You're not going crazy

You can't remember your own postcode. You put your keys in the fridge. You burst into tears at a traffic light. You forgot your best friend's name mid-sentence. You can't decide what to eat, or what to wear, or whether to answer the phone. You stood in the shower for forty minutes without moving.

None of this means you're going crazy. All of it means you're grieving.

Grief does things to your mind that nobody warns you about. The fog — where everything feels muffled and distant, like you're operating behind glass. The inability to make decisions, even tiny ones, because your brain has used up its capacity on the single biggest thing it's ever had to process. The forgetting — not just where you left your phone, but what day it is, what you do for a living, whether you've eaten.

After a death by suicide, these things are often more intense. Your brain is processing not just the loss but the shock, the trauma, the "why," the guilt, and the relentless replay — all at once. That's an enormous amount for one mind to hold. Of course there's nothing left for postcodes.

The physical side can be just as alarming. The tightness in your chest that makes you think you're having a heart attack. The nausea that won't shift. The exhaustion that sleep doesn't fix. The way your body seems to catch every cold. The appetite changes — eating everything or eating nothing. The restlessness, the heaviness, the feeling of being simultaneously wired and exhausted.

All of it is grief. All of it comes with this. All of it is temporary — though "temporary" can mean months, not days, and knowing that is important so you don't panic when it doesn't resolve in a week.

If you googled "am I going crazy after death" or "grief losing my mind" or something like that and ended up here — you're not going crazy. You're experiencing what every bereaved person experiences, amplified by the specific weight of losing someone to suicide.

Your mind is intact. Your brain is overloaded. There's a difference, and it matters.

If the symptoms are severe, or lasting beyond what feels manageable, or if you're concerned about your own safety — a professional can help. That's not weakness. That's an overloaded system asking for support.