We Need To Talk About Suicide

The first step to addressing any problem, is admitting that there is one. Suicide is a problem. A catastrophically big problem. In the United Kingdom, it’s the leading cause of death among young people aged 20-34. But, I’m not here to talk about statistics, nor am I going to discuss suicide from an objective standpoint. This article is personal. At various stages in my life, I have gone through particularly difficult depressive episodes. I feel rather blessed to be able to write this article and share my story and insights with you. I have considered writing this piece for a few years but have always been concerned that doing so would affect my career. Recently however, I have come to accept myself – the way I am. I would say the good and the bad but I do not perceive my mental health struggles as constitutively negative. They have given me perspective. They have taught me to value love, friendship and family. They have taught me to appreciate temporary, fleeting moments of beauty – such as the sunset on my drive home from work; morning coffee; kindness in strangers. They have taught me the importance of values, such as honesty and integrity. They have induced an unquenchable thirst for life and taught me to seize every second, of every day, that I am on this planet.

So, if in the future, a particular company does not want to work with me because they stumbled across this article and learnt that at times, I have struggled with my mental health, then I would rather not work for that company. Far more people struggle with their mental health than we like to admit. If a future employer, or client is reading this, I have a message for you: with experience comes knowledge. This knowledge can be applied to help and elevate others. What is a good manager but someone that can understand, empathise and discuss real problems with real people? A good manager is one that can use their EQ to find solutions that ensure the mental health, motivation and productivity of their team. A manager like this – in my opinion – is a fundamental prerequisite to a flourishing business. People are not unconscious corporate zombies. We all have rich, complex, subjective lives. We need to treat our colleagues and direct reports accordingly – with genuine compassion, understanding and humanity. However, as individuals, we still fear the remnants of a lingering stigma, so we just stay silent about these things for fear of judgement and fear of professional repercussions. But, I will not stay quiet. We must talk about these things – even if doing so is difficult, awkward, embarrassing and uncomfortable. Other people’s ignorant perceptions, gossip, professional hindrance, these things are insignificant. Young lives, on the other hand, matter significantly. If I manage to help even one person by discussing my personal experiences openly and sharing the insights that I have learned from these experiences, then this article was worth writing. Let’s begin.

Despite how common suicidal feelings are amongst young people, suicide as a topic is still commonly conceived as taboo – something that should not be discussed in public. As Robert Duff explains:

“Some people seem to think that suicide is like Voldemort and we should never utter the name out loud, or… [if we] say it three times, suddenly someone will decide to kill themselves. That’s not how it works. In fact, I think that a lot of people kill themselves because it isn’t talked about.[i]”

Duff is right, the more we choose to ignore the fact that a lot of young people have suicidal thoughts, the worse this problem will get.

The societal stance to abstain from discussing suicide publicly is at best unhelpful, and at worst, dangerous.

It is time we became comfortable with the uncomfortable and confronted the issue head on. We can no longer speak of suicide in hushed tones – we need open, honest discussion.

We need to talk about suicide.

If any of the content in this article resonates with you, please speak to someone – a family member, a close friend, your boyfriend, girlfriend, or one of the caring individuals at the Samaritans. Anyone.

If your life is in danger, call 999 or go directly to emergency services.

Samaritans phone number – 116 123

• This number is free to call. They are available 24 hours a day – 365 days a year.

Samaritans text number – 07725909090

• Not many people know this, but you can text for support and advice at any time. Not everyone will feel confident enough to pick up the phone to ask for help – I know I have struggled to ring people when I needed it most. If you cannot bring yourself to call someone, please, text this number for some for some advice and support.

Section 1: FAQ and Addressing Misconceptions:

As a society, it is imperative we try to foster a better understanding of mental illness. The more understanding and compassionate we become, the less suicides will result – we will be better equipped to support individuals in a state of distress. The first step towards a better understanding of mental illness and suicide is achieved by abolishing unfounded and harmful misconceptions. So, I will begin by pre-empting and addressing common questions and statements about suicide.

