Three years on

It's the anniversary of Simon's death today, three years have passed now since that life changing phone call. I've been looking back at old blog posts and I'm struck by how much better I'm feeling about this date that looms over me every year. The first two anniversaries were hard, really hard. I think the first year was such a blur, so much happened that when I realised a year had passed I didn't really feel I'd properly mourned him, everything still felt so raw.
By the time of the second anniversary I was feeling more accepting, less overwhelmed by it but as the date drew near I found myself dreaming of those early days again, and then with Robin Williams' death it felt like the newly formed scab had been picked off and I was reminded that although I'd come a long way, the feeling of loss was still just there, under the surface.
So it's now three years and I won't pretend there wasn't a feeling of trepidation as the date drew near but despite my fears this year it's different. I'm beginning to hope that scab has finally healed. I still have a scar of course, no death occurs without leaving some mark on those left behind and suicide is such a violent way to lose someone, they are ripped from your existence and and for a while you feel broken.  I wondered about writing a post today, the first year I still needed the outlet, last year, in response to Robin Williams' death I wrote about suicide not being selfish.  Did I need to write today? I'm not feeling fragile, I don't need the healing balm of writing today. And then I realised that is why I need to write this post today. It's for me but also for anybody reading it who is also mourning the death of a loved one through suicide. They call us suicide survivors as we somehow manage to keep on going after hearing the news nobody should ever hear, news that changes us irreparably.  I am a survivor but more than that I'm living, not just getting through each day, not waking every morning with that heavy feeling of loss deep in the pit of my abdomen. I am happy. Not always, sometimes I'm sad or angry or worried but these feelings aren't related to Simon any more. For a long time it was as if my grief was tangled up with who I am, even as those intense first days, weeks and months passed, even when I wrote about feeling better, I still felt that his suicide cast a shadow deep into my soul.
I'm finally starting to feel freer, there will always be a Simon sized hole in my life but it's not what defines me.
If you are grieving somebody who has died by suicide then my thoughts are with you, be gentle to yourself and give yourself time, all the time you need. If you're concerned that somebody you know may be feeling suicidal then talk to them, and more importantly listen to them and believe them. There is some useful advice here.
It's the third anniversary of my brother's suicide and for the first year since it happened I haven't cried, today there will be more smiles than tears.

"Boys don't cry" is killing our men

I've just finished watching tonight's Panorama on BBC1 in which Simon Jack (whose father died by suicide) looked at male suicide in the UK, the biggest killer of men under 50.
Naturally it's a topic that resonates deeply with me, Simon was in many ways a 'typical' male suicide. He was 37, had drug problems, was living alone after the end of a long term relationship, was in debt and had always found it hard to open up emotionally. Since his death I've come to firmly believe that openly talking about depression and suicide is so important, it's not a magic wand of course, not when mental health services are so patchy in this country, but when the rates between male and female suicides are so disparate it points to the damage done to men who learn from a young age that "boys don't cry".
As a relative of somebody who killed himself I do however, sometimes pause before posting something on social media. I'm acutely aware that I don't want to make somebody suicidal feel more guilty. After a high profile suicide there are always the inevitable "selfish" and "not thinking about their family" comments. I beg to differ of course, without presuming to know what's going through somebody's head when they decide to kill themselves I'm willing to bet they're more likely to believe they are a burden and their family and friends will be better off without them than they're planning their death without a second thought to their loved ones. It does concern me therefore that when I talk about my devastating loss it may be construed the wrong way, that I'm trying to shame people into staying alive. However, what I'm hoping to convey is that I don't believe that anybody bereaved by suicide ever feels a burden has been lifted, no matter what happened previously and whatever problems led them to that final decision. To anybody considering suicide I would say this, despite all of our ignorant and thoughtless comments, we would always choose to continue to live with you than without you. This isn't to make you feel guilty, feeling suicidal shouldn't be seen as a shameful act, please think of it as releasing you from your burden of worrying about us. Talk to us, talk to professionals, talk to someone.  It can get better and we can wait with you for as long as you need. Depression is not weakness, feeling suicidal is not wallowing. As a society we need to stop the man up comments and ignore those who have decided - without any medical knowledge or experience - that depression is a first world problem. Remember the old HIV advert in the 1980s with the iceberg and "Don't die of ignorance" slogan? I think our attitude to depression, particularly in men is a bit like that. The iceberg of shame and stigma looms there menacingly, dark and cold. It's time now to take a pickaxe to that ice, people shouldn't be dying because they don't feel they can talk. Boys being taught that they shouldn't show their emotions, they shouldn't cry, is ultimately killing our men.

