Our stories matter: Safely sharing stories of suicide publicly

Posted 25th October 2024

Everymind, in collaboration with members of its Lived Experience Advisory Group, has co-created new guidance to support people with a lived experience of suicide to share their stories safely and effectively.

Our stories matter: Sharing lived and living experiences of suicide publicly is a suite of resources featuring guidelines, a series of video interviews with Lived Experience Advisory Group members providing advice based on their own storytelling experiences, a workbook to prepare for sharing, and guidance for self-care and avoiding burnout.

Sharing stories of suicide can be helpful to an individual and to others. The way stories are told can aid the storyteller and listeners to feel safe and understood.

Key topics covered in the resource suite include:

  • Understanding the purpose for sharing a story of lived experience
  • The importance of having a self-care plan in place
  • Setting boundaries to protect wellbeing
  • Guidance for language when storytelling
  • Preparing for people, including strangers, to ask the storyteller questions about their experience.

The aim of the resource suite is to increase the confidence, skills and safety for sharing stories of lived and living experience publicly.

Jon Eddy, a member of the Lived Experience Advisory Group highlighted the importance of training, and resources like Our stories matter, in helping others with a lived and living experience of suicide to share their stories safely and effectively.

“The way I tell my story has very much evolved. I look at what I knew in those early days even around the language I used, and I look at some old social media posts and think ‘wow did I really post that?”, Eddy says.

“It just shows how far I have come in my understanding of the importance of language and imagery… I am very willing to be educated and I still pinch myself that people are willing to educate me for free because when I started out on this path I thought I would have to go to university to be taken seriously.”

Access the suite here.

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