The Just Checking In Podcast

JCIP #347 - Karen Sykes

• The Just Checking In Podcast by VENT

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 1:24:30

In episode 347 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with Karen Sykes. 

Karen is the Co-Founder of the Yorkshire branch of suicide grief awareness charity, Speak Their Name. 

Karen co-founded the Yorkshire Speak Their Name Community Interest Company alongside a woman called Anna Scott. Both of them connected as they have both lost family members to suicide. 

SInce its inception, the Yorkshire Speak Their Name Suicide Memorial Quilt has toured across the region of Yorkshire in a variety of settings, including sporting venues, hospitals and conferences to raise awareness about suicide grief.

In this episode we first chart Karen’s mental health journey, where we discuss three periods of grief.

The first was the death of her father in 2001. Then, on October 3rd 2015, her husband Ian tragically took his own life. Four years later, on 22nd April 2019, Karen’s youngest daughter Beth, also tragically took her own life. Beth was just 26 years old at the time. 

We dive into these periods of grief, how Ian’s and Beth’s deaths turned Karen's world upside down, how she tried to carve out a new life alongside the grief and her recovery. 

We also explore how she's connected with other mums who have gone through suicide grief, including friend of the pod and Bags for Strife Founder Angela Allen, and how Karen's channelled the grief into this new world of suicide grief awareness and post-vention support.

As always, #itsokaytovent

You can find out more about Speak Their Name and submit your own Memorial Quilt here: https://speaktheirname.org/.

TRIGGER WARNING: this podcast contains a deep discussion about grief, loss and the impact that losing a loved one to suicide can have, so please listen with caution.

Support Us:


SPEAKER_00

Trigger Warning. This podcast contains a deep discussion about grief, loss, and the impact that losing a loved one to suicide can have, which some listeners may find distressing or upsetting. So please listen with caution. I'm your host, Freddie Cocker, and this podcast is brought to you by Vent, a place where everyone, but especially men and boys, can open up about their mental health issues, break down stigmas, and start conversations. In each episode, I check in with a special guest. We have a natter and a chat about all things mental health, as well as anything and everything else they are passionate about. If it helps that person with their mental health, we discuss it. My special guest for this episode is Karen Sykes. Karen is the co-founder of the Yorkshire branch of Suicide Grief Awareness Charity Speak Their Name and a trustee of the whole organisation too. Karen co-founded the Yorkshire Speak Their Name Community Interest Company alongside another woman called Anna Scott. Both of them connected as they have both lost family members to suicide. The Yorkshire Speak Their Name Suicide Memorial Quilt since its inception has toured across the region of Yorkshire in a variety of settings, including sporting venues, hospitals, conferences, and as part of events to continue to raise awareness. The Speak Their Name quilt community has grown across the country with all the quilts coming together and on display in the UK Houses of Parliament in October 2025. The Speak Their Name website is the continuation of this quilt, and it provides a digital space for people to submit their own quilts to be displayed for anyone to access. In this episode, we first chart Karen's mental health journey, where we discuss three periods of grief. The first was the death of her father 20 years ago in 2001, and the unexpected shock which she felt a year after his death as to the impact on her mental health. Then, on October 3, 2015, her husband Ian tragically took his own life. Karen was the person to find him and tried resuscitating him, as well as her youngest daughter Beth. Four years later, on the 22nd of April 2019, Karen's youngest daughter Beth also tragically took her own life. Beth was just 26 years old at the time. We dive into these periods of grief, how Ian's and Beth's deaths turned her world upside down, and how she's tried to carve out a new life alongside the grief and her recovery. We discuss how she's navigated it, connected with other mums who've gone through what she's gone through, including Friend of the Pod and Bags for Strife founder Angela Allen, and how she's channeled the grief into this new world of suicide grief awareness, post-vention support, and advocacy. So this is how my conversation with Karen Sykes went. Karen, welcome to the Just Checking In Pod. Thank you so much for letting me check in with you and also thank you for agreeing to bring our initial record date forward a bit. So I'm very excited to chat with you. When I spoke with friend of the pod, Rose Rokins, about the incredible work that Speak Their Name is doing, I was so pleased to give it another platform with you. How are you, first of all, on this Saturday morning?

SPEAKER_02

Hi, Freddie. I'm okay today. A little bit nervous. Like I said earlier, it's been a bit of a while since I've done a podcast. So yeah, a little bit nervous if I'm honest, but really grateful to be here and have the chance to talk about the work that we're doing, uh speak their name, but also uh talk a bit about my journey and how it's led to that and just feel that it's really important because conversations like this matter.

SPEAKER_00

100%. Don't worry, you are in very good hands with me, Karen. I want this pod to be as much about you as it is a celebration of your dad, of Ian and Beth's lives, not just their deaths and your grief, but everything in between. So without further delay, are you ready to start the show and talk all about it?

SPEAKER_02

Thank you. Yes, I am, and thanks for holding this space so respectfully. It does really mean a lot because it is quite a difficult subject matter, but it's like you say, it's important. So thank you.

SPEAKER_00

Let's start your podcast, Karen, by discussing your mental health journey as it shaped everything you do now with Speak Their Name Yorkshire. So take me back to your early life as I ask every special guest this question first. Teenagers and looking back, were there any early mental health experiences? If any, who's the Karen we meet here?

SPEAKER_02

So growing up, I wouldn't have described myself as someone with mental health struggles. You know, when you look back at your childhood, my childhood was really positive. I was very, very fortunate. I got on with things. Like I said, my childhood was good, my teenage years were good, school was good, and married and worked hard, I became a nurse, I was a mum. So looking back, I didn't really have the language of how the emotional live for me, especially grief. And I think my mental health journey came later, really, and I think it was shaped around the grief that I experienced.

SPEAKER_00

Well, let's talk about the first period of grief you went through, which was when you lost your dad in 2001. Now, before we talk about that grief, which was obviously a massive shock for you as we spoke about off air, just tell me his name, the man he was, and your relationship with him.

SPEAKER_02

So my dad's name was well, his Sunday name was Robert, but everybody knew him was Bob. He was a steady, old-fashioned guy. He was a lot older than my mum, so I have got older hand sisters. You know, they had a really strong and good relationship. I had a good family, like like I say. My dad was steady, kind, quietly strong. He didn't really make a fuss about things, he was really sociable man, the core of the family, really. We always felt safe with him. Sadly, uh, he developed Alzheimer's, and I was fortunate, and I look back now, and I was blessed to be heavily involved in his care with my mum and my rest of my siblings, and and we were very close, yeah. Good relationship. Yeah. Yeah, he was he was right mancunian. Yes, I've moved over the borders across the pennines, yeah. So some of my favourite memories of my dad are simple ones, just everyday moments, family things that didn't feel actually special at the time, but when you look back, they are and they mean a lot now.

