27 June 2023 , 23:01
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Lottie Tomlinson has spoken candidly about her experiences with grief, having lost her mum Johannah Deakin to leukaemia and her little sister, Félicité to an accidental overdose.
The businesswoman was just 18 when her beloved mum died aged 43 following a battle with leukaemia while surrounded by her six children.
Three years later, Lottie and her family were once again left devastated when her younger sister Félicité died aged just 19 following an accidental overdose.
Louis Tomlinson's younger sister, now 24, has now spoken openly about her experience with grief and claimed she and her siblings were never offered any support following Johannah's death in 2016.
Lottie Tomlinson has revealed neither she nor her siblings were offered any form of help after their mum Johannah Deakin died in 2016 (Getty Images)
Johannah, pictured with her eldest child Louis, died after a battle with leukaemia (mrsjohannahdeakin/Instagram)Speaking on the Grief Kind podcast in partnership with Sue Ryder, Lottie said: "When my mom died, there was never any conversations about getting any help.
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"Looking back, that was quite shocking to me and I talk about it quite a lot but, you know, especially the fact that she had cancer.
"It was a medical illness and we were surrounded by a lot of medical professionals, and there were young children involved, and there didn't seem to be any sit-down conversations where it was like, 'Do we want to sort out getting some help', so I never had anything when I lost my mum, it was only when I lost my sister that I thought, 'You know, she ended up losing her life, she might have been okay if she would have got the help she needed.'"
Lottie went on to explain that she sought therapy following Félicité's death and explained that she recommended Sue Ryder's free grief counselling after dealing with her own "painful, long and scary journey".
The mum-of-one was just 17/18 when she found out her mum was ill but was told she would recover from her illness.
"I've kind of come to realise that the leukaemia that she had wasn't really something that you could really get better from," she explained.
The Tomlinson family were left devastated when Félicité died just several years after their mum (Tatt Chat/Youtube)Reflecting on her mum's diagnosis, Lottie added: "I think she always was so determined to try and fight it as much as she could, she would never, she was never going to admit to the fact that there was a low survival rate so we kind of always had hope that she would get through it and she went straight down to London to get the best care."
Johannah was treated in London before being transferred to the Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield, South Yorks, close to her home in Doncaster.
She died just eight months after her diagnosis after several transfusions and different treatments failed to work.
"I think she still didn't accept it right up until the end, I think she felt if she started having these conversations that she might not get better," said Lottie.
Following Félicité's death in 2019, Lottie recalled being in a state of "disbelief" after the death of their mother was still "fresh".
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Lottie added: "So to lose Fizz so soon after, it just felt like such a blow and it kind of felt like where is this going to end?"
A coroner ruled that the fashion-loving teen tragically died after accidentally creating a "perfect storm" of drugs but indicated that there had been no reason to suggest it was a "deliberate act to end her life".