Ashleigh’s Story: Growing Up With the Ripple Effect of a Parent’s Suicide Attempt
In The Heart Of The VaultShow Notes
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.
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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
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