SPEAKER_00

Like you said, it's a testament to you that you said how blessed you were to care for your dad in his final years and months, but it was still, I imagine, a very difficult time for you at the same time. So just tell me about the build-up to the point when he died, how that grief impacted your mental health in the first weeks and months, and how you tried to not move on, but move forward after he died.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's hard watching somebody that you love deteriorate, and like I say, we were blessed to look after him. We would have known that his wishes were that he stayed at home. So me and my mum and the rest of the family, we all lived close, so we were able to ensure that he had wraparound care and that we were able to meet his needs at home, which were challenging, I've got to say, especially for my mum. And the day he died was quite an unusual day, really, because I was working at a time as a health visitor in Wigan and I came home for lunch to my mum and dad's. I remember interacting with him at that time, his cognitive state wasn't good, but he was up and he was sat with me while I ate my lunch, and it was only later on in the day when I found out that all my siblings had been to see my dad that day, which is very unusual that we would all go on the same day. My brothers had been and my sister, and the day that he died, I was coming home from work and I got a call off uh I can't remember it was, I think it was off my mum, it might have been somebody else, saying, You've got to pick your sister up and come now to the house. And and I was a bit annoyed, really. I'm thinking, why do I need to pick my sister up? I knew she'd been to see my dad earlier, and I'm thinking, what are we doing? Going back, I've already seen him. Like I say, I was a mum with three young girls, and I'm like thinking anyway, went to mum and dad's house, and my sister-in-law was stood on the gate crying, and that kind of like I knew then. So my dad had peacefully died later that afternoon with my mum. He just took himself to bed, and my mum was with him, and he just died peacefully in his sleep. And at the time he died, I look back now, but I had a sense of relief because what we'd been witnessing over the months, the years was a real loss of my dad. And I think when you're losing somebody, even though they're there physically, you've lost that person and that vibrancy, and that's what dementia and diseases like Alzheimer's do, and they rob you of that person. So at the time he died, I had this kind of relief, and I was I'm the eldest of my siblings, and my mum was completely heartbroken, as we knew she would be. And I kind of like went into practical mode, you know, with the funeral and everything else, and the practicalities of we did it all, went through it. And I, you know, some memories in your head are not that sharp. The day of the funeral, I it was pretty sharp for me because I'm like thinking, oh, how lovely all the neighbours had closed the curtains as a mark of respect. My eldest daughter was going to do a reading and she couldn't do it, so I took over. My youngest brother was heartbroken. I remember holding his knee, just little things like that. And I thought, yeah, I've got this. And this was my first experience of really close grief. I'd lost my grandparents, but to me, this was like my dad. But I managed, went back to work. Looking back now, you just think, how did I do that? But at that point, yeah, I was, and I had responsibilities, I had children, I had a career that I'd only just started, I just qualified as a health, like I said, and life carried on. But it was about a year later, and it was like that my body finally said, You can't outrun this anymore, that you're running away from something and you can't outrun it. And that's when it landed, grief just landed all at once. And back then I don't think we talked about delayed grief, because it's over 20 years now, and I don't think there was much understanding or support, you know. I think when you look now how things have moved, I think you were kind of like expected to get on with it, really. But this was when my mental health, my life around mental health started, because this is when I became clinically depressed, and uh I didn't know what was happening to me, to be honest, Freddie. I'd been somebody that just got on with things. I was struggling to get out of the house, I was struggling to do things, even to take my daughters to the dance lessons or gymnastics, and I needed treatment. I did, I spoke to my GP, got treatment, had counselling. It was also at the time when my marriage was breaking down as well. So that had some impact on my mental health and and ongoing, but but I managed with the treatment I got, which was medication. I'm not averse to it, I'm a nurse, but also I was open to the counselling, I had talking, like I said, talking therapies, and it helped me and I I did recover and got through my divorce and life got better. I met Ian and changed the pathway, and I wasn't at that point mentally unwell. I was good, back in a good place.

SPEAKER_00

Like you said, the early 2000s was a different universe in our societal understanding of grief, mental illness, and just mental health more widely. So, given the support that you had at the time, when did you finally find peace with your dad's death?

SPEAKER_02

I think it was accepting that I was allowed to grieve, even though he'd died practically nearly a year before, and it was not being ashamed to grieve for him and to accept that this was normal, and I'd run away from it kind of. And I think at that point when I look back, and it was being able to when you have talking therapists and you talk about bereavement, it's also about some of your behaviours as well, and recognising and and holding your own behaviours to account. And I look back at that year when I was probably running away from it and being in practical mode, and and I look at my relationship with my mum, and I'm not proud of that because I was impatient with her. I'm thinking, because we were so everything had to be around my dad when he was ill, and my mum is younger than my dad, and she had to give up a job which she loved, and it was only a small job at the local primary school, cleaning after school and cleaning before, and she had to give it up. And I'm thinking, you've got the ability to do things for you, mum, and you're not doing them. And she was grieving, I had no awareness or insight into what was happening for her, and by undertaking talking therapies, it enabled me to explore not just myself but my own behaviours and the people around me and their grief, and then that actually not incites your own, but the realisation that this is why I was ill because grief is what we pay for, deep love. I think I was shutting things out w about my dad and just focusing on that he was at peace when actually I missed him, and that was uh quite revolutionary for me that I actually could be sad and I could feel this loss without feeling that I had to push it away and just carry on.

SPEAKER_00

I want to talk about the second period of grief now because your grief didn't end with just your dad, as on October the 3rd, 2015, your husband Ian tragically took his own life. Now, before we talk about that grief too, tell me the story of how you met the person you fell in love with and when you knew he was the one.

SPEAKER_02

So me and Ian at that time, like I say, I'd been divorced, and me and Ian met online on Valentine's Day. We had a very, very quick connection. When I look back now, it was obviously it was just through text messages via an online platform. But oh my god, he was so funny. He just made me laugh, he just had this innate sense of fun, he was quick, even through overst connections, he was warm, kind, gentle. But the big thing was he was fun and we had this massive connection, it was just bizarre, and it it was pretty at pace, really, in that we'd connected online and then I think we met about a week later, and honestly, it was just it was just instant. He just felt like somebody that I'd never you meet people and we all meet people and we have past relationships and things like that, and people use the word soulmate and stuff like that, and you think, oh, is it a bit dry? It's a bit but he was. He had this way of he knew me and he knew me pretty instantly. He listened to me, which was also a bit of a difficult thing because if you ever said anything to Ian, you didn't forget. So no disrespect to men because of each and to you, but a lot of men don't hold on to things. He remembered things. We were watching a programme once and there was this programme and it was wake boarding, and I went, I'd love to do that. Oh my god, he bought it me for a birthday present, and we did it in the south of Wales. It was the worst thing I've ever experienced in my life. And my mum said to me, Well, that'll teach you for saying things to him because he doesn't forget, and you said you'd love to do that, and I did it, and I'll never forget bouncing on my bottom in the cold sea in the south of Wales, thinking, You stupid woman, why did you say this? He loved it, he loved it. So we eventually got married, and like our wedding day, we wanted to go away, we got married in Gretna Green, not in a private venue. We didn't want it to be a big thing. It was a wonderful day, it was a day full of love. All my friends came from Bolton, from everywhere, and it was just a really lovely day, and we had that kind of relation that felt solid, hopeful. We were looking forward to our futures. I truly believed we were just perfect. I mean, we had a blended family, so we are gonna have challenges of practicalities of life and teenage children and navigating crossing the pennines, moving, stuff like that. But we did it together, we understood each other, and we talked. We talked all the time, and like I say, I truly believed we were building a long future together and we're gonna grow old together.

SPEAKER_00

On that day in October, it was you, Karen, who found Ian after you had taken his own life. And in that moment, you didn't know he was dead, you're trying to resuscitate him. Before we talk about the memories of that day, did you have any inclination about his mental health state? Do you know what was bothering him? Was there a decline? Was there a any red flags that you spotted before that?

