We are a team of 5 co-facilitators who have been long term members of the group. We bring our living experience of suicide and all the skills and qualities from our lives to hold space for the group. We come from different parts of the world but we have found our way to Not the Void UK meetings.
Co facilitator bios are coming soon!
My name is AP, I’m a woman with bipolar disorder living in Germany taking life one dark joke at a time. After a long history of struggling through the mental healthcare system, experiencing suicidal ideation, multiple attempts, and hospitalisations, someone recommended Not The Void as a space where I could open up about my experience with suicide.
It was the first time I could shed the fear of making others uncomfortable, and felt truly understood by this incredible group.
Being here to support this community brings me great joy, and I am eternally grateful for the trust of such wonderful people.
Outside of the group, I am an advocate for the rights of persons with disabilities, an educator, and a certified peer supporter. I can often be found hiking, travelling, and watching anything David Lynch.
Hi, my name is Lisa Marie and I'm a co-facilitator living in the US (wishing she was in the UK). I was fortunate enough to meet Nancy and Heather in the Alternatives to Suicide training and even more fortunate to be a part of the brainstorming team behind Not The Void.
I'm a certified peer support specialist, published writer, speaker, and poetry therapy practitioner offering unique ways of approaching creativity and wellness through my initiative, "Hiraethlon."
I have extensive "living" experience with depression, anxiety, grief, suicidal feelings, suicide loss, trauma, and other things that happen to you when you live a full and deeply-felt life.
I enjoy writing, reading, singing, collective grieving, and space-holding with others. I exist to prove my survival to my past psychiatric nay-sayers, to reframe all the shameful narratives I grew up with, and to swim in the emotional didactic and paradoxes of staying alive - which is to say that I agree as to how hard it is to keep showing up to your life - and I also choose to do it for myself.