Losing Your Loved One To Suicide

June 2, 2025

Steve Phillip, Author & Suicide Prevention and Mental Health Advocate

Tom O’Connor, Editor & Publisher

Topic

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), globally, more than 720,000 men, women, and children die by suicide each year, impacting almost 1 billion people directly bereaved or known to those who died.

There is a 65% increased risk that someone grieving a loss to suicide will also end their own life! Survivors are also much more likely to quit their jobs or drop out of school following the loss.

The most brutal deaths to grieve are often unexpected, violent, or involve a parent losing a child. The death of a child is the most difficult, especially when it happens unexpectedly or from a terminal illness. Additionally, suicide is complicated to process because of stigma, guilt, and confusion.

Author Steve Phillip lost his 34-year-old son, Jordan, who had taken his own life. 

According to Steve:

My  Post-Traumatic Growth is defined as a positive psychological change that can occur after experiencing trauma, allowing individuals to find new meaning, appreciate life more deeply, and develop personal strength. I believe this applies to my journey since that tragic day. In August 2020, I founded an internationally recognized non-profit organization, The Jordan Legacy. I co-authored the ‘ground-breaking’ report, “Moving Towards a Zero Suicide Society.” As a TED Talk speaker, I've delivered talks to corporate organizations, charities, education centers, the Police, Military, and other organizations and community groups in the UK and overseas, including policymakers in various UK Government departments.

Additional Information For You

According to Jordan’s Father:

At 34, Jordan achieved things in his life that many of his friends aspired to. At 6ft tall, he was good-looking and was the sort of person who lit up a room when he walked into it. He had a lovely partner and a loving family. He held down important jobs, had his own house, and his beloved cat, Tabby, whom he’d adopted from a neighbor who could no longer care for her.  

Jordan had many friends who loved and missed him enormously. At his funeral, friends described him as well-mannered, a great listener, kind and considerate, intelligent, calm but humble, ridiculously handsome, a true gentleman, and humorous.

They said:

Being a friend with him was never a chore. He was the person I would usually turn to at difficult times like this. He was the best and most loyal friend I ever had, and he was remarkable in every sense. 

As the months passed, though, and Jordan’s family met and spoke directly with some of Jordan’s closest friends, it became clear to them that he was unique and special in a way his family was unaware of: 

When we were at school, it was clear that Jordan was different and strikingly so. He was tall and beautiful, which drew people toward him, but it was the way he held conversations and had views on topics that other young people simply didn’t talk about. His passion for and knowledge about different cuisines and music were incredible – when we wanted to go into town for a McDonald's, Jordan would take us to Italian restaurants instead. 

Most kids looked up to Jordan. He was fiercely loyal and would always stand up for the underdog, publicly confronting bullies or those who would mock others.

Although Jordan could be pretty intense at times and was a strongly principled person, he also had a wonderful sense of humor. His unique laugh was something that endeared him to others.

As he grew older, Jordan was often drawn to those who were less fortunate. He was the kind of person who would stop and chat to homeless people and local strangers, always listening intently to whatever they had to say. Jordan’s family often heard people say that they knew Jordan was always genuinely interested in what they were saying –

“He always took a sincere interest in what I had to share.” 

Only a few days before his death, he stopped to speak with an old lady near where he lived. She was sweeping leaves from the public pathway in front of her house, and in his usual kind and considerate way, Jordan thanked her and told her what a good job she was doing keeping the pavement clear for others. 

Although on the outside Jordan appeared to be coping with life as well as anybody, in his later teenage years, he began to struggle with his mental health. During these years, he would experience the break-up of his first serious relationship, followed by his parents' divorce, shortly after he’d left home to attend university. Loss of grandparents he was close to and family pets would also have a profound effect each time. There would be other significant, life-changing events, which would almost certainly have impacted someone sensitively like Jordan.

By his late 20s, Jordan’s mental health was deteriorating, and in the spring of 2015, shortly before his 30th birthday, he was diagnosed with clinical anxiety and depression. 

Despite battling mental health, Jordan held down essential jobs with the Home Office and the Independent Office for Police Conduct. He owned his home, had an excellent relationship with his partner, and loved his family dearly. On the outside, Jordan continued to be the person everyone wanted to be around. And then, on December 4th, 2019, the unthinkable happened – Jordan ended his own life at his home near Leeds.  

Following his death, Jordan’s family found a box of belongings in the attic of his home. They found several partially completed journals. One of these journals showed an entry from May 2015 which read: “Today I’ve been researching methods of suicide again…” This entry would be written more than four and a half years before he would tragically die by suicide.   

Some would consider suicide a selfish act, but there was nothing selfish about Jordan. He tried to protect those closest to him, including his family, by rarely sharing the depth of his mental pain. In a final note to his family, found on his kitchen table, he finally told them, 'Please know that this was the only way for me to stop the thoughts that were showing me no way out.'

Fewer than 30% of those who choose to end their own lives decide to leave any form of suicide note, and although it doesn’t lessen the trauma and upset, knowing he was thinking of his family in those final moments is something Jordan’s family consoles itself with.

It is in Jordan’s memory and his strong desire to help those who needed support the most that The Jordan Legacy was founded in 2020 to support those who are struggling with their mental health and suicidal thoughts by embracing the values and principles Jordan himself lived by. 

We aim to help as many people as possible make a different choice than Jordan felt he had to on that day in December 2019.

Moving Towards a Zero Suicide Society - The report

In January 2023, The Jordan Legacy launched a new strategy designed to raise the bar regarding collective ambition in suicide prevention and plot a course of collective practical action that can realize that ambition. Shared learning and collaboration are at the heart of this strategy because we know we cannot do this alone; together, we can transform suicide prevention.  

You can access the report at: 

https://thejordanlegacy.com/moving-towards-a-zero-suicide-society-the-report/

Steve Phillip can be contacted at hello@thejordanlegacy.com