Bailey's Bridges Podcast Episodes

In the final episode of Teenagers Left Behind After a Parent Dies by Suicide, we explore how grief can change as a teenager grows. Milestones can bring a loss back in new ways because we often re-grieve as we grow, understanding the loss differently at each stage of life. This episode explores continuing bonds, identity, and what healing can look like when the goal isn’t forgetting, but learning how to carry someone you love while continuing to build a life of your own. Your parent’s death may always be part of your story. But it does not get to write every chapter that comes next.

Part Two explores what happens when a teenager who has lost a parent to suicide has to step back into a world that has already started moving again. This episode looks at the difference between guilt and actual responsibility, navigating school, friends, stigma and unwanted questions, and the fear that a parent’s suicide somehow predicts the teenager’s own future. It also focuses on something easily forgotten in the midst of such a devastating loss: they are still allowed to be teenagers. They can laugh, have fun, make plans and look forward to their future without betraying the parent they lost. Joy is not a betrayal of grief, and moving forward does not mean leaving someone behind.

In Part One of this special three-part Bailey’s Bridges series, we explore the difficult and often unspoken questions teenagers may carry after losing a parent to suicide (the whys, the if onlys, conflicting emotions, anger, and the painful sense of abandonment that can lead a young person to wonder, “If my parent loved me, why wasn’t I enough for them to stay?” I talk about making room for these complicated feelings without judgment, giving anger a safe place to go, and helping teenagers understand one important message: You were never supposed to be the cure. You were their child. That was enough.

Get in touch

Our Recent Podcast Episodes

A Year of Grief Support