Q_1: “Why would you want to kill yourself? Life isn’t that bad…”

A_1: Let’s make this clear – no one ever ‘wants’ to kill themselves. The notion that individuals think about suicide, or carry out a suicide attempt because they want to die is a gross and harmful simplification. Suicidal thoughts are a symptom of mental illness – this is something that people frequently forget. Mental illness, is an illness of the mind. Despite how self-evident this statement is, people still manage to fail to comprehend that mental illness necessarily affects the way one thinks and the thoughts one has. Someone struggling with mental illness is unlikely to be thinking the same way a non-sufferer is and to try to apply rational and logical reasoning to someone that is suicidal is to completely misunderstand the nature of mental illness. Yet people persist and (mistakenly) try to discern the ‘rationale’ or ‘logic’ behind thoughts of suicide and suicide attempts; but, suicide isn’t rational. Perhaps none of it makes sense from a ‘logical’ perspective but insisting on logical thinking from someone in the grips of a mental illness is like insisting that someone with a broken leg walks normally – logically, you shouldn’t do that^[ii]. Suicide is not a logical thought or choice – it is a deadly symptom of a broken and unhealthy mind – a symptom that many individuals suffering from mental illness experience:

 “The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill [themselves] doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill [themselves] the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flame yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.[iii]”

As Wallace mentions, it can be difficult for people that do not suffer from mental illness to conceptualise the state of suicidality. This is why we need to talk about mental illness more – to develop greater social consciousness and empathy around this issue.

Q_2: “I understand that mental illness is hard… but isn’t killing yourself when you have a family and friends a bit selfish?”

A_2: Unfortunately, I have heard this sentence uttered a few times; a few times too many:

“People pontificate, ‘Suicide is selfishness.’ Oafs argue this specious line for varying reason: to evade fingers of blame, to impress one’s audience with one’s mental fiber, to vent anger, or just because one lacks the necessary suffering to sympathise…[iv]”

It is time we completely abolish the attribution of selfishness to individuals that lose a tragic battle with a genuine and severe illness. When someone suddenly dies of a heart attack, or cancer, we do not ever describe that person as selfish. Yet, when a suicidal individual can no longer cope with the hell that they endure, people pontificate that such an individual was ‘selfish’ – a quitter. What people forget is that an individual that finally succumbs to suicide usually does so after years of struggle and relentless persistence – battling thoughts of suicide to try and protect their family:

 “Killing oneself is… a misnomer. We don’t kill ourselves. We are simply defeated by the long, hard struggle to stay alive. When somebody dies after a long illness, people are apt to say, with a note of approval, “He fought so hard.” And they are inclined to think, about a suicide, that no fight was involved, that somebody simply gave up. This is quite wrong[v].

The tendency to conceive suicide as a selfish act appears to stem from an inability to understand how an individual can carry out something knowing the full extent of the emotional cluster-f*ck that it will cause. To someone that has not experienced suicidality themselves, it may be difficult to comprehend how an individual can deliberately act in a way that causes so much harm to people they are supposed to love. Again, this reasoning is confused and undermines the severity of mental illness. Suicidal individuals love their family and friends as much as you or I – their struggle simply appears to be insurmountable whilst engulfed in flames of a crisis. Perceiving suicide as selfish is to undermine the extent of these individual’s suffering. Mentally-ill individuals are not acting selfishly when they take their own lives. As I explained above, suicide isn’t a rational, calculated decision. Suicidal individuals are seriously unwell and like any disease, it brings intense suffering. The first step to a better understanding of mental illness and suicide is to abolish these unfounded and harmful misconceptions. The view that suicide is selfish is an unjustified and grievous insult to those individuals that have lost their lives from mental illness. We do not slander the dead when their death results from physical illness – human decency requires that we extend the same courtesy to those that have lost their lives to mental illness. It is time we heeded the Latin aphorism:

De mortuis nil, nisi bonum dicendum est – of the dead, nothing but good is to be said.

If you conceive suicide as a selfish act please just note that your brain is not immune to mental health problems. Just because you haven’t felt the heat of the flames before, don’t make the mistake of thinking you cannot be burnt.

Q_3: Isn’t suicide just the ‘easy way out’ though?

A_3: No.

As Dean Burnett highlights, there are many ways to describe the sort of suffering that overrides a survival instinct that has evolved over millions of years, but “easy” isn’t an obvious one to go for[vi]. The sort of people that spout this sort of nonsense tend to also be the people that demand for the logic or reason behind a suicide. It is time they started being rational and logical themselves. There is nothing easy about suicide – not one single thing. What people really mean and fail to clarify is that it is arguably ‘harder’ to stick one’s problems out – that it is harder to fight the illness. Whilst an unhelpful statement, there is nonetheless an element of truth to this notion – it is certainly hard for a suicidal individual to choose to persist with their life – especially when they are fully aware that they may have to endure what they are experiencing for an extended period, only to later experience it again at a later stage or if they are unlucky, frequently throughout their lives. I believe this sentiment is what underpins Albert Camus’ assertion that:

“…in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself [vii].”

