BYIB Beside you in bereavement
All of us are different with unique life experiences and we all have different relationships with the person who has died. Bereavement by suicide is a difficult death to process. BYIB allows a person to grieve in their own time with community support. We come together and express our feelings, allowing them to be heard and reflected back by others who are also experiencing this complex grief.
BYIB is unique: It offers support and a weekly routine at a time when, for many people, there isn’t any! The group is close, friendly, informal and confidential. It’s a safe space for people to be authentic, knowing they and their loved one will not be judged. It’s a space to communicate anything and everything when friends and family may feel unable to meet them in their pain.
There is no rush to process grief; everything has its own time, accepting its ok to feel how one is feeling at any given time. We find ways to live around and accommodate grief whilst maintaining the love connection.
Fundamentally, it is bringing together and empowering the community to support each other. For a newly bereaved person, here they will find a community of people with whom there is care, understanding and connection. We will be beside you in bereavement.
About Us
About us
Beside You In Bereavement brings the community together to share the grief of suicide with others who know how this bereavement can feel. The project has been funded by the National Lottery and has recieved donations from local fundraisers including Preston's 'The Old Knackers' football team. Seeing the community pull together brings feelings of hope and purpose whilst lifting isolation and loneliness.
The NHS have encouraged and developed the groups in conjunction with BYIB. Lancashire & South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust have been actively involved in supporting the group, liaising with GPs and peer support whilst promoting the group to other professionals and the public.
Background
The groups in Preston and Chorley were originally funded by Ver De Gris arts company who created a film based on the experience of Gillian Brooks and family. This film showed the impact of suicide on the family and led to public screenings and subsequent establishment of Suicide Bereavement groups in Preston and Chorley. In order to keep the groups funded, BYIB was set up as a Community Interest Company. The National Lottery have supported both Ver De Gris and BYIB in order to maintain the groups for the growing numbers of people affected by suicide.
When and where
We meet every Thursday between 12pm - 2pm, alternating between Chorley and Preston. We are hoping to start new groups in other parts of Lancashire soon. Get in touch for further information.
what we do
Peer support
The groups are peer support, facilitated by those bereaved by suicide. The groups are very informal and people can speak freely knowing they can share their thoughts and feelings with others who understand. We have had sessions for relaxation, breathwork, sound healing and herbal remedies in addition to clay work and creativity
Creativity
Using clay we have made shrines, candle holdes, tiles and memorabilia. This helps maintain a connection to the person who has died and can also enable a person to create a space to go to when there may not be a grave or place of focus.
How creativity can help people move away from unhealthy thinking.
I have facilitated a talking peer support group for people bereaved by suicide for eight years; it is apparent that there are distinct differences between a talking group and a creative group. A talking group enables people to hear each other as they express and share common experiences and feelings. People react with how they are feeling and the very act of sharing can make people feel less alone and also identify that they may be having a ‘normal’ reaction to a very difficult death. A familiar feeling in the event of bereavement by suicide is guilt, if only I’d done this, said that, or known retrospectively what a person was thinking or planning. These are feelings which people identify with and share. A person in grief may feel very isolated with their thoughts and feelings because other people do not know how to react or respond. Sharing in a safe space can bring a chance for someone to hear their own thoughts and words, gain confidence in being able to express how they feel, helping them to be able to talk more freely with others outside of the group.
Catharsis can be an emotional cure and I identify with this in my own life from a piece of writing I needed to do in order to bring order, logic and words from that which was muddled and confused. Creativity improves one’s capacity to respond at a time when a person may feel ‘closed down'; a feeling which can lead to trapped unexpressed feelings and emotions. People in the group are able to understand them-selves and eventually find the words they previously could not find. It is the process and new found expression which underlies the purpose of creativity rather than the end product. The process brings insight and new ideas that hopefully allow a person to reframe thoughts and reflect them back. New feelings can be difficult but are often a breakthrough so a person can find that which lays beneath the roots of the visible. It is essential therefore that the group feels safe, that confidentiality is honoured and the space itself feels nurturing. The creative groups enable individuals to ask how to move forward without their loved one. If the decision is made to make the best of what remains in life, the focus becomes what is possible rather then impossible, that it is acceptable to move forward without guilt and still enjoy life.
Gillian Brooks - BYIB Director
I struggled for two and a half years not being able to talk or share my thoughts and experiences of what had happened to others. It came to the point where I had given up and bottled it all up inside and it played with my emotions on levels I had never experienced. I’ve had many people die in my life ( but not suicide) and it is such a hard thing to deal with as its not easily spoken about! Through all of this I felt alone and had lost myself and who I was. I found details of the support group, was very anxious about it but I told myself I need to do this for me. I went to it and it felt homely and peaceful. The creative group was eye opening to me really as I found myself being able to express myself and talk about my friend with others who had been through the same and I felt so much better for being able to do this. I’ve always been creative, but with this it lets out emotions, feeling, memories and experiences - for the first time in two and half years I feel I am me again. In a safe and warm group- to be able to help myself. Debbie aged 26