From the outside, my life looked steady. But inside I was a mess. One day, I did something I never imagined I would do. I picked up the phone and called Samaritans.
From as early as I can remember, saying my mum’s name felt like a swear word. She was a topic of conversation that no one wanted to have, never mentioned, and any questions I had were avoided. The circumstances of her death were wrapped in shame, the kind that so often surrounds suicide.
My mum was 26 when she took her own life, I was 2 and her only child. People tell me she was outwardly happy, bubbly and dependable. A real people-pleaser. No one she knew suspected she was struggling.
I know now that before she met my dad, she had survived an abusive marriage. She also grew up in an environment where she was encouraged not to talk about her problems, and I think this stayed with her.
I wasn’t told how my mum had died until I was 13. The way my dad told me was like he was telling me that dinner would be ready in 10 minutes. I will never forget that moment, because that’s when I started grieving.
Despite the fact she had died over 10 years prior, grief arrived in my teenage years, causing confusion and anger to an already troubled teenager who ultimately needed her mum. Not only did I have to get my head around the fact my mother had wanted to leave, but I also had to process the decade of silence around it.
When I was finally told how she had died, something in me unravelled. I didn’t know where to put the hurt or the confusion, so I turned it outward, becoming a chaotic, self-destructive teenager. In the process, my relationship with my dad deteriorated, strained by emotions neither of us really knew how to handle.
When I was 19, I had my first child. Motherhood steadied me in many ways; it softened some of the recklessness and gave me something solid to hold onto. But it also complicated my grief.
I would look at my baby and experience this overwhelming sense of love and devotion, and subsequently feel an aching confusion. I would have done anything for her. Nothing and no one could have convinced me to leave her. I couldn’t understand how my mum could have looked at me in the same way and made the choice that she did, it made me angry.
Despite the fact she had died over 10 years prior, grief arrived in my teenage years, causing confusion and anger to an already troubled teenager who ultimately needed her mum. Not only did I have to get my head around the fact my mother had wanted to leave, but I also had to process the decade of silence around it.
Natalie
For years after, I did what I had always been taught to do: carry on. I never spoke about how I was feeling and shouldered every burden that came my way with a stiff-upper lip.
I was in my early thirties when life tipped from manageable to overwhelming. It wasn’t one catastrophic event, just one problem too many. I’d been quietly stacking any problems that came my way in a corner of my mind for years, telling myself to just cope with it, to just carry on. And then that carefully balanced pile collapsed.
From the outside, my life looked steady. I had two children, a husband, a home, responsibilities, routine. But inside I was a mess.
I couldn’t concentrate. Everyday tasks felt impossible. The simplest decisions exhausted me. I was consumed by the belief that I was failing as a parent, partner and person. The coping strategies I had relied on for years - pushing my feelings down, staying busy, telling myself to be strong - no longer worked. The feelings I had buried were demanding to be heard.
One day, alone in the house I found myself thinking about ending my life. In that moment, I did something I never imagined I would do and picked up the phone and called Samaritans.
The call lasted around fifteen minutes. There was no dramatic breakthrough, no instant solution. But when I put the phone down, I was no longer actively suicidal. I had been heard. My pain had been acknowledged without judgement. Something about that simple validation steadied me just enough to take myself to bed and wake up the next morning.
The person on the other end of the line will never know the impact they had. But their calm presence in my darkest moment created space between thought and action and that space saved my life.
One day, alone in the house I found myself thinking about ending my life. In that moment, I did something I never imagined I would do and picked up the phone and called Samaritans.
Natalie
Weeks later, during another crisis, I didn’t call Samaritans and attempted suicide. I often look back and ask myself why I didn’t make that call to Samaritans again.
Surviving my own suicide attempt reshaped my grief for my mum. For the first time, I understood something about her that had taken me decades to grasp: she didn’t want to die. She simply felt that she couldn’t continue living in that level of pain. I now know that when you’re suicidal as a parent, you’re convinced that your children will be better off without you.
That realisation transformed my anger into empathy and reshaped the way I see mental health.
For a long time, my mum’s name sat quietly between me and my dad. Grief shaped us both, just in different ways, and my dad has never known how to talk about it. Mental health education is now central in my own home. My children, including my teenage daughter, know their grandmother’s story. In my house, conversations are about feelings first, academia second.
I believe that knowing the answer to ‘how do you feel today?’ matters more than exam results.
Samaritans was there for me when I felt like I had nowhere else to turn. My goal is to make my mum’s legacy helping others who feel like she did. We couldn’t save her. But maybe her story, our story, can help to give someone their future back.