After the loss: North Texas resources can help suicide survivors face a different kind of grief

The plastic gloves the funeral home made the pallbearers wear didn't fit my hands. I sat inside the sanctuary of the funeral home, pulling at the plastic to avoid the silver coffin that held my cousin's remains in front of me. I'd been told diseases were ravaging his body since he wasn't embalmed in Dallas before his journey home to Oklahoma.

Nearly two weeks had passed since Stevie died by suicide.

Only in his early 20s, Stevie had been homeless in West Texas after a short stint at a drug rehab facility in Abilene, due to a lack of finances and health insurance. Finding food and shelter in trash bins eventually led to burglary of a habitation, kidnapping and aggravated assault charges.

A cinnamon aroma from dozens of scented candles filled the sanctuary on that late July afternoon but struggled to mask the smell of Stevie's decomposition. It's a smell that still lingers nearly 25 years later.

In the early 2000s, resources and services for those affected by suicide weren't as readily available — or at least, I wasn't aware of them.

Today, though, local nonprofits such as the Denton County Local Outreach to Suicide Survivors (LOSS) Team, which partners with Denton County MHMR, and the Suicide & Crisis Center of North Texas, a nonprofit based Dallas, offer support groups for those affected by suicide.

September is National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that approximately 48,800 people died by suicide nationwide in 2024, while the number of people who think about it or attempt it is much higher — an estimated 14.3 million adults seriously considered it, 4.6 million planned it, and 2.2 million attempted it in 2024.

As of Aug. 31, 610 suicides have occurred in Denton County since Jan. 1, 2021, a majority of those — 380 — with guns, the Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office reports.

Each year, approximately 46,684 people on average are killed with guns and of those, more than half are suicides, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit advocacy group.

"It's not just one particular group that it is affecting," said Lavida Davison, the executive director of Suicide & Crisis Center of North Texas. "It affects everyone. The person that took their life, the family members they left behind, the friends that they left, and that's why I say it's just almost like a domino effect, and you don't realize the importance of having support, having someone that you can relate to until you've walked that walk and lost someone to suicide."

A dark path

Gun violence led my cousin to the Archer County Jail, where he killed himself in 2001.

Growing up, Stevie wasn't an outlaw like Dominic Toretto from the Fast & Furious franchise but more like a rural monk, haunted by childhood domestic violence fueled with alcohol and later transformed by untreated drug addiction.

Being poor and uninsured also led to finding alternative solutions that exacerbated his mental health problems.

Texas has the highest rate of uninsured people — approximately 5.1 million people, ranking dead last nationwide, in part due to the high cost of private insurance and limited availability for public coverage.

It also ranks near the bottom in mental health services nationwide, although that ranking may be changing.

Since 2014, the Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute, a nonpartisan nonprofit that focuses on bipartisan collaboration for policies, has been working with the Texas Legislature to make improvements in mental health.

Some of those improvements included establishing Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium, expanding the use of multisystemic therapy, and implementing programs like the Texas Child Health Access through Telemedicine, which connects school districts and parents with experts at medical schools in Texas.

"We know exactly how seriously state leaders and the Legislature have taken mental health, working in a bipartisan fashion to develop and fund first-in-the nation programs that are helping improve access to care for every Texan," Andy Keller, president and CEO of the Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute, said in a statement online.

Stevie came to Texas for help in the early 2000s. He found it with a rural preacher who invited him into his home. When Stevie began exhibiting symptoms similar to schizophrenia, however, it wasn't something the preacher could help no matter how many times he prayed. He bought him a bus ticket to a drug rehab facility in Abilene.

A couple of weeks later, Stevie was dead.

The Denton County LOSS Team points out on its website that overwhelming grief and unexpected financial burden face families after suicide.

Overwhelming grief, however, doesn't capture what occurs. Soul-shattering grief is a better word. It felt like something inside of me shattered, occurring in the backseat of my parents' pickup shortly after I loaded Stevie's coffin into the hearse.

I spent more than a decade picking up the pieces. I'm picking them up now as I type these words.

It's difficult to describe what those impacted by suicide experience to those who have never lost someone to suicide, Davison says.

Davison's nephew was 36 in February 2024 when he died by suicide. Davison turned to a survivors of suicide support group offered by Suicide & Crisis Center of North Texas, which she now leads as the executive director.

The eight-week groups are free to the community and designed for recent survivors (two years or less).

After completion of the eight weeks, Suicide & Crisis Center of North Texas offers ongoing support through the Next Step program.

Of course, taking the first step isn't easy, especially to discuss a painful life moment, and it's one of the reasons why people hesitate to join a support group since the "grief after suicide is still raw."

"I think it helped me because I was there amongst like-minded people," Davison said. "They kind of understood where I was coming from, kind of understood my feelings."

Davison said they still meet to this day.

Suicide grief

Whenever a suicide happens in the area, the Denton County LOSS Team will either jump into action if the family is on the scene when the suicide happens or reach out after the fact if no family is available when the suicide occurs.

The LOSS Team provides a "compassionate presence," crisis resources and follow-ups within the first week, month and up to a year via check-ins, phone calls and visits, which helps reduce isolation and risk for additional suicides, according to the team.

In fact, the LOSS Team points out that survivors who receive intervention gain access to help 40 times faster than average, reducing the likelihood of additional suicides in the community.

Since Denton County MHMR doesn't directly fund the program, Seher Iqbal, the LOSS Team coordinator, said it relies on grants, donations and fundraising activities to provide forensic scene cleanup or counseling for survivors.

City leaders also support the program via a grant, Iqbal said.

Denton County MHMR offers additional resources and vets some of the therapists who deal with suicide loss, if those who are grieving would rather see an outside therapist, said Elisabeth Davenport, the director of liaison services for Denton County MHMR.

"With suicide grief, there is no right or wrong way to grieve, and the experience of someone who has lost someone to suicide should be recognized in its capacity as something that's unique," Davenport said. "It's something that shouldn't have to be stigmatized, right? I think that's something important for people to understand."

Meeting people where they're at is important, Iqbal said, especially with suicide grief since "there is a lot of guilt that survivors face" in terms such as "Is there something I could have done that would have changed this outcome?"

It's a question that still haunts me today.

Iqbal said it's also difficult for friends and family of people who are grieving to try and push them through with advice such as, "Well, you know, there's nothing you could have done, so you need to move on."

Instead, Iqbal said, it's important to sit and do your best to understand what they're thinking while still supporting them and reminding them that the person who died by suicide was going through something that is difficult for one person to help.

"It's never on just one person," Iqbal said.