Growing around grief: Tilly’s journey
Griefline is proud to collaborate with StandBy Support After Suicide this World Suicide Prevention Day.
In the lead up to World Suicide Prevention Day September 10, 2025, it is important to not only raise awareness around suicide, and advocate for improvements in the suicide prevention sector, but importantly share the stories from those bereaved and impacted by suicide loss. StandBy Support After Suicide is Australia’s leading postvention program, dedicated to supporting those bereaved and impacted across Australia for more than 20 years.
Those with a lived experience are central to everything we do. People with a lived experience of suicide bereavement bring insight, wisdom, and perspective that is critical to informing best practice approaches in postvention.
This year’s World Suicide Prevention Day theme, ‘Changing the Narrative on Suicide’, challenges us all to stop and rethink how we talk about suicide.
StandBy’s lived experience ‘voice’ and workforce is ever growing and includes Tilly Wirihana, StandBy’s Lived Experience Project Officer, who shares her story for World Suicide Prevention Day 2025.
This is Tilly’s story, in her own words
I lost my 15-year-old nephew to suicide in 2022, and while I had worked in the community service sector and supported those who had been impacted by suicide before, and even been impacted by suicide myself, this was the first time I had understood suicide bereavement. This was the first time I felt what it was like to have my world turned upside down.
I couldn’t think straight, I didn’t know how I would explain to my children, let alone support them, or be the person I needed to be for my husband or our extended family.
I googled “support after suicide” and up came StandBy Support After Suicide. I was to shame to call and reach out for support, as I had so much guilt about being unable to support the people I love most, in the time they needed it most.
I also felt guilty that someone who had worked for so long in various community sector roles, including as a leading youth worker, missed the signs of my nephew’s distress.
On the StandBy website I found resources that I downloaded and used almost as a fact sheet on “what I was supposed to do”. There were no set rules, just guidance, information and, in a sense, some reassurance that everything I was feeling and that my family was feeling, was normal.
Fast forward to 2024, and I started working for StandBy in the National Head Office team, and came to realise while my experience of suicide bereavement was different from others, there were some things that were very similar, lots of people I spoke with talked of their guilt, lots spoke about anger, lots spoke about the overwhelming and sometimes consuming sadness.
What has stuck with me the most though, was the idea that we grow around our grief. We hold space for it in a way that means we can continue our lives using it as we need, sometimes as a reminder of our resilience, a powerful motivator, to establish boundaries or even more simply an opportunity to honour a life lost.
I will always grieve the loss of my nephew, but how I use that grief has changed and while some days it is still that pit-of-your-stomach sadness, other days it is speaking about his life with such love, that all I can do is smile.
StandBy provides free support to anyone bereaved or impacted by suicide, regardless of how long it has been since the loss.
Call 1300 727 247 to be connected to your local StandBy team or visit www.standbysupport.com.au
StandBy – An initiative of Youturn jointly funded by the Australian Commonwealth, New South Wales, Northern Territory, Queensland and Victorian Governments.
Griefline support resources
If you’re grieving, you don’t have to face it alone.
The following resources can help you find support, connect with others who understand, and explore practical tools for living with grief.
- Griefline helpline – free support, 365 days a year, call 1300 845 745
- Griefline online forums for peer-to-peer support and connection
Crisis and emergency support
If you are experiencing crisis, or are worried about yourself or someone else, please contact Lifeline by phoning 13 11 14 or by texting 0477 13 11 14
Kids Helpline is available 24/7 to support young people aged between five and 25, call 1800 551 800
