Charlotte Underwood – Surviving Suicide, Writing to Raise Awareness & Saving a Life – EP113
Season 3
Episode 113

Charlotte Underwood – Surviving Suicide, Writing to Raise Awareness & Saving a Life – EP113

Charlotte is as survivor. As a survivor of alcoholism, sexual assault, rape, self-harm and a constant chain of trauma and mental illness.  She tells her story and shares her experiences with the world. We talk about suicide, depression, hope, and a desire to help others by sharing her own stories, experiences and idea. Her goal “If I can save a life, or just make someone feel less alone, then I’m achieving my dreams.” Her main topics of writing are mental health, depression, anxiety, and suicide. With the aim to raise awareness as well as end the stigma. If you face your own demons, challenges or know someone close to you that is facing a hard time or feels like – they might find this very valuable and worth checking it out! Summary of our conversation includes:
  • Dedicates a lot her time to writing about mental health
  • Losing her dad around the age of 18 and starting on her journey
  • Just starting to write to share her feelings and thoughts
  • Showing signs of anxiety and depression from a young age and looking to cope with drinking
  • Suffering mental and physical abuse from a very young age
  • Her dad’s suicide and looking back to see if there were signs which there were but Charlotte didn’t want to accept these
  • Trying to talk with her dad about her own challenges, drinking and self-harm
  • Only learning about her dad’s situation in detail after his death
  • Spending the next 3 years grieving and dealing with up and down emotions
  • Trying to end her own life after her Father’s suicide
  • Wanting to speed up the process of seeing her dad again
  • This was a turning point and then starting to take better care of herself
  • Having a best friend that stayed with her after the attempt and this helped her and make her feel wanted
  • Stumbling across writing as a way of dealing with grieving
  • Thinking about what made her feel good before her depression and writing emerged
  • Developing a very organic writing style just getting thoughts on paper and being very honest with herself
  • Taking time to figure out her own narrative
  • Writing anonymous blog posts for over a year as she found her voice
  • Stand out blog posts that have had the most impact
  • The Adult who can’t make friends with anxiety and self-doubt
  • Writing about her dad’s suicide that lead to a book with the aim of helping others carry on with their own life – this led to the blog
  • Getting feedback that from readers about helping others grieve
  • Where Charlotte is at right now and her identity
  • Pushing herself every day and always learning
  • Allowing herself to accept herself and support from people she loves
  • At a place she is hopeful of the future
  • Developing new habits to learn to just stop and take a moment
  • Thoughts on areas that can be improved for mental health support
    • Shorter waiting times to get support sessions
    • Mental health training in schools
    • Changing the language and labels
    • Just talking about the topics of mental health and normalizing it
  • Questions from listeners – biggest admiration
  • Support and Influencers over the last few years
  • How to keep motivated and stay focused
  • Learning to be more intuitive and planful
  • Self-awareness and self-management
  • Book recommendation – Darren Brown – Happy
  • Check out Charlotte – www.Charlotteunderwoodauthor.com
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