When the Ground Breaks: Surviving My Father’s Suicide as a Son and a Therapist

When the Ground Breaks: Surviving My Father’s Suicide as a Son and a Therapist

By: Tyler VanAllen

I’ve learned that the loudest silence isn’t the absence of sound—it’s the moment after the phone call. The moment when your reality fractures with words like, “He’s gone.”

My father died by suicide.

And that sentence, even now, carries a weight that resists breath. I write this as both a son and a therapist—two identities that collided violently the day I lost him. One shattered, one scrambling for tools I had not learned to use on others but suddenly needed for myself.

This is not a clinical case study.
This is not a Hallmark lesson in resilience.

This is what survival has looked like.

The Son

I wasn’t just mourning my father. I was mourning our story—the good, the broken, the complicated. He was funny, stubborn, sometimes distant, sometimes unexpectedly warm. He was deeply human, which is something I could only fully appreciate after losing him.

In the aftermath, I went hunting for reasons. That’s what grief does—it makes you an archeologist of your own pain. I unearthed guilt, anger, regret, and a million "what-ifs."

• What if I had called that morning?

• What if I had noticed something sooner?

• What if I had been enough?

These questions don’t lead to answers. They lead to spirals.

I remember standing in the shower, fists pressed to my forehead, whispering apologies to steam and tile. I wanted to forgive him and blame him in the same breath. I wanted to scream at him for leaving me with a grief that no funeral could bury.

And sometimes, I still do.

The Therapist

As a therapist, I thought I knew grief. I had sat beside many people drowning in their own. I had language for pain. I had theories and frameworks. Kübler-Ross. Worden’s Tasks. Complicated grief. Narrative reconstruction.

But none of that prepares you for the guttural truth of losing a parent to suicide.

What I didn’t expect was how quickly I began to therapize my grief. I caught myself narrating my own trauma in clinical language—dissociation, emotional flooding, intrusive thoughts—as if I could stay safe behind the glass of objectivity.

But grief doesn’t play by professional rules. It kicks in the doors and climbs into bed with you. It rewrites how you see yourself. It forced me to confront my own beliefs about control, responsibility, and the illusion that helping others means you’re immune.

I wasn’t.

And I’m not.

The Reckoning

There was a night—months later—when I found my father’s old jacket in a box I hadn’t opened. I pulled it out and inhaled without thinking. It still smelled like him. My knees buckled. I curled around that jacket like a child and wept into it.

That’s when I realized something: grief doesn’t go away. It becomes something you carry. And some days it’s heavy. Other days, it's just there—softened, reshaped, but never gone.

I stopped trying to “resolve” it. I stopped expecting it to make sense. Suicide rarely does.

Instead, I began to build a relationship with the pain. Not to glorify it, but to honor what it means. My grief is a wound and a reminder that I loved someone deeply. That he mattered.

What I Tell My Clients Now

When someone tells me they’ve lost someone to suicide, especially a parent, I don’t reach for a manual. I don’t rush to explain or soothe.

I say something simple and honest:

“There’s no right way to survive this. But you don’t have to do it alone.”

I don’t try to fix their pain. I sit with it.

Because that’s what I needed most.

To Other Sons and Survivors

If you're reading this as someone who's lost your father to suicide, let me say what may not have been said to you enough:

• You are not responsible for his death.

• Your grief doesn’t need to look like anyone else's.

• Your anger is valid. So is your love.

• Healing doesn’t mean forgetting.

• You can live a beautiful, meaningful life—even with this loss stitched into your story.

Some days, you’ll feel the absence like a ghost trailing your steps. Other days, you’ll laugh without guilt. Both are sacred.

Both are survival.

Closing

As both a son and a therapist, I’ve learned that surviving suicide loss isn’t about having answers—it’s about asking different questions.

Not “Why did he leave?”
But “How do I carry him with me, now that he’s gone?”

And maybe—just maybe—the answer is:

With honesty. With gentleness. With love.

Even when the ground breaks beneath you. Especially then.

If you're struggling with suicidal thoughts or grief from a suicide loss, you're not alone. Please reach out—to a friend, a therapist, or a crisis line. Your pain is real. So is your worth. And there is help.

If you or someone you love is struggling with thoughts of suicide, please know that help is available. In the U.S., you can dial or text 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available 24/7.