SPEAKER_02

Um there was, but you say red flags, there wasn't any, I would say, distinct red flag that I felt that I needed to intervene or discuss with him about. He was pretty good at continuing when things were difficult. So we'd had a few years before Ian died, we'd had a a serious family tragedy and uh a tragic loss of of Ian's niece, which as a family absolutely it didn't break us, but it shook us to the core, especially for Ian's brother and sister-in-law. And Ian was the youngest of his siblings, but he wanted to support his big brother, and he was around all the time. And I don't think myself and Ian recognised the impact on both of us, really, of that, but more so for Ian. And he was a man, and like you said, about men, they don't talk about themselves, they talk about other people. Ian had talked about his children and me, and about his brother and his sister-in-law and everybody else's mum, but he wouldn't talk about himself and he wouldn't talk about how he was feeling. Work wasn't brilliant for him either. He was struggling at work, he had a lot of demands, his career was highly pressurised as well, and he was a perfectionist. And as a perfectionist, that can sometimes be a downfall as well. And I I think it's only when you look back and you can hindsight is amazing, isn't it? You can think back of things. I think Ian's mental health wasn't always brilliant, and when I look back at conversations we had when we first met, his mental health at one point before we met when his marriage broke up was very, very fragile, and he was very open with me about that. He'd had suicidal ideation years ago. He'd actually reached out and sought help. So that was kind of like a safeguard for me as well. I made assumptions and I also made assumptions that me and him, we were strong together, that he wouldn't leave me, and that no matter what happened, we'd probably work it through. So yeah, I think there were a number of factors for Ian, and I don't think what we saw is what was truly going on behind that smile and behind that gregarious, fun nature. I think he felt he had a lot of responsibilities and held on to them but didn't share everything, even though I thought we did, but obviously he didn't.

SPEAKER_00

Tell me about your memories of that day then, what transpired and how your mental health and your children's mental health, because they had to intervene as well, was impacted from that point.

SPEAKER_02

So that did we'd had a a family um celebration. It was my middle daughter's birthday the day before. So it was meant to be a little bit of a celebration, but my brother and his wife came. My eldest daughter came over from across the Pennines, so it was really nice, and we had this lovely evening, everything was fine. Alcohol was drunk and copious amounts of alcohol. It was October and I was doing Stoctober, so I wasn't drinking, and my eldest daughter wanted to go home. Her husband was working away and she wanted to go home. My brother and sister-in-law had already left. So I took my eldest daughter home in the early hours of the morning and left Ian with my other two daughters who were in bed. My youngest daughter and my middle daughter had gone to bed because they lived with us. Took my eldest daughter home, got back, and it was I was just like messing about, like moving empty bottles. There was a lot of alcohol that I'd been drank, and there was nothing that stuck out, and then I went upstairs and found Ian, and that day changed absolutely everything. It was like an out-of-body experience, I'm a nurse, so I have dealt with emergency situations, so you contact emergency services. With my lived experience now, I've had different experiences now from contact with professionals, which is quite insightful, I think, and it it's helped me. And we'll talk about future work, but it's helped me the work I've done, I think, going on. So I was told that I had to resuscitate him, and he was clearly was not. Alive, but I was told that I had to resuscitate him. So you you follow the instructions until the emergency services arrive. And my youngest daughter, Beth, came out of a room and she was like, What the hell is going on? And she just took over. I just sat back and watched her. I watched her, I think she was 22-year-old. She was a tiny little eight-stone little girl, just like going into professional mode. And I was sat there watching, like I was in a I don't know, just a different universe. She was amazing. And when the responder arrived, she started carrying on resuscitation and she said, Well, if you get tired, I'll take over. And it was like some things like on that day stay with you. And those are moments that stay with you. They're not memories, they're in your nervous system, they're stuck with you. And I think that's important to say that because these aren't memories, like it's in you now, and this contributes then. Well, we talk about mental health, and I think that's really important to say. And I think, like I say, looking back, there were small things, but hindsight's perfectly clear for me, and painfully so in that that day, that moment, I just knew that it was never going to be the same again. And sadly, we knew Ian was pronounced dead when the rest of the teams came.

SPEAKER_00

I've spoken with a friend of yours, a friend of mine, Angela Allen, about her experience of suicide grief. I've also spoken with Caroline Roothouse about her experience of suicide grief, and all of you have lost your husbands at various points in your life. And Caroline and Angela spoke about a very stigmatized but natural emotion of anger when their husbands took their own lives. And you said something earlier about when Ian disclosed to you about having previous suicide ideation, you said I never thought he would leave me. Is that how it felt almost?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Felt like he'd checked out. And I can really understand and empathize and have the same feelings of Angela and Caroline, in that it was like, what the bloody hell have you done? In that moment, what have you done? And I think that day, as people descended, because people descend on you, and it's like the house is getting fuller and fuller, and you're in the middle of this, and I had a jumper on, and I remember this jumper, and I just wanted to get rid of it. And I'm I'm thinking, I can't even go upstairs, somebody's gonna follow me. But I was so annoyed with him. It was like I wasn't blatantly angry at that point, it was a red rage. I was so annoyed and feeling so helpless that he'd actually checked out and I couldn't get why he'd done it. But also I was observing what it had done to people. I could see his brother, I could see my daughters, and I could see everybody around me, and it was like you get what have you done?

SPEAKER_00

I think it's really important to allow people who have gone through this to express these emotions because that's the only way we tackle the stigma, right? That's the only way we unpick the shame and the guilt and everything around that. So for you previously to your dad, you said there wasn't as much support at that time in 2002, right? And at the time Ian died, you're working in a new senior role in the NHS, you'd only been in the job for about six months, so your work support networks weren't as established yet. How do you think looking back that impacted your mental health? And do you think you had as much or more support than you did when your dad died?

SPEAKER_02

Um like you say, I'd just started a pretty senior role in a very big organization that I still work for. And I don't think I'd still work in the job I'm in now if my personal life hadn't have transpired as it has done, the path hasn't followed. I'd been there, like you say, less than six months. Nobody knew me. I'd not got that professional um foundation, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'd not enabled people to really get me. The job I hold is, I'd say, part of the conscience of an organization, and the portfolio I hold is quite a complex area of work where people are scared of it. It's safeguarding. So people are scared of it and a bit like, oh, if things go wrong, they can go terribly wrong. Whilst I've worked in other areas, I'd not, like you said, I wasn't establishing my role, people didn't know me. I was still getting to find my networks and and form professional relationships and get that respect not just from my executive teams but wider. And I didn't have that. And that to me was pretty big for me in that I couldn't have any time off. I didn't have any time off. I had two weeks off and I went back to work. I'd say it was worse than when my dad died. There was no support whatsoever. I excluded myself from my family. I went into this work survival mode, and I was getting on with it, and nobody was gonna stop me. My friends were like going, oh my god, Karen, what are you doing, Glossick? I'm in a side, I've never been on sick in my life in the NHS. It's my work ethic. I saw that as a failure. I was looking for other jobs, I was I was like, and I've said it before, I was a Tasmanian devil. I went to it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, a Looney Tunes reference for Taz if people don't know. If he listens, you might be too young to know that.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, if you just look at the cartoon figure, I went back to it too quickly because I thought stopping meant failing. Like I said, I'd always been really, really career focused. Always have been. My children are important and family's important, but my career is part of me. And I wasn't losing it because of Ian. I really wasn't. So I was constantly moving, constantly doing. I remember going into work at five in the morning because I needed to keep moving, because any stillness, I think if I became still, I had to feel, and I didn't want to feel. I wasn't not feeling anything at that point. Work, just saw this person that had come into work and they didn't really know me, so they thought, I'm making assumptions there, because I don't know what people thought. This is my perception. But people must have been thinking, what's she doing? She's back, she must want to be back. Did I bloody else like want to be back? I wanted to be in bed under a cover, but I couldn't. And then it was weird, really, because both me and Beth, my youngest daughter that was with me on the day when I found Ian. I got on from work and she got on from work and she went, haven't you had a call from the doctors? And I went, Yeah, have you? And we're like, the GP wants to see us both. And we were like, obviously not together. And we're like thinking, why does the GP want to see us? So we both made our separate appointments and I went see the GP and this just shows you when you've got a professional that gets it. And I went, Why am I here? She went, Your husband died three months ago. I need to make sure you're alright. And that was it, but I wasn't alright. And she just said, Karen, I think you've got PTSD and you need to confirm this. And I just thought, Oh my god, it was like somebody just took the blinkers off me and gone, it's and I went, oh sick, it was released. I could just I could breathe and somebody giving me that permission, and yeah, and I went, oh sick with six months. I needed that time and I wasn't ashamed of that time, no, but that doctor just I think she just saved me at that point.

