Dark Thoughts and Suicide
Suicide prevention week was just last month, on the 6th - 12th of September. World Suicide Prevention Day was on Thursday the 10th of September. World Mental Health Day was the 10th of this month
One month on from Suicide Prevention week, three days after world Mental Health Day, on Wednesday the 16th of October 2019 my younger brother took his own life. He was 38.
It took me quite a few days to figure out what I wanted this blog to say, why I was writing it, and I think I have it finally figured out. There are three reasons I am writing this
and for me, all three of these are done in writing.
Right now you may be asking 'how can you be writing a blog at a time like this?', well, writing is how I process things. I talk and write them out.
One of the problems with grief is we don't know what's 'normal'. We know there is no 'normal', but we still want to be it. And I've tried to be normal, but I don't know how to be anything other than this. Processing this the only way I know how. Processing through writing.
I suppose in some ways I'm one of the lucky ones who can translate this kind of trauma into something. I can create something from and with it, rather than allow it to consume me whole while I sit being digested by life.
I'm sitting here, in a wee hotel room in Dunoon at this minute; we had a wee break booked a while ago, before all this. I obviously hummed and hawed over whether to go or not, but I knew I had to get away from the four walls, which - when in this kind of mind frame - can themselves feel and act like a coffin.
I had to get out of the house, I had to get out of the city, I had to get away from it; from his things, from the memories, from myself. I needed the physical distance to help me get some mental distance. Because I'm not sure how I would cope with it otherwise. And I'm glad I chose to go, because I think it helped give me a better perspective being further from it all.
So, here is my perspective
Grief is so fundamental to us; it's an inevitable and immutable fact of our lives, we will all experience grief. And while we vaguely know what grief is, it often feels more like an intangible unformulated concept rather than a real lived experience we are destined to go through.
From what I can see, grief seems to be that thing you go through when someone you love dies; it's how you feel, how you act, what you say and do in the worst situation in your life to survive it. It's how we cope with loss.
And while this is so fundamental to our lives, while it's inevitable and immutable, we rarely talk about it, except when we experience it.
I've gone over and over it all every day, since day one. It's cruel how hindsight works, it's like your vision is completely clear and you can see how to change things. Although in reality, this in itself is an impossibility, you cannot change things, if you could, they would be different.
Watching someone you love deteriorate and self destruct in front of you is itself a form of torture, and knowing there is nothing you can do to help or change that path, while simultaneously feeling responsible for changing it equally so. The guilt and regret which comes with it are painful.
I have so many regrets and what if's in my mind that won't leave me alone. I feel responsible for the fact that he is not here, that it was my job, as his big sister, to ensure he made it. And I let him down badly. The last thing I said to him was via text, I said to take care of himself, that he needed to focus on himself right now, what he needs, how he feels, how to get better. At the time, I thought he had heard me, looking back now, I see how little he really heard, and how vulnerable he really was.
I've wished I could change this, wished I could make him better, wished I could talk him down from the edge of that mountain he was standing on. But it is unbearably impossible now. And that is the most painful part of all. This is unchangeable, you can't undo it, you can't help them, you can't go back. It's too late.
I believed we had said all the right things, I believed we had done all the right things. I believed it had paid off and he was going to be ok.
Now, well now, I don't know if I believe there are any right combination of words or actions which can help someone in that place. I don't know if there is anything which can help someone in that place see anything else or think of any other way out other than the path they are on; not without a proper professional support system, without the proper stable structure to build a foundation on for a life with mental health issues.
Without that professional support system, It's a losing battle you fight by yourself trying to convince someone to continue living.
We have have a problem. 12 men a day in the UK take their own lives, 76% of male deaths are due to suicide, suicide kills more men under the age of 45 than any other cause. The highest male suicide rate in 2018 was in our home, Scotland.
My brother is one of the 12 men who took their life in the UK on Wednesday the 16th of October this year. My brother exhibited all the risk factors
We had awareness, he had awareness, awareness did not prevent him taking his life.
We had advice, we had conversations, we had talks about the future, we listened to him, we allowed him to express his sadness, pain and frustration. None of this prevented him taking his life.
None of it made a bit of difference. Without the professional support structure behind us, we could do nothing but offer him platitudes, a place to vent and a path forward when he was ready.
Suicidal people don't need platitudes, they need a fully functioning support system and structure behind them to hold them up while they go through this and help them come out the other end. They need something which they know will be there when they are ready.
They need for us as a society to understand the reasons they have got to that point where they feel the only answer they can find to their problems is to die. They need for us as a society to change how we treat each other, how we interact with and communicate with each other. They need, as we all do, a society that cares enough to make an effort.
