That was the message being delivered as Hunter residents came together to honour loved ones lost to suicide at Wesley LifeForce’s annual memorial day held at Foreshore Park last week.

The service has been held for the past 17 years and allows people touched by suicide to come together in a spirit of comfort and hope.

Wesley LifeForce group manger Tony Cassidy said it was important to let members of the community grieving suicide know they are not alone in their grief.

“Suicide grief is often different grief because there is a level of guilt and of not understanding why it happened and because of the stigma,” Mr Cassidy said.

“We want people to know it’s OK to talk about it, that if they have lost someone to suicide or are struggling with suicidal ideations there are people to help.

“It’s not that there are not services, it’s not knowing where to seek help.”

Wesley LifeForce offer a range of suicide prevention training programs for members of the community.

Mr Cassidy said it was also important to hear from others with lived experience of suicide.

Among the speakers at Newcastle’s Wesley LifeForce Memorial Day service last week was Suicide Prevention Australia spokesperson Peta Dampney.

Ms Dampney shared her “lived experience” of losing a loved one to suicide and of also being a survivor of a suicide attempt herself.

She readily shares her story in the hope of helping others as they try to make sense of their grief.

“People who have lost someone to suicide are more likely to suffer from suicidal thoughts. I want to speak out to say that it happened to me,” she said. 

Ms Dampney wants to use her role with Suicide Prevention Australia to help break down inhibitions and remove stigmas associated with mental health “to have really honest conversations about it”.

“It’s OK to talk about it and it’s never too late to reach out for support, even if it happened 20 or 30 years ago,” she said.

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