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Ashleigh’s Story: Growing Up With the Ripple Effect of a Parent’s Suicide Attempt

Ashleigh’s Story: Growing Up With the Ripple Effect of a Parent’s Suicide Attempt

In The Heart Of The Vault vor 6 Monaten

0:00

1:14:16

Content Warning: This episode contains discussion of suicide
attempts, mental health, trauma and eating disorders. Please
listen with care.

When Ashleigh was just seven years old, her life changed forever.

Her mum attempted to end her life.

She survived — but the attempt caused severe brain injury,
leaving her mum needing full-time care for the rest of her life.

Ashleigh describes this as “the other side of suicide that nobody
talks about” — what happens when the attempt doesn’t end a life,
but changes many.

In this deeply moving episode of In the Heart of the Vault,
Ashleigh shares what it meant to grow up in the aftermath of that
moment.

As a child, she and her siblings were left trying to understand a
reality where their mum was still alive — but no longer able to
be their mum in the way they needed. Navigating childhood trauma,
grief without closure. Ashleigh reflects on how those early years
shaped the person she would become.

Now 28years later, Ashleigh is a mother of three daughters of her
own. Becoming a mum opened the door to emotions that had been
stored away for more than two decades — the grief of a little
girl who simply needed her mum.

Through motherhood, reflection and time, Ashleigh has gained a
deeper understanding of the pain her mother must have been living
with, and the unimaginable darkness that can lead someone to
believe the world — even their children — might be better off
without them.

This conversation explores:

• The lifelong ripple effects of suicide attempts on families

• Growing up with grief that has no clear place to land

• The trauma children carry when life changes overnight

• Becoming a parent while still healing from your own childhood

• Finding compassion and understanding decades later

Ashleigh’s story is raw, honest and deeply human.

It shines a light on a part of suicide that is rarely spoken
about — the lives that continue in its wake.

⸻

Support Resources

If this episode brings up difficult feelings for you, please
reach out for support.

Australia

Lifeline — 13 11 14

https://www.lifeline.org.au

United States

988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — Call or text 988

https://988lifeline.org

United Kingdom & Ireland

Samaritans — 116 123

https://www.samaritans.org