Amelia Wrighton — Suicide Loss, Grief & the Charity That Helped Adam's Family

Adam Walker:A warning that this episode discusses important but difficult topics, including suicide. If you are in crisis, please seek professional help.

Adam Walker:I\'m Adam Walker, a biometrics consultant, and this is the Pharma Prescribed Podcast where leaders, innovators, and hidden voices in healthcare open up, no sound bites, no spin, just raw insight, one prescription at a time.

Adam Walker:In an industry driven by data protocols and pressure, we rarely pause to ask the human questions. What drives us, what breaks us, and what truths live behind the titles we wear?

Adam Walker:Amelia Wrighton is the co-founder and CEO of the charity, suicide and Co. Her commitment to suicide bereavement is rooted in her lived experience and is a powerful thread running through her work and her leadership.

Adam Walker:Amelia lost her mother to suicide at the age of 19, A moment that reshaped her life and set her in a path of advocacy, support, and systemic change. Instead of allowing that loss to remain silent, she chose to transform it into action. Co-founding the charity Suicide and Co. In 2020, dedicated to helping people navigate the complex, often overlooked journey of bereavement by suicide.

Adam Walker:She\'s developed services that offer counseling, guidance, and a sense of community for those who suddenly find themselves in a world that doesn\'t always know how to talk about traumatic grief. The charity has been transformative in supporting my family\'s grief journey since losing my sister Naomi, to suicide in September, 2024, and for that, I will be eternally grateful.

Adam Walker:Amelia, it\'s a delight to welcome you today for anyone who\'s not familiar with you. Who are you and what is the mission you find yourself on today?

Amelia Wrighton:Ah thank you for having me, Adam. I\'m really excited to be here.

Amelia Wrighton:So I\'m Amelia, co-founder and CEO of suicide and co. Professionally. I have only been in the charity space for about five and a half years since we started the charity. And before that, I was working in the media and marketing industry for about a decade before I kind of jumped onto the mission.

Amelia Wrighton:That is now the thing that drives me, which is to. Support everyone across the UK who\'s lost a loved one to suicide. My personal journey was lacking in support in a big way, and my mission is absolutely to change that for all people who are already breathed by suicide or, newly breathed in, the years to come.

Adam Walker:It\'s an incredible mission, and as I mentioned in my opening, the charity has been so transformative for myself and for my family. In navigating loss and bereavement through suicide. If you don\'t mind, would you. Mind just elaborating a little bit more on your own experience of loss by suicide and your mother?

Amelia Wrighton:Absolutely. And I also just wanna say, I love hearing from people that our service has been useful, so I\'m so glad that in your personal journey, that suicide and CO has been a support.

Amelia Wrighton:So my journey of loss started in 2011. I lost my mom to suicide. And I am an only child. My parents got divorced when I was three, so she was my primary parent.

Amelia Wrighton:She had struggled with bipolar and other kind of mental illness, but a lot of it had been hidden from me because I was so young and disguised as kind of, physical health. And I\'d also argue that 15 years ago, the mental health sector was a very different place to what it is now. My journey of loss was.

Amelia Wrighton:Gosh, from what I know now, just a complete, bizarre, silent journey with kind of no signposting and essentially, everything was made a lot harder than it should have been, in my opinion. I went through what lots of people navigate in those first couple of weeks, you know, numbness, total shock, total trauma response to something that\'s shattered my entire worldview.

Amelia Wrighton:And in those moments, everyone around me was also going through the same, and we were all just blindly navigating, trying to survive. Plan a funeral. Deal with her, things like all of the practicalities that came with it. And amongst all of that, we weren\'t signposted to any service. And to be honest with you, I didn\'t even think I should look for a service.

Amelia Wrighton:I didn\'t Google, I, didn\'t go on Instagram. I, didn\'t think that I was like deserving of support for my grief. I was very much taking the impression that it was like a human experience, which it is. Even in that circumstance that I like, didn\'t deserve extra support. And that foundation really set the path of the first couple of months of my grief.

Amelia Wrighton:I went back to university very early, within three weeks. And I kind of didn\'t feel comfortable within my support network raising like the white flag to say I needed help. And so I just suppressed a lot of my feelings and emotions and some of the darkest things I was navigating. I wasn\'t sleeping, I was crying every day in random places like public transport, but I was suppressing everything I could to try and mask that I was doing all right.

Amelia Wrighton:And that ended up with me having mental deterioration as well as physical. So I got alopecia. About six months after my mom died and lost a lot of the back of my hair, which if you think about a 19-year-old girl, that\'s having an identity crisis, which wasn\'t ideal.

Amelia Wrighton:And then I ended up accessing counseling about a year and a half after she had died.

Amelia Wrighton:And that was kind of because I\'d got to a point where my own mental health was so low and I couldn\'t figure out ways around it, and conversations with friends and family weren\'t really happening, and I couldn\'t get deep enough into anything of value with a friendly conversation. People kind of just wanted to solutionize and tell me what to do or.

Amelia Wrighton:Especially the moment when it goes from people understanding why I haven\'t gone to something and attended a party to, but don\'t you think you should, and that happened really early on for me, I think. But the canceling for me was, the real turning point in my grief journey was really useful.