SPEAKER_00

Like that doctor said, she diagnoses you with PTSD, or as I prefer to call it now, a post-traumatic stress injury. And as part of your recovery, you underwent something that I've done twice, which is eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy, or EMDR. So for the listeners, I've spoken about it many times. It's not for everyone, but for me, it was life-changing, it was life-saving in many ways. How did the EMDR help you address the heart of the grief and the trauma underneath the surface and help you to move forward as well, not move on?

SPEAKER_02

I think I mentioned it, my dad's grief. I think that the brain, and it was only when I met the therapist and they explained to me what it was, and honestly, I've read it, I just kept thinking, This is not going to work, this is ridiculous. And she explained the process of whether it was a finger or tapping, and I'm like thinking, okay, I'm gonna go with it, because unfortunately, the EMDR therapy for me at that time there was a very long waiting list.

SPEAKER_00

So was my my NHS one. They said the waiting list was so long they closed it.

SPEAKER_02

Exactly, and and my GP, like I said, she was absolutely amazing. I saw her regularly and she said, Oh, I did bereavement counselling again, I did some talking therapies, health referred me, sorry, my work referred me for occupational health. I had talking therapies that didn't work at that point in that six months. I was still mainly staying in bed. I said I was way netter from uh I can't remember which comedy series it was an old one now, but I was just vegging away and just not addressing it. And it my GP said, I've got veterans, I've got patients that really would benefit from EMDR, and she said, I think you would too, but she said the waiting list they'd closed it in our area because it was so long. So I got in touch with it was through West Yorkshire Police and just saw something privately, and it was the best money I've ever spent. It was like life-changing, and I feel that it saved my life. The therapy helped my brain reprocess the trauma, so I didn't keep replaying it as if it was happening because I was having not auditory or flashback, but smells. Ian had defecated when he died, and I could just smell all the time, and I didn't recognise that that was part of the trauma. So the EMDR really helped me reprocess that trauma because that trauma's never gonna go away. It's part of me now, but the therapy it stopped it replaying as if it was happening now, here and now. It doesn't erase the memories, but I think it takes away the power to some degree, and like now I I can talk about things, and yeah, days are sad, and I I talk about it and I get upset, but I can accept that, and I can remember Ian now for who he was, no longer through that trauma. I can have periods of remembering with love, warmth, sadness, like I say, and with anger, because sometimes I can still annoy with him, but I accept that it's not trauma focused, it is part of me, but that therapy honestly, it just it rewired my brain as much. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I want to fast forward a few years now because it's horrific enough to lose one close family member to suicide. But tragically, like Friend of the Pod Angela Allen, you lost two of the same family members because on 22nd of April 2019, your 26-year-old daughter Beth, the youngest of your three daughters, also took her own life. Similar question with Ian. Before we talk about the grief, tell me first about Beth when she came into the world and your bond as mother and daughter from childhood to adulthood.

SPEAKER_02

So, yeah, Beth was my youngest of three girls. When I found out I was pregnant with Beth, she wasn't planned, and as I've mentioned before, my career was pretty important to me. I was planning my career path. I was started my degree pathway, and I was enjoying the career that I was in at the moment as in that a speciality area at that time. I didn't want to be pregnant, I didn't want a third child. Everything about a third child to me was inconvenient. Even going on holiday, you couldn't book a room with two children, you had to have an extra room. Everything didn't work out, it was not in my plan. Me and my husband weren't in a particularly brilliant place, and a third child bringing it into the mix was just like my husband wanted a boy, we didn't get one, and she was born, she came early, and she was born on Easter Sunday on the 11th of April 1993. Her entry into the world was dramatic and traumatic. She was born by an emergency section, like I said, it was a dramatic entrance. She was tiny, but she arrived and she was perfect. And this child that I didn't want just all of a sudden filled my heart. She was so loved, she was just perfect. And from that moment she was born and we had a really strong bond. She grew up, youngest, might I say youngest of three, she was spoilt, she was rescued by her sisters, she had an innate ability to utilize relationships with the sisters and me. So three, like I say, is an odd number, but she was different to the other two, very, very different. Everybody's personalities are different. She was bright, she was kind, she was absolutely load as hell. When she came, you knew she was there. But the thing with Beth was, and this can be seen as a flaw, and I'm trying to find the right words, it could be seen as a weakness by some people. She wore a heart on her sleeve and she was honest. So if she didn't like you, she'd tell you. She wouldn't hold back, but she wouldn't do it in a harsh or horrible way, she'd just tell you the truth. But she also said how she felt. But like I say, we had this strong bond. She was my best friend. She'd tell me, I love you, but I also I like your mum. I really like you. And if you weren't my mum, I'd still be a friend and we'd go out together and we'd have fun. We had a unique relationship. She was in my contacts, she put in as the favourite child. She'd tell the other two, I'm the favourite. But she'd say stuff to me as well, because she was an occupational therapist as a profession. And she'd she'd say to me, When you get old, mum, I'll build you an annex and you can live with me, and I'll look after you when you you need all your daily activities looking after. So when you need washing and you need changing, I'll do it for you. And I actually believe that she meant it. She did. She was uh one in a million, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I think it's really important that you actually mentioned her profession there because you said she was an occupational therapist, right? Yeah. And I think many people forget that therapists are people too, therapists struggle. One of my own therapists, my first EMDR therapist, tragically took her own life after I did my first round. So I'm well aware of the issues and struggles that therapists go through, not just everyday people who aren't therapists themselves, Karen. When it comes to Ian's death, what was Beth's and Ian's relationship like? And how did you see the fact that she had to intervene and do that direct role to try and save him impact her mental health and possibly have a knock-on effect for the struggles she went through later?

SPEAKER_02

So Ian's relationship with Beth, Ian has three boys and I'd got three girls. Beth and Ian. Beth was Ian's he saw all my girls as his daughters. The girls didn't have a strong relationship with the dad. They didn't see the dad. They saw him, but not very often. And Ian came into Beth's life when she was quite young, so he was always there, not living with us, but he was this he was there. He was a significant influence and figure in her life, and he and her had a very strong and close relationship. She manipulated it, she loved it, but actually he loved it. They fed each other's need to be needed, and they they loved one another. Uh remember Ian's funeral, Beth spoke openly about even though they weren't biologically father and daughter, that he was her dad and that she loved him and he helped her become the woman that she was. So Ian's death and the day that day she was still in practical mode with me a little bit. She looked after me really, but his death deeply affected Beth, and the fact that she'd had to intervene left me with a lot of guilt, really, because I knew that she was carrying a hell of a lot. She was carrying it quietly. I'd say carrying it quietly. We talked because we always talked, and we were talked openly about suicide and about Ian's death and why he'd left us and about both of our anger about it and why he'd left her, not just me, because she needed him and she wanted him there. But I still think that, like I said before, hindsight's brilliant, but I still think that we didn't actually talk about things that we needed to talk about. I didn't ask her the questions. I didn't say to her, Do you feel like you'd like to die? I never asked her that. And I didn't ask her if how she felt, what she felt about him. Like I said, we did talk about it, but we generalised really, and I d and I think conversations, we know this now, are so important.

SPEAKER_00

To be direct. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And I think the sincere, and I don't know if I I was ill-informed. I think I was really. I mean, it's only now that I could ask somebody, and I ask people now openly, if they are contemplating suicide, if they've got a plan. I feel the stigma around mental health and around suicide is still because they fear that if they ask it, they'll encourage it almost or impact it, and that's not the case.

