We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Shannon Ortiz. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Shannon below.

Hi Shannon, thanks for joining us today. Was there a moment in your career that meaningfully altered your trajectory? If so, we’d love to hear the backstory.

A defining moment that changed the trajectory of my career doesn’t even begin to tell the story of how my entire life got flipped upside down. It was more like a split second. A moment in time, that changed the rest of time. I am a mental health clinician. Someone who helped those who were struggling to find light in the darkness and hope in what appeared to be a hopeless time of their lives. The night of August 2nd, I found myself in that same darkness. My husband, Craig, took his life on what seems and probably is like the longest night of my life. The darkness of that night remained for days, weeks, months, and years after that defining moment. Everything I knew as a mental health clinician, a College/University Suicide Prevention Specialist, and a Board President of my local NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) chapter ceased to exist. We all take for granted that it’s never going to happen to us. Not me. Not our family. For me, for us, what was once thought impossible, became the reality of the rest of our lives.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I thought I was going to be a teacher my whole life. I went into child and family development with a focus on early education. Yet it’s not surprising the mental health field found me and here I am nearly two decades later. I grew up watching the system, or I should say systems, fail those struggling with mental illness. My mom’s youngest brother struggled with what I now know as SMI or Severe Mental Illness. I heard paranoid schizophrenia, bipolar with psychotic features, along with a slew of other foreign terms thrown around as I watched her try to navigate the system, get him help, get him hospitalized when necessary, and keep him out of legal trouble. The list of things families and caretakers have to do to love and support someone with mental illness is exhaustingly long, and more often than discussed, pretty unsuccessful for those whose nature of their mental illness is to not know they are mentally ill. The most stability my uncle had, as well as my family, was when he was incarcerated for over a decade. Despite all her best efforts, she was unable to keep him on his medication and keep him engaged in treatment, and a complete psychotic break led to over a decade in the prison system. We say we have de-institutionalized our most vulnerable mentally ill individuals. As a personal and professional witness to the reality of how our jail and prison systems have now become the new institutions for our SMI population, we need to stop fooling ourselves. We have criminalized mental health, which hasn’t ultimately helped anyone. It was this reality and my strong need for social justice that led me to be a voice for the voiceless and a fierce advocate for those struggling with mental health.

None of that has changed. My husband Craig struggled with his mental health. I went into the mental health field wanting to make an impact and change the system (s) that have led to so many people losing hope, being homeless, or being incarcerated. When Craig took his life. It was no longer about the system, it was about the people the system had let fall through the cracks, leaving them to do something drastic and permanent. As a society, we are reactive, not proactive. I can’t even remember the number of times I heard, “Until something happens, there’s nothing we can do.” When that something did happen, that same system turns and says, “What happened?” It’s a broken system that victimizes the victim, blames the brokenness on the broken, and wanders around wondering what’s wrong.

January 1st, 2019 Light after Loss was born. It was my way of turning pain into purpose and not waiting for the system to save me or my two little girls who were left behind when their dad lost his battle. I was a teacher at heart, a counselor by trade, and a newfound passion that could light not only my path but the path of others who had also gone through a similar loss. I had no idea where it would lead. One support group turned into two. The COVID-19 pandemic took suicide loss and opened our doors to all traumatic loss. 4 support groups led to the purchase of our building in Canton, Ohio appropriately named The Hope and Healing Center. As of our 6th birthday in January of this year, we have served over 800 individual loss survivors and their families with 168 of them being in 2024 through the 86 support groups we hosted. We are survivors supporting survivors. My clinical experience and knowledge have helped me understand the intersection of grief and trauma to design our trauma-focused services, but it’s my story that is the key that unlocks everyone else’s voice.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