Amelia Wrighton:I, processed a lot of stuff that I needed to process. It didn\'t necessarily help. In the initial instance with like how I managed it in my day-to-day life, I still didn\'t know there were charities that existed. I hadn\'t spoken to anyone in my personal life with lived experience, and then I kind of became a workaholic, threw it all into work, loved it, avoided the topic as much as I could until eight years later when I met my co-founder, Emma, and I would say there was a seismic shift in.

Amelia Wrighton:I kind of lean into that space. She had lost her father to suicide and while she was at university. And just the parallels in our journeys, considering we were having such different life dynamics, like where we lived in the country, having siblings, not having siblings, parents together, not like everything was different.

Amelia Wrighton:And yet our experience of grief had a lot of commonalities. And so that sort of encouraged me to look into the space. And I guess that\'s a, overview of how I would say I\'ve navigated my grief, but I\'m now 15 years on. And I would say I still have revelations in my grief or different moments or, different things that crop up.

Adam Walker:It\'s remarkable the way you described that, Amelia. The words and the language that you use resonate so loudly with my own experience, which seems so much more recent, but nevertheless, there are many parallels between your experience and, those of my kids who are both at university at the moment and struggling to navigate this with the support of university counselors and counselors through suicide and co.

Adam Walker:You mentioned that suicide and loss through suicide is different as a grief experience. Why do you think that is? Why does it feel so different?

Amelia Wrighton:I always like to say I like to hero. The fact that, if we are losing 7,000 people to suicide a year in this country, everybody\'s individual circumstance within that is again going to be so different.

Amelia Wrighton:So now that we. Thousands of clients at cos at co. Everybody\'s experience of their grief is completely unique and I really like to hero that. But there are commonalities that definitely make it a different form of grief to other. Griefs. Right. I always do like to say though, it\'s not a grief Olympics when we think about it as like, what\'s the worst grief, like losing a child or losing someone to suicide versus natural causes.

Amelia Wrighton:You pick yourselves up against people instead of forming connection. But I would say that, some of the aspects that make it really different is the primary one being it\'s sudden, it\'s often unexpected, not in every case. In some cases. Even in cases where there\'s been multiple suicide attempts or there\'s been a long history of poor mental health, there is still a shock factor.

Amelia Wrighton:It is still the one thing you never want to happen. And when it does happen, there\'s still a huge, I think, shock factor. And that, experience, even just factually is a traumatic experience to go through. It puts trauma in the body, it puts, reactions and disarray and disorientation right up front, and that\'s how you start that grief.

Amelia Wrighton:I\'d then say another kind of big difference is the fact that we are as a 30, far less comfortable talking about suicide loss. There\'s still some very stigmatized views. And awful kind of misconceptions and myths that exist purely from a lack of education then never really to do with malice, but, as a society, suicide has just had a long history of, stigma and, people not understanding it.

Amelia Wrighton:And so for those navigating grief, there\'s less community support often people you thought might be there. Actually don\'t feel comfortable even navigating the topic. So they just kind of don\'t say anything. They disappear. And that leads to feelings of shame and isolation and anger with the system and, society.

Amelia Wrighton:I\'d say those are the two. Main differences. I guess the other one broadly is it\'s a very. Complex emotional loss to really try and get into, to think about, what was the person\'s mindset like and what is mental illness and what does this diagnosis mean, and how could somebody get to a point where they feel in that way?

Amelia Wrighton:And I think that\'s a very difficult. Thing for anybody to grasp, even if you weren\'t going through loss and genuine sadness and missing the person, if you said to a random person, Hey, do you wanna lean into this topic and really understand more about suicidality and how mental health deteriorates?

Amelia Wrighton:I think most people would say, you know what, I\'m, all right with that. I don\'t think I need to get into that moral space. Think about life after death and think about is our life in our own hands. It\'s highly complex. So I would say that, emotional complexity, the shame and stigma and the actual trauma response to a sudden event are probably the three main differences.

Adam Walker:Trauma response is an incredible thing, and there is a book. BES VanDerKolk has written called The Body, keeps the Score. And you were describing your experience of alopecia. It reminded me of various experiences that not only I\'ve had, but other members of my family had during the grieving process.

Amelia Wrighton:Mm-hmm.

Adam Walker:Our bodies do very much keep the score. They not just internalize. Some of the trauma and the traumatic grief that we experience, it\'s the unbelievable shock that you are overwhelmed with at the time. And for me, it\'s come out in various different ways. I have ongoing back issues and trauma and grief for me has, exacerbated my back.

Adam Walker:Even today I\'ve had to take some pain relief just to relieve the pain in my lower leg that. Comes from my lower back pain. But, there are some amazing ways that the body keeps the score. And I don\'t profess to be an expert on that, but I wholeheartedly understand your experience as well.

Adam Walker:With respect to.

Adam Walker:How people can move on through talking. And you, mentioned that as well. Talking for me has been unbelievably powerful.

Amelia Wrighton:Mm.

Adam Walker:And I\'ve always been someone who has found real comfort in talking to friends, family, and strangers about lots of different things.

Adam Walker:But through this experience of traumatic grief. It\'s meant that I\'ve gone deeper and deeper and continue to go deeper to the point where like you were explaining and describing, I don\'t want to go to social situations where we\'re just talking platitudes.

Amelia Wrighton:Mm-hmm.

