Julia
Didn't get to celebrate her 16th birthday
My cousin, Julia didn't get to celebrate her 16th birthday.
Julia was an incredible character. She was feisty and fiery. She was also very tender and really kind, and she was also very giggly and bubbly, and she always encouraged the older cousins like me to lean into their playful and creative side and just have a lot of fun with her.
A memory that I have of them..
It's a bit of sweet memory, to be honest. It was a month before she passed, I decided to go out and visit her and her mum. And to be honest, we didn't do all that much. It was really nice to just be in her company and just cook for her and take her on walks and sit on sofa and do simple things, and she showed me her
makeup setup at the time, she was doing makeup tutorials on Instagram, really, really creative ones. And it was so exciting to see how it all worked out. And I just remember sitting with her on the sofa with the cat and just talking really honestly with each other about mental health, but also about how she was doing.
I hope this campaign will achieve a lift on the taboo of talking about suicide. Suicide is still very much shrouded in negativity and an inability to talk about what loved ones feel when they're going through suicidal ideation.
We can very much easily talk about depression and something that other mental health conditions, but once we talk about suicide and someone taking their own lives, it becomes a really, you know, scary topic. And I hope that this campaign will lift that taboo and get us talking about, you know, our loved ones again and keeping their memory alive.
