One of the most profound statements shared at yesterday's Suicide Awareness Symposium was by a survivor--the wife of a man killed by suicide. She was talking about the difficult task of working through your emotions after this tragic event. She said, "You can do your work now or you can do your work later, but there's no avoiding the work." Her point was that while you might try to avoid dealing with the grief and deep loss of suicide, it will have to be addressed eventually.
Her assessment is absolutely true and not just about suicide. We have all had difficult (and sometimes traumatic) events affect us in life. Many times we avoid handling them in a way which could help lead us to healing because we are afraid of what might happen in the process. I think sometimes we are just too overwhelmed with the thought of confronting our own emotions. As I've discovered in my own life however, at some point we will be forced to face these head on. While taking a moment to catch our breath before doing this work might be helpful in the short term, we can't avoid these steps forever. We each have to decide when we are willing to tackle these events and then commit to the work to get us through it.
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