Adam Walker:I just want to connect with humans on a different level because I don\'t know why that is, but I just find it to be the thing that comforts me and.

Adam Walker:Enables me to just get closer to people and to their essence. Does that resonate with you?

Amelia Wrighton:Yeah, it does. I mean, it\'s so interesting because I think so much of social interactions in society is built off of not really asking how people are and talking about pop culture, sports, politics, you know, stuff going on.

Amelia Wrighton:The surface level stuff, and it\'s an interesting reflection because I think I\'ve always been similar to you. I love deep conversations with my close friends. I have, really long, winding, deep conversations. We support each other, hugely supportive. I think in that space. I still have found a big difference between.

Amelia Wrighton:Talking to a friend or a loved one and talking to an external person. And obviously with suicide and co I\'m a huge advocate of talking therapies. I just think there\'s this level of anonymity and one sidedness that\'s really positive. When you are with a counselor or a suicide bereavement advisor, it\'s not back and forth.

Amelia Wrighton:Yeah. How did you feel about that? You know, but what do you feel and. It\'s just a pure ability to explore the kind of depth of what you feel, and I don\'t feel like that can be achieved in many relationships, but I also don\'t crave it actually because, I find myself going against my advice. That I do professionally when I\'m in a relationship with a loved one.

Amelia Wrighton:If they\'re having a struggle around IVF or pregnancy or whatever, I just want to solve it for them. I just want to make them better or make them laugh or move up. \'cause I am crying. I hate that they\'re in pain. Whereas, a counselor or a professional, they\'re there to sit with that pain.

Amelia Wrighton:They\'re there to hold that space so that you. Can explore itself, soothe, get to kind of some of those spaces. But in our one-to-one relationships, especially parent child, it\'s far too hard to do that. You just want to help and it\'s a very human experience to do that. So I think in that deep space, yes, it resonates with me a lot.

Amelia Wrighton:I\'m the same. I seek out those conversations. I love that. I often think , my level of knowledge now puts me at a place for some loved ones where I\'m like, God, I just. I\'ve changed. I\'ve done the work. I\'m five and a half years in, you\'ve not done the work. And I think I\'ve had moments where I\'ve struggled to be like, that is annoying.

Amelia Wrighton:Or it puts us at a different place. And then I\'ve just accepted that everyone\'s on their different journey and not everybody wants that. And then the other side to it is I like the lightness of those conversations. I\'ve tried to reframe them in my. Of I don\'t find them the most satisfying from a point of connection, but I find them really satisfying for something else.

Amelia Wrighton:I get to turn my brain off. I get to. Skim in the lightness of what\'s going on and what consumes a lot of people\'s day to day.

Amelia Wrighton:if we think about what we\'re trying to do at suicide and co, we\'re trying to help people build a life back up around their grief. I often use this metaphor that comes from a, researcher, which is if you think about your experience, traumatic experience being your hand right now, and you think about the hand being what you\'re going.

Amelia Wrighton:You put the hand right up to your face. There\'s a serious reality of the fact that I can\'t see anything else around it. I cannot see. Anything around , even if I try and look to the side, it\'s blurred. What we\'re trying to do is bring the hand back and back and further away. Right? So it\'s fully extended.

Amelia Wrighton:It\'s still there, I can see that. Plain, clear sight. That is my traumatic experience. But I can also see everything else around me. I can see joy, I can see perspective, I can laugh at a show, and I think that is so much of what we\'re trying to do. We\'re trying to bring that, light, that\'s. Spun back into life as well.

Amelia Wrighton:And so I agree with your point. It resonates deeply, but I think I try now more actively, or I think I have a better tolerance for them. I\'ve definitely been on the journey where I had a low tolerance for those types of situations, but now I think because I know that they serve a part of me, they give me relax.

Amelia Wrighton:I think I like those moments as well.

Adam Walker:Thank you for sharing that. And I think. Compassionate connection is at the heart of everything with human beings. Hmm. You touched upon the value of talking therapy, and I\'d like to just explore that one a little bit further because as you say, in one-to-one relationships within a family.

Adam Walker:Wider than that, there is always an emotional component or a judgment, and what I\'ve found so much through my grief counseling through the charity has been that there is no judgment. There is just listening, and there is meeting someone with your truth without judgment, but also if it doesn\'t make sense, it doesn\'t matter.

Amelia Wrighton:Mm.

Adam Walker:It\'s okay to get it out your head to say those words, to listen to yourself. Playing them back and trying to make some order to it. And this is where I think the immense power has been for me in that counseling has been around putting space between what happened to my sister and how that made me feel and that immediate impact on our entire family.

Adam Walker:And coming to that place that you described with the hand where. I am starting to feel joy again. I\'m starting to laugh at things that I would\'ve enjoyed before this all happened, and I\'m going to find myself choosing to do things that I know are going to get me closer to joy.

Amelia Wrighton:Mm.

Adam Walker:And joy is a very intangible thing, but nevertheless, I\'m doing it more and embracing it more because of.

Adam Walker:What that\'s enabled me to unlock. And at the time when it all happened, it was exactly as you described, just overwhelming without sense and all sorts of what ifs.

Amelia Wrighton:Mm-hmm.

Adam Walker:And it wasn\'t straightforward for Naomi. It was complicated.

Adam Walker:But nothing prepares you for traumatic grief coming back to the charity.

