When the Unthinkable Happens: Nervous System Safety After Suicide Loss

Elisha's Space: Today's episode discusses suicide loss, the grief of those left behind after someone dies by suicide. If you are in crisis right now, or if you are having thoughts of ending your life, please stop this recording. Call or text 988 in the United States. That's the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. They are there right now. This episode will be here when you're ready. I want to say that again because I need you to hear it before we go anywhere else today. Nine eighty eight. Save that number. And if you're not in crisis but someone you love is, that number is for you too. You know the exact moment you found out. You remember where you were standing, what you were wearing, what the light looked like in the room, and then you remember what your body did. Because your body remembers everything, even when your mind goes blank. Maybe your legs gave out, maybe you couldn't breathe, maybe you went completely still, like something inside you just shut off. And you've been living in that stillness ever since. If that's where you are right now, if someone you love has died by suicide and your world has cracked open in a way that nobody around you seems to understand. Nothing is wrong with you. Your body is doing exactly what it was designed to do. It's just stuck. And today I'm not going to tell you to move on. I'm going to help you find safety inside the unimaginable. Welcome to Elisha Space, a sanctuary for healing growth and for the kind of honest conversations that actually change things. I'm Elisha, your host, a counselor, an author, and someone who has sat in the same step place as you have. If you've been listening for a while, I see you, and I'm glad that you're back. And if you're new here, If you found this episode because you're searching for something, ⁓ anything, help you survive the loss of someone you love to suicide, welcome home. You are in the right place. ⁓ Today's is practical, clinical, but pastoral. We're going to talk about what happens in your nervous system when someone dies by suicide, why this grief feels different from any other loss, why your body is responding the way it is. And what you can actually do to find a sense of safety again. Not closure, safety. So stay with me. I need to start by naming something that most grief resources don't say out loud. Suicide is not the same as other grief. It's not a harder version of the same experience. It's fundamentally different experience. And it activates a fundamentally different response in your nervous system. Here's why. when someone you love dies by suicide. Your brain doesn't register loss, it registers threat. The person who was supposed to be safe, who was supposed to stay, chose to leave, and your nervous system, which is designed to detect patterns of safety and danger, reads that as a catastrophic rupture and the fabric of what it means to be connected to another human being. This is why you might feel like you can't trust anyone right now. while you might be scanning every relationship for signs that someone else might leave. Why a text that goes unanswered for 20 minutes sends your heart rate through the roof. It's not paranoia. It's not you being dramatic. Your nervous system learned that someone you loved could disappear without warning. And it is now running a threat detection protocol that will not shut off just because you tell it to. This is why people around you might be saying things that feel deeply wrong. At least they're at peace. Everything happens for a reason. God needed another angel. You know those words are meant kindly, but your body reacts to them like a slap because your body knows the truth. This was not peaceful. This was not a plan. This was someone in so much pain. that they couldn't see any other way out and now you're carrying that pain. Let your nervous system hear that you are not running from it. So let's talk about what's actually happening inside you because knowledge isn't just power for trauma survivors, knowledge is safety. When you understand what your body is doing, you stop fighting it. And when you stop fighting it, it starts to soften. There are three things happening in your nervous system right now that you need to understand. First, your threat detection system, what we call the amygdala. Is in a state of chronic activation in normal grief. The amygdala responds to loss with sadness and the prefrontal cortex, the thinking part of your brain, gradually helps you integrate the loss over time. But in suicide loss, the amygdala reads the event as a threat, not just a loss. ⁓ It's not signaling something sad happened. It's signaling the world is not safe. And when the amygdala is in threat mode, it suppresses the prefrontal cortex. That's why you might feel like you can't think straight. Like you can't make simple decisions. Like the words on a page swing in front of you. That's not grief fog. That's your brain literally redirecting resources away from thinking into survival. Second, and this is the one nobody talks about. Suicide loss activates the same neural circuits as shame. Research from the neuroscience of social pain shows that the brain processes rejection and abandonment in the same regions it processes physical pain. But suicide loss is worse because it's not just rejection. It's a rejection that ended in permanence. And your brain does something devastating with that. It tries to make meaning out of it by turning the blame inward. What if I had called that day? What if I had noticed? What if I had been a better a better friend, a better mother, a better partner? That is your nervous system