Therapy for Teenagers Bereaved by Suicide

If you’ve read my blog you’ll know that teengirl lost a friend to suicide a few months ago.
Her friend was just 14 when she took her own life and teengirl just 13.
In the first few months just after teengirl did really well emotionally. She used her love of art and words to deal with her pain.
As she described it – she painted her hurt onto canvas and wrote her sadness into her computer’s memory.
But just recently (so about 4 months after she lost her friend) she’s started to struggle to cope with the almighty horror of not just losing a friend but losing a friend at the friend’s own hand, at her friend’s choice.
My baby girl, who is one of the sweetest, most empathetic girls you’ll ever meet, is full of anger.
She understands that her anger is irrational, she even understands where it’s coming from but what she doesn’t know is how to deal with it, to channel it. She doesn’t have the tools to deal with her anger effectively. And I don’t have the tools to teach her the tools she needs.
She’s also very, very sad.
This only came to light in an argument we had one afternoon because I felt she was acting so very different to the girl I knew and I told her so.
And eventually she admitted she was faking it because she figured if she faked it long enough she’d finally make herself happy again.
Then she went on to tell me how a girl at school was claiming to be self harming when she wasn’t really, she was just pretending for attention. (Teengirl’s friend who killed herself self harmed for years as a way to cope with the pain of her homelife and the bullying she experienced a school.).
And this made teengirl so angry she wanted to punch this girl repeatedly (don’t worry she didn’t) and scream at her telling her she had no clue about real inner pain and how dare she take something so serious and make a mockery of it for attention.
Fortunately again, teengirl, didn’t.
Instead she locked that anger away inside her and brought it home to me.
She says drawing and writing isn’t enough anymore, it’s not taking away her pain.
She sees a school counsellor once a week but sadly teengirl doesn’t like her very much and she hates the way she says “hmmm, mmmm” when she says something and asks her how things make her feel. Teengirl feels patronised by the counsellor and not properly listened to.
So, we established that she needs some more help. And we agreed that I’d find out what was the best route and we’d make sure she got well again.
After much research I discovered she needs not just counselling but specialist therapy from a professional who specialises in bereavement by suicide for teenagers.
Apparently bereavement by suicide is very different to suffering a bereavement. It comes with many different emotions such as anger and questions and guilt that need to be carefully treated.
And some cognitive behavioural therapy would be good too.
But I’m struggling to find someone who can provide her with what she needs in our area. There’s plenty of therapists offering bereavement counselling, and a couple who specialise in bereavement by suicide but none who do this with teenagers. And then I start asking about CBT and I’m onto a chocolate watch.
I’m going to get her some books to help in the interim while I keep searching. But it looks like I may just have to get her some suicide bereavement help from someone who normally deals with adults and then some CBT from someone else.
In today’s society, where we understand how important the mental health of our teenagers is, I’m really amazed at how difficult it is to find a professional to help teengirl.