My Walk

My Progress

0km

My Target

63km

To the Stranger at Lifeline Who Answered: This Is My Thank You

Content note: This post discusses suicide and a personal experience of acute crisis.

To the Stranger at Lifeline Who Answered: This Is My Thank You

I am going to walk 63 kilometres for Lifeline.

This is not an abstract cause for me.

Years ago, Lifeline helped save my life.

I was sitting on the floor of the shower, fully dressed.

My body was covering the drain, so the water had nowhere to go. It rose around me, spilled over the edge and flooded the bathroom.

Everything was overflowing.

The water.

The bathroom.

My life.

I felt as though I was drowning in all of it.

So I called Lifeline.

When someone answered, I could not speak.

What came out of me was not crying in any ordinary sense.

It was raw and involuntary, a soul-deep howl, the sound of something inside me breaking because I could no longer contain everything I had been carrying.

A stranger listened to that sound...

They did not ask me to pull myself together or find the right words.

They did not become impatient with my inability to speak.

They stayed.

They spoke gently. They soothed me. They held the connection when I could not hold anything for myself.

I do not know their name.

They probably never found out what happened after that call. They may never have known whether I survived that night.

But I did.

I continued being a mother.

I became an advocate.

I lived through years and experiences I could not yet imagine while I sat on that shower floor.

And eventually, I stopped being ashamed that I survived.

I am not ashamed that I could not carry everything alone.

I am not ashamed that I needed a stranger to help keep me alive.

And I am certainly not ashamed that I survived.

I am sharing this because people need the truth about what crisis can look and sound like.

Sometimes there are no carefully chosen words.

Sometimes there are no words at all.

Sometimes a person cannot explain what has happened, answer questions clearly or tell someone what they need.

Sometimes all they can do is make a sound from somewhere beyond language and hope the person on the other end does not hang up.

That does not mean they cannot be reached.

As an autistic woman living with complex trauma, I know how easily profound distress can be misunderstood when someone cannot communicate in the way others expect.

Silence is not an absence of feeling.

Being unable to explain is not refusing to engage.

Overwhelm is not attention-seeking.

And listening is not doing nothing.

Sometimes listening is life-saving.

That stranger could not fix everything that had brought me to the floor of that shower.

They could not change my past or remove everything I was carrying.

But they stayed long enough to help me survive that moment.

Sometimes that is where survival begins.

Not with suddenly knowing that everything will be okay.

Sometimes it begins with another human being staying through the next minute, and then the minute after that, until the impossible moment becomes survivable.

Walking has since become one of the ways I regulate my nervous system, process what I am carrying and find my way back to myself.

So I will walk these 63 kilometres, one step at a time.

For those whose lives ended too soon.

For the people who continue to carry their absence.

For those struggling silently while everyone around them assumes they are coping.

For autistic and disabled people whose distress is too often dismissed, punished or misunderstood.

For the people who make the calls but cannot find the words.

For the people who answer and remain on the other end of the line.

And for the stranger who listened to the sound of me breaking all those years ago and helped me remain connected to life and a mother to my children.

This walk is my thank you.

Every kilometre will carry the truth that what they did mattered.

To the person who answered my call:

You may never have known what happened after we hung up.

I survived.

I am still here.

And years later, these 63 kilometres are for you.

---

Lifeline is available in Australia 24 hours a day by phone on 13 11 14, by text on 0477 13 11 14, or through online crisis chat.

I'm walking to remember those lost to suicide and help people in crisis

Tragically, every year over 65,000 Australians attempt to take their own life and over 3,000 Australians die by suicide.

Lifeline receives over 1 million contacts from people in crisis each year.

Suicide has devastating impact on friends and loved ones.

For World Suicide Prevention Day (Sept 10), I will be taking part in Out of the Shadows and walking for the 9 people lost to suicide every day.

I'm walking to raise funds for Lifeline to provide suicide prevention services and support for Australians in need.

Please support my walk and sponsor me to help those in crisis.

Together, we can ensure that no one has to face their darkest moments alone.

My impact so far

I've raised $214 so far to answer 5 calls for Lifeline's crisis support hotline to connect and bring hope to people in crisis.

With your support, we can ensure that no person has to face their darkest moments alone.