SPEAKER_00

So I learn even I had to learn during suicide first aid, and I was always a bit more tentative, and now I'm not.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. And I think that's really important. I think we've got to be honest, we've got to ask that question. Because people that have survived suicide have said they didn't ask me, and I wish they'd asked me. And that could be anybody. So as a mum, I do ask my other daughters now, and I ask other people. I didn't ask Beth. I made the biggest presumption of all that. Our love and the bond that we shared was her safety net, and that she'd never die. She'd never leave me because she needed me, and I needed her.

SPEAKER_00

If you can, Karen, I know this is extremely difficult too, given what we've just discussed for the last hour. Can you just take me back to your memories of the day that Beth died, the events that transpired, and what you found out in the weeks and months afterwards as well?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, the day that Beth died, again, like with Ian, my birthday and Beth's birthday are within a few weeks, within like days of each other. And always the gift of Easter is a gift that keeps giving, because unlike Christmas, it moves. The dates move. So I said Beth was born on Easter Sunday on the 11th of April, and part of her birthday, we went out with some friends, a middle sister, and we went out into Leeds, had a lovely meal, food, drinks, and we had a lovely evening. Beth was living with her boyfriend at the time in her own house. I returned home that evening. I think Beth carried on, and on the Snapchat stories, they were coming through, they were in a nightclub, they were having fun. And then Easter Monday got up with my partner. It was absolutely a beautiful day. It was sunny because we sat outside. Again, it's really weird how certain memories, certain days, and your recollection are so vivid. Not particularly favourite of a sausage sandwich, but I was eating, I don't know why. Anyway, and I sent a message to one of Beth's friends who was stopping because Beth's I didn't know at the time, but Beth's friend and her sister stopped at Beth's house. They all went back to Beth's house with Beth's boyfriend. And I sent a message to Sarah saying, How are your heads? And she sent one back saying it's not our heads, it's our feet that are killing us. Absolutely. We danced so much, so that was nice, and we were sat there, me and my partner. The next thing Sarah rang me screaming, it's Beth, it's Beth, you've got to come, you've got to come. So I lived about 10 minute drive to Beth. House. So we're driving, my partner was driving, and Robin, my other daughters, texted me, going, Mum, come, Mum. Just text message. I had a text message, and I just said to my partner, Steve, I just went, She's dead. And he went, No, she's not, it's fine. You're over exaggerating. She'll have done something silly. No, she'd completed suicide and she died. And I got to a house and a sister was there and a boyfriend. And Bethany was dead, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

You've now lost a husband, you've now lost a daughter. But at the same time you're trying to keep your family together at this point. How did you balance the two, if that's even possible, Karen?

SPEAKER_02

Um it was different w when Beth died, in that when I found out she died when I saw her, time seemed to stop. As a parent, you never imagine outliving your child. And again, I I did go into a bit of practical mode in that I had to inform people. And it was weird the day that she died, is that my partner has never been involved in any traumatic event. He'd never been involved in an emergency, and he was stood at the bottom of the store saying to me, Well fine when the emergency services arrive, I think he thought we were in a scene out of casualty or something, and I was like going, No, she's dead. Like with Ian, when there's a sudden unexpected adult death, you then become part of a process that you have no control and you cannot alter. You have got to just accept well, not accept it, but follow this process. So the death of an adult or any unexpected death, the police treat it as a crime scene and cease things, mobile phones, stuff like that, everything. And you're not allowed to be with the person that you know that you've just lost. They have got then to go away. And I was fortunate, unlike with Ian, Ian was taken away, and I I didn't see him then till his body was then released by the coroners. You know, you're part of then that process, the coronial process. But with Beth, this was how it was. It was Easter Monday, so it was the the 22nd of April 2019, she died. It was Easter Monday, so the police got in touch with me and said, We've got a bit of a problem in that the mortuary's full. I went, oh right. And they said, So is there anybody that not anybody, is there where would you want her to go? Have you got a funeral director? That's what we suggest to you. And due to the number of deaths in our family, we've got a very close relationship with a a local family, a funeral director, who very kindly agreed to take Bethany. Sorry, I do refer to Beth as Bethany sometimes. I don't we used to call her Beth. She was Bethany as a child and never wanted it shot, and then when she got into adult, she wanted to be Beth. So but I slipped mother time, and my mother sometimes calls her Bethany, and I don't know why I do that, but I do. So Bethany was then taken to the funeral director's chapel of rest, and I was allowed out of process. It's too late now, they can't do anything about it. The funeral director says, you know, she's here. If you want to come and see her, you can do, but you're not allowed to touch her. I went, right, okay. She said, because her body is subject to like the police process and like I say, the coroners and everything. But I'd go to the funeral director's every day, and the funeral director would say to me, Right, you're not allowed to touch her, but I've just got to go outside and do some jobs. I was able to spend time with her, and that was really important to me. Um, she then went and then had to have a post-mortem, and then things changed and she came back. We were able to plan the funeral and things like that, and looking back now, I informed work straight away, and my boss was over straight away when she could. She informed my teams. It was different. People knew me at work, the support was like a blanket around me, the organization, the care that I received. Beth worked for the same organisation as well. So her death was a death in service. So I remember the exec team, the executive director for HR was amazing. People just they cared. And that meant so much. And I didn't go to work. I didn't feel the need I needed to go to work. I wrapped myself around my kids. We did really dart things like Beth had taught ourselves how to crochet as an occupational therapist with the elderly. So me and my girls decided we'll teach ourselves how to crochet. Hey, I'm a bloody good crochet now, but it was therapy. But again, I think my complex grief started to rear its ugly head and my mental health started to really decline. I didn't have the same GP, I'd moved in areas. So I went to the GPs, and the GPs said, medication. I went, nope, don't need it. Oh do you fix a broken heart with a tablet? And I was really averse to it this time. But again, I wasn't addressing it. And I think it was a couple of months that my eldest daughter's a clinical psychologist, she said, Mum, have you not thought about EMDR again? And I just thought, why didn't I think of that? Why didn't I think about it? Because everything had reignited everything again in my head, and I was slipping into spiral mode again, not in work, but in some of my other behaviours in home life. Yeah, drinking too much, uh using that not a good thing to do, um necking wine to get you to sleep increases my anxiety at alcohol, absolutely, and it's recognition of things like that. At that point in time, I wanted to bloss everything out. My daughter was dead. My life now was in a completely different sphere, and it was worse than it had been when Ian died, and I didn't know how I was gonna survive it, and I didn't actually know as well that, and it was only that I I got through work that in my Shorkshire as this mind commission, but suicide bereavement service of all their post-vention workers are bereaved to suicide. Oh my god, I got access to that as well, and made connections. I also was, like I say, my Tasmanian devil bit again, social media. Because unlike when Ian died, I'd got a lot of support from an organization called Widowed and Young. I met friends, made connections with people that had lived experience, and it was only after I'd had my EMDR, after Ian had died, that I was able to make these connections. But that charity and the connections that I made, I've got friends for life that are widows. I've lost the partners, not just to suicide, but they kind of like validated that everything I was going through was normal. Yeah, that you can't put your bins out that you're kicking a tree when you're walking the dog. That's normal. But when they died, I didn't have that. I started reaching out for anything. I went to various bereavement groups. Before I got signposted to the West Shortship Suicide Bereavement Service, I went to various groups, I went to one group, a charity group, and I think this just shows that different groups will have different makeup and things. I went and they were all bereaved parents, and as soon as they asked me how I've lost my child, the atmosphere in the room kind of like changed. It was a bit and it was just pre-COVID, so there were still face-to-face groups, and it was like they were there and they'd been going for years, and their children had been dead numbers of years, but they'd lost their children to traumatic and sad accidents or through cancer, yeah. And that seemed to be acceptable as bereaved parents. But when I said my daughter was 26 and she'd taken her own life, it was ooh, and the stigma started rising again. So I started posting on Twitter, and that's where I made connections with other bereaved parents, and they supported me.

