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Cheslie Kryst's death leaves many without answers. Experts explain why it may be complicated to process.

Experts explain the complicated grieving process surrounding the suicide of Cheslie Kryst, pictured here.
Cheslie Kryst. (Getty Images)

Celebrity deaths have a way of bringing about communal grief among fans, friends and family alike, with those who knew a public person either intimately or from afar struggling to come to terms with the loss. But in the latest tragedy of the death of former Miss USA Cheslie Kryst, who was confirmed to have died by suicide on Sunday, the world is presented with a different challenge of making sense of the struggles that the 30-year-old faced while presenting a vivacious persona.

"Today, what our family and friends privately knew was the cause of death of my sweet baby girl, Cheslie, was officially confirmed. While it may be hard to believe, it’s true," Kryst's mother, April Simpki, wrote in a statement after the coroner confirmed that Kryst took her own life. "Cheslie led both a public and a private life. In her private life, she was dealing with high-functioning depression, which she hid from everyone — including me, her closest confidant — until very shortly before her death."

Even so, people have seemingly taken to Kryst's social media pages, where she often posted beautiful portraits and impressive interview reels as a celebrity correspondent for Extra and reflected on her growth since her days as a practicing lawyer, to spot the signs of her internal struggle that experts say will never be found.

"We, as a society, like to have closure around things. And when somebody dies by suicide, what happens most often is that we just are left with more questions than answers," Joy Harden Bradford, psychologist and founder of Therapy for Black Girls, tells Yahoo Life. "We can't make sense of it."

Attempts to do so can be seen in the comment sections of Kryst's Instagram posts, which have turned into tributes to her beautiful life. "Just why," one comment reads, "just look what a beautiful soul."

But even without any expectation for the questions to be answered, Amelia Lehto, past Crisis Services Division chair for the American Association of Suicidology and Kevin's Song advisory council member, explains that searching for resolution is a natural reaction to this type of tragedy.

"Suicide loss survivors who have recently lost someone to a death by suicide often experience what we refer to as a complicated or complex grief," Lehto tells Yahoo Life. "This can be attributed to the 'perceived intentionality' of the death and the related 'perceived responsibility' for the death. Essentially, as suicide loss survivors we grapple with if the person we lost made a conscious 'choice' or were 'driven' to suicide. And in what way we may have been able to prevent their death or rather a socially acceptable explanation."

The complicated reality of mental health struggles and how they're both presented and perceived contributes to the complexities of the grieving process surrounding deaths by suicide. Lehto points out that these tragedies trigger the "reactive nature" of our society as well.

"Our hindsight is twenty-twenty," Lehto says. "We find ourselves looking back and seeking to understand what we may or may not have seen or known about the person. There is no one answer for a suicide death, but some may feel empowered by coming across a post or exchange that lends to an explanation."

Bradford notes that in the case of somebody like Kryst, who lived so much of her life in the public eye, it's especially devastating for people to come to terms with the fact that they didn't know everything about her despite thinking that they did.

"People are struggling with the perception of Kryst as somebody who seemingly has it all. She has a great job and is beautiful and all of these things, so people will question, 'What could have been so bad?'" Bradford points out. "It's a powerful reminder that we don't ever know anybody's full story, right? If we only know somebody based on the clips they share on TikTok or the picture they share on Instagram, that's such a small sliver of somebody's existence."

Despite how Kryst presented herself in front of a camera, Bradford reminds onlookers that mental health doesn't discriminate or prioritize who is affected. And when it comes to the highlight reel that is social media, Bradford explains that there shouldn't be any expectation that public figures should or will share their struggles.

"It's this entitlement I think that we sometimes feel to public figures," Bradford says. "We still want to be consumed with all the personal details, and people don't owe us that."

Kryst in particular had an image to maintain after being deemed a trailblazer as she became one of three Black women holding the country's most prominent pageant titles at the same time for the first time ever — a position that Bradford points out directly correlates to the pressure of the "strong Black woman stereotype" that Kryst could have been feeling. Along with the pressure Kryst may have been facing, it's also hard for others to conceive of the darkness that someone lost to suicide must have felt leading up to their death.

"If you have not been in the place of hopelessness and feeling like there are no answers, it feels very difficult to understand how someone makes this decision," Bradford explains. "And probably the majority of people have not been in that place. And so when your mind is trying to connect to something that you have previous experience with, it doesn't have it."

Instead of looking for answers, however, Bradford suggests family, friends and fans alike give themselves grace through the grieving process.

"Death by suicide introduces all these other things that are difficult for us to deal with," Bradford says. "So, I'm trying to grieve, but I also feel angry, and I think it's important for people to make space for the entirety of their feelings. You're entitled to all of these feelings because they're valid."

If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts, call 911, or call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or text HOME to the Crisis Text Line at 741741.

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