Stories
People who have been somewhere like where you might be, describing it afterwards. Reading one is one of the few things that reliably helps at the point where advice does not.
How these were chosen
- Every one was read in full before it was listed — not the summary, the account.
- Every one is published by a named organisation with its own editorial standards, not on a platform where anybody can post.
- None describes a method, anywhere in it. That is the one rule with no exceptions on this site.
- Every one reaches the part where something changed. An account that ends in the dark models an ending, and we will not put that in front of someone who is in the dark tonight.
- Each link is re-checked automatically, and one that stops resolving stops being shown — the same rule as our helplines.
These are other people’s pages, on other people’s sites. We did not commission them and we do not host them.
16 accounts from 4 organisations.
Steven's story
Steven rang Samaritans after reaching a crisis point, and later became a volunteer himself. Closest thing here to an answer to “what actually happens if I call”.
SamaritansUnited KingdomIn a crisisGetting helpAfter a crisisLink checked 4 August 2026
Steve's story
Steve's stepson died by suicide, and then he lost his job in lockdown. On what he did with both.
SamaritansUnited KingdomBereavementLiving with itLink checked 4 August 2026
Josh's story
Josh lost his dad at nine, could not say any of it, and was drinking by his teens. What changed was hearing somebody else's account of recovery — which is the argument for this page existing.
SamaritansUnited KingdomBereavementAfter a crisisLiving with itLink checked 4 August 2026
Martin's story
Decades of depression that started with a work situation, told without tidying. “You might think you are stuck like that forever, but if you can take it day by day, it does improve.”
SamaritansUnited KingdomLiving with itMoney, work and housingLink checked 4 August 2026
Tom's story
Tom's father died when he was twelve. He coped by running, until PTSD took the running away too — and he had to find something else.
SamaritansUnited KingdomBereavementLiving with itGetting helpLink checked 4 August 2026
Matt's story
Matt made two attempts in his early twenties, on a building site he hated, in a job he had taken to keep everyone else happy. He is thirty-two now, and the advice at the end is the plainest on this page.
SamaritansUnited KingdomLiving with itMoney, work and housingAfter a crisisLink checked 4 August 2026
It's taken most of my life to learn I am worthy of living
Emily traces it back to being seven and being called annoying, and forward through the years of apologising for existing. The title is the destination, not the starting point.
Beyond BlueAustraliaLiving with itAfter a crisisLink checked 4 August 2026
Sandi's experience of post-natal depression
Sandi wanted to be a mother all her life, and then believed her son would be better off without her. She is now a grandmother telling it at her kitchen table.
Beyond BlueAustraliaLiving with itGetting helpLink checked 4 August 2026
When depression and alcohol meet
Richard stopped trying to work out which came first. Useful on the loop itself, and on what it took to interrupt it.
Beyond BlueAustraliaSleep and bodyLiving with itLink checked 4 August 2026
“I'm a doctor, I shouldn't get sick”
Geoff spent decades helping people get better and could not apply any of it to himself. For anyone whose job is supposed to make them immune.
Beyond BlueAustraliaMoney, work and housingLiving with itLink checked 4 August 2026
Aiming for the impossible
Craig grew up believing he had to become “the impossible man” — masculine, silent, earning. Becoming a father made the belief unaffordable.
Beyond BlueAustraliaLiving with itSupporting someoneLink checked 4 August 2026
Trauma and losing my coping strategy
Dancing was the thing keeping Nicole level, until an injury took it. On what happens when the coping strategy is the thing you lose.
Beyond BlueAustraliaAfter a crisisLiving with itLink checked 4 August 2026
“I thought I was dying” — what a panic attack feels like
Milli's first panic attack happened crossing an office foyer, months into being unemployed in a city on the other side of the world. Good for anyone who has just had one and is convinced it was something physical.
Beyond BlueAustraliaGetting helpLiving with itLink checked 4 August 2026
Losing my mother to suicide
Ben on the years after his mother's death, and on deciding what to do with them. Named, dated, and not softened.
Mental Health FoundationUnited KingdomBereavementLink checked 4 August 2026
My struggle with speaking up about my depression
Gabi had the job and the friends and turned thirty anyway. On being lonely inside a life that looks fine from outside, and how long it took her to say it out loud.
Mental Health FoundationUnited KingdomGetting helpLiving with itLink checked 4 August 2026
Chloe's Mental Health Act story
A first-hand account of being treated under compulsory mental health law — the thing most people are most frightened of, described by someone it happened to.
Mental Health Foundation of New ZealandNew ZealandTreatment and servicesAfter a crisisLink checked 4 August 2026
Your own story
If you have come through something and think an account of it would help someone still in it, we would like to read what you have written. Every submission is read by a person, nothing is published without your permission, and you can withdraw yours at any time without asking us.
Several of the organisations above take them too — Samaritans and Beyond Blue both do.
If reading these is hard right now
Other people’s recovery can be difficult to read when you are not in it. That is a normal reaction and not a sign you are beyond help.