grief

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide deaths increased in 2021 for the first time in two years.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way people grieve and find support.

In the days after the Uvalde shooting, state agencies and health care providers went to the community to offer support. One of those people was psychiatrist Sabrina Browne with UT Southwestern Medical Center. She spoke about community healing from traumatic events.

The students worry how the tragedy will define them in their new environments and struggle with guilt about the people they’re leaving behind.

In the aftermath of the school shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, thousands of people donated millions of dollars to help families and survivors. Now, those recovering say they need those funds.

The first recorded case of COVID-19 in North Texas was March 9, 2020. Since then, more than 5.4 million Texans have had the virus, and close to 85,000 Texans have died. Everything from people's jobs to their communities have changed since the pandemic started.

The unrelenting COVID-19 pandemic has put mental health needs in focus as people navigate an ever-shifting world. The surge of the omicron variant throws this into even sharper focus.

The pandemic has affected the way people grieve. Everything from planning memorial services to the ease of connecting with family and friends has been altered by COVID-19.

After their brother died, two sisters faced a barrage of misinformation, pandemic denialism and blaming questions. Grief experts say that makes COVID-19 the newest kind of "disenfranchising death."

KTEP's Angela Kocherga shares the story of a seamstress who stitches together memory bears for grieving families during the pandemic. Relatives find comfort in the teddy bears created from the clothing of loved ones who died.

For people who are generally OK — healthy, employed — there's pressure to stay grateful. But those feeling so-called smaller losses also need to grieve and "stop pretending" they're not hurting.