‘We both had the same struggles’: Losing a father by suicide

Following her dad’s death by suicide in January, Judy Bobbett dived into her grief, attending HUGG Suicide Bereavement Support sessions.

“When I think back, I walked in mid-January, two weeks after he passed, maybe five days after the funeral, and you introduce yourself and your loved one that passed,” says Bobbett.

“A lot of them were six months, eight months, five years, 10 years since the suicide. And then it got to me, I was like, ‘Oh, two weeks.’

“Everyone just looked, and not in a judgy way, but it was kind of like, ‘Jesus.’ I think I just had to take on this whole thing head first.”

Charles Bobbett was just 58 when he died last January.

Judy Bobbett, a Team Ireland boxer and former international rugby player, has spent time in St John of God’s for her own mental health, so she can empathise.

“I think that’s where me and my dad weirdly connected – we both had the same struggles,” she says.

“If I don’t look after my mental health or get on top of it, my biggest fear is that. Which is probably a crazy thing to say out loud or a crazy thing to think, but two weeks after he passed or a week after the funeral, I literally pulled up my socks and said, ‘There’s two ways I can go here – it’s down the dark hill or a different path.’

“Now, I won’t say that it’s plain sailing after it happened – ‘Oh, that’s grand, I pulled up my socks.’ Absolutely not. The few months after it, there were days where you’re just breaking down crying, and the guilt ...”

Bobbett took part in Pieta House’s Darkness into Light earlier this year, raising €5,000 from family and friends, but wondered about the people at home “in the horrors”, who perhaps felt they couldn’t reach out to a service like Pieta House.

“The people that are sitting at home, they’re still the ones that, if they’re not reaching out to an organisation, they’re not really seeing much benefit from the fundraising.”

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Last September was National Suicide Prevention Month and Bobbett knew she wanted to do something. “I felt like it was a fresh enough time that maybe some of the raw emotion would be gone that I can more focus on whether it’s benefiting me and other people.”

She decided on a daily challenge for the month, sharing them all on TikTok. “So I went to the park on 31st of August and just said what the challenge was, from the heart. No prerecording, just said it’s 30 days, 30 different challenges,” Bobbett says.

“I wrote down all the challenges that day. They were a mix of things my dad loved, things that I felt benefited your mental health, or even a mix of both. Like a sea swim, my dad loved swimming.”

The challenges ranged from baking, spending time with friends, going to the cinema – her and her dad’s way of spending time together – and going to Explorium as a nod to his time teaching physics.

The challenges were everyday and ordinary, but that was part of the point, that help is accessible. “All these things that are helping other people, but they’re actually stuff that he did for himself to help his mental health.

“That’s also a hard thing to digest as well. That he went to Glendalough for his mental health. He went swimming for his mental health. He went to the cinema and I’m trying to show people that obviously, with him, his struggles were too hard, but there’s stuff that he did that for a long time helped.”

The challenge she dreaded was compiling a memory box of her dad’s possessions. “I was just scared that things would go missing, but I put it off. I promised myself I was going to do it the week of the funeral, but I was too emotional. Part of me was just hiding from doing it.”

When she went back to the house, she “went through everything and that was emotional. I was looking through photos, jumpers, a jacket, an Ashbourne rugby jacket that he used to always wear, all this stuff and you’re kind of like a wave of ... It was nearly grief coming at me again.

“So I grabbed some bits. He used to help me with the car, so a little light bulb. He used to always wear a cap, so I grab a cap and then loads of photos in the house and different bits. That was the toughest one, buying a box and just putting them all in a box.

“The week have gone by and I haven’t even looked at it since. I think it was one of those challenges. I’m so grateful I did it, but I’m still not ready.”

She isn’t an influencer or someone who shares a lot online, but she says, “The anxiety of posting online is definitely gone because, I mean, when I posted the first video, I had 300 comments and maybe 30 or 40 DMs off the first video of people just opening their heart.”

What surprised her was men of her dad’s demographic, “a lot of men, a lot of fathers would DM me and say: ‘Thanks for the video. I have three kids and I’ve struggled.’

“The amount of ones I got was unbelievable, particularly men. When I did this challenge, I never thought about that side of it. I knew my aim was if I help one person, that’s my challenge done really.”

• Pieta: Call 1800 247 247, or text HELP to 51444
• Samaritans: Call 116 123, email jo@samaritans.ie