioned before, is the author of a book called Finding Meaning the Sixth Stage of Grief, and he teaches that meaning making is a fundamental part of meaning. But he also warned that it's not the same as finding the true reason. But we often believe that if we can just uncover the one concrete explanation, we'll finally have peace. But suicide I hate to break it to you is never caused by one thing. It's often a complicated combination of pain, mental illness, life circumstances and distorted thinking. So your brain keeps asking why, but the answer it's chasing may never even exist in the form we're hoping for. Okay, so let's talk about how this question of asking why becomes a trap. I wanna point out something to you that can be really powerful.
Speaker 2:We think the question why will give us peace, but often it deepens our pain. For example, let's say your brain decides the why is I wasn't a good enough parent, I wasn't a good partner. They felt like a burden. Or I didn't answer that last phone call, right? I know so many survivors that have that in the back of their heads that they didn't answer that last phone call. They didn't know how much I cared. That's another common one. And they did this to get back at me as a form of revenge for doing something that I did to them right, form of revenge for doing something that I did to them right.
Speaker 2:But now your brain doesn't have just a story that it's going through its head, but when we're deciding the why is one of these things. The brain has made it a weapon and it turns that weapon on you and this is called grief layering. When the pain of the loss gets tangled up in guilt, in shame, in self-blame, that's when the question why becomes so debilitating and it keeps you stuck in a loop of what ifs and it really can create you going into this problematic thing of rewriting the history of what you view and think about your loss. Now, one of the things I'd like to remind you of is how our thoughts are optional, even in grief, and that includes thoughts we attach to our why. You can absolutely have compassion for your confusion, for your pain, and that includes thoughts we attach to our why. You can absolutely have compassion for your confusion, for your pain and for your desire to understand, but also recognize when your thoughts are not serving you.
Speaker 2:So one of the things I often recommend is asking yourself is this story bringing me closer to peace or is it keeping me in pain? Okay, I know for me, as I was trying to make some sort of sense of my sister and her choice, I remember thinking a lot about the reasons why she would do this. I was thinking about how I could have done better, how other people in her life could have done better, but the truth was it wasn't taking me any closer to peace. Instead, it was just creating more pain. It was creating feelings of guilt, it was creating feelings of anger for the other people in her life and it wasn't bringing me any closer to what I so desired. So I really want you to ask yourself this question is this story bringing me closer to peace or is it bringing me closer to pain? Okay, now I want to ask you how, or kind of bring this up, because there is a way that the question why can set you free. And here's where the shift happens.
Speaker 2:Okay, when we start to ask better questions instead of why did they do this, or why didn't they call me, or why didn't I pick up the phone, and we start asking different questions, like what pain they must have been in, or what does this loss invite me to do with my own life, or how can I honor how I live now and here's why becomes liberating in this particular context. It's because we can use it to grow and not to punish ourselves. One of the most empowering skills we can learn is that if we take responsibility for our feelings, not by denying grief, but by choosing thoughts that create empowerment rather than helplessness, you can say I will never fully know why, but I can choose to create meaning. One of the things I remind my clients of is that acceptance doesn't mean agreement. Okay, I want to say that again. Acceptance doesn't mean agreement. Okay, I want to say that again. Acceptance doesn't mean agreement, it just means you stop fighting what already happened. That opens up emotional space for peace, even if you don't have all the answers.
Speaker 2:Okay, now I kind of want to get into reframing why with compassion. Okay, so when we reframe why with compassion, we think about the people we've lost, affects the way we feel about them and ourselves. If your why paints them as selfish, broken or careless, how does that affect your grief? My guess is it probably doesn't help. It probably makes it worse. So instead, reframe and ask what if you viewed their suicide as the outcome of unbearable pain they didn't know how to escape? That reframe doesn't excuse the act, but it helps your heart soften towards them and towards yourself, because suicide isn't a rational decision. I think most people would agree upon that that it's not a rational decision. It's not an answer to any trauma or trouble or issue or anything that they are going through. It's the result of distorted thinking and caused by that pain that feels bigger than life itself. So let your why be a doorway to compassion. Let it invite you to see your loved one as a human being who was suffering. Let it help you forgive yourself for not being able to fix what was never in your control to begin with.
Speaker 2:Okay. Now, one of the things I want to say in closing is I really want you to get closer to moving from why to now what. The why may never come, not fully, not cleanly, but here's the truth. You don't need to know why to begin healing. You don't need the answer to move forward. You can let the why evolve into a new question, such as what now?
Speaker 2:What now with one precious life? What now with the love you still carry for them? What now with the love you still carry for them? What now with your grief, your strength, your courage? Meaning is not found. Okay, it's made, and you're allowed to make meaning. You're allowed to live again. You are allowed to hold both your questions and your healing, okay. So thank you so much for being here today. I know this was a short one, but I feel so passionate about this conversation and topic because there's so many of us, as survivors of suicide loss, that are asking the wrong why questions, and I really want you to begin to reframe and ask what now? Questions, because I think it'll really help transform the pain of grief that most of you find yourself. Just know I just love you, I see your grief, I honor your love and I believe in your ability to move forward, even if you never get the why. Thank you so much for joining me today. Until next time, bye, bye.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Survived to Thrive podcast. If you like this podcast, please share with your friends and write a review on iTunes. Also check out survived-to-thrivecom for more information and to subscribe to get the podcast's latest episode, along with useful tips you can begin to use immediately to feel better, directly sent to your inbox.