And they need to have hope. To prevent a suicidal act takes a lot of work, in a lot of areas. It doesn't and it can't rely solely on a suicidal person 'reaching out and talking or not being alone, it can't and shouldn't rely solely on the suicidal person's family and friends taking on the psychological trauma and emotional burden of trying to convince someone they love to stay alive.
Family and friends of the suicidal person likely have their own mental health issues they have to deal with, so to put this on them alone is completely irresponsible and simply continues the cycle of psychological pain and possible suicides - suicide cluster means those who cared about and who were around the person who takes their own life, are themselves at risk of suicide. The added stress of worrying about those around the person who took their life, on top of the grief and loss can feel like having 2-ton cars on each shoulder.
There are lots of sites we can visit, this NHS website is, well, to be blunt, extremely unhelpful in terms of supporting those who have been through a bereavement. It feels like a tips and hints site rather than a professional NHS site about bereavement for those who have been left behind.
There has to be a support system in place which involves more than platitudes and campaigns for awareness. There has to be more than asking a suicidal person to 'reach out' and 'talk'. These things are important but they are part of the fight against the suicide epidemic, not the sole solution to it.
The responsibility of suicidal friends and family should not be left to the individuals
And we have to talk openly about suicide, we have to be willing to listen to those who are suicidal. The shame and guilt which comes with having suicidal thoughts are only intensified by the fact our society believes it to be shameful, a weakness, something we can't talk about.
I'm back in Glasgow now, as soon as we got back into the city, my mood changed. My perspective changed. I'm glad I wrote so much of this while I was away, because it would likely have been a whole different piece had I stayed here.
When you are grieving, I believe you do whatever you have to do, whatever it is, whether it's distractions, whether it's taking a break away. Whatever it is, you do it.
You will likely feel anger, guilt, shame, hurt, abandonment, depression. You will feel it all, or you may feel nothing and be completely numb. It's ok.
It's also ok to feel happy after losing someone, it's ok to laugh, it's ok to enjoy yourself. Your life doesn't have to and should not end with theirs.
Experiencing a loss of someone you love will perhaps give you a sense of how fragile and fleeting it all is, it may make you see things so clearly, or it may make things even more confusing, whatever you are feeling, it is 'normal', it's normal for you, and you are the one having to go through this.
What I would say is we may have to continue to remind ourselves ITS NOT OUR FAULT.
If you are feeling depressed, if you are feeling suicidal, please ask for help. And please try to remember that the help won't always be what you want it to be, sometimes those who love you are trying to give you want you need, not what you want.
Lastly, please, please do NOT mix medication and alcohol!
This combination can be fatal.
If your medication isn't helping, talk to your doctor.
Please stay away from drink when you are going through this, alcohol is a depressant and decreases inhibitions, we all know this, we know what it means, if you are already in a vulnerable emotional state drinking will not help you. Drinking while on medication for any mental health issue is not going to help you.
If you take anything from my brother's suicide, let it be this one thing, take your medication, don't touch the drink.
For my brother
One month on from Suicide Prevention week, three days after world Mental Health Day, on Wednesday the 16th of October 2019 my younger brother took his own life. He was 38.
It took me quite a few days to figure out what I wanted this blog to say, why I was writing it, and I think I have it finally figured out. There are three reasons I am writing this
- I want to talk about grief
- I want to talk about suicide awareness and prevention
- I want to use this painful loss to try to help others
and for me, all three of these are done in writing.
Right now you may be asking 'how can you be writing a blog at a time like this?', well, writing is how I process things. I talk and write them out.
One of the problems with grief is we don't know what's 'normal'. We know there is no 'normal', but we still want to be it. And I've tried to be normal, but I don't know how to be anything other than this. Processing this the only way I know how. Processing through writing.
I suppose in some ways I'm one of the lucky ones who can translate this kind of trauma into something. I can create something from and with it, rather than allow it to consume me whole while I sit being digested by life.
Grief
I want to talk about grief, I want to talk about my grief and I want people to talk to me about their grief.
We have to talk about it.
I had to get out of the house, I had to get out of the city, I had to get away from it; from his things, from the memories, from myself. I needed the physical distance to help me get some mental distance. Because I'm not sure how I would cope with it otherwise. And I'm glad I chose to go, because I think it helped give me a better perspective being further from it all.
So, here is my perspective
Grief is so fundamental to us; it's an inevitable and immutable fact of our lives, we will all experience grief. And while we vaguely know what grief is, it often feels more like an intangible unformulated concept rather than a real lived experience we are destined to go through.
From what I can see, grief seems to be that thing you go through when someone you love dies; it's how you feel, how you act, what you say and do in the worst situation in your life to survive it. It's how we cope with loss.
And while this is so fundamental to our lives, while it's inevitable and immutable, we rarely talk about it, except when we experience it.
