There are all kinds of tragedies we experience that require self-forgiveness if we’re ever going to move forward and find joy again.
Accidental harm: A car accident or mistake that caused injury or death.
Medical decisions: Feeling guilt over choices made during a loved one’s illness or end-of-life care.
Addiction-related loss: Believing you “should have done more” for someone who died from substance use.
Estranged relationships: A falling out or harsh words spoken before someone died.
Parenting regrets: Believing you failed your child in some way, even if you couldn’t have prevented the outcome.
Infidelity or betrayal: Struggling to forgive yourself for hurting someone else deeply.
Abuse (as a survivor): Carrying shame for the abuse you endured or how you coped with it.
Abuse (as a reformed abuser): Facing the painful reality of having hurt someone and working to change while learning to live with that past.
For those of us who’ve lost a child or loved one to suicide, self-blame is common
Maybe we missed their last phone call. Or maybe we answered but didn’t recognize the signs. We didn’t do what we think we “should” have done. Or we reacted in a way we now regret—because hindsight comes with painful clarity.
Many people wonder why suicide loss survivors blame themselves. It’s because of that intention piece. It can feel like our loved one intended to leave us. They planned it in secret. And so, we center their death around ourselves, even though it was never about us—it was about the pain they were in.
I remember my last conversation with my son. Now I understand things I didn’t know then. But that didn’t stop me from replaying that last call and his final text over and over. Forgiving myself took time.
For me, the self-torment lasted about a year. And it wasn’t a single moment—it was a process.
Here’s the secret.
I set the intention
Long before I could actually forgive myself, I decided I would.
I didn’t know how, or what it would look like, or even what it would feel like when I got there. I just chose to believe it was possible despite having doubts.
That’s where it starts.
You take a leap of faith. You say: “One day, I will forgive myself.“
Along the way, that inner voice will fight back:
- “You don’t deserve forgiveness.”
- “He’s dead, so how could you ever be happy again?”
- “You failed as a parent, sibling, spouse, or friend.”
Don’t accept those thoughts at face value.
Talk back to that voice, have a debate, but make sure it ends with you and your alter ego agreeing on something positive. Ask, “Does this help me? No. It doesn’t. So I hear you, critical voice—but I won’t stay trapped in misery because of a lie I keep telling myself.”
Would the person you lost want you to live a terrible life, to be unhappy, or to harm or kill yourself? Not likely.
Their death was not punishment. It was their desperate attempt to escape their own unbearable pain, and a perfect storm pushed them towards suicide in that moment.
I gave my son life
But I was no more responsible for keeping him alive than I was for his death. I did the best I could. I protected my child from cars in the street. I worried when he got sick and ran a high fever. I feared he’d die in a car accident, get childhood cancer, or be abducted.
I worried about a drug overdose, a drowning, or even a shooting.
It never occurred to me that my child’s worst enemy was in his own head. That his brain would betray him like it did. Tell him he was worthless and convince him he’d be better off dead.
I just couldn’t imagine it, fathom it or wrap my head around it. Until I had to.
I never expected that blonde-headed bundle of toddler energy and fun to grow up and live with a rare sleep disorder, anxiety, and depression. Then addiction. As a teen, he was so funny, engaging, and charming. So loved.
With any loss, there will be regrets, the “coulda-woulda-shouldas,” and endless what-ifs. They’re part of the grieving process.
I just woke up one day, and said this is the day I forgive myself. I accepted that I am an imperfect human, and I decided I was no longer going to torture myself, and I wrote why. My son grew up in a house of love, and nothing that I said or did caused him to suicide. That post, a year after he died, was the hardest article I have ever written. But after, I felt such a sense of peace.
Forgiveness—the decision to stop punishing yourself—is how we learn to live again while carrying the love of the one we lost. You will have nicks of regret still, and you just remind yourself, I have been over that, and I have forgiven myself.
Related posts: 12 Tips for Forgiving Yourself
AnneMoss Rogers is a leading wellness and suicide education expert and one of the top mental health speakers and suicide prevention speakers. Known for her powerful, motivational keynotes, AnneMoss combines her personal story of loss with proven strategies to help organizations build a wellness culture that drives results and saves lives. She speaks at conferences, workplaces, K-12 schools, and universities, delivering impactful presentations that inspire change and promote mental health awareness.
AnneMoss does this work in memory of her son, Charles, who struggled with anxiety, depression, and addiction, and died by suicide at age 20 in 2015.
Thank you Gray, for your post. I think the forgiving is about alleviating our sense of guilt that we may have contributed by saying or doing something wrong. Or the belief that we could have done more. It is, in a way, an acceptance of what took place as opposed to forgiveness stemming from our lack of actions. This is how l can relate to it.
We often do not forgive ourselves, I think, because though we blame ourselves, we often are unable to see this blame as something requiring forgiveness. We are blinded by the blame before us (inside of us) as to the need to forgive ourselves. The shoulds, woulds and coulds blind us further still and, for some of us, we deem ourselves as unworthy of any forgiveness once the notion is brought to our attention.
Its been nearly 4 years since losing my partner to suicide and I still struggle with forgiveness. This struggle is fed by feelings of guilt, a sense of responsibility for his death, shame, self-anger that I didn’t see it coming, and my own sense of the loss of self-worth as I internalize the message that my partner “made his choice” to leave me. This last message is that which creates the Stigma attached to a suicide loss. Of course, in all of this, I can intellectualize these feelings away but not so deep within my heart. However, I am trying each day to move towards a better understanding of my loss and a narrative that incorporates that my partner did indeed care for me. Without this belief, I know that I will struggle even further.
He didn’t “Choose” to leave me; rather, he just needed to really put to rest the pain that he was evidently experiencing so as to gain Peace. But of course his Peace was a false Peace for him and he took away with him any Peace that I too once held, though unintentionally so.
For him, I can truthfully extend the olive branch of Peace. For me, I am yet to have an olive branch extended to me and one that I can graciously accept. But in my heart, I hope that one day a branch will grow (with my name on it) and I will find it – and this is the hope that keeps me going.
So beautifully said. –>”I think, because though we blame ourselves, we often are unable to see this blame as something requiring forgiveness.” This is the key for sure.
And I have your post in the draft form. I will use Mort and no last name. If you have a photo, email that to me.
Beautifully said Heath.
I think that many of us don’t realize that we have never truly forgiven ourselves, and that is the reason for much of our present day angst.
Maybe this is the reason that many survivors never feel enough, can never do enough, and struggle with making every minute of the day count for something monumental.
I don’t think of it as needing to forgive myself, but maybe so…