Adam Walker:And the work that you do with the charity, the offer of talking counseling, bereavement therapy is not easily available these days.

Amelia Wrighton:Mm-hmm.

Adam Walker:It\'s really hard to come by. I was so fortunate to stumble across your website to see the help hub and to make contact. With the charity as quickly as I did. I think it was either the same or the next day after Naomi took her life.

Adam Walker:And from that moment forward, it has absolutely framed my grief journey. Mm-hmm. It has, it just has, it\'s been there for me. Mm-hmm. And the fact that I\'m even sitting here with you today, Emelia and able to tell you how transformative it\'s been for me, for my children, for my family. Just fills me with a level of something I never anticipated.

Adam Walker:Mm-hmm. I never asked for this journey. I never asked to be put into this place, but I want to make it easier for other people to access the things that your charity is offering because it\'s remarkable and it\'s transformative, and I could not function on any level without that input.

Amelia Wrighton:Well, Adam, it\'s the most amazing.

Amelia Wrighton:That you\'ve just said that, and I think sometimes in the scale of what we do, it\'s hard for me to dive into the individual sometimes \'cause I\'m so focused on trying to get more people\'s support. And so I really valued that. You shared that with me and those words, they have weight, they have meaning, and they mean the world to me.

Amelia Wrighton:And, reality is you are. The exact client we built it for, I wish my experience had been yours. I\'ve built the service that I wanted. We now have got a service. It\'s taken us a while, but the fact that you found us on day. One or day two the day after and people can find the help hub, download our app, free of charge, get that right there on their phone for the middle of the night when I was having complete nightmares and brain fog and just a million things I wanted to get out and.

Amelia Wrighton:Then go into kind of one-to-one early bereavement support weekly for half an hour sessions that just give you the opportunity to offload. And they\'re flexible and they can move around because they recognize that those first couple of weeks are just an absolute, holding down a routines impossible.

Amelia Wrighton:And then when you\'ve done that for three to six months, you can go into counseling with a qualified, counselor who can give you 12 sessions of counseling and an assessment upfront, and then moving on with the charity. You can use the emotional support ad pocket if you need it. You can use the app, you can connect with us on fundraisers or ambassadors and loads of other things.

Amelia Wrighton:It\'s exactly what I wanted to create.

Amelia Wrighton:And the word you use there about foundation, I have such a thing about the fact that I genuinely have a hypothesis and we haven\'t. Really launched this yet, but we are talking to it in the next couple of weeks is when people ask me when is the right time to get support or to find out about suicide and co.

Amelia Wrighton:I am genuinely now, I didn\'t before we had our early bereavement support offering, but I\'m genuinely now like day one or two, I cannot see. A reason as to why it\'s not useful. Not everybody wants counseling. Not everybody wants to speak to our team, but even if you look on our social media channel and you see that 14 other thousand people are following this channel, when it happened to me, I thought I was the only one I thought.

Amelia Wrighton:We were all hiding in the shadows. It would have reset my entire foundation. And the two things that would\'ve reset is it would\'ve made me feel deserving of support, regardless if I want it or not. It would\'ve set the foundation that I deserve it, and it would\'ve made me not feel alone.

Amelia Wrighton:And those two fundamental beliefs. If you get it wrong and you don\'t feel supported and you do feel alone, they can literally lead to so many things. And let\'s be realistic. The journey\'s going to be pretty shit regardless, and I really hate to say that, but going through something like this is hard.

Amelia Wrighton:It is exhausting. It\'s hard for a very long time, but suicide and co and getting support weekly and knowing that there\'s a community out there makes it a hell of a lot easier. I think as you alluded to, it has the ability to really. Keep people company on that journey, on a very hard journey.

Amelia Wrighton:It has the ability to be like, you are not alone. You do deserve support. It\'s gonna flex and change and in three years time what you need might be completely different. Once you set those fan. Stations that you\'re not alone and that you deserve support. Everybody has the ability to rebuild the life back up around loss.

Amelia Wrighton:Every single person, we can do that, we can do that together. We can find moments of joy again it\'s absolutely possible.

Adam Walker:Deserving of support is something that resonates really, really loudly with me I remember when it all happened and. I was talking to my parents at the time around how on earth to frame this in a eulogy. I wrote and read my sister\'s eulogy, and it was really important to me that we used the right language around suicide.

Adam Walker:I didn\'t want to dress it up in any other way, I\'m afraid. Unfortunately, when people take their life by suicide. Whether or not there is a choice that takes place there, there is a finality to the outcome and it\'s not like any other loss in respect of, to your point around grief Olympics. It\'s not like that.

Adam Walker:It\'s not what I\'m talking about. It\'s the fact that people die every single day. People lose people every single day. But usually there is a, framing around that and. Of course, terrible things happen and the world is a difficult place at the moment, but being deserving of support and not feeling ashamed associated through a loss of a loved one through suicide is so pivotal.

Adam Walker:Mm. To open up those conversations to make one feel worthy of the support.

Adam Walker:And coming back to that point of support. Many years previously, 15, 16 years. Previous to that, I had my own mental health breakdown. I was made redundant, and on the same day my dad had a stroke, a life-changing stroke. And I\'m not gonna lie, I was hospitalized for a month and.