SPEAKER_00

I've checked in with parents and children alike who have lost parents of suicide or children like you, Karen. And as previous guests and friends of the pod, Evan and Carol Grant said to me, it's a club you never want to be a part of, but you are a part of it now. So how do connecting with women like Angela and other bereaved mums and dads help you through this period and in what ways?

SPEAKER_02

So I think for me, I'm still a mum, no matter how old my kids are. So I had to grieve as a mother and still be a mother. And some of those days felt really impossible. So connecting with others, finding others that understood without explanation. Like I say, it was life-saving. As you've just said, it's a club that nobody wants to join. But connection with people that really, really get it. One person said to me about her connection with me was I just looked into your eyes, I just knew that you knew. And she said, That matters because nobody else knows, and it's lonely, and it's sad. It's as though you've smashed a really thin crystal vase and the shards are everywhere, and you expected to put it all back together, and you're like thinking, Who the hell am I gonna put it back together when I can't? And I think people that you connect with, the group that I connected with, we called ourselves like warrior mums, because we were still functioning, but we still were given the space and the acceptance that you could say what you wanted to say, and I've met with other people and other professionals, and sometimes professionals are risk-averse, so it's like how we're gonna safeguard these individuals because putting a group of people that have you know bereaved parents together, oh my god, where's the riskier then? What's one of them gonna do? But it's about being risk-avered, feel it, in this club and sharing and being honest, and just that support, whether it's sometimes it's been a lot of it, it's been virtual, but it's just that knowing and just feeling that that you're not alone, that there are people because I'm not gonna tell my kids, oh, today I'm having a really, really shit day, and I really don't want to be here. But I could tell Anna Scott, my friend, who lost her daughter, Ellen, I could turn around to her and go, I'm having a really crap date today, I just don't want to be here. And she can go, I know. I had one of them yesterday, but we are here, and we accept it. I think it's those conversations that I remember my GP saying to me, Can we talk about suicide? Oh yeah, we could talk about it. And he said, Have you got a plan? I went, No, I said, But if you did turn around to me and tell me I've got terminal cancer, I don't think I'd be that unhappy. And he went and he didn't know what to say to that, and I went, I'm sorry, I'm being really glib about it, and that I said, but sometimes that's how I feel, and I own that feeling, it's part of me. It doesn't mean I want to die, things have changed and my grief has changed, but that moment in time when I did make those connections, I was in raw grief again. I went back to BMDR and that helped me again, it realigned me, it restarted me, but I was still in a different world. So whilst I can say this because my mental health remains pretty camp fragile, and I accept that, but I know what I need to do to not manage it, but to live with it, because I do live with it.

SPEAKER_00

I want to reflect on your mental health journey now, Karen. So it's been 11 years since Ian died, and it's been seven years since Beth died. If they were listening to this podcast, either of them or both of them, what do you think you would say to them? And what do you think they would say to you?

SPEAKER_02

Um I think I'd tell them that they are loved beyond words, even though they're not here physically, they're still a really essential part of my life, the part of me. I think they'd both be a bit pissed off sometimes with some of our behaviours. And I I I can just see, especially Beth's face going, Oh my god mum, get a grip for God's sake. She'd be honest enough to say that to me. She'd say stuff that my other daughters wouldn't say to me, she'd be brutal. But yeah, I'd hope that they'd both be proud of the way I've kept going. I know that Beth, especially I'm not sure about Ian. I know Beth would love because she likes her name being spoken about. She'd have loved she'd have Yeah, I bet she'd oh my god. He appeared on the red couch one day on BBC with Anna when we were doing something about the quilt before we launched it, and like Beth's face was put on the screen, and I'm thinking, oh my god, she would be going, I'm on national TV, nobody's gonna forget about me. So the fact that she's not that her legacy continues, and Ian's also, but also the fact that like speaking to you today is important because I think we don't know what people are going through. I'm sharing my story, but the I could be on a train next to somebody walking down the street in a supermarket, and I don't know what that person is struggling with. And I think the start reality for me is because I'm bereaved to suicide now, so many people reach out because they feel that they can ask me and I'll sign post them and stuff, and that to me is important. So I think Beth and Ian would be proud. I think they would be frustrated at times, and I tell them all the time that they are loved, and whilst I'm alive and still breathing, their names will always be alive and they'll always be. I'll always bring them to life and share who they are and what they were, and and yeah, sadly how they died, but the deaf doesn't define who they were.

SPEAKER_00

What has this mental health journey taught you about yourself?

SPEAKER_02

Uh-huh. Start reality about myself, that I'm not superhuman, but you can't plan everything around your life. It's taught me that I don't have to do things on my own. I am quite a person that doesn't like asking for help. I just want to do it on my own. But uh do know, talk about, I will share not everything. I'm not gonna do that. And I have select people that I really trust. I think I've learnt that. I've learnt also that a big thing for me that rest is not weakness, and to me it was weakness, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And as a final question before we move on, if you could go back and talk to the Karen who had just lost her dad and had that wave of delayed grief, the Karen who had just lost her husband Ian, or the Karen who had just lost her daughter Beth to suicide, what would you say to her knowing what you do now, if anything at all?

SPEAKER_02

Um, I say to her that it's not your fault, everything that happens, that you don't own it, and whilst you've got to accept what's happened, don't blame yourself for it, because that was part of it as well, I think. What could I have done? I didn't see it, so then it's all back on the old Karen. Whereas now I think you're not responsible for other people, you're responsible for yourself and your own behaviours. But yeah, just give yourself a bit of a break, really.

SPEAKER_00

I want to talk now, Karen, about how you've channelled these huge periods of grief, suicide grief, into a vehicle for change, support, awareness, and positivity with Speak Their Name Yorkshire CIC. So tell me how the wider organisation came into existence first of all, and then how you got involved alongside Anna with starting the Yorkshire branch of it.

SPEAKER_02

So the Yorkshire CIC, which is a registered charity, is a national platform. It comes into being from the Yorkshire Speak Their Name Suicide Memorial Quilt. So the ethos is the same around that. So I was born, as you can say, I I'm not from Yorkshire, I'm from Lancashire.

SPEAKER_00

I was born The old enemy!

