Light After Loss group an oasis for suicide-loss, trauma

PLAIN TWP. − The questions linger, as do the memories. Shannon Ortiz's experience of losing a husband to suicide in 2016, was made more tragic by the fact that she is one of Stark County's leading experts on suicide prevention.

But the licensed clinical counselor and mother of two has turned her own pain into purpose in the form of Light After Loss, Stark County's only facility dedicated to trauma-focused support for suicide loss and other traumatic-loss survivors.

On Sept. 10, Light After Loss had its grand opening at the Hope & Healing Center at 3751 Burrshire Drive NW, once home of the Burrshire Swim Club and Merging Hearts.

"You can do all the right things. You can know all the things, and still wake up a survivor," she said. "It's the club that nobody signs up for but we end up in."

Ortiz said she started Light After Loss in 2019, "through my journey, of kind of hitting rock bottom and recognizing that this is not just grief. "

"When trauma meets grief, it gets complicated," she said. "So, I went from grief therapy to trauma therapy. And that probably saved my life. So, we say 'post-vention,' which is anything that happens after a suicide, which is supporting suicide-loss survivors."

The center offer eights support groups, including one for women who have lost children. In partnership with the Stark County Sheriff’s Office and the Ohio Suicide Prevention Foundation, they're also training volunteers for an on-scene team, and offer aftercare support for new suicide-loss survivors.

Though Light After Loss opened at the outset of the pandemic, Ortiz said they saw a demand.

"As other non-profits probably were struggling, a traumatic-loss non-profit was not," she said. "We were getting calls for COVID loss, people not being able to say goodbye to their loved ones. So, 2019 was really that revelation of 'This is going to be bigger than we thought.'"

Ortiz is the former director of counseling services at the University of Mount Union, where she created prevention programming for the school. Prior to that, she worked in Summit County and at Community Services of Stark County, now CommQuest Services.

"I worked with Shannon many years ago when she was a brand-new counselor," said CommQuest Chief Clinical Officer Michele Heberling. "Even then she had a passion for helping others and embraced the mission of a community behavioral organization dedicated to serving our most vulnerable populations. She was compassionate with her clients and passionate about our work. Her sunny disposition and positive approach to helping her clients and supporting her colleagues was memorable."

Heberling said she admires how Ortiz is using a personal tragedy to serve the community.

" She is a huge presence in the community and has brought attention and energy to supporting those who are suffering," she said. "Her own life inspires hope that living an amazing life is possible even after loss and her brilliant smile still brings sunshine into lives touched by darkness."

Ortiz said Mount Union was a perfect fit for her skills.

"They were looking for like someone who was doing not just the college counseling piece, but programming. And I was really good at that," she said. "I just really got into that niche, so never in a million years did I think my foot would be on the other side, wearing a different shoe....I think it really just was a realization for not just me, but everybody, that suicide and mental illness do not discriminate. You can know a lot about a lot and still wind up a survivor or on the other side of the coin."

Craig Ortiz was a brilliant golfer who whose dreams of becoming a professional ended when his car was struck by a drunk driver. Missed days at Jackson High School because of injuries caused him to lose a scholarship offer.

"He said he thinks he probably had the first depressive episode was when he was 16," Ortiz recalled. "Here he is, 16 and a male back in the '80s, and just crying all the time, like, could not get it together. He didn't know what was wrong."

The couple met on the Portage Lakes in 2002 when she was a graduate student working as a waitress and he was a sales manager for a motorcycle dealer. They married in 2008. Two daughters followed.

The Dance

"We did what I called 'The Dance,'" Ortiz recalled. "He would be on medication, he would go to counseling, he would get stable, he would feel better. And then, 'I don't need to be on medication anymore.' It would just go around and around and around."

As Craig Ortiz's condition worsened, he lost his job and wrecked his car. His risk for self-harm grew following the 2014 death of his father, Gary, a gunsmith and concealed-carry trainer who would come to their house and remove their weapons when needed.

On Aug. 3, 2016, Craig Ortiz used a gun to take his own life.

"We were three days into the semester," she said. "Mount Union was so gracious and flexible with me, so I really just did administrative work for that whole year. I took eight weeks off and I went back after fall break. I supervised the other counselors and interns just to keep things going. One of the nice things about Mount Union, it's a family; they really rally around their people. The academic year of 2017-18, I tried to jump right back in, like, 'Okay I've had a year to kind of get my head together.'

"They don't tell you the second year is harder than the first. That first year you're just numb, putting one foot in front of the other. You're trying to get through Christmas. You're trying to get through the holidays. You're trying to get through the birthdays. You do all that and then you're like, 'Nothing is different.'"

But grief, trauma, and the demands of a job that deals with suicide and crisis became too much. Ortiz resigned in the Spring 2018.

"I found myself probably in the same dark place that Craig was because not only had I lost him, but now I lost my job," she said. "I felt like I was too broken to help anybody. I let my clinical license lapse. I felt like we were the Titanic, kind of standing up in the water, just waiting for it to crack and sink. So, it's like, either save everybody else or save us, so I created this mantra, 'Does this benefit me? Does this benefit my girls? if not, let it go.'"

On Sept. 14, 2019, Ortiz remarried, to Scott Hajba, then was diagnosed with breast cancer on Dec. 14. A tattoo on her arm reads "Survivor."

"Scott helps me a lot with Light after Loss, and he's really been a good voice for those supporting survivors because he lives it every day," she said.

Ortiz said there are plans to add a coffee shop and banquet space.

"It was definitely more money and more work than we expected," she said. "There was a moment of time I was like, 'Oh, we made a huge mistake.' But at the same time, I feel like it has all aligned because the person who helped us fix the basement at cost, was a suicide-loss survivor. I feel like this place has become a place where pain has turned into purpose."

To learn more visit https://lightafterlossstark.org or call 330-846-3630.

Reach Charita at 330-580-8313 or charita.goshay@cantonrep.com. On Twitter: @cgoshayREP

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Light After Loss, at Hope & Healing Healing Center in Canton, an oasis for trauma victims