Vicki Mendyk of Gillieston Heights wants to ensure people living in the Hunter have somewhere to talk about their feelings out loud.
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The mother-of-four was having a shower, after sharing a coffee in bed with her husband, when he died by suicide. Five months later, her 19-year-old daughter Chelsey also took her life.
"I think most people think there has to be a long history of mental illness, money problems, health problems or relationship problems to make them do it.
"When my husband died it was out of the blue. He hadn't spoken to anybody about how he was feeling.
"That's what I'm really trying to instill in my three boys. If you don't feel right you need to talk about it."
A year since her daughter's passing, and 17 months since her husband's, Mrs Mendyk organised a high tea at St James Church Hall in Morpeth and raised $15,000 for Lifeline's face-to-face counselling services.
"I found them to be really good at counselling and they're not government funded," she said. "People need to know there's safe places to go and speak."
Mrs Mendyk said that it was only through the charity's services in Rutherford that she was able to stop blaming herself for the deaths of her loved ones.
"I beat myself up about it. I thought I should have seen it coming," she said. "Now I know that if Peter sat and thought about what he was doing, there's no way he would have gone through with it. He was the most caring and gentle person and there's no way he would have done that if he thought about what it was is going to put everyone else through.
"Chelsey really struggled. Her and Peter were really close. She had seen some counsellors and was seeing a GP regularly. The week she passed, I thought it was the best week she'd had in a long time.
"The hardest thing is when you think someone is okay, they make out their okay, and they're really not," she said.
"It got to the stage where I was too scared to leave the house while the boys were there. I didn't sleep for months, I was too worried every time the kids got up at night. But I have to get up every day and just try and do the best I can for my three boys. I have to move forward for them."
Mrs Mendyk has decided to run the Lifeline high tea fundraiser annually in memory of Peter and her "wild, tough" and kind-hearted daughter, Chelsey. Her son Brock, 25, also acted as the ambassador for Anytime Fitness Green Hills mental health fundraiser this year.
"We're also talking about organising a ball later next year," Mrs Mendyk said. "Because Peter wore the orange and blue to work every day he did like to dress up."
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