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was born in Bolton and so was Bethany. And when Bethany died through my connections, like I say, with bereaved parents, I was invited to contribute to the Greater Manchester speak their name, Suicide Memorial Quilt, which was created similar to the AIDS quilts in America, they're where each square or on the panel is in memory of somebody that has died to suicide. So the Greater Manchester quilt was commissioned by Greater Manchester, so it was commissioned. I created a square because, like I say, Beth was eligible to be on that quilt. And on the launch of the quilt, I met Anna Scott, who'd lost her daughter, Ellen, to suicide, and Ellen had studied in the Manchester in the university over there, so she was eligible. So we both lost our daughters to suicide, and we made a connection. It wasn't, you know, a sports boom, that was it. But Rebecca Rude created the quilt in Manchester, was keen on to develop this connection and was quite instrumental in pushing us together. And she kept saying, Have you not thought of a Yorkshire speak their name quilt? I do these things, and I thought, that's not a bad idea. And Yorkshire's bigger, not better, a bigger region. But we weren't gonna get commissioning, we weren't gonna get funding. So Rebecca pushed me and Anna together. And Anna, she's very creative, she is an upholsterer, she creates anything. She's so artistic, she's so talented. Freddie, I'm not. I can crochet, but I am not artistic. So I won't say I with the brains behind it, but we were just connected and bounced off each other. So we set up a community interest company, which enabled us then to source money, look for funding, community grants. Because what we wanted to do wasn't just connect people that were briefed to suicide, we wanted to look at a platform at the quilt. Because what we realized with the launch of the Greater Manchester Quilt was that people talked when they saw this quilt. People that weren't connected to suicide or no personal connection to it, it enabled this conversation. We then started the journey, and oh my god, we look back now and we think, How the hell did we do it? Because it was so time-consuming, the energy, what we put into it, because what happened was I think at the beginning people didn't get it. They didn't get it. So we worked with a lot of the recovery colleges, we worked with public health leads, suicide prevention, public health leads in various cities and areas. Some of the professionals didn't get it. I'm going, well, what is it? And we're going, it's gonna be a quilt, but they didn't visualize what it could be. So we did a lot of work to make it real so they could understand the concept of it. And once the concept was understood and the connections we started making, oh my god, it was like a tsunami of people that wanted to be involved, that wanted to create a square for their loved one. We held workshops, the amount of time and energy that me and Anna put into it was just absolutely phenomenal. The quilt was created eventually, and we launched it. We were gonna launch it on World Suicide Prevention Day. Unfortunately, the Queen died, so we had to push it back. But the launch was amazing, the publicity we got, the support we got, but the connections, oh, the people I've connected with, and still our friends that have created. I look at each square on that quilt, and we've got five panels, it's massive, and I look, and every time I look at it, I see a different square, and I think, oh my god, each square is completely created and in sheer love of memory of somebody that absolutely is such a precious person. So we've got a physical quilt, we pulled together stories, we did all the governance around it and everything, and and we then decided, like me and Anna do, honestly, we both work full-time. We decided we'd do a tour of the quilt. Yeah, Karen and Anna, let's do a tour. So we did a tour of this quilt, but the tour just emphasized what it was doing for conversations. I remember being in Sheffield, it was the last leg of the Batten of Hope tour, and it was in the Winter Gardens in Sheffield, and this woman was really visibly upset, and I went over to. When I was talking to her, and she was working, she was a carer, and there was a group of young people she was with. Obviously, they had learning disabilities. And a colleague said, Are you okay? And she went, No, I lost my partner to suicide 20 years ago. And she said, I've never told anybody. And this colleague was like, Oh my god. And so it was a really long conversation. And at the end of the conversation, it was emotional, and she was very emotional. She just said, Thank you. And again, another person, he just got really visibly upset. And I said to him, He said, I don't have any problems with my mental health. He said, I'm I've got a wonderful life, I've got everything going on. He said, But to see this just makes it real that some people aren't as lucky. That where we were then at Sheffield, we met with Ashley Redshull, who was part of the Sheffield Barn of Hope and was project leading and working with Mike McCarthy and the team. And he like contacted myself and Anna and wanted to speak to us because he had this idea and this concept that he wanted to run by us. And that was this could the concept of the quilt be mirrored on a digital platform? And that was when the development of Speak Their Name actually came into being and the work around that.

SPEAKER_00

You also brought together a group of bereaved parents from the Speak Their Name Yorkshire community. You put the physical quilt on display at the Houses of Parliament in October 2025. Just tell me how that came about and also either then or on that Sheffield leg of the Baton of Hope tour, did you feel Ian or best presence with you at that moment?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. It's really weird because it's really positive, and the quilt makes me feel positive and it enables me to tell their story, but without telling it sometimes. So they're part of that quilt, and I always feel their presence in the moment where the quilt is there. Like I say, I created their squares with love, and I hope they're proud of their squares because it represents them in a different way. And I think part of the Speak Their Name quilt community has also developed, which I didn't mention. So we've supported other regions, it's like the Greater Manchester supported us, we've helped other regions like in Scotland, in the Lothian, in the North East, Northumberland, in Kent, in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. So, like you mentioned, in October last year, we brought not just the quilts together, but we brought groups of bereaved parents and families, friends together, and all the physical quilts for the first time were all together on display in the House of Parliament. It wasn't a public arena, so it had to be invited there by your MP, which we helped coordinate to ensure that individuals that wanted to see the quilts that had participated could be there. So we had a lot of footfall through that week, but more importantly, and part of the speak their name were is to raise awareness around suicide prevention, and we want to influence and support decision makers, and the House of Parliament was a perfect venue because numbers of MPs visited the quilts, some for the very first time, some very supportive and help support us with this work, and the impact was so far-reaching. The communications, the emails, but you've got to be careful because, like you'll know, it had a really positive impact, but you can't let go of that, and you've got to keep driving that message and enabling it to continue to influence and make changes. So we're still ongoing with that. We work very closely with Caroline Rudd House and Ellen Room as well as others to actually evoke change. The digital quilts, yeah, they are there. Each digital platform is in memory of somebody, but behind that person is a story and a family that are bereaved. One of the main aims is to have a different concept but also work to prevent suicide and improve outcomes as well.

SPEAKER_00

Before we reflect, you spoke about a campaign off-air that you're running that aims to change how coroners engage with families bereaved by suicide grief. Now, you were kind of lucky because ironically, because you'd gone through so much trauma, you had a good relationship with the funeral directors, and he was a bit cheeky and he allowed you time with Beth and stuff like that, bless him. But what are the issues here that you're hoping to address and how do you plan to address them, Karen, as well?

SPEAKER_02

So I didn't have any trauma or negative impact from my experience through both the coroner's process with both Ian and Beth. It was different, markedly different, and again, I had a very good experience with the coroner's officers when Ian died, who went above and beyond to make sure it was a positive and not an additional traumatic experience. But unfortunately, a lot of individuals that are bereaved to suicide don't have that positive experience, they have quite a significantly negative experience which adds to their trauma. Caroline Rudehouse has written and spoken a lot about what she experienced and was exposed to within that coroner's process. We want to work with, not against, a process. We want to work with coroners to improve that experience for them to acknowledge and recognise that as a family bereaved to suicide, we accept we're going to have to go through that coronial process, but how can it be improved? So we've done the surveys to capture what experiences people have, what they want. It's not going to be led by just us. We want it to be inclusive and to enable change. We've got to ensure that we capture not just the negatives but the positives and well and what we can learn from. And I think experience, lived experience, actually will enable that. So what we're trying to do is at the minute, we're on the beginning of this coroner's campaign. We've done the surveys, we're gathering information, and what we want to do is work to actually influence and change and it and develop training to look at you know what would make a positive experience out of something. So it's start of a journey, but watch this space, Freddie. I think it's going to grow. We're hitting some challenges and some barriers, like you do, but I think we are tenacious and we are committed to making change, and that is part of our biggest project at the minute, as well as continues to develop the actual website.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I wouldn't want to get in your way, Karen, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_02

And uh just to add as well, we've already got international interest from people in America at the minute that are looking at a similar speak their name platform in the USA, so it might go global. We'll see.

SPEAKER_00

Fingers crossed. Let's reflect on this journey as well. So, first of all, what's been your proudest achievement on it so far?

SPEAKER_02

My proudest achievement. Um I think my proudest achievement is that I'm still alive and the the work that I'm doing I am proud of, but I don't think it shapes me. I think my experiences have shaped me. I'm still proud of Beth and I'm proud of Ian. I'm proud of Haley and Robin and my grandchildren. I'm still feel fortunate that I I can help others because I'm a nurse and I think we'll pick career sometimes that's part of us. I do care about people, so I'm proud of that I've been able to turn things a bit around for me and not be a person that is changed because of what's happened to them and I'm proud of me that I'm still I still care about others and I've yeah, and and I've still got the energy to continue to do this work and I live a very different life, but yeah, because I think I've met a lot of people at Brief to Suicide that have got very varying lived experience and campaigns that want to make change, like Mike, Andy, and Tim, Three Dads Walking and stuff like that. We've all got a story to tell, but we're not victims of our lives, we just want to help others, and my part's a small part of that, but I've not lost who I am as well because I don't want what I want to achieve to actually be to the detriment and sacrifice of my family or my friends.

