Guilt: Causes for How Parents Get ‘Stuck’ in Their Grief
Following the Death of Their Child

More than any other grieving adults I’ve helped, parents are the victim of guilt and other ‘messy’ illogical emotions because, I firmly believe, of this over powering belief which, I might add, is NOT a fact: too often parents feel responsible for their child’s death.  But this consuming emotion makes this feeling become a fact in the tortured minds of parents.  I also contend that parents carry this burden of guilt because they are parents and with the advent of that title came the responsibility of raising, nurturing and protecting this helpless gift from inception to emancipation, years later.  Therefore logic dictates, that if something happens on ’our watch,’ then ‘we’re responsible.’  Suffocating guilt comes next to parents.

Logic should also dictate – for many of us –  that we’re responsible for what can be controlled.  After all, if we can’t control something – like an accident or a lone gunman – then how can we be the cause of any consequences, namely, the taking of a life?

But grieving parents usually respond to this logic with the belief that they should have been able to foresee what was coming, foresee the consequence that took their child’s life.  But in every set of circumstances I can recall from distressed, guilty parents, – and I’ve heard a lot over the years with half my practice being parents! – this crystal-ball belief is usually imagined and not grounded in actual facts [See Grief Counseling, especially paragraphs #5-6].  Which is why I’ve adopted the simple truth, feelings aren’t facts.  Parents are indeed masters of second guessing themselves. Masters of Monday morning quarter-backing that deflects logic.  Which is why arguing with parents is not recommended.

Parents – filled with ill-placed beliefs that they are, or should have been in control and able to foresee outcomes – are therefore enveloped and consumed with guilt.  While there are admittedly exceptions to this general profile, experience dictates that they are few and far between.  Guilt clings to grieving parents like dust to a wet cloth.  Yet most guilt is groundless.  Generally speaking, guilt is not a logical response to circumstances that can’t be controlled or were not foreseeable.  But that doesn’t keep guilt dormant in parents consumed by their of loss [See Adult Counseling, Loss From Death].

And when a child dies, at any age, by suicide, at the hands of violence or an accident, parents belief that they are responsible balloons, engulfing and almost burying them in guilt.  This intensity can cause parents – and other adults similarly feeling guilty –  to become mute, so unwilling are they to speak aloud their assumed ‘neglect’ and shame.  After all, when any of us talk of our guilt, most folks feel more guilty afterwards: putting it on the table, so to speak, for others to see, makes it more concrete and real.  Silence, therefore, is how many of us, including parents, ‘heal’ ourselves.

So I return to my familiar refrain that it is only by giving our guilt a voice that we can heal ourselves in a healthy manner.  Our belief in our culpability – fact or fiction – will survive and thrive, like weeds in a neglected yard, if we don’t talk, then talk some more and then revisit our guilt, yet again.  I know this works because I’ve done this repeatedly with a lot of clients, a lot of parents.

Take on the job of healing yourself instead of becoming emotionally handicapped.  Get help now.  Call me. Please.