Adam Walker:I was medicated and I was given enormous amounts of support and I had to rebuild my life. And my sister knew that and was with me on that journey, and all I ever tried to do was to share those experiences with her that had served me so well in rebuilding my. I genuinely thought I was going to lose everything.

Adam Walker:The house, my wife, the children. I had visuals of sleeping on the beach in Brighton. That was literally as low as I got, and I planned my out, you know, I planned it. So I know what it feels like to be at the depths of despair and at the bottom to lose your identity, to lose everything that you\'ve worked for in your life.

Adam Walker:And yet. Without the talking therapy that rebuilt me at that point, and subsequently, I wouldn\'t be the person that sat in front of you today.

Amelia Wrighton:Mm.

Adam Walker:It made me stronger. It gave me the tools to access life again, but also to just rebuild as a human being and try and pass on those experiences and learnings for other people.

Adam Walker:And the reason I\'m saying this is because shame comes in very many different. Forms.

Amelia Wrighton:Mm.

Adam Walker:And I felt shame and feel shame a lot because of what happened with Naomi, but I don\'t want people\'s pity. And pity is also another feeling that we experienced through loss by suicide as it not. I feel people sometimes just give me an extra long hug because they feel sorry for me because they\'ve seen the experiences I\'ve had.

Adam Walker:On the point of loss, my dear dad, bless him, he died 203 days after my sister, so I ended up reading two eulogies within a year of Naomi and my dad. So I had a double traumatic grief and in that time. Suicide and CO was able to support me on those weekly check-ins and talking all the way through it, making some sense of the chaos.

Amelia Wrighton:Mm.

Adam Walker:Because there\'s been a lot of chaos for me. Mm-hmm. It just has somehow you have to rebuild. You have to turn up every day, do work, whatever that looks like for you. Support your kids if you\'ve got them. Support the people around you.

Amelia Wrighton:You

Adam Walker:know, my mom, bless her, she lost her daughter and her husband in under a year.

Adam Walker:Yeah, she\'s had a hell of a lot of loss.

Amelia Wrighton:Mm.

Adam Walker:And she is having counseling and grief support through that as well. And she\'s fortunate to have a very close community of people .

Amelia Wrighton:Mm.

Adam Walker:So we all experience this very differently, and I just want to encourage anyone who\'s listening to this to really reach out and seek that support.

Adam Walker:Mm-hmm. Because it\'s transformative on many levels. It\'s transformative and it\'s given without judgment. And I think that is absolute testament to the work that you\'ve done in building suicide. And go, Amelia.

Amelia Wrighton:Well that\'s amazing.

Amelia Wrighton:I think talking therapies are so powerful and obviously not everybody has a casework provision, like the early bereavement support program is with us, but counseling, obviously in our services totally free.

Amelia Wrighton:But you know, there are tons of cancers all over the country. There\'s also loads of charities, for people listening that maybe aren\'t brewed by suicide but are bereaved, I think there are. Lots of spaces that counseling can be found. And I think what\'s interesting is that, often, in your lived experience, having gotten to a point of a mental breakdown and then been forced into care and then realize obviously that there\'s a lot of benefit from it.

Amelia Wrighton:It\'s a story I\'ve heard multiple times. It\'s people that have maybe never counseling, who\'ve never got to a point where they\'ve been forced in. You know, they\'ve been like, oh, I\'m so low now, which is how I entered. I entered it by being like. Something\'s gotta help \'cause I can\'t do anything else. Like I can\'t avoid it any longer.

Amelia Wrighton:What I find just so fascinating is there\'s just on the other side of things, we just, this concept of deserving or needing it. I hear people all the time being like, oh, my sister needs counseling, but I don\'t need it. And you\'re like, that\'s interesting that you don\'t need it. Like how has that self prescription come about?

Amelia Wrighton:Like, do you need to go to the gym or do you go to the gym? \'cause you want to be physically fitter. It\'s really interesting and I think help seeking behaviors are not the norm in this space. Help seeking behaviors are some people normally with previous experience of, being within the mental health system.

Amelia Wrighton:I think we\'ve got to really keep promoting that especially on podcasts and things like that, we can hear like stories of resilience or how someone started a charity or did a challenge or whatever. But I\'m often thinking like, how did you get there?

Amelia Wrighton:That\'s why I always talk about the fact that counseling had a positive effect because that was the turning point for me. I didn\'t just suddenly have this like brainwave and suddenly was able to cope, more. I think we need to make accessing support in that way, for lack of a better word, like cooler.

Amelia Wrighton:So the more people wanna do it, especially generationally, I think young people are really coming up with a more, less shame around getting support. I think they\'ve had all the stigma kind of break around anxiety and depression, and I think it\'s more normal. It\'s more every day to be getting support.

Amelia Wrighton:Talking about neurodiversity and stuff like that. If I think about my dad\'s generation, it\'s probably like the absolute. Opposite and to get support for something like grief, I think is just not considered for many people. I do think it\'s changing though, but sometimes I think at suicide and co we only see.

Amelia Wrighton:Area that\'s changing. \'cause we see people coming to us, reaching out for support and our support. That demand is going up every single week organically without us advertising. So that\'s fab and that is an indication that it is changing, but still we\'re only seeing the people that are reaching out for support.

Amelia Wrighton:We\'re not seeing the people that don\'t even know about us and didn\'t know that they could.

