Daughter's tribute to father who attempted suicide
innocent picture of a man and his daughter, but the emotional story behind it has been shared by thousands of people online.
Ellie Wilkie from Edinburgh posted the image on Twitter on Wednesday evening to praise her dad's struggle with mental illness.By Thursday morning, her post had been retweeted by more than 8,000 people and liked by almost 60,000. The words resonated with so many the BBC asked her to share the story behind it."This is my dad Brian Wilkie. He suffered bad depression after the passing of our eldest stepbrother, who died from suicide in June 2014. His name was Jordan.
"The space in my dad's head became dark. He no longer saw a point to life without Jordan.
"In January my dad attempted suicide in the family home. The effect was devastating, but luckily for us he survived.
"The pain from losing Jordan was still raw but we were strong and held it together as a family.
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"The emotions towards my dad were mixed. I resented him for wanting to leave me and my three sisters behind, but at the same time I was devastated thinking about how low he must be.
"Life was hard, a struggle. We kept asking ourselves was he going to do it again? Weren't we good enough for him? I lost my dad that day.
"Since then he has been on the road to recovery. He's turned his life around. He goes to the gym, he's given up alcohol and gives his all to fighting back and helping others."Ellie says "with specialist help and 100% determination" she and her sisters got their father back.
"Our brother was so young. He was only 22 when we lost him. For a close family this was hard, we blamed ourselves and were left picking up the pieces.
"My dad is now my hero. I've never met someone so focused to change his life and love it.
"I was so proud of him I wanted to tweet it. My post has reached thousands and that's brought me to tears."I wanted to tell everyone who may also be suffering it's OK not to be OK, particularly because men are stereotypically supposed to be the strong ones.
"I wanted to share awareness and fight back against the 'just get over it' attitude, especially on my brother's behalf. Everyone has their dark days, but you are not alone.
"My dad has now been offered a job as a recovery support worker so he'll be helping people with addiction and mental health issues, something so fitting and touching to end the year on."
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