Thank you for talking to PMH Iona. Tell me more about the mental health problems you have had, and their history. 

Mental health issues began in my teens, as they do with many people who've experienced childhood trauma, familial dysfunction and inherited trauma. Then at 16, after my best friend was killed in a motorbike accident, I spiralled into a deep depression. Nobody seemed equipped to deal with it, so I began writing poetry to articulate what I was feeling. 

In my early 20's, after two violent sexual assaults, I accessed psychotherapeutic support for complex PTSD. What helped most was that my therapist took me seriously, and was also a creative herself. We began unpacking my trauma history, and as I became more aware of the impacts of trauma, I was able to see how this affected my decision making, negative sense of self, and explore healthier ways to support myself. Once the door is open for self-discovery and healing it doesn't close, because we're all a work-in-progress. 

Wanting to support others (the wounded healer archetype is strong in me), I trained as a holistic psychotherapist, and worked in the trauma field for 25 years. When a head injury stopped me in my tracks, once again I was called to explore depression and grief within myself, and adjust to life with a radically changed sense of identity.

Like many women worldwide, I also live with a disability created by medical misadventure with pelvic mesh, have gotten through cancer and the associated health/mental health issues, yet throughout my life poetry has always been a trusted friend. 

But in 2020, all that I'd survived and healed from quickly became irrelevant, when my only child Reuben died by suicide during Covid lockdown restrictions in New Zealand. To say this took me to my knees would be a total understatement. Ever since, I've had to face into complicated grief, and more layers of trauma (like the onion analogy).

How have you got through? 

Writing poetry, enables me to express the gut-wrenching grief of being a suicide bereaved mother. Since Reuben's death, and with a spiritual framework deeply rooted in nature, my commitment to holistic wellbeing, and the love of good people in my life, I've felt called to put my energy into several creative projects. 

It quickly became evident, as I sought out personal accounts of grief and suicide bereavement (not the academic or self-help variety), that there were very few resources available. In what felt like a natural progression, I set up a small indie press (Elixir & Star Press, in Reuben's memory) to create space for other people's expressions of grief in New Zealand; because this felt equally as important as finding my own way through it. 

a liminal gathering (2023) was the first project; a multimedia grief almanac, the first of its kind here, containing work from over 100 New Zealand artists. Alongside this I worked on a poetry collection In the shape of his hand lay a river (2024) and a hybrid non-fiction memoir A Counter of Moons (2025) centred around suicide bereavement.

A Counter of Moons is deeply personal, and being a non-fiction book has significantly less distance from my emotions than poetry does. But I wanted to present this experience of bereavement openly, so that other people know they're not alone when grieving the death of someone beloved who has taken their life. It discusses many viewpoints on grief and shares poetry that I found along the way. There's a great deal of grief in the world now, and yet we still lack the resources, time and ability to attend to it. My aim is to create more space to talk with one another, rather than becoming silent or avoiding the issue of suicide, be that ideation or completion. I'm not interested in being a best-seller, but my hope in sharing this work is, to quote the wonderful poet Joy Harjo in Poet Warrior (2021) to, "...help the next person find their way through the dark." 

I often say to 'get over' the death of my beloved son would mean that I have ceased loving. In my experience love and pain are intertwined; they coexist with one another, and if we love deeply, then naturally we will grieve deeply. The book is an opening, not a closure, because as traumatic loss author Joanne Cacciatore comments, in Grieving is Loving (2020), "Closure is for doors and windows, not for emotions, particularly not for grief."

Why poetry? And how could other people benefit from writing poetry?

Poetry enables a release onto the page, it externalises the internal, validates an experience and allows me to breathe out. I believe writing about the difficult things in life is a protest too, because these are often issues that are silenced in the world. Poetry connects me to things outside of myself too; it is inter-dimensional and quite unlike having a conversation with a stranger. 

I see poetry and other forms of creative expression, as powerful components in the wellbeing journeys of ourselves and others. Creating, is a way of sharing the unspeakable, wordless and complicated traumas we experience throughout life; and I've found that this can also be of support when I feel isolated, whilst dealing with personal issues. 

"It feels like now is the time to pay attention, beyond the chatter and superficiality, and respect one another despite our differences. If we can listen wisely to the quiet that surrounds grief, we might just notice the presence of something larger than ourselves - and how sacred everything is, including grieving." - A Counter of Moons (2025), Iona Winter.