I lost my dad to suicide when I was 5 years old
I lost my dad to suicide when I was 5 years old
Not many people know this, but as a child I lost my dad Tim to suicide. It has been a formative experience in my life fuelling my vocation into psychology and driving my desire to change the world for the better. Unless you’ve walked the path, it’s hard to understand how this experience can influence aspects of your journey, even years down the line.
My story anchors Men’s Minds Matter mission and values, reminding us that Men’s Mental Health is a society problem which impacts all, and not just men. My life bears witness to the notion that male suicide is not for men alone to fix, and that advocates, men and women must come together to address suicidality as a shared problem. Men’s Minds Matter is the community through which I share my experiences and work towards reducing male suicide.
There are three things I’ve learned from losing a parent to suicide:
Feeling isolated and different is a normal part of this experience.
Throughout my life the sense of shame, having a ‘dirty secret’ or something to ‘hide’ has been one which has followed me around. Before speaking to Anna Wardly who completed a Winston Churchill Fellowship on parental suicide, I had only met one other person who had lost a parent to suicide. It was reassuring to meet others who shared that they felt this shame too.
We all connected about feeling isolated, and it made me wonder how many other children/adults feel similar. I have personally found it empowering to meet with people who have lost a loved one to suicide. The importance of this lived experience really resonated with me in this quote:
‘someone is out there with wounds exactly the same size as your words’
This is why organisations such as Men’s Minds Matter, who provide space to have these conversations, are so necessary.
The trauma associated with losing a parent to suicide is a long-term condition.
Growing up after losing a parent to suicide was tough. I often felt that I was treated differently in many situations, and this feeling continued into adulthood. Stigma and myths about suicide contributed to this and no more so than the misconception that suicide is a ‘choice’. I suspect I am not the only one who has felt this way. Combine this with practical disadvantages, discrimination and the reoccurring emotional pain, the loss of a loved one to suicide brings many unspoken challenges
A recent situation for me was being excluded from an inheritance that, if my dad were alive, would have come to my sister and me. After his suicide, a trust was created between the surviving siblings, and the main part of the estate was put into that trust. My sister and I were left out of it. The money was not the issue here. Rather, it was the fact that my dad would not have wanted my sister and I to be treated differently from the rest of the other grandchildren in the family, in addition to the disadvantages we had already faced navigating life post suicide.
Being treated differently — both symbolically and practically — brought back a deep sense of difference and isolation. It showed me that exclusion and disadvantage can happen even within a family structure, years after the loss itself.
Experiences like this can retraumatise people bereaved by suicide. They affect health and wellbeing and remind me that this kind of parental bereavement is not a one off event, but something that continues as a longterm condition.
Owning your story, rather than your story owning you, provides healing.
After losing my father to suicide aged five, it took 32 years before I could talk openly about the trauma of losing my dad. I am glad I did because the power in sharing it with others has healed me beyond measure. Not only has it helped me to reduce the feelings of shame and difference, the power of owning what’s happened to me and taking control back of my story, has been transformative. Being able to tell my story has helped me to feel more grounded in who I am because losing my dad is part of my story. Honouring that has been restorative for me. Importantly, it was not as scary as I always feared it would be.
I’m really pleased to have found a community of people at Men’s Minds Matter who are dedicated to tackling the problem of suicide. Their platform is a place where people can bring their skills and use the platform to contribute to finding solutions. As a researcher and lived experience expert I bring these skills to help shape policy and practice to better support children who are bereaved by suicide, and to prevent suicides from occurring in the first place. As the parent of two boy’s (age 9 and 3), our mission is more important to me than ever.
Using digital storytelling to co-design a grief camp for young people
My next research project brings my lived experience to co-designing a grief camp with young people bereaved by suicide. The idea of the grief camp is based on models in America (https://www.tamarackgrc.org/camps-retreats) taken from Anna Wardley’s research (https://www.churchillfellowship.org/ideas-experts/fellows-directory/anna-wardley/).
I’m using a cool method called digital storytelling that I learned from the amazing Professor Anotonia Ligouria (https://antonialiguori.blog/about/) to tell my story and work with the young people to describe what helped and hindered their grieving journey.
This is my digital story: Footprints through the great divide
We are hoping to recruit young people aged 16-25 into this work for a in person workshop in Middlesbrough, Teesside on Monday 9th November 2026. If you would like some more information with a view to take part, please contact hannahpoulter@mensmindsmatter.org
Hannah Poulter volunteers as a researcher and lived experience expert for Men’s Minds Matter. She is a trainee health psychologist, part-time academic and researcher for the NHS. She is just about to submit her PhD thesis on addictions in Teesside. She is mum of three boys (one canine, two humans) in North-East England.
*we do not own the rights to this music
Copyright: Hannah Poulter, 15.10.2026 All views contained in this blog are the author’s own.
Special thanks to Josh Hestlehurst for the support in creating the media and to Matt Belmont for adding the audio, for further information on Matts music please visit @mayasoundandmusic on Instagram.