Why Stories Matter
On Storytelling & Suicide Prevention: A Churchill Fellowship Report
There is an ocean of feeling that is deeper, more engulfing, and more consuming than grief itself. A place where you become a ghost in the world; a mere spectator to your own unravelling.
I know this firsthand. I know the "great fall". But we urgently need another narrative: the story of the "great climb"—how a person, against all odds, gets back up. I travelled to America to find those who made that climb. I found city walls serving as painted buoys thrown to those in rough water, and strangers sharing stories to whisper that we exist, that our lives matter.
This is a deeply personal look at the biology of belonging. It is a blueprint for how our narratives can become a conscious, healing circle.
To be truly person-centred, we must first become story-centred.
Kane Dodgson
Churchill Fellow
Contents
"Sometimes I think that the purpose of life is to leave our mark on the world, if only in the hearts of others. Sharing stories does that. It whispers that we exist, that our lives matter."
This embedded link can't be shown.
Contact via The Churchill Fellowship
Kane Dodgson
Churchill Fellow 2023
Blackpool, UK
Copyright © 2026 Kane Dodgson. The moral right of the author has been asserted. The views and opinions expressed in this report are those of the author and not of the Churchill Fellowship or its partners.
