The Myth That We Could Have Stopped It

This is the cruelty of suicide loss:
your brain starts replaying every moment you shared, searching for the thing you missed.
The clue.
The sign.
The one conversation you wish you could go back and change.

But here’s the truth no one says out loud:

You can’t stop something you didn’t cause.
You can’t prevent something you didn’t create.
You can’t fix a pain you didn’t inflict.

Loving someone isn’t a cure for their suffering.
And losing them doesn’t mean you failed.

I know this in my bones now, but I didn’t at the start.

In the early days, I ran every memory through a microscope, picking apart words, moments, facial expressions, texts, tone, the way she walked through the door the last week, like it was a crime scene.
I carried the guilt like a second skin.
I thought: If I were better, she would still be here.
If I had said the right thing, she wouldn’t have died.
If I had been stronger, maybe she would have been too.

But that’s the lie suicide grief tells you.

Because the truth… the brutal, quiet, gutting truth, is this:

Her suffering didn’t come from who I was to her.

It came from the battles inside her that no home, no mother, no love could save her from.

She fought so hard for so long.
She held on longer than most people ever will understand.
Her pain was bigger than her ability to survive it; not bigger than her love.

It takes a long time to say that without flinching.
It takes longer to believe it.

But it’s the truth.