Adam Walker:I hope that this episode will go. In some way into opening up those conversations more.

Adam Walker:One thing that I\'ve learned a lot around suicide over the last couple of years has been, dare I say, the contagion of suicide.

Adam Walker:And I don\'t really want to encourage people to look into this other than to know that there is a contagion. Within families and within friendship circles around suicide.

Amelia Wrighton:Mm-hmm.

Adam Walker:It\'s a really uncomfortable truth and it\'s something that I\'ve learned through doing some research around it, but also because I don\'t want anyone in my immediate friends, family, or connections to think that this is an option.

Adam Walker:Mm-hmm. And unfortunately, I think. People are seeing this as an option today, I find that terrifying. Mm-hmm. Would you mind just expanding on that please, if you wouldn\'t mind?

Amelia Wrighton:Yeah, no, a hundred percent. So the contagion of suicide is definitely a very complex area. It\'s very dependent on exactly the unique situation, but I think as a statistical factor, yes, people who\'ve lost a loved one to suicide are more at risk of suicide themselves.

Amelia Wrighton:And then there are other areas of contagion that can happen within community groups, and that\'s normally based on comparison. So when a celebrity dies, anyone could compare to be like, gosh, they had what seemingly looks like everything, and I don\'t have friends, or I don\'t have a career, or I\'m struggling with this.

Amelia Wrighton:Similarly, when it\'s an environment like a university or a community club, when people are already highly vulnerable, that can be a contagion effect. If there is an area of comparison of, that as well as an exposure to that form of death and, just seeing it more as an option. I would say it\'s very complex.

Amelia Wrighton:I would say it\'s a very natural experience for loved ones who find out that information to then feel a level of heightened anxiety around their own families. We see it a lot with parents, specifically over children and other siblings of a sibling that\'s died. And that\'s of course really natural. Um, And, I think, to some degree a level of like concern and wanting and knowing about the fact that could be a statistical risk is a positive because it makes us kind of lean into learning about it and thinking about how we can approach conversations of suicide.

Amelia Wrighton:But I, think that there\'s a balance of getting really comfortable in your own experience of grief and the loss of somebody and kind of like what led to that person that we\'ve lost dying And factors that could be different factors that weren\'t or completely unopened ended.

Amelia Wrighton:Things that we\'ll never know, but there needs to be a separation between that and then how we move through life with people, especially if they then get to a point of vulnerability or their own, mental health crises, because you\'ve gotta approach it differently each time. I think that for individuals who go on the journey of wanting to build a real.

Amelia Wrighton:Level of confidence approaching topics of suicide. It\'s a brilliant journey to go on. I would advocate that everybody goes on it when they\'re ready to do it. I really think when the idea is a very key part, because it\'s a steep learning curve. It\'s very unnatural in lots of ways.

Amelia Wrighton:one of the biggest tips is if you know somebody who\'s, if you have a concern around somebody and you think they may be suicidal, is to ask \'em the question.

Amelia Wrighton:Are you having thoughts of suicide? It\'s this big myth that will put into someone\'s head an idea. It never does. But it could give somebody the opportunity to speak honestly for the first time. But that is a really hard skillset. And what\'s interesting is me being in the space. Like I have done courses, I\'ve done, mental health first aid is what all businesses do and suicide\'s, like half a page of a two booklet and tiny section of a two day course and grief isn\'t even in it, you know?

Amelia Wrighton:And then I\'ve done it applied. Suicide intervention skills training a two day course, which I highly recommend to anybody who wants to upskill in this conversation. That is a brilliant course, but even then you can learn the skill sets. It doesn\'t mean you\'ve gotta have the confidence. If you think about learning a language, yeah, you can learn your verbs and you pronunciations and you can do a test.

Amelia Wrighton:But if you then go to France. And somebody comes up to you and speaks in French, are you gonna feel confident to do it? Probably not. Even with all the theory you\'re gonna need to practice, do it again and then get a bit more confident. And that is harder to do with suicidal conversations in our personal lives.

Amelia Wrighton:\'cause hopefully we\'re not navigating them all the time. But I think this area of confidence around this topic is a hard one to build. But once you have that, I think it makes fear around contagion. Less so. But equally, as I said earlier, even me, I find myself going against the rules when it\'s somebody I know and love because it\'s just much harder.

Amelia Wrighton:My boundaries are much harder to have in place. I just wanna solve it for them. I don\'t wanna go through the process of asking and hearing and sitting. I just wanna be like, let\'s get you into service. Right. Bloody now I\'ll drag you there if I have to.

Amelia Wrighton:Not the ideal, not the way to go. But yeah, I think, yeah,

Adam Walker:I, totally appreciate that insight that you\'ve responded with there, Amelia. That\'s really helpful for me. But also, I just love the way that you framed these things and just turn them on their head and just challenge it back and your lived experience drives.

Adam Walker:The way that you are approaching activities and, these conversations as you move forward. It\'s wonderful to hear. I\'d love to touch on some of the, go ahead, sorry.

Amelia Wrighton:No, I was gonna say, it definitely does. I also just feel like I think I spoke to you. I\'ve recently taken a holiday and one of the things I\'ve really reflected on is I also feel like I have a very unique privilege to talk.