Camus is right – to an extent – it certainly takes a lot of courage to persist when you are in the depths of hell. However, this doesn’t logically entail that suicide is an easy option.

Section 2: Let’s Get Personal

Now I have addressed some common misconceptions about suicide, I want to discuss my personal experience of depression. The reason for doing so is that I believe that the more we keep these experiences to ourselves, the longer mental health will remain stigmatised. So, we need to talk and that’s what this section is about – real, open, honest discussion. Before I begin, I want to emphasise that mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, PTSD, schizophrenia and so on, are all experienced differently. No two people will have the same exact experience of these things. Matt Haig words it well:

“Minds are unique. They go wrong in unique ways. My mind went wrong in a slightly different way to how other minds go wrong. Our experience overlaps with other people’s, but it is never exactly the same experience. Umbrella labels like ‘depression’ (and ‘anxiety’ and ‘panic disorder’) are useful, but only if we appreciate that people do not all have the same precise experience of such things. Depression looks different to everyone. Pain is felt in different ways, to different degrees, and provokes different responses. That said, if [all discussions of mental health] had to replicate our exact experience of the world to be useful, the only [articles] worth reading would be written by ourselves. There is no right or wrong way to have depression, or have a panic attack, or to feel suicidal. These things just are.[viii]”

Therefore, when reading this section, it is important to remember that I am describing my personal experience; someone else who also suffers from depression may experience a completely different set of symptoms and have totally contrasting depressive episodes. This section is not to try and give a complete account of what it is like to live with depression – all persons with depression will experience things differently. The purpose of this section is to highlight the dangers of ignoring mental health issues and keeping things to yourself. Before I begin, I want to make it clear that this section contains potentially distressing anecdotes; I do not sugar-coat anything.

I would issue a ‘trigger-warning,’ but it seems rather ironic when talking about suicide.

My advice is if you are currently struggling with mental health issues, skip to section three where I offer some advice. If you believe that you are in a psychologically stable position and you are able to read some potentially distressing things, then read on. The purpose of this section is to provide a perspective for people that are not familiar with depression and suicidality. It’s extremely hard to describe suicidal feelings to someone that hasn’t experienced them first-hand, but I feel through honest anecdote, I may be able to foster at least a vague comprehension of what it is like; so, I will begin by describing my first suicidal episode which occurred during my second year of university.

I’d not been feeling right for some time. It was hard to put a finger on what exactly was ‘wrong.’ But, something was. I’d lost interest in, well, everything. This state, known as ‘anhedonia’ is essentially the inability to feel pleasure in normally pleasurable activities. Seeing or speaking to friends? No thanks. Good food? Lost my appetite weeks ago. Exercise? Don’t be silly. I barely had the energy to wash. I’d become cold, numb, distant from my normal self. Then, within the fortnight, my mental health rapidly deteriorated. What first began as a benign, sombre mood, mutated into something dark. Something self-destructive – something extremely dangerous. My thoughts were no longer apathetic – they were extremely distressing. I could no longer see a future and thoughts of suicide started creeping in. So, I slept. Hoping that when I woke up, the thoughts would have passed. I spent the following weeks in bed, only rising very occasionally to try and eat something. Hypersomnia – excessive sleeping – is an extremely common symptom amongst depressives.

“I didn’t want to wake up. I was having a better time asleep. And that’s really sad. It was almost like a reverse nightmare, like when you wake up from a nightmare, you’re so relieved. I woke up into a nightmare.”

– Ned Vizzini, ‘It’s Kind of a Funny Story[ix].’