Grief, Suicide and the Impact on The Bereaved
The impact of losing someone you love, to suicide, is under-researched and so not well understood. When someone you love takes their own life, this adds some complexity to the rollercoaster of emotional experience.
Grief can affect you in so many ways, all kinds of ways: uncontrollable sobbing, numbness, anger, confusion memory loss, disbelief and dissociation. I've experienced all of these in the last week or so.
When we are grieving we often forget to be aware of ourselves, and yet, we are hyperaware of almost everything. We don't want to eat, we don't want to sleep, but we do want to sleep because at least it's a break from this mental exhaustion. Even the numbness and dissociation are a relief - while themselves provoking feelings of guilt 'I'm not sad enough, I should be crying more'.
These are all 'normal' I think. I believe that whatever you experience is normal. And it's necessary to experience them, to feel them, to allow yourself to feel and be angry, to feel and be sad, to feel and be confused, to feel and be numb.
I've always found myself to be someone who goes through all the stages of grief all at once. I wonder if anyone else does that?
You can go in and out for a while, through shock, anger, depression, bargaining, acceptance, and back again, in one big grief stage circle.
You can go in and out for a while, through shock, anger, depression, bargaining, acceptance, and back again, in one big grief stage circle.
Watching someone you love deteriorate and self destruct in front of you is itself a form of torture, and knowing there is nothing you can do to help or change that path, while simultaneously feeling responsible for changing it equally so. The guilt and regret which comes with it are painful.
I have so many regrets and what if's in my mind that won't leave me alone. I feel responsible for the fact that he is not here, that it was my job, as his big sister, to ensure he made it. And I let him down badly. The last thing I said to him was via text, I said to take care of himself, that he needed to focus on himself right now, what he needs, how he feels, how to get better. At the time, I thought he had heard me, looking back now, I see how little he really heard, and how vulnerable he really was.
I've wished I could change this, wished I could make him better, wished I could talk him down from the edge of that mountain he was standing on. But it is unbearably impossible now. And that is the most painful part of all. This is unchangeable, you can't undo it, you can't help them, you can't go back. It's too late.
Anger
for the last few days I've been stuck in the anger stage. It's quite something; you feel so angry at everything and everyone. Mostly, I've been angry at him. I'm angry at him for how he has hurt everyone who loved him. I'm angry at him for acting on the dark thoughts and voices in his head. I'm angry at him for leaving me here and I'm angry he has taken so much of me with him and left the rest behind to live with the loss.
I know we don't want to be angry at the person, we know they were obviously suffering and severely unhappy to have gotten to that point; but, we are allowed to be angry. It's ok to be angry at them.
I know we hear this all the time 'it's ok to be angry at them' but I don't think we feel that it is ok, I think we are so consumed with guilt about that we try not to be. I mean, how can you be angry at them? they were in pain and they felt so bad they had to end it.
The truth is, simply, I believe we are angry at them because they have gone and messed up our lives, messed up everyone else's lives around them, and yes, we are entitled to be angry at them for that.
I don't know how you are supposed to move on with the rest of your life without someone who had been there for the best part of 38 years of it. Someone who was so integral to who you are, a core piece of you gone, because they ended their life.
So yes, it is ok to be angry at them.
The Lead Up
My brother taking his own life was not a completely out of the blue shock to us. And yet, of course it was. He had been going through a rough time for a while. In fact most of his adult life he had mental health issues. However, the last few years he had seemed to be making progress. We talked my brother down from taking his own life not long before, a couple of weeks, a couple of times. We talked about and allowed him to talk openly and honestly about his suicidal feelings, without judgment.
And I believed, I really believed he was getting better. He had begun therapy and he had begun taking medication. He seemed happier, more positive - still in pain no doubt but he seemed like he was looking forward, that he had hope for a future. We were discussing how we could all move forward together and he began putting some of these plans into action.
I believed that him knowing we were here, knowing our door was always open, and we would move forward with him would give him something to hold onto, a foundation to start building himself back up from.
I believed we had said all the right things, I believed we had done all the right things. I believed it had paid off and he was going to be ok.
Now, well now, I don't know if I believe there are any right combination of words or actions which can help someone in that place. I don't know if there is anything which can help someone in that place see anything else or think of any other way out other than the path they are on; not without a proper professional support system, without the proper stable structure to build a foundation on for a life with mental health issues.
Without that professional support system, It's a losing battle you fight by yourself trying to convince someone to continue living.
We Have A Problem
In our society we talk a lot about 'suicide awareness and prevention', but what does that mean? How does awareness help? does awareness really prevent suicide?
We have have a problem. 12 men a day in the UK take their own lives, 76% of male deaths are due to suicide, suicide kills more men under the age of 45 than any other cause. The highest male suicide rate in 2018 was in our home, Scotland.