A little dip

I haven't updated this blog for a while, life goes on and learning to live with the loss of Simon I think means gradually not feeling the need to write both about him as a person and about how I'm dealing with his death. When I first started the blog I didn't have any sort of a plan, just a desperate need for some sort of pressure valve, a way to free my head from the thoughts that overwhelmed me, day and night.
So those first few posts were almost a necessity, in the months following his suicide I remember needing to tap my fingers against my thumb to try to distract myself, to stem the tears when they threatened to fall again. Crying is cathartic at times but I was washed out, scared to walk into town in case they started to fall in front of strangers. I was fortunate to receive so many messages of love and support, I wasn't alone yet so often felt it as I struggled to verbalise my thoughts - the words so often stuck by the lump in my throat. Eventually I realised I needed an outlet and so began to write, of the grief, the confusion, the fear, the anger... And it helped, slowly my head felt less full, the intensity of those early months of grief passed. No doubt that would still have happened naturally as time went on but I believe writing helped ease that time a little.
I needed to write about Simon too, to remember the person he was. For a while I was consumed by the thought that he would be forgotten, there is no grave to mark that he was once here as we scattered his ashes. I've reconciled myself with that now, those of us who knew and loved him won't forget him ever and a few words on a headstone won't tell people in the future of the kind, funny, infuriating, opinionated and flawed man we knew and he doesn't need to be remembered by history. More recently I've written posts I hope help other people, both those feeling depressed and suicidal and those bereaved by suicide. This isn't entirely altruistic, I need to feel something good can come from losing Simon, that his death wasn't the end of our relationship but a catalyst for me to achieve something positive in his memory.
Recently though I've not been able to write, I've thought about it but the words wouldn't come. For a few weeks I found myself waking every morning with a deep sadness, not necessarily thinking of Simon, but  feeling that a heavy weight was on my chest. It wasn't depression, I'm not going to suggest my few weeks in a dip comes anywhere near what people who suffer depression for weeks, months and years go through. It was however, a reminder that nobody should feel they're immune to depression, my low mood passed but I'm not naive or vain enough to believe that it won't happen again or that it won't develop into something more. It wasn't an inner strength that lifted me, I was just fortunate that it was nothing more than a short period of the blues. What I have been struck by though is my reluctance to tell anybody, I often write of how depression isn't shameful, and the language used when discussing the illness isn't helpful - nobody admits to cancer or confesses they've had a migraine after all - and yet I struggled to try talk about even my brief low. Partly I think that's because I didn't (still don't) want to compare what I felt to true depression but also because it felt frightening to say out loud that I was struggling a bit.
The crushing feeling has gone now, I'm back to normal (whatever that means!) but perhaps this has been a reminder that I still need this outlet now and again. For all those of you who have ever read my jumbled thoughts, thank you, I genuinely appreciate the time you take to read and comment on my posts.

World Suicide Prevention Day 2014

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day 2014, a day that is obviously close to my heart. In England and Wales suicide is the leading cause of death in men under the age of 50. Worldwide every year almost one million people die by suicide, that's about 1 death every 40 seconds. More people die by suicide yearly than by homicide and war combined.
When I first started writing this blog it was for me, I needed an outlet for my overwhelming thoughts and feelings and realised I needed to write them down to release them. Gradually though it became more than that, people started thanking me and telling me their stories about suicide, depression and other mental health issues. One thing that struck me after Simon died was how difficult some people found it to say the word "suicide". People who have felt depressed or suicidal in the past have " confessed" it to me. I've been reminded of the scene in St Elmo's Fire where Wendy takes Billy home and warns him that her mother finds it difficult to utter certain words;

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T48Zx5Ikkzo

I remember when people found it difficult to use the word "breast" when talking about breast cancer, instead referring to it as "women's cancer". These days that stigma seems silly. Yet there is still a taboo when it comes to talking about suicide or feeling suicidal, about depression, mental health or addiction.
So now this blog is about using those words, without fear or shame. It's about recognising suicide is a global problem and that it's only by working together, by talking and listening that we might be able to start to reduce those horrifying statistics. There is much to be done, mental health services are too often insufficient, too many people fall through the gaps. However, perhaps if we start to talk, without judgement or prejudice, if we recognise that depression is an illness and no more shameful than cancer, that addicts are more than their habits, that language like "man up" and "grow some balls" may stop men seeking help, then it'll be a start and maybe we can push for more research and more help for those who need it.