This unhealthy period of slumber continued until one day, I couldn’t sleep. I sat up on the edge of my bed and immediately felt in danger. I wasn’t feeling the typical lethargy that usually anchored me to my bed-sheets. I felt anxious, extremely anxious, agitated and distressed. This day, I not only had passive thoughts to cause myself harm. I had genuine intent and finally, was capable. See, typically, depression makes even the most basic of tasks utterly exhausting. Therefore, on most of my gloomy days the only injury I’m likely to sustain is a bedsore. This day however, was different – I finally had the energy to carry out what I’d been thinking about for so long. Finally, I could get ‘relief’ from these tormenting, toxic thoughts. Consider the cliché of having an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. The angel provides a voice of reason – it rationalises your situation and provides you with sensible guidance. The devil, on the other hand, plants the seed of temptation and encourages you to proceed with actions that are not in your long-term interest. I had a devil on both shoulders – one suggesting I walk to the bridge, the other encouraging me to ‘man-up,’ go to the kitchen, get a knife, slit my wrists and be done with it. At least then I wouldn’t need to leave the house. Unfortunately, there were no ‘devils’ and these thoughts were my own – the voice of my depression. After a few minutes, I made my decision. I stood up, took a deep breath and tried to mentally prepare myself for what was required. Then, I heard the front door. Someone had come home. I panicked. I couldn’t let anyone see me in this state. I hadn’t washed in nearly three days, nor had I eaten in two. Anyone that saw the state I was in would have instantly known something was wrong. I jumped back in bed and tried to be as silent as possible. Lying there, motionless, trying to not make a sound, a wave of exhaustion swept over me. I fell asleep. Back to square one.

The following morning my mother rang me – endowed with maternal intuition she immediately sensed something was wrong – I wasn’t at university when I should have been. “What’s going on?” A simple question, yet I had no idea how to respond. Boys don’t talk about their feelings. Men certainly don’t talk about feelings. Not only did I feel embarrassed, I was extremely concerned of the impact that my honesty would have on my mother. How could I tell the woman that gave birth to me, that I’ve been thinking about killing myself? I sat there, silent – with the phone pressed against my ear. I tried to think of what to say. I knew I needed serious help – my life depended it. I simply couldn’t get the words out. Ned Vizzini explains the struggle of communicating when you’re suicidal:

“It’s so hard to talk when you [are thinking you might] kill yourself… it’s not a mental complaint – it’s a physical thing, like it’s physically hard to open your mouth and make the words come out. They don’t come out smooth and in conjunction with your brain the way normal people’s words do; they come out in chunks as if from a crushed-ice dispenser; you stumble on them as they gather behind your lower lip. So, you just keep quiet.[ix]”

I couldn’t find the words. Even if I could, I knew how much they would affect her. I played it down. I said that I had not attending university for a few weeks. That I was feeling mentally unwell. It was a start. That evening, my father was at my front door to collect me. Unfortunately, despite being surrounded by my loving family, a few days later – around 2.am, I found myself with a lock-knife blade hovering over my wrist. The devils were back and I could no longer tolerate them shouting when I was trying to sleep. I took a deep breath and traced the arteries of my inner-forearm. Up – not across. Up – not across. This mantra could have been one of my final thoughts. As I started applying pressure and felt the cold tip of blade pressing into my skin, the thought of my family crept to the forefront of my mind. The loving words my mother had spoken to me earlier that night sent chills down my spine and loosened my grip on the knife. I realised I couldn’t do this. At least not here, not now. Regardless of how much psychological distress I was experiencing, I knew that my mother would be the one to find me. Sat there with the knife still in my trembling hand, I realised something important:

Suicide doesn’t end the pain. It just passes it on to someone else.

I realised I could no longer hide this from my parents. I was now a very real danger to myself and urgently needed support to keep me from acting on these thoughts. I woke my mother up, in absolute hysteria. I spluttered through my tears. I told her that I was suicidal – I was going to hurt myself unless I got serious help. This conversation saved my life. Did it fix everything? No, not quite. The devils returned on a number of occasions, however they were now greeted with a firm and resounding ‘f*ck-off’ from my entire family, who always did everything in their power to support me and help me through those extremely tough periods in my life. Had I not spoken to my family shortly after the first incident and continued to be open and talk to them whenever I experience suicidal thoughts, I would most likely be dead by now. That is the blunt and uncomfortable truth. One of these episodes would have been fatal. I could not have done it on my own.

This leads on to the following section – advice for individuals suffering from mental illness and suicidal thoughts.

Section Two: Advice for Suicidal Individuals

Catch it early

You need to be vigilant and responsive. Often people that struggle with mental health have cyclical, or repetitive aspects to their suicidal episodes. For example, one key indication that something is awry, is that I lose interest in pleasurable activities and start sleeping all day. These for me, are warning signs. When I notice them; I know it’s time to take preventative measures. Now, whenever my mental health deteriorates, I do the following:

Step 1) Speak to my parents and/or brother.

Step 2) Surround myself with the people that love me.

Step 3) Go see my GP.

These steps sound simple, but they require a) that you are honest with your loved ones, b) that you speak up at the hardest times and c) that you get some professional medical help in place. Now these things aren’t always the easiest things to do, especially for the first time; so, let’s go through them in turn.

