You Don't Have to Navigate This Alone: Support After Suicide Loss or a Suicide Attempt
By Dina Evans, LCSW
Jean Marie Warren Center of Excellence for the Treatment of Depression and Suicidality
Laureate Psychiatric Clinic and Hospital
Suicide touches a vast number of people in many different ways. Some are living with suicidal thoughts or recovering after an attempt. Others are grieving the death of someone they love. Some are family members or friends who are worried about someone and don't know how to help.
Each person's experience is different — but no one should have to navigate it alone. Support is available before, during and after a crisis.
Finding Support After Suicide Loss
The death of a loved one is always painful, but suicide loss can bring additional layers of grief. Surviving friends and family may face stigma, unanswered questions and a sense that the people around them don't fully understand what they're experiencing.
That's one reason I often recommend support groups for people who have lost someone to suicide. A group can't erase the grief — but it can provide a place to talk openly with people who understand something about this kind of loss. That shared understanding can help survivors feel less isolated.
In the Tulsa area, several organizations offer support for suicide loss:
- Tristesse Grief Center offers a closed group for survivors of suicide loss, meaning participants begin on a set date and move through the program together as the same cohort.
- Mental Health Association Oklahoma offers support specifically related to suicide loss.
- NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) provides education and support for family members and friends of people living with mental illness. While not limited to suicide loss, these programs can offer valuable connection and perspective.
- Coping After Suicide is a nationwide online resource offering professionally facilitated support groups via Zoom. Similar to Tristesse Grief Center, participants meet in 10-session cycles, new members are invited to enroll December 1, April 1, and August 1.
- American Foundation for Suicide Prevention is another excellent nationwide organization. They offer lots of resources, including a list of recommended U.S. and international support groups for survivors of suicide loss.
Finding the right group takes time. What matters most is finding a setting where you feel safe, supported and able to speak honestly.
The Role of Therapy in Prevention and Healing
For people who have attempted suicide or are experiencing suicidal thoughts, my strongest recommendation is to connect with a mental health professional.
At the Jean Marie Warren Center of Excellence for the Treatment of Depression and Suicidality (the COE), and the entire Laureate Psychiatric Clinic and Hospital, all of our therapists are trained in an evidence-based approach called Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality, or CAMS.
CAMS helps patients identify what we call their "drivers" — the problems, circumstances or sources of pain that contribute to thoughts of not wanting to be alive. The process is collaborative: the patient identifies what is driving the suicidal thoughts, and the therapist works alongside them to explore supports, practical changes and new ways of thinking that may help address those concerns.
Suicidal thoughts can feel deeply isolating, and stigma may make people afraid to acknowledge what they're experiencing. Talking openly with a trained professional can help someone feel less alone — and begin to see options that may be difficult to recognize in the middle of intense emotional pain.
Creating Time and Distance During a Crisis
One of the most practical steps families can take is restricting access to potentially lethal means — sometimes called lethal means restriction.
This doesn't have to wait until someone discloses suicidal thoughts. Safer storage can be a proactive way to protect everyone in the household.
Firearms and medications deserve particular attention. Practical steps include:
- Disposing of leftover prescription medications, including narcotics remaining after surgery
- Using medication disposal boxes available through participating pharmacies or law enforcement agencies
- Securing firearms in a locked storage device
- Keeping ammunition locked separately from the firearm, preferably in a different location
- Temporarily storing firearms outside the home when someone may be at risk
Many suicide attempts happen during a period of acute distress and may involve impulsive action. Creating time, space and distance between a person and a potentially lethal method can interrupt that moment.
People who survive an attempt often describe wanting their pain to stop — rather than wanting life itself to end. Even a small interruption can give that person's thinking an opportunity to widen, and help them recognize that the intensity of the moment may not last forever.
Making a Personal Safety Plan
Another important tool is a safety plan. At Laureate, we use the Stanley-Brown Safety Planning Intervention, an evidence-based approach designed to help people recognize escalating distress and follow specific steps to stay safe.
A safety plan begins with personal warning signs — changes in thoughts, emotions or behavior that signal "I'm not doing well, and I may need help." It also includes internal coping strategies to try before reaching out to someone else. These are individualized, and often focus on interrupting overwhelming or repetitive thoughts. Examples might include:
- Watching a familiar TV show
- Listening to music
- Knitting or doing a hands-on activity
- Practicing a relaxation exercise
- Engaging in a safe, absorbing distraction
The plan can also identify supportive people, safe places, professional resources and steps for reducing access to lethal means.
Because a safety plan needs to be accessible in a moment of stress, I encourage patients to take a photo of it with their phone — so they don't have to remember to carry a piece of paper when they're already overwhelmed.
Carrying Hope With You
At the COE, we also recommend the Virtual Hope Box — a free app created by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs that serves as a digital version of a physical hope box.
Its features are organized into four areas:
- Remind Me: Add meaningful photos, videos, music and recordings representing important relationships, memories and reasons for staying safe
- Distract Me: Simple activities and games to help redirect attention during distress
- Relax Me: Guided meditation, progressive muscle relaxation and a customizable breathing exercise
- Guide Me: Coping cards and an activity planner
When someone is in pain, their thinking can narrow until it feels as if there is only one possible path. A resource like the Virtual Hope Box can help interrupt that tunnel vision and reconnect a person with supportive memories, coping tools and the parts of life that matter to them.
Family Members Can Ask for Help Too
You don't have to be the person in crisis to reach out.
In Tulsa, COPES is a crisis service through Family & Children’s Services that family members and friends can call when they're worried about someone, 24/7. COPES can attempt to reach the person in crisis directly — they cannot require that person to engage, but initiating contact may still make an important difference.
When someone is in crisis, asking for help can feel overwhelming. A loved one can sometimes remove that first barrier by making the initial call, leaving the person in distress with only one immediate task: answering.
The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is available for anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts, mental health distress or concern about someone they love. If there is immediate danger or a life-threatening emergency, call 911 or go to the nearest emergency department.
Hope Begins with Connection
Whether you are coping with suicidal thoughts, healing after an attempt, grieving a suicide loss or worried about someone you love — reaching out is a powerful first step.
Support may come through therapy, a grief group, a safety plan, a crisis service or a trusted person willing to listen. No single resource is right for everyone, but connection can help create space between a person and the pain they are experiencing.
You don't have to wait until things become unbearable. Help is available across the entire journey — before a crisis, during an emergency and throughout the long process of healing.
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