At the same time that anger is focused on the person to punish themselves, even to the point of serious injury or death. Anger is a profound and frequently uncontrollable emotion. It may at times be directed toward the one who has died. Anger is one of the more difficult aspects of the grief experience for the survivor. A third reaction often experienced by a survivor is a feeling of personal responsibility for the death.
Irrational guilt can sweep over the survivor in relentless waves.
In the case of suicide, especially, feelings such as guilt can also be accompanied by an overriding sense of shame and embarrassment. The suicide of a child or spouse can be interpreted as an implicit, if not explicit, act of rejection. To be compelled to face the fact that the deceased preferred to take his or her life rather than to continue living can induce a wrenching sense of shame in the survivor, and with it the loss of self-esteem. This is an important, although frequently overlooked and often times resisted, reaction to loss. It is however, part of the process whereby survivors come to acknowledge and accept what has occurred.