A mum whose life was suddenly flipped upside down leaving her homeless and on the verge of suicide is now using her story to urge others to speak more openly.
Andrea Newton, 53, was working as a self-employed HR consultant and living with her husband in a five-bedroom home in rural Chorley while their son was away studying at university.
Things seemed to be going exactly to plan - until everything changed.
Speaking to The Manchester Evening News about what happened, Andrea says she was extremely unhappy in her marriage but when she was able to walk away it meant having no home to return to.
She spent the next three months sleeping on friend's couches and spare beds, with nowhere permanent to live, and on three occasions planned to take her own life.
"I was desperately unhappy for a very long time and finally had the courage to walk away at which point my world all fell apart," Andrea explained.
"All the money was drained from my business so that went bust and I was in the darkest of dark places with the intention of taking my own life. That was absolutely my agenda.
"What people don't realise is that most people who attempt suicide don't want to die they just want the pain to stop and one day something hit me that all I would do is transfer my pain to my son and that just stopped me in my tracks."
Now, three years later having started a new company in Golborne, Wigan, Andrea wants to help others and is using her voice to urge people to talk to their friends and family about mental health problems.
She wants to hear more people speaking openly and supporting their loved ones if they seem to be struggling.
"I had the big detached five-bedroom house and I drove a Land Rover and I went on foreign holidays and everybody thought I was a strong, independent woman," Andrea said.
"People don't know what's happening and you hide it. It's another challenge, you have to put so much of your energy into wearing a mask and pretending that you're alright because it's not seen as OK to talk about it.
"I was sofa surfing and it was through the luck of God that people around me were able to offer a bed for a night here or a sofa for a night there and I did that for three months.
"During that time I couldn't work, you can't work in that situation. Financially I was in the worst place, there were days I couldn't even tell you my name let alone get organised to pay a bill.
"I peered over the edge on three separate occasions with the intention that I would end my life because I couldn't stand the pain of it all. If we don't normalise the conversation and we carry on using euphemisms and hushed voices to describe these things then nothing's every going to change.
"That's what I want to do, I want to tell my story so that people realise you can come back from that really horrible place but also that we need that scaffolding to help us. The mental health service is broken it isn't going to be able to support the number of people that need it."
Andrea says that it was only the thought of her son's pain and the support of three friends who formed what she calls a "social scaffolding" which helped her to escape her suicidal thoughts.
But, it took those friends reaching out to her and offering their help to improve the situation.
"You can't talk and be open with people around you if those people are just going to judge you - that makes you feel even worse," Andrea added.
"There are three things that are significant factors to suicide. One is if somebody feels hopeless which I did. I had no home, no job, no income, I had nothing.
"Two is if people feel worthless, which again I did for all those reasons. I had been one of the shiny corporate girls with a big salary and a company car and now here I am crawling on my knees.
"And the third factor is if you feel like a burden to others, now if I go to talk to someone and they judge me or say something like don't be so daft - which people do - then that adds further to my feelings of being a burden and of being pathetic.
"So when we keep saying you've got to reach out for help, it's not always about that, it's about other people noticing and being prepared to reach in."
While there is certainly more awareness of mental health concerns these days than there has been in the past, Andrea says there is still much more to be done.
She is calling on businesses to take more responsibility for the mental well-being of their staff, just as they would if someone was physically hurt.
And, she has issued a stark warning over the long term impact the coronavirus pandemic could have.
"We have a healthcare system that was already overwhelmed prior to Covid and all the research tells us that the demand for mental health services is probably going to increase by as much as 20pc as a result of Covid," Andrea said.
"I just think there's so much that employers could be doing and really as a society we could shatter the silence that sits around this. Nobody wants to talk about suicide. It's just another human condition and we need to get better at talking about it.
"There's this perfect storm we've got now of redundancies and job losses and even kids not getting the exam grades they were due, all of those stresses are making life so difficult and there's so much more we could be doing.
"We need employers to recognise that their duty of care isn't just soap and social distancing, they have a responsibility for mental health. Duty of care doesn't stop just because people are working from home.
"When we were in the middle of the lockdown, people who needed help didn't always access it, they didn't want to go to their GP or hospital because they were afraid of catching Covid. So those people who are struggling, their situation is now more complex than it would have been if they had earlier intervention."
To find out more about Andrea's work with businesses or sign up for a free session on World Suicide Prevention Day (September 9) click here or call 07976 743882.