trying to regain control of an uncontrollable loss by making it your fault. Because if it's your fault, then there was something you could have done. And that feels less terrifying than the truth. which is that you couldn't have controlled it. I'm going to say that again because your body needs to hear it. The guilt you feel is not evidence that you did something wrong. It is your nervous system trying to make an unbearable reality feel manageable by giving you a role in it. Your guilt is not a verdict, it's a survival mechanism. Third, the vagus nerve, the longest cranial nerve in your body, the one that regulates your heart rate, your breathing, your ability to feel connected to other human beings. The vagus literally means wandering in Latin, and it wanders from your brainstem all the way through your chest into your gut. This nerve has been thrown into what we call dorsal vagal shutdown. You remember what that feels like? It's the freeze response, not the fight, not the flight, the freeze. Your body has gone into conservation mode. Everything slows down. You feel numb, you feel disconnected. You might be functioning, going to work, making meals, answering texts, but inside you feel like you're watching your life through a glass, like the real you is somewhere far away. That is your dorsal vagal complex. It's the oldest, most primitive branch of your nervous system, and it kicks in when neither fight nor flight can save you. When the threat is so overwhelming that your body decides the best way to survive is to go still, to go quiet, to go numb. This isn't visualization, this is physiology. Now, I need to talk about the part that most Christian grief resources skip. Because if you're listening to this podcast, you're likely someone who has a faith life. And suicide loss doesn't just rupture your nervous system, it ruptures your theology. Maybe you're angry at God. Maybe you feel like he didn't answer your prayers. Or the prayers of the person you lost. Maybe you've been told that suicide is the unforgivable sin. And you're carrying the tear that the person you love is separated from God. Maybe you're sitting in church and the worship songs feel like they're about someone else's God, a God who is near and good and in control. And you want to scream. I want to tell you something as someone who in God who is not afraid of your anger. As a counselor. Theological rumination. Obsessively replaying questions about God's role in the loss is one of the ways your nervous system tries to create meaning from catastrophe. It's the same survival mechanism as the guilt. If you can figure out the theological answer, then the loss has a framework. And frameworks feel safer than the void. But the void is where you actually are right now. And I'm not going to rush you out of it. And as someone who believes in a God who sees, God is not threatened by your anger. The Psalms are full of rage and grief directed at God. And those psalms are still in scripture. Lament is not a failure of faith. Lament is faith. It is the faith to bring your real self, the self that is shattered, furious, and terrified into the presence of a God who can hold it. And that Old theology, the one that says suicide is the unpardonable sin, that is not the God I see in scripture. I see a God who drew near to people in their deepest suffering. I see a Jesus who wept at Lazarus' tomb, knowing he was about to raise him. He wept anyway because the grief of the people he loved mattered to him. I see a God who is not standing at a distance. Grading the final moments of someone in an unbearable pain. I see a God who is in that pain, who knows what it is to be so overwhelmed that your body sweats blood. His peace is not dependent on your circumstances being resolved. It is a regulated nervous system in the presence of a safe God. And right now, your nervous system is not regulated. And that's not a spiritual failure. That's a body that needs safety before it can feel peace. So let me give you some practical, not a fix, because this isn't something you fix, but a framework I'm calling safe. And each letter is a practice for your nervous system, not a performance for anyone else. S slow the threat signal. Your nervous system has been running on red alert since the loss. You can't think your way out of that. Remember, your prefrontal cortex is offline. But you can use your body to send a different signal. Twice a day, not once, not when you remember, twice. I want you to do a 60-second vagal tone practice. Here's what it looks like. Sit down, put both your feet on the floor, put one hand on your chest, one hand on your belly, breathe in through your nose for four counts, and then make your exhale longer than your inhale. Six counts out. A if you can. The exhale is the vagal break. Long exhales literally slow your heart rate through the vagus nerve. This is not a meditation. This is a 48 seconds of biology. A anchor to one safe person. Not a support group, not your whole church, one person. Someone who can sit with you without trying to fix it. Someone who doesn't flinch when you say the word suicide. If you don't have that person yet. That's okay. But finding them is not optional. Your nervous system needs to co-regulate. The experience of being near a calm body when your own body can't find calm, we are not designed to process catastrophic loss alone. Your brain needs another brain, a safe one to borrow from. F frame the guilt correctly. Every time the guilt shows up, and it will show up, probably today, probably before the episode is over, I want you to say one sentence out loud, not in your head, out loud, because your vagus nerve hears your own voice and responds to