In memory of Simon I'm supporting Calm's Man Down initiative,
"The Man Down campaign is all about raising awareness of the fact that suicide is now the biggest killer of men under 50.  It’s about encouraging men to recognise when they are finding life difficult and talk to someone, rather than reach a point of crisis, and it’s about encouraging us all to look out for our mates…"

https://www.thecalmzone.net/2014/09/mandown-launches-wednesday-on-merseyside/

For anybody feeling suicidal or for those concerned that somebody they know may be having suicidal thoughts Grassroots Suicide Prevention have today released an app to help prevent suicides, available on IoS and Android;

http://prevent-suicide.org.uk/

Please don't tell me suicide is selfish

Yesterday I wrote about Robin Williams and mentioned that at that point I'd not seen any talk of selfishness or cowardice. Of course since then there have been numerous examples, from Alan Brazil on TalkSport who said he has no sympathy, to Fox News anchorman Shepard Smith who suggested those who kill themselves are cowards (he has since apologised), through to the comments on social media and in the newspapers from the misinformed, ignorant or heartless.
When a loved one takes their life the aftermath is beyond anything I can really describe. Any sudden death is a terrible and tragic shock but with suicide comes so many questions, so much blame. After Simon died I tried to remember conversations we'd had, had I missed something? I trawled the internet looking for clues. There were none. Simon didn't have Robin Williams' fame and riches but he grew up in a stable and loving family. Even after he served time in prison we were there for him, visiting him when he was inside, providing a bed for him afterwards, listening to him when he talked without (I hope) judging him. Like Robin Williams though it's pointless discussing what he had. The sad fact is that he had a black hole in him, one he tried to fix with drugs but they just ripped the hole wider until it overwhelmed him. I can wonder whether Mum's death was a catalyst but perhaps it made no difference and he would have suffered the same anyway. The point is none of us can know the exact reasons why a person reaches the moment when suicide seems the only option. I don't know why it was that day, two years ago that Simon couldn't take any more and for all the media supposition we can't know why Robin Williams reached the moment where he couldn't bear it any longer. His moment will not be the same as another person's moment and there is never a straightforward reason why, depression is more complicated than that. What I never needed to hear afterwards though was that Simon had been selfish or that he had so much to live for.
When you lose someone to suicide you just need to hear "I'm sorry" or I'm here if you need me". No matter how well meaning the sentiment, hearing that your loved one chose to leave you and was selfish to make that choice is something that for me at least would have added to the anguish. I'm aware I can't talk for all those affected by suicide loss, some people do feel their loved one's decision was selfish. That is their right, it is not the right of others to make that decision. Robin Williams' family will be in complete turmoil right now, their lives have been torn apart, a myriad of competing thoughts will be filling their heads so much that they feel they could explode. They need time and space to slowly begin to learn to live without him there with them. They don't need people who only knew him through a screen saying he was selfish. People who kill themselves have reached a point where they can take no more, they may believe they are a burden to others. They do not choose to leave their loved ones behind, they don't feel they have any other choice other than ending the hopeless, overwhelming pain. When a person dies by suicide those left behind need compassion. Even if you still believe it's a selfish act I ask you what you hope to achieve by expressing those thoughts publicly? You are entitled to your beliefs of course but if you are concerned for the family left grieving then please keep those thoughts to yourself. The person who has died couldn't be kind to themselves, family will be blaming themselves, this is the time for you to do nothing more than to be kind.

O Captain! My Captain!