SPEAKER_00

And that's a credit to you, Karen. As a final question before we move on to our quick fire mental health chat, it's a similar one as the first topic. What has running Speak Then in Yorkshire alongside Anna so far also taught you about yourself?

SPEAKER_02

It's taught me to think before I agree to something, because sometimes I think you've got to think about it because and I think me and Anna realised that being surrounded by bereaved people can be hard, really, really hard. And I think we're both fortunate that we've got each other and that we can be really open and honest with each other about that, because sometimes Anna will say to me, I can't do it today. So yeah, I think it's taught me to think, to be honest with people as well, and not just keep saying yes and to say the word no and not feel guilty about saying the word no, and uh that's been a bit of a hard one, and I think it's come as the development of because I think both me and Anna felt at some points that we were on a yeah, a roller coaster that we didn't have any control of, but I think we both now are able to challenge respectfully within the Speak Their Name CIC because we've both got different roles. I'm a trustee and as one of the directors, so it's very different. I think having those different roles now has enabled us to to respect each other but also to support each other when we don't feel comfortable with say a direction it's going, and I think it's knowing we've got each other's backs, but also not feeling guilty or saying no, because I think we're a bit beholden to saying, yeah, yeah, we'll do that, we'll do that, and we're not we're not superhuman, we can't do it. And like I said before, rest isn't weakness. Taking a step back ain't weakness, it's necessary and it's essential. If you don't look after yourself, you've no chance.

SPEAKER_00

Our final topic of conversation, Karen, and it's one I try and have with all of my special guests if we have time. It is a general natter and quickfire chat about our mental health. So, firstly, how is your mental health out of ten?

SPEAKER_02

Um, I'd say about a seven. I think the build up, like, oh my god, the anxiety. So perhaps that, but I don't feel so bad. I think I'm gonna take a leaf out of your book and go for a run after it, even though I don't want to.

SPEAKER_00

Which always helps. What age were you when you became self-aware of your mental health and you realised that the feelings you were having weren't physical and they were actually in your mind?

SPEAKER_02

I would say in my mid-30s.

SPEAKER_00

You've answered my next question, which is about the first conversation about mental health or the most important conversation, because I know that was with your GP. So my next question is what things in life do you find that trigger your mental health? So you mentioned earlier about the smells, but also it could be a sound, it could be a taste, it could be a sensation, or have you not figured all of them out yet either?

SPEAKER_02

I think the various, so some smells trigger my mental health or trigger a memory, and then that it can either go one way, so sometimes it it can be positive to my mental health, but sometimes it can have an impact. But sounds or something that somebody might say. For a long time with Beth, I'd think that she'd to protect myself. I think she's gone backpacking around the world. If you knew Beth, you'd know that that would never happen. She was never a backpacker, you know, she would never have roughed anything. So I think if I see something or I hear something, I don't know if it's sensations and stuff like that, but it can trigger me. And then I go into some protective modes as well. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And conversely, what positive tools do you use to improve your mental health or help you feel better? Which ones have worked, and maybe which ones that you've tried but haven't?

SPEAKER_02

So things that work for me, I said it before, crochet, which oh my god, I am not a crafter, but repetitive things like that. I struggle with reading, but I've actually started to prioritize that I need to read, and it does help me. It's really weird. I can read when I'm on holiday, I'm an avid reader, I can read when I'm not in this country, I can't read when I'm in this country, so I'm trying to work out how to positively use that tool or method of reading to actually improve my mental health because it does work for me. And my PA, he reads and he's changed his lifestyle. So he was telling me what he does in the evening. Now, I think it's making practical steps, not putting the TV on, not watching the news because that's just not good for your mental health, and actually having a bit of time that it is in isolation that you want to read. So yeah. So I've found some that have worked, but I need to still work on some, but I'm accepting of that. And I think we've all got a responsibility to work on things.

SPEAKER_00

Well, you mentioned reading there, which brings me nicely on to my next question, which is what is the best book, or as I call it, mental health Bible you've read for your mental health. So it can be fiction, it can be non-fiction, and if you can't think of a book, TV show or album, any piece of popular culture.

SPEAKER_02

I would say the best books that have helped me is Matt Haig's books. No, it's non-fiction, his fiction.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, okay. Midnight Library and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02

The Midnight Library book is your most recent one, and Anna bought it for me. Impossible Life. And as soon as I started reading it, I opened the book. It's about grief. It starts about a journey, but it oh, and I think it resonated with me. But it's so lovely. But also, I've read Let Them Theory. You know, I can keep thinking something is about my fault, and that's helped me as well. Some practical books and some not so practical books.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean I reviewed the Let Them Theory, and I'm a big fan of Matt Haig's book, so though you couldn't have picked two better ones to choose.

SPEAKER_02

I'm not let you down.

SPEAKER_00

No, not at all. If there was a mantra in life that summed up your mental health, what would it be and why?

SPEAKER_02

A mantra in life. Oh, I'm bloody unlucky, I would say, for my life. Mental health, God, I don't know. Shit happens.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, nice. Okay. What do you love about yourself?

SPEAKER_02

I know you sent me the questions, but I've forgot about these. What do I love about myself? Um it's hard that one, you know. This is a human factor. Nobody oh, I can find something I don't love about myself.

SPEAKER_00

This is an English factor. English people do not like this.

SPEAKER_02

Give me three traits, come on. I it's hard to say it, but I think I'm selfless. I put myself above the others. I'm kind. I I'm a I'm a you know, as a friend.

SPEAKER_00

You show up for people. I will. Okay.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And as a final question, Karen, you can answer it any way you want. What more do you think we have to do to ensure people from all backgrounds, all walks of life feel comfortable and safe in opening up about their mental health issues or just their general mental health, if most importantly, they want to do it.

SPEAKER_02

I think we've still got a lot of work to do around stigmas around mental health. I think there's so much more we can do. I think mental health isn't you've not failed. It's not something that you can control. You like you can't control your physical health. So I feel that we need to be more inclusive. Religion shouldn't stop people feeling comfortable and safe to talk about their mental health issues. And I just hope that the work that you're doing, that people like this that can listen to this, that it resonates and that they can find somebody that they feel safe to talk to about their mental health because there is somebody there that will listen to you, and it doesn't have to be a professional all the time.

SPEAKER_00

Karen, it has been an absolute pleasure and a privilege. Thank you so much for coming on the Just Checking In podcast and talking to me.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00

Well, that's all we've got time for on this episode of the Just Checking In pod. A massive thank you to Karen for being my special guest, for letting me check in with her, and telling you, the listener, about the lives and deaths of her father and of course Ian and Beth. I'll put some links to where you can find out more about Speak Their Name and the incredible work they do, support them or follow them on social media in the show notes. As always, thank you to all the vendors who've tuned into this episode. Remember, if you've liked what you've heard, give it a share on social media by tagging us at VentsHelp UK. We are on all platforms. Tell your friends, family or work colleagues about us. If you're feeling generous, give us a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to support us further, you can go to patreon.com slash ventshelpuk or make a one-off donation to our PayPal or buy event t-shirt. All of those links are on our link tree. That's linktr.ee slash vent helpuk. We hope to check in with you again very soon. And remember, guys, it is always okay to vent.

Contributor

Freddie Cocker

Host