Facing The Dark to See The LightFacing The Dark to See The Light
All In The Mind
Tara Lal was engulfed by grief after the loss of her mother and brother, but found in her brother's diaries her reason to keep going.
29:39•13 Sept 2020
Facing the Dark: Tara Lal on Grief, Suicide and Finding a Way to Thrive
Episode Overview
- Silenced grief within families can be deeply damaging and may shape coping patterns for decades.
- Reading a loved one’s private writing after suicide can be painful yet can also bring understanding and peace.
- Long-term therapy and self-reflection help peel back protective layers, making space for self-compassion and healing.
- Passions and strengths, such as sport, writing or meaningful work, can reconnect people with joy and a sense of purpose.
- Effective suicide prevention needs to include meaning, purpose, quality relationships and open, shame-free conversation alongside mental health care.
“I now don't want to rid myself of those wounds. I hold them but I hold them very gently and I use them as a guide... the darkness is there, but it also makes the colours brighter.”
Get ready to be moved by real-life accounts of grief, love and rebuilding a life after suicide. This episode of *All In The Mind* centres on firefighter and mental health researcher Tara Lal, who lost her mother to cancer as a teenager and later her beloved brother Adam to suicide. Tara talks about growing up in a family where grief was never spoken about, describing how "that unspoken grief really does damage and is destructive in the long term".
Her bond with Adam was a lifeline, yet his private journals, found after his death, revealed a level of pain and anxiety he’d hidden behind a charismatic, smiling exterior. Reading those diaries brought intense hurt, but also helped Tara and Adam’s friends make sense of what he’d been going through.
She explains the traumatic impact of suicide loss, including panic attacks, shame and the feeling that "I don't want to die, but I don't know how to live." For years she tried to rescue everyone else to make up for not being able to save her brother, only later recognising how much that shame had shrunk her sense of self-worth.
The turning point came when she stopped running and began therapy, slowly "peeling off the layers" she’d built to feel safe. Writing her memoir *Standing on My Brother’s Shoulders* alongside long-term therapy helped her develop self-compassion and a more gentle relationship with her wounds: "I now don't want to rid myself of those wounds. I hold them but I hold them very gently and I use them as a guide...
the darkness is there, but it also makes the colours brighter." Tara also shares how passions like surfboat rowing, firefighting and research helped her reconnect with life, and why giving firefighters a safe space to talk about suicide-related trauma is vital. She calls for broader suicide prevention that focuses on meaning, purpose, relationships and open conversation rather than only diagnosis.
If you’ve wrestled with grief, shame or silent pain, could Tara’s story help you face your own dark to see a bit more light?
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