My brother is one of the 12 men who took their life in the UK on Wednesday the 16th of October this year. My brother exhibited all the risk factors
We had awareness, he had awareness, awareness did not prevent him taking his life.
We had advice, we had conversations, we had talks about the future, we listened to him, we allowed him to express his sadness, pain and frustration. None of this prevented him taking his life.
None of it made a bit of difference. Without the professional support structure behind us, we could do nothing but offer him platitudes, a place to vent and a path forward when he was ready.
Suicidal people don't need platitudes, they need a fully functioning support system and structure behind them to hold them up while they go through this and help them come out the other end. They need something which they know will be there when they are ready.
They need for us as a society to understand the reasons they have got to that point where they feel the only answer they can find to their problems is to die. They need for us as a society to change how we treat each other, how we interact with and communicate with each other. They need, as we all do, a society that cares enough to make an effort.
And they need to have hope. To prevent a suicidal act takes a lot of work, in a lot of areas. It doesn't and it can't rely solely on a suicidal person 'reaching out and talking or not being alone, it can't and shouldn't rely solely on the suicidal person's family and friends taking on the psychological trauma and emotional burden of trying to convince someone they love to stay alive.
Family and friends of the suicidal person likely have their own mental health issues they have to deal with, so to put this on them alone is completely irresponsible and simply continues the cycle of psychological pain and possible suicides - suicide cluster means those who cared about and who were around the person who takes their own life, are themselves at risk of suicide. The added stress of worrying about those around the person who took their life, on top of the grief and loss can feel like having 2-ton cars on each shoulder.
There are lots of sites we can visit, this NHS website is, well, to be blunt, extremely unhelpful in terms of supporting those who have been through a bereavement. It feels like a tips and hints site rather than a professional NHS site about bereavement for those who have been left behind.
There has to be a support system in place which involves more than platitudes and campaigns for awareness. There has to be more than asking a suicidal person to 'reach out' and 'talk'. These things are important but they are part of the fight against the suicide epidemic, not the sole solution to it.
The responsibility of suicidal friends and family should not be left to the individuals
And we have to talk openly about suicide, we have to be willing to listen to those who are suicidal. The shame and guilt which comes with having suicidal thoughts are only intensified by the fact our society believes it to be shameful, a weakness, something we can't talk about.
TL;DR
I'm back in Glasgow now, as soon as we got back into the city, my mood changed. My perspective changed. I'm glad I wrote so much of this while I was away, because it would likely have been a whole different piece had I stayed here.
When you are grieving, I believe you do whatever you have to do, whatever it is, whether it's distractions, whether it's taking a break away. Whatever it is, you do it.
You will likely feel anger, guilt, shame, hurt, abandonment, depression. You will feel it all, or you may feel nothing and be completely numb. It's ok.
It's also ok to feel happy after losing someone, it's ok to laugh, it's ok to enjoy yourself. Your life doesn't have to and should not end with theirs.
Experiencing a loss of someone you love will perhaps give you a sense of how fragile and fleeting it all is, it may make you see things so clearly, or it may make things even more confusing, whatever you are feeling, it is 'normal', it's normal for you, and you are the one having to go through this.
What I would say is we may have to continue to remind ourselves ITS NOT OUR FAULT.
For Those Who Have Felt That Familiar Pull Of Dark Thoughts and Suicide
When you are feeling so low that ending your life seems like a viable option DO. NOT. SUFFER.
Do NOT wallow in the mental pain, do NOT engulf yourself in it. Feel it, definitely, but do NOT sit in it, don't live in it.
Whatever it is you're going through - whether grief, loss, relationship breakup, family breakdown, debt, job loss - it hurts, but it's temporary. And I know it doesn't feel like that, but it is temporary. Please don't make a permanent decision on temporary pain. Give yourself some time and some distance from this thing that's hurting you. It can make a difference. You CAN make it.
You are not alone! there are so many people who feel similar, who are going through similar, you are not alone in this.
If you are feeling depressed, if you are feeling suicidal, please ask for help. And please try to remember that the help won't always be what you want it to be, sometimes those who love you are trying to give you want you need, not what you want.
Lastly, please, please do NOT mix medication and alcohol!
This combination can be fatal.
If your medication isn't helping, talk to your doctor.
Please stay away from drink when you are going through this, alcohol is a depressant and decreases inhibitions, we all know this, we know what it means, if you are already in a vulnerable emotional state drinking will not help you. Drinking while on medication for any mental health issue is not going to help you.
If you take anything from my brother's suicide, let it be this one thing, take your medication, don't touch the drink.
For my brother
Thanks for sharing, Jo.
ReplyDeleteJust talking about this may help you, in ever so small a way even though the pain is still very, very raw.
Take care of you and yours.
Stephen Parry