Tomorrow (13th August) will mark the second anniversary of Simon's death and if I'm honest I've been going through a bit of a rough patch recently. I've not been depressed, I wouldn't dishonour those who actually suffer depression by suggesting that, but if life is a roller coaster then I've been in a dip.
My cousin died of a heart attack which was obviously a terrible shock and recently I've been feeling pretty socially inept. I went on an annual camping weekend with forum friends but spent much of the time feeling awkward and out of place. I think knowing the anniversary is looming is really what's at the root of everything though, I've not been sleeping well and have been having flashbacks again.
So I've been planning to write something for a few days -  in the past it's helped me to clear my head, it's as if writing out the words releases the jumble of thoughts. Then last night I heard the devastating news that Robin Williams had died, most likely by suicide. Like many people I took to Twitter and among the many tributes I was touched to read several tweets that acknowledged depression as an illness and others that linked to helplines for the depressed and suicidal. I didn't spot any suggestions of cowardice or selfishness, although I've little doubt they're out there. I will never believe that Simon was selfish or a coward. I read an analogy last night comparing feeling suicidal to being on fire, if you're burning then you'd do anything to put out the flames; Simon, Robin Williams and all those who end their lives by suicide couldn't stand that pain any longer. It's a pain most of us won't know but I hope we can feel compassion and empathy for those who are suicidal. I did read a couple of tweets last night mentioning the thousands of suicide victims who won't be in the news today and while that's true, we won't hear their names, I don't think that means Robin Williams' sad death shouldn't be reported and grieved over. He was a man known to millions, his films have been enjoyed for decades. Dead Poets Society is one of my favourite films of all time. Before children I rarely cried at films (afterwards anything can set me off) but the "O Captain! My Captain!" scene was guaranteed to move me to tears, no matter how many times I watched it. It will be even more poignant and heartbreaking next time I watch it. Robin's death being headline news does not make the countless other deaths by suicide any less tragic or less important. Williams' death should be reported, I don't feel any bitterness that Simon's death didn't receive any media coverage. If anything I'm grateful that we were able to grieve privately and away from the world's cameras. I hope his family and friends will be given the space they need right now, I can't imagine feeling torn apart while being under the watchful gaze of the media. They are beginning their new lives as those left behind and my thoughts are with them and all those who have heard that most devastating news recently. Two years on and I'm mostly in a much better place than they will be right now. I've slowly put myself back together, it's an imperfect repair and the seams come apart at times but the patched up me will be ok, as I hope they will in time. Right now is not a time for criticising the cult of celebrity, instead perhaps Robin Williams' death can be a catalyst for open, frank and compassionate discussion of depression, addiction and suicide. Perhaps just one person will pick up the phone and ask for help today because they've see a helpline on Twitter or Facebook.
With that in mind here is a link to a list of international suicide prevention helplines. It's a US site and has a separate link at the top of the page for US helplines by state.
Depression lies but it is not a weakness. Picking up the phone and asking for help is not an admission of anything, you don't admit to cancer or heart disease, neither should you feel you should admit you have depression. Don't let shame stop you for you have nothing to be ashamed about. This might be the first step to putting out those flames.

My advice to those recently bereaved by suicide

On Saturday my brother, Rob married his long term girlfriend Charlotte. It was a day we have all been looking forward to for a long time but obviously missed loved ones were always going to be conspicuous by their absence. This was particularly true of Simon who could so easily have been stood alongside me in the photographs. If only...
However, despite my pre-wedding fear that I would find the day especially hard, I actually didn't. It was a day filled with love and laughter and although I wish with all my heart that Simon could have been there, I more than got through it, it was actually almost a perfect day and I don't think I've felt as happy for years.
So it's almost two years now and I can honestly say I'm doing well. I'm never going to completely recover from losing my brother to suicide, I don't actually think it's possible but I'm ok with that and I know that the pain I once thought would consume me won't. Life is good. Not always but it's more good than bad and that's enough.

Sadly in the almost two years since Simon ended his life many more people have also lost loved ones to suicide. If I was going to give advice to somebody recently bereaved by suicide I think I would say the following,

 1. Whatever you're feeling is ok, chances are you can't even name all those feelings right now as they compete for space in your brain. Don't feel guilty if anger is one of the emotions you're experiencing. The person you love chose to die and whilst it's not a selfish act, it is still an act that has left you shocked to your very core. Acknowledge your anger then you can let it go.
 
 2. If you feel as if your head is going to explode then find an outlet that allows you even a brief moment of peace. The thoughts will come back but finding something else to concentrate on, even for a little while will give you just enough strength to carry on. Reading and later writing was my way of coping, I often read through the night.

 3. Talk, scream, cry, rage but don't forget to laugh. You are still here and although your world has currently been shaken from its axis you are going to carry on. As much as you'd love to go back in time it can't happen so remember the person you've lost by honouring the good times you shared. Then go and make new good times, you deserve it.

4. The person you loved chose to end their life because dying became less frightening than living. It wasn't an easy choice for them, at the moment they died it probably felt the only choice. They did not choose to leave you, dying wasn't easy but they felt life had become impossible.

 5. It wasn't your fault. Whilst right now you will be sure there was something you could or should have done differently, they made the decision, you didn't make it for them. You are no more to blame than when somebody dies of cancer or heart disease. You may not have spotted the signs because they kept them hidden from you or you may have tried your very best to get them help, whatever you did or didn't do doesn't make it your fault.

 6. It will get better. Right now you can't believe that, chances are you don't want to because feeling better means moving on without them. You have to move on though, they ended their life, they didn't end yours. It will get better and you will be ok with it getting better.  

This is my advice based on my experience, it's not meant to be prescriptive, you must do what is right for you. All I can really say is that I am so very sorry for your loss. It hurts like you can't imagine and there is nothing I can say that will stop that. That intense pain though, it doesn't last, honestly it doesn't.

If you have lost somebody to suicide and would like to write about it here, either about your loved one or about your own experience as somebody bereaved in this way, then please get in touch. Writing about it has helped me immensely and I would love to be able to help others similarly affected.