Amelia Wrighton:On behalf of a collective and a community, I have now seen thousands of people come through our service. I have seen hundreds of stories I have seen. Applications. I\'ve seen testimonials. I\'ve talked to individuals like you, I\'ve heard thousands of experiences of suicide loss. It\'s a very niche thing to have heard that much about, you know, I, could list probably 10 people in the country that I think have heard as many as I would\'ve heard, probably more, but very small amount.

Amelia Wrighton:And, I talk, I think that\'s where. I feel really privileged to talk from. I feel like I obviously speak to my lived experience and that\'s the only truth I know. But with everything that we\'ve got now with the evidence base we have, I\'m really proud to talk on behalf of so many other people and to put a voice behind a community that has been silent for so long.

Adam Walker:I think that\'s wonderful. And just to reinforce that point, talking about suicide doesn\'t initiate it.

Amelia Wrighton:No

Adam Walker:one should think that. Conversation happens because you ask someone if they\'re feeling a danger to themselves.

Adam Walker:Are there some protective factors that you\'d like to bring to the attention of our audience around reduction of suicide risk?

Adam Walker:Because I think that would probably be helpful as well to hear that.

Amelia Wrighton:Yeah. The England Suicide Prevention Strategy that was released a few years ago, I think is a really good foundation for how the sector is navigating both audiences with a statistically higher risk as well as things that can be put in place to, protect, people better. I think in terms of those with a statistical higher risk we need more attention around areas like domestic abuse, gambling addiction, addiction in total, bereavement by suicide and also perinatal health. So pre and postnatal depression.

Amelia Wrighton:Those are all areas that I think are getting a lot more intense. And, I\'d argue that if anybody listening has lived experience within those areas, going and finding out parities that work specifically in that space can be really empowering. I would say in terms of like strategies around overall prevention, one of them is trying to do more work specifically with communities that are at a statistically higher risk, so we are one of those, when people enter our door, we focus in on grief. Many of the people that come through our door, our, their own mental health crisis, of course they are like it\'s.

Amelia Wrighton:Thing that we see all the time, but we\'re focusing in with them on their grief and when they have it goes, tips the other way. And this total like mental health crisis themselves that we can support through or find complimentary services to what work with us in that moment with them. But I think other things that we\'ve seen in my opinion, like success with, I mean. prevention, although I sit on the steering group for the National Suicide Prevention Alliance Prevention is an area of expertise, but sometimes I feel like it moves so fast. I, need to like, caveat that my main focus is on bereavement. I would say that we are seeing progression with things like suicide prevention being covered within educational settings.

Amelia Wrighton:There\'s been some really great progress there. Reduction of access to method has been something that people have been working on for a long time. So, high risk environments, getting signposting from Samaritans as well as more in depth things working within different methods of, suicide.

Amelia Wrighton:I think that societally the kind of stuff we\'re doing around broader mental health, trying to talk about we should talk to our friends more and we should feel more open and vulnerable is great. I think sometimes when it\'s linked too closely to suicide, it\'s a bit productive. It makes it feel like the solution to suicide is talking, which I don\'t agree with in the vast narrative cases.

Amelia Wrighton:But yeah, I would say those are the areas that I would speak to. Has that answered your question? I don\'t know if it has.

Adam Walker:Absolutely it has it\'s very, very helpful and I think for our audience who are listening to this intently, they will really appreciate that. I think your references to pre and postnatal depression

Amelia Wrighton:mm-hmm.

Adam Walker:I think is fascinating.

Adam Walker:We are connected through loss. Through women.

Amelia Wrighton:Mm-hmm.

Adam Walker:That is a, statistic in itself, you know, women are overlooked in this space. There is so much around men\'s mental health, and I\'m not diminishing that at all. I check in with a group of men every Monday morning and we hold each other accountable, but nevertheless.

Adam Walker:We are so connected through our loss. You and I Amelia, through women.

Amelia Wrighton:Yeah.

Adam Walker:And potentially women of a certain age. So you know, there are changes hormonally that happen in women.

Amelia Wrighton:Totally.

Adam Walker:Yeah. Throughout their life. I don\'t want that to be overlooked, and I think that it\'s pivotal in many women who ultimately make that decision.

Adam Walker:And I\'m really happy with the way that you\'ve described that because. You\'ve touched on so many different aspects there. Mm.

Amelia Wrighton:I would just say one thing on gender is, really interesting, and I wish I could have this like seamless, it\'s an area I\'m really talking quite a bit about at the moment. But even though, out of the number of people that are dying by suicide, 70% of them are men.

Amelia Wrighton:What\'s so fascinating is that the number of people. Then look at who\'s receiving support from the system. Okay, let\'s just take two things into account. One is the fact that out of those who\'ve died by suicide, only one in five have been in touch with the mental health system, right? So let\'s assume that 80%, you know, the other four people weren\'t even in touch with the system.

Amelia Wrighton:Then when you look at the system and you think about what they\'re achieving, the vast majority of people are women. And we\'ve got all these issues around men accessing them. So it\'s kind of like, you could look at it as a hypothesis. If more men entered the system, would we have lower rates of suicide because, more people would be accessing it and the number of people would be coming down.

