Sitting in a country church "packed to the rafters" with people reeling from the loss of a young person is an experience Georgie Dent can share with too many Border people.
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But she describes her experience of suicide as "peripheral", which could never compare to that of the people closest to her cousin, Sam.
"His story is not mine to tell, and I will not dare to put words around the grief and pain that his family have experienced," she said of his death in 2011.
"But that ... will never not be one of the saddest days of my life.
"The vast and inexplicable chasm between how loved this young man was and his death remains excruciating."
Dent was a fresh law graduate 12 years ago when she collapsed at work, leading to an admission to a psychiatric hospital just before her 25th birthday.
"At the time, I believed I was losing my mind because I was losing my body," she said.
"Soon enough, I discovered I was losing my body because I had lost my mind.
"In this short amount of time, I cannot adequately detail my recovery.
"But there are a few lessons I learned that I would like to impart tonight."
The contributing editor of Women's Agenda spoke of privilege and its nuances, but also of loneliness felt by those battling 'The Black Dog'.
"I genuinely believed that there weren't other people living in the pain that I was feeling," she said.
"I know now that I wasn't alone when I was breaking.
"It is so important that we stand up and be honest about the fact that we're struggling."
By the end of Dent's speech, more than 15,000 people were watching the live-stream on the Survivors of Suicide and Friends Facebook page.
Labor MP Linda Burney also had advice to share with those listening: in the immediate grief, "stay hydrated"; pace yourself, coming to terms with grief; talk to your lost loved ones; and "respect their decision".
"That is how I dealt with it," she said of her son Binni, who took his own life in 2017.
"I did not ask why, because of the respect I had for my son, and the bravery of his decision."
"He was a young gay man; he was fair-complexioned, which made him really examine his place in the Aboriginal world," she said.
"There were many times he was in psychiatric units. He took his life at the age of 33.
"In the Aboriginal worldview, death is a part of the cycle of life; it is not linear.
"What a special way to think about someone that you love."
Veteran journalist and six-time Walkley Award winner Kerry O'Brien began his address by acknowledging "sovereignty has never been ceded" and the ongoing impacts of Australia's colonial past.
"No matter how much pain we non-Indigenous people may have felt around the subject that we're talking about tonight ... we magnify that pain when we consider the issue of suicide amongst Indigenous Australians," he said.
O'Brien candidly admitted that he had intended to talk more generally about mental health but "was avoiding spending serious time talking about my brother".
So, he told those gathered in QEII Square about Paul O'Brien, who was born on August 27, 1952.
"At the age of seven, I received a telegram ... (it) said 'baby boy born on Kerry's birthday'.
"Paul was not expected; Paul was not planned.
"He was particularly special to my mother ... she sensed something vulnerable in Paul."
The brothers shared a bedroom through their teenage years and O'Brien said Paul was "full of curiosity" and had "an instinctive kindness".
"After university, he tried various career paths, not really sticking with any of them," the 75-year-old said.
"Eventually, he became a globetrotter.
"Paul eventually was diagnosed with schizophrenia and things begin to make some sense.
"And then he was diagnosed with a plastic anemia, a blood disorder, which was almost certainly going to be fatal."
O'Brien became increasingly concerned about his brother, who at 40 was receiving regular blood transfusions and upon one trip to the hospital not long before he died by suicide, became "convinced" his family was trying to "have him committed".
"The memory that I will take to my own grave is looking into my mother's eyes ... seeing the raw pain and the agony," he recalled.
"This is the first time I've really spoken publicly about this.
"It's only now, as I face trying to put these things into words ... that I understand how important it is that we share."
The former 7.30 Report editor and presenter touched on the admissions of tennis player Naomi Osaka.
"When I see the mishandling of that situation (with Osaka) and how that compounds the pressure on her, it shows we still have a very long way to go," he said.
O'Brien, in his 55th year as a journalist, still hears "stories that are echoes of the past, of people who fall through the cracks".
"Some of whom do not survive, because the community support for them, that our politicians tell us is there, is so inadequate," he said.
"Promises in the past have almost invariably ended in disappointment.
"What we have to keep in the fronts of our mind is that you do not relax, there is no relaxation on this.
"This world is full of contradictions, because while we have this connectedness, we also have extraordinary isolation.
"The democratic world is polarising, our politicians are polarised, our media is polarised.
"We are losing capacity to talk across a growing divide.
"Mental health is very much a part of that."
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O'Brien concluded by saying he was "glad he got through" his speech.
"The reason that I have come is to pay my respects to Annette and Stuart Baker, and all those others of you who have become a part of this very special process, to confront yourselves, but confront the rest of us as well," he said.
- Lifeline: 13 11 14