It’s time to talk

Speaking to your family about these issues is never an easy thing to do. But please take my word for it, it is worth struggling through a difficult few sentences – doing so may end up saving your life. The second suicidal episode I had, was about a year after the first. Despite returning home and being surrounded by my family, I was still suicidal. I took to my bed where I remained for the following days. I stopped eating, refused to drink and refused to take my medication. My mind, had broken. I lay there, motionless. All I could think about was the options I had to end the mental torment. My parents and brother tried their best to help – I simply refused to comply. I had given up and my body had started to shut down. My brother soon realised that I was ignoring all verbal communication. So, he and my parents went downstairs and left me in my room (something they had refused to do for the previous 24 hours). Then, he sent me a text, knowing that my phone was beside me. Whilst the spoken words of my family had not gotten through to me, this text hit home. My brother had sent me the following passage taken from Andrew Solomon’s ‘Noonday Demon:’

“Listen to the people who love you. Believe that they are worth living for even when you don’t believe it. Seek out the memories depression takes away and project them into the future. Be brave; be strong…Reason with yourself when you have lost your reason[x]”.”

I realised that, once again, I was allowing depression to win. I was ignoring the advice of the people that loved me. My brother however, wasn’t going to simply allow me to lie there and waste away, nor was he allowing me to forget how much my family loved me. My walls were still up but he was starting to chip away at them. When my brother returned, I tried to ignore what he was saying. He was talking too much sense. Being too logical – something which I couldn’t be in that particular moment. I tried my best to ignore him. He wasn’t having it. He dragged me from my bed, stood me up and looked me square in the face. He then told me that it was no longer just about me – my actions and my behaviour, were now severely affecting my family – all of them. The raw emotion in his voice and the look in his eyes is something that I will never forget. It’s not easy seeing how much your mental health issues affect the people you love. But, he wasn’t angry at me for being unwell. He was angry at my refusal to fight to get better. His words hit home and I realised it was still in my power to try and get better. After I’d spoken to my brother about how I’d been feeling and the thoughts I was having, the weight started to lift.

You see, sometimes people can help. Sometimes they can say the right things. For me, the constant reminder of my family’s love was enough to help me ride out the storm. It wasn’t easy, but it could have been a lot worse – it could have been fatal. The important thing is that I had a support network around me, because I had already spoken to my family about my mental health. They were aware and so they could help – I wasn’t fighting this on my own. You need to reach out for help. People aren’t psychic. If you take one message away from this article, it is that we need to talk to our friends and families about how we are really feeling. We often feel as though other people will not be able to understand the struggle we are going through and will simply brush off our intense psychological distress. We don’t bother asking for help because we think that we will be met with bemused looks and an awkward silence. When you are depressed, it may seem that no one will ever understand what you are going through:

“Men are never convinced of your reasons, of your sincerity, of the seriousness of your sufferings, except by your death. So long as you are alive, your case is doubtful; you have a right only to their scepticism.”

– Albert Camus, The Fall [xi].

Camus – although a wonderful novelist and thinker – is talking sh*t here.

Words are powerful beyond belief – we just need to learn how to use them better.

I promise you, if you speak honestly with those that care about you, they will listen. They may not immediately understand, but they will try their best and they will do what they can to help. I urge you – if you are struggling – stumble through those difficult sentences. Break down in tears if you need to. Just talk to someone. You will be surprised at how much of a relief it is to admit to someone that you need help. But remember, no-one can rescue you if no-one knows you need saving.

Guys, that applies to you too.

Ladies, please excuse me, but this one is for the guys. Before I begin, I want to clarify that this sub-section does not detract, or intend to undermine the reality that many women suffer from mental health issues. It is merely my attempt to communicate to guys, the reasons why I believe that statistically speaking – we are more likely to die from suicide than women.

Masculinity is killing us. In the United Kingdom, four times^[xii] as many men die from suicide than women:

^{Suicide trends over the last 30 years (1984-2014)}

I think part of the reason that men are statistically more likely to kill themselves is that, most of us suck at communicating how we are feeling. It isn’t really our fault. As J. P. Tate explains, society has conditioned us to be this way:

“A ten-year-old girl scrapes her knee and is crying, so an adult rushes her side to comfort her, cooing words of reassurance. A ten-year-old boy scrapes his knee and is crying so an adult tells him to stop crying like a girl and be brave like a man. The girl learns that displaying her vulnerability brings sympathy and support. The boy learns that displaying his vulnerability brings censure…I mention this…simply to make the obvious point that each child was being groomed by society to accept a gendered attitude regarding human pain. Women had society’s permission to cry…men absolutely did not. From childhood onward, traditional ideas of gender promoted a deliberate social insensitivity toward male pain^[xiii].”