it. Say, this guilt is my nervous system trying to make an unbearable reality manageable. It is not a verdict. You don't have to believe it yet. You just have to say it. Your body will start to listen. E. Extend the timeline. Suicide grief does not follow the timeline people expect. The casseroles stop after two weeks. The texts stop after a month. But the reality is that suicide grief often intensifies between months three and nine. Because that's when the shock wears off and the dorsal vagal shutdown. Begins to lift and you start to actually feel what happened. That's not regression, that's your nervous system thawing. It's the freeze response releasing. And it feels worse before it feels better. I need you to know that the timeline is not your timeline. It's your bodies. And your body is not behind schedule. So stay with me. Let's do it. I'm going to guide you through a practice now. It will take about six minutes. You don't need to do anything except be somewhere you can sit and not be interrupted. If you're driving, this is not the time. Pause this. Come back when you're still. Sit down both feet on the floor or lie down. If your body needs to be horizontal right now, that's okay. Your nervous system knows what position it needs. Put one hand on your chest, right over your heart. Put the other hand on your belly, just below your ribs. Feel the weight of your own hands. Your hands are warm. Or maybe they're cold. And that's okay too. Just notice the pressure, the contact. Your body is touching itself right now. That contact is a signal. It tells your nervous system, I am here, something is here. Breathe in through your nose. And let it out slowly through your mouth. Again in through the nose, and And a long slow exhale. Let the exhale be longer than the inhale. Let it be longer. Now I want you to say out loud or in a whisper, if you need to, I am still here. Say it again. I am still here. Your body is still here. Your heart is still beating. Your lungs are still filling. After everything that has happened, after the worst thing that has happened, your body is still keeping you alive. That is not a small thing. That is your nervous system doing its most faithful work. Now with your hand on your chest, I want you to notice is there tension there? Tightness, a weight. Don't try to change it. Don't try to release it. Just let your hand be there and let the tension know that it seemed. Is that tension in your forehead, your jaw, your shoulders? Let your nervous system hear that you are not running from it. Now breathe in. And let it out. One more in. And out. You just gave your nervous system 60 seconds of safety. That's not a lot, but it's more than it had before. And you can do this again at a red light, in a parking lot, in the bathroom at work. 60 seconds of biology. That's all it takes to start. I want to pray for you right now. If prayer isn't your practice, that's okay. Sit with me anyway. These words can be whatever you need them to be. Father, I am grateful that you made these bodies, that you knit together the very nervous systems that we are learning to regulate. And today I'm asking you for the ones listening who are carrying something that no one should have to carry. The way of losing someone they love to suicide. I pray for the nervous systems, for the amygdala that won't stop scanding, for the vagus nerve that has shut down, for the body that has gone still and cold and numb. I pray that you would be the safety those bodies are searching for. Not a safety that erases the laws, but a safety that says you are not alone in this. I pray for the guilt, the what-ifs that play on a loop at three in the morning. I pray that you would meet those questions with your presence. Not with an answer, because an answer might not be what they need right now, but with your presence, the kind of present that sits beside a tomb and weeps. I pray for the anger at the person they lost, at the people around them who don't understand, at you, Lord, for not I pray that you would hold it the way you hold the prayers of the psalmist. Every lament, every rage, every how long, O Lord, ⁓ and That you would not turn away from it. I And for the one listening, I pray that they would know they are not too much, they are not too far, and they are not alone. In your name, amen. If this episode names something you've been carrying in silence, something your body has known but you haven't had words for, I want you to do two things. First, the seven day challenge. For the next seven days, I want you to do the safe practice once a day, just once. Sixty seconds of long exhales. One hand on your chest, one on your belly. I am still here. That's it. If you miss a day, you haven't failed. You just start again the next day. Your nervous system doesn't need perfection. It needs repetition. Second, if this episode helped you, share it. Text it to one person you know is struggling. Not a social media post, a text, one person, because suicide loss lives in isolation, and isolation is where the shame grows. When you send this to someone, you're telling them, I know what you're carrying. You don't have to carry it alone. You can find more resources. The Start Guide for Somatic Regulation, the Sanctuary Style Method, and information about working with me at my website. The link is in the description. And if you're listening to this and you're not the survivor, but you love someone who is, be the person who doesn't flinch. Be the person who says the word. Be the one safe body in the room. That it's not a small thing you can do. It might be the most important thing you'll ever do. Until next time, you're not too much, you're not too far, and you are not alone.