The Debt We Owe Those We’ve Lost

CW: suicide, suicide loss, systemic failures, mental health

One of the most painful things about losing someone to suicide isn't just the loss itself. It's the way the world talks about it afterward.

They took the easy way out. It was selfish. They must not have been strong enough.

I've heard all of these — sometimes from strangers, sometimes from people who should have known better. And every time, I want to ask (and have started poking, gently): Do you have any idea what you're saying? Do you know whose life you're dismissing? Do you think hearing that helps or hurts people who are grieving?

Because when we call someone weak for dying by suicide, we're not just wrong. We're adding to a debt we already owe them — one we keep failing to pay.

Image: Pexels

The Hierarchy of Acceptable Deaths

Not all deaths are grieved equally. We don't like to admit this, but it's true.

Some deaths get public mourning. Fundraisers. Memorial runs. Coverage that emphasizes the tragedy of a life cut short. (Thankfully, AFSP changed this with their Out of the Darkness Walks.)

Other deaths get whispered about. Kept quiet. Framed as shameful, or avoidable, or somehow the person's own fault.

Suicide generally falls into the second category. Overdose. AIDS, for a long time. Deaths that get attached to stigma, to judgment, to the unspoken question: well, what did they expect? The assumption that someone who takes their own life didn't care about it or didn't care about themself.

The message is clear: some lives are understandably worth grieving, and some should be grieved in private, if at all.

That hierarchy isn't just unfair — it's a debt left unpaid, over and over, to the people we decided weren't worth the full weight of our grief. And here's the disparity: this grief is often very heavy! Complicated, layered and intense. Yet, it's least supported.

This is not about the deaths. It's about who we've decided deserves compassion — and who we've decided "brought it on themselves."

What We Mean When We Say "Weak"

When someone calls a person who died by suicide "weak," what are they actually saying?

They're saying that strength looks like endurance. That the correct response to unbearable pain is to bear it anyway. That asking for help is acceptable, but giving up is not. That if you couldn't survive what you were going through, you simply didn't try hard enough.

This is a brutal framework. It puts the entire burden on the individual. It ignores everything that made their pain unbearable in the first place — the trauma, the brain chemistry, the circumstances, the systems that did not hold them when it mattered most.

And it protects those systems from accountability. If suicide is about individual weakness, then we don't have to look at what failed. We don't have to examine the mental health care that was inaccessible or inadequate. The economic pressure. The isolation. The stigma that kept them from reaching out. The hundred ways our society makes it hard to stay alive when you're struggling.

We don't have to take any responsibility for it. By calling someone weak, it lets everyone else off the hook.

Who We're Really Talking About

My father wasn't weak. Your person wasn't weak either. We know the truth, but it takes effort to ignore the subtle but powerful messaging we're steeped in.

My father was a complicated, brilliant, difficult, funny, frustrating human being. He worked hard. He raised kids. He showed up for people. He also struggled with things he didn't talk about — things I only partially understand, even now.

The same is true for your person. Whoever you lost — they were a full human being with a full life. They had strengths. They loved people. They contributed something to this world. They were not defined by how they died.

When someone reduces a human being to "weak" or "selfish" or "cowardly," they're not seeing a person.

They're seeing a cautionary tale. A category. A comfortable explanation that protects them from having to sit with the reality of what happened.

It actually says a lot about how we collectively view life, in general.

But you know better. You knew them. You know they were so much more than the worst day of their life.

And you know that to judge someone based onthe hardest time of their lives is not just unfair. It is unkind. None of us would want to be held to that.

The Society That Failed Them

Here's what I believe: suicide is not a personal failure. It's a systemic one.

Yes, individual factors matter. Mental illness is real. Brain chemistry is real. Personal circumstances are real.

But we live in a society that:

• Makes mental health care expensive, inaccessible, or hard to find

• Stigmatizes the very conditions that put people at risk

• Tells people to "reach out" but doesn't answer when they do

• Values productivity over wellbeing

• Treats struggle as weakness and vulnerability as burden

• Isolates people and then blames them for being alone

People don't die by suicide because they're weak. They die because they were in unbearable pain and couldn't find another way out. Often, they couldn't find another way out because we — collectively — didn't build enough ways out.

The failure isn't theirs. It's ours. And a failure this size doesn't just disappear when someone dies. Even now, we owe them because of this failure.

What We Owe Them Now

We can't bring them back. But we can refuse to let them be reduced.

We can say their names out loud. We can talk about their lives, not just their deaths. We can correct people who use words like "coward" or "selfish." We can push back against the stigma that follows suicide loss like a shadow.

And we can tell the truth about what happened: that our people deserved better. Better support, better care, better options. That they weren't weak — they were human, struggling in a world that often makes it very hard to struggle.

Their lives were not worth less because of how they died. Their deaths are not less tragic because someone, somewhere, decided suicide doesn't count. Someone who would benefit or be advantaged by doing so.

We know what we lost. And we will not let anyone diminish it.

For Those of Us Left Behind

If you're grieving someone who died by suicide, you might carry an extra weight: the feeling that your grief is somehow less valid. Less deserving of support. Less welcome in public spaces.

I want you to know: your grief is real. Your loss is real. The person you loved was real, and valuable, and worth mourning loudly.

Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Don't let stigma make you small. Your person mattered. Your grief matters.

And the society that failed them doesn't get to judge how you grieve or tell you how to do it.

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If you're carrying grief that the world doesn't always make space for, you're not alone. Befriend Your Grief is a 3-month companioning program for survivors of suicide loss. Learn more here. You may also wish to take this 5-minute assessment on where you are in your grief process. Or read this helpful blog, What People Grieving Suicide Wish You Understood.