If I’ve learned anything not just through this journey, but through every path my life has taken it is simple, “Losing is a life skill.” “Bouncing back” from the suicide death of my husband is not the first or last time I had been thrown against the ground to see how much I could actually bounce. I am remarried. So there is not just light, but there is also laughter and love after loss as well. On September 19, 2020, in a global pandemic, we married in the middle of a sunflower field at sunset. It was supposed to be my happily ever after. I had “successfully” bounced. Well, once again life happens when you’re busy making plans. Three short months later, I was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. I was (what I thought was) in the best shape of my life because movement in any form had become a form of therapy. I had my yearly mammograms. I once again was doing all the right things. Or so I thought. I did not know that there are two forms of breast cancer and one is often not detected on mammograms. Only 38% of breast cancers are found through mammography along with so much more information would have been important before I received my diagnosis. Everything I subsequently learned about breast cancer from that point on was, to me, just another failure of a system that should be telling women a whole lot more than they are. At 43, I ended up with a double mastectomy, 28 rounds of radiation, and a full hysterectomy leading to instant menopause. Not to mention a MRSA infection and a couple of other very large bumps in the road to recovery. On June 18th, 2021, on my oldest daughter’s 13 birthday, I rang the bell. Another thing I have learned, ringing the bell is just the beginning of the journey.

So here I am, head-deep in starting a grassroots organization from the ground up. Recently remarried. Still managing my own PTSD that resulted from the loss of Craig, while supporting my daughter’s who also had their struggles. And now battling breast cancer. I felt like Lt. Dan from Forrest Gump at the top of the mast screaming, “You call this a storm.” People ask all the time, “How did you do it?” Or, “How do I do it?” One of my favorite quotes is, “You never know how strong you are until strong is your only choice.” I often say I’m not special. I only say that because I am you. We are all strong when life gives us no other choice. I see it every single day at Light after Loss. If you’re living, you’re losing. It’s how we lose that determines if we’re ultimately successful. I’ve learned to take every loss and listen to the lesson it’s trying to teach me. For me, it’s always been about teaching others. I now tell every woman I meet, that you need to do more than just get your mammograms. Or tell everyone that a cancer cell will develop 10 years before it’s diagnosed by whatever screening your doctor is telling you to receive. We have to be proactive with our wellness before the system diagnoses our sickness. Mostly because we as individuals are the only ones who have the power to be proactive. Our systems, by design, are reactive.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Authenticity is my superpower. Vulnerability is its wingman. Even when I was “just” a mental health clinician, which makes me laugh because that’s not a career to minimize in itself, I was the same then that I am now in many ways. When I and the client felt as if they were ready to spread their wings and be the best version of themselves, we’d reflect on what was most helpful. Time and time again I heard things like, “You’re genuine.” “You’re real.” “You are human.” Things I certainly didn’t learn with my hundreds of thousands of dollars of grad school loans. Fake ruffles my feathers. It’s not an energy that coincides with who I am at my core. This explains why my core values revolve around integrity and ultimately authenticity. No matter what hat I’m wearing personally or professionally, who I am remains the same. Surprisingly, it hasn’t made me many friends in the professional arena. Mostly because I’m not going to let you paint a picture that’s not absolutely accurate. I’m going to call systems out on their hypocrisy of saying one thing but doing another. As you can imagine, being popular is not a core value of mine that drives what I do (or say). Something that hasn’t always served me well as a founder of an organization that relies on grants and individual support. Regardless, I will stand up for what I believe is right even if I stand alone. Light after Loss at The Hope and Healing Center was built not to be a part of the system, but to break the barriers that the system has created. It attracts those who have been let down, pushed around, and left to flounder. It serves exactly who it’s meant to serve.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://lightafterlosssstark.org
• Instagram: @lightafterlossstark
• Facebook: @lightafterlossstark
• Linkedin: @lightafterlossstark
• Twitter: @LaLStark
• Youtube: @lightafterlossstark

Image Credits

Erin Hostler, Mom of Eagle Scout Wyatt Hostler who designed and built our wind phone.
Sarah Wohlgamuth designed our sunflower logo and custom lettering.