When she was a toddler, Ellie had a close bond with her father, Neil (Picture: Supplied) Not long after Ellie MacDonald had started school, she can remember kids in the school playground teasing her for not having a father. ‘I’d get defensive and ask them how I’d be here without a dad,’ Ellie, now 41 and living in Leeds, tells Metro. ‘I made up a story that my dad wanted to see what heaven looked like so climbed up on a big ladder and couldn’t get back down.’ It was Ellie’s way of explaining to herself why her dad, Neil, had suddenly disappeared a year earlier in April 1989, when she was just four. No one dared discuss that her father had died by suicide. ‘There was so much stigma about suicide, and nobody talk about it,’ she says. ‘I grew up so confused.’ Ellie has been told of the close bond she had with him before his death. ‘I don’t have many memories of my dad, but there were these little moments – dancing and laughing together or walking together to the park – that I remember,’ she says. ‘And the music I love now was the stuff he used to play for me – 80s rock.’ Much of Ellie’s childhood was spent piecing together what had happened to her dad. ‘Someone must have said something [about his suicide] to me at some point, but I can’t remember that conversation,’ she says. ‘I just remember groing up asking what I had done, and if I had been bad. Was that why he left? ‘I blamed myself. I grew up confused, angry, and sad.’ Ellie’s dad took his life the day he looked at a flat after he and her mum had separated. That day he contacted a friend, and then his mum, Ellie’s grandmother, neither of which he was able to speak with at length. Much of Ellie’s childhood was spent piecing together what had happened to her dad (Picture: Faye Kenny) ‘Then my mum and I found him,’ Ellie says. ‘We weren’t a family that talked about difficult things, so we just never really talked about what had happened to my dad.’ However, when she was a teenager, Ellie began to have distressing flashbacks of moments she couldn’t quite pinpoint. ‘I had images of my mum sitting at a petrol station crying,’ she remembers. ‘I asked her about it, and she said it was the day she had bought the wreath for my dad’s funeral. She broke down, cried and hugged me when I got excited thinking we were going to see him.’ Ellie also  recalls being told by a girl in school that her dad was in hell because of what he’d done – that it was a sinful act to be punished. ‘It’s why to this day I hate when people say, ‘commit suicide’ – like it is a crime,’ she says. Life was ‘difficult’ for Ellie during her childhood as she sifted through her emotions on her own. ‘I had low self-esteem, was angry and confused. I was also shy and quiet, and would feel anxious and often depressed,’ she remembers. ‘I needed emotional support, but the stigma surrounding my dad’s death meant it was lacking.’ Instead, the teenager pushed people away – a pattern that would continue long into adulthood – unconsciously fearful that they’d disappear like her dad had. Ellie says going to university helped her realise she wanted to support other (Picture: Mark Bickerdike Photography) At 15, when Ellie got her first boyfriend, she felt her life finally start to ‘shift’. ‘I put on weight – because I had been underweight, hiding under baggy clothes – and then I started to feel body-confident.’ Three years later, she left Leeds to attend University of Huddersfield in West Yorkshire, majoring in psychology because she ‘wanted to help people.’ ‘University was a lot of fun,’ she remembers. ‘It expanded my mind and I met people from all across the world. It was one of the best things I could have done.’ Around the same time, Ellie also saw a psychic who offered her some comfort, by telling her that her father ‘never chose to leave her’. Ellie wishes there had been better support available for her dad (Picture: Faye Kenny) From the outside, she was acing life, forging a a career in PR and marketing, eventually setting up her own successful PR agency, but underneaht she was still struggling with anxiety and depression. Gripped by her own mental health issues, it made Ellie all the more aware of how difficult her dad must have found it to reach out for help when he was at his lowest moments. Thankfully, she reached out for support, engaging in different types of therapy from talking to EMDR and tapping meditation, and ‘investing a lot into my own self development.’ In the midst of one severe episode of depression in 2021, Ellie represented a client doing suicide prevention work. {"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Man Utd's Rhys Bennett urges people not to struggle in silence after father's suicide","contentUrl":"https:\/\/videos.metro.co.uk\/video\/met\/2025\/12\/22\/1147409419630720656\/480x270_MP4_1147409419630720656.mp4","description":"Manchester United defender Rhys Bennett discusses his dad's death in October to help raise awareness of mental health issues.","duration":"T2M37S","height":270,"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2025\/12\/22\/19\/104953729-0-image-a-1_1766432203300.jpg","uploadDate":"2025-12-22T19:37:13+0000","width":480} To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Up Next Previous Page Next Page window.addEventListener('metroVideo:relatedVideosCarouselLoaded', function(data) { if (typeof(data.detail) === 'undefined' || typeof(data.detail.carousel) === 'undefined' || typeof(data.detail.carousel.el_) === 'undefined') { return; } var player = data.detail.carousel.el_; var container = player.closest('.metro-video-player'); var placeholder = container.querySelector('.metro-video-player__up-next-placeholder'); if (placeholder) { container.removeChild(placeholder); container.classList.add('metro-video-player--related-videos-loaded'); } }); ‘I remember learning that suicide is the biggest cause of death in anyone under 35, and men under 50 – it made me so sad and angry that all those years later, the stigma around suicide still existed,’ she says. Armed with the knowledge, Ellie made the decision to throw herself into setting up an organisation, HelloHope, to raise awareness about suicide prevention. ‘Hope is my favourite word. Everyone who has died by suicide has lost hope. But we – people who aren’t struggling with suicidal thoughts – have the power to be able to give hope to those who have lost theirs. Most suicides are preventable,’ she explains. Ellie set up her own organisation to help others impacted by suicide (Picture: Supplied) In the two years of running HelloHope, Ellie has since launched a suicide prevention platform, while her awards ceremony, the Hope Awards, won the national Amazon Charity innovation award. She’s also, been listed as a top 100 women in social enterprise in the UK, as well as training thousands of people in suicide prevention. ‘There are a lot of messages out there saying that people need to get better at talking, which is true – but when you are so low, it is incredibly difficult to ask for help,’ explains Ellie ‘The onus shouldn’t be on the person struggling to ask for help. I want to empower and equip ordinary people to reach out, rather than expecting those who are struggling to. We’ve got to look out for one another. Isn’t that what being human is all about?’ Reflecting on alll she’s achieved, Ellie adds: ‘I think my dad would be proud of me. I’m determined to help people who struggled like he did.’ Need support? For emotional support, you can call the Samaritans 24-hour helpline on 116 123, email jo@samaritans.org, visit a Samaritans branch in person or go to the Samaritans website. PAPYRUS offers specialised suicide prevention support for young people. Their HOPELINE247 is open every day of the year, 24 hours a day. You can call 0800 068 4141, text 88247 or email: pat@papyrus-uk.org.