Amelia Wrighton:I\'d argue absolutely yes. But I also think that women can be overlooked specifically around kind of someone like the most fatal deaths. In areas that are post, perinatal health as well as domestic abuse, and both of those things link back to very much a similar. Factor as, or even by suicide, there is an area of shame and not feeling like you can\'t talk up about it as much.

Amelia Wrighton:New moms who are supposed to be happy and then they\'re actually feeling low in themselves. That is far harder to reach out and say, I want. I think there\'s been really great targeted work in that area to help young women feel a bit better. I know that the experience that, my friends go through now with having babies is vastly different to what my mum went through.

Amelia Wrighton:I don\'t think anybody asked her about postnatal depression and she had it so, you know, it\'s interesting to see the shift there. For sure.

Adam Walker:Thank you for that. And it\'s a wonderful lens to, I think, move on to.

Adam Walker:The conclusion and I like to finish our conversations with a quick fire round and

Amelia Wrighton:okay.

Adam Walker:Again, I, don\'t want to be reductive at all with your time, Amelia, this has been incredible, but what is the one piece of advice you would give to your younger self?

Amelia Wrighton:I would say I\'m deserving of support and there\'s loads of options out there, so get exploring what\'s gonna work for you.

Adam Walker:What are the top three qualities you value most when building your team?

Amelia Wrighton:Oh, I think it would be empathy,

Amelia Wrighton:authenticity,

Amelia Wrighton:and spirit slash kind of bravery at suicide and co. We move really fast, so. We definitely need that secret source of people that are down to have fun on the journey, which sounds bizarre, but we got to, it\'s really hard work and are down to go to places that we haven\'t traveled before because that\'s the issue with building something where there\'s a massive gap.

Amelia Wrighton:That wasn\'t very quick. Sorry.

Adam Walker:Perfect. What is your favorite thing outside of work? Namely, how do you decompress

Amelia Wrighton:I love jigsaw puzzles. That\'s my current thing. A thousand piece jigsaw puzzle. I have a puzzle board. Love it.

Adam Walker:And finally, what is your number one golden rule in life and in business?

Amelia Wrighton:Head in the clouds beat on the ground. Dream big. To get into the detail,

Adam Walker:you\'ve said dream big. That resonates for me. My dad had it dogged on his garage wall in paint. Wow. Wow. It\'s come up before in other podcasts, believe it or not, but he dreamed big.

Adam Walker:And you and I are connected by orange, and I don\'t wanna overlook that opportunity because orange is a color that matters to me a lot.

Adam Walker:Hmm. What does orange mean to you? Just out of interest.

Amelia Wrighton:It\'s just my favorite color. I love, it\'s warm, it\'s joyful it visually stimulates, endorphins with me.

Adam Walker:I\'ll tell you what orange does for me. It is the color that connects me mostly with my sister, with Naomi.

Amelia Wrighton:Oh, lovely.

Adam Walker:She used to run for meningitis.

Adam Walker:Now. And it\'s an orange running vest.

Amelia Wrighton:Yeah.

Adam Walker:And when I think of Naomi, I think of Orange. And after she died, I ended up buying a whole wardrobe of orange clothes.

Amelia Wrighton:Love it.

Adam Walker:I very nearly wore I my

Amelia Wrighton:wardrobe too.

Adam Walker:I nearly wore, an orange jumper. I know. There\'s me.

Amelia Wrighton:Oh my God. The fact that I\'m wearing Navy is so rare for me.

Amelia Wrighton:I\'m normally in the brightest of colors. I mean, look, my, my phone cord is orange. We\'re absolutely connected by orange, Adam. I love that.

Adam Walker:Okay, so here\'s me with orange.

Amelia Wrighton:Yes.

Adam Walker:Um, Amelia, you

Amelia Wrighton:should get one of our orange journals. I should send it to you. Have you seen them?

Adam Walker:I haven\'t, but

Amelia Wrighton:Oh my God. I\'ll send you a link to our orange journals.

Amelia Wrighton:We sell them for Southern co profit. They\'re amazing. They\'re like nine quids. You\'d love it.

Adam Walker:I would love that.

Adam Walker:Amelia, we\'ve just had such a wonderful conversation. Your openness, your honesty, your true, genuine, incredible. Aura is just bursting through the screen for me. I hope it comes across on wow for everyone that\'s listening or is watching this podcast because the work that you\'ve done and the transformation that you\'ve made in not just your life, but in so many people\'s lives, including myself through suicide and co, is just remarkable.

Amelia Wrighton:Yeah.

Adam Walker:On the occasion that I get to meet you in person. Yeah. I will give you the biggest hug I can possibly give you. Uhhuh. I\'m a hugger, by the way.

Amelia Wrighton:Great.

Adam Walker:And I just Good have that. Cannot thank you enough for taking the time today to be on Pharma. Prescribed. The dogs have loved listening to you.

Amelia Wrighton:They\'ve loved it.

Adam Walker:I\'ve loved listening to you, and it\'s just been an absolute delight. Thank you so much, IMIA.

Amelia Wrighton:Thank you, Adam. Thank you for having me right back at you. You\'re fantastic at holding a conversation, creating a really safe space, and I\'ve loved speaking with you and I\'m really grateful for all the feedback and all of the beautiful words you\'ve said about the service and myself.

Amelia Wrighton:It really is grateful and it has a weight with me a hundred percent.

Adam Walker:Thank you again. It\'s been a delight. Thank you