Whilst Tate is explicitly discussing physical pain, I believe his point similarly applies to psychological pain. We are conditioned from an early age to believe that men are not supposed to cry – not supposed to feel emotions. Feelings, we are told, are for women. We are essentially conditioned to repress an essential part of our humanity. Now this has extremely problematic consequences – it makes us less likely to seek help for mental health issues. The result is that many men feel alone with their problems and this isolation is extremely dangerous. It’s time to change fellas. We too, need to start talking about how we are feeling. Because, as isolated as you may feel, I guarantee one of your male friends is struggling silently, wishing he had someone to talk to. Now I’m not saying we need to drop all talks of beer, weights and tinder hook-ups but the next time you ask your pal how he is and you get an unconvincing ‘fine’ – ask again: “Is everything really fine? You know you can talk to me about anything…” It doesn’t sound like much, but it can be enough to get the conversation going. We are human too guys – don’t forget it. We feel, we hurt and we cry. We all do. Any bloke that says he doesn’t, is a liar and insecure. Support your friends:

Men, we have to talk about mental health.

Professional help

Scary-sounding, isn’t it? Well, it’s not; I promise. If you have been experiencing some, or many of the following, then I urge you, go to your GP and discuss whatever is going on:

• Dramatic change in appetite (binge eating/not eating)
• Relating to the above – rapid weight gain/weight loss.
• Insomnia (not sleeping) or the converse – hypersomnia (sleeping all the time).
• Anhedonia – inability to feel pleasure in normally pleasurable activities.
• Self-destructive behaviour – drug abuse, unprotected sex with strangers, self-harming.
• Suicidal thoughts – this is the major one: book a GP appointment immediately.

What do I say to my GP?

Grab a pen and paper – we can prepare this together. Write down answers to the following questions:

• How do you feel right now? How long have you felt this way?
• Do you always feel this way?
• What are the symptoms that you are experiencing? Lack of sleep? Too much sleep? Anxiety? Lack of energy? Lack of sex drive? Too high a sex drive? Thoughts of self-harm? Thoughts of suicide?
• What do you think would help? Counselling – someone to talk to? CBT (ways to re-frame negative thought patterns)?

Use these questions and answers to structure the conversation with your GP. Do not worry about confessing these things. Your GP will have heard it more times than you will believe. Do not think that there is a ‘criteria’ to meet. Doctors tend to use lists of symptoms to roughly diagnose but this ‘diagnosis’ is not legitimate and it isn’t something to get hung up on. It can take years and years of consistent visits to a psychiatrist to get an accurate diagnosis. Your doctor just needs to get a rough snap-shot of your experience. Do not think that your experiences are not ‘severe’ enough to ask for help. Experience is subjective – if it’s affecting you, then ask for help – you deserve support and there is nothing wrong with asking for it. It’s ok, to not be ok. But it’s not ok, to not ask for help.

My advice summed up:

• Talk to your close friends and family – be honest
• Get professional help – see your GP
• Accept the way you are. Nothing is ‘wrong’ with you – you just need some support.

Section Three: Advice for Friends and Family of Individuals with Mental Health Issues

In this section I am going to present some advice for those that do not themselves suffer from mental illness, but know someone that does. I will attempt to guide you in such a way that you will be better equipped to support that person.

Supporting someone that is struggling with their mental health is not easy. What do you say? What do you do? Well, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer. Each person is unique. Each person will respond differently to the support you offer and the words you speak. I think the most important thing when dealing with someone that is struggling is simply to be there – your presence is paramount. Something to remember is that there isn’t always ‘something’ wrong. Whenever someone we care about is in distress, our immediate response is usually to ask them what is the problem so we can try and solve it. Well, sometimes the problem is simply your mind. Unfortunately, our detective skills are not as good as we might like them to be and it’s not always easy or possible to discern the root cause of what’s exacerbating someone’s mental health condition. Stephen Fry illustrates my point nicely:

“If you know someone who’s depressed, please resolve never to ask them why. Depression isn’t a straightforward response to a bad situation; depression just is, like the weather. Try to understand the blackness, lethargy, hopelessness, and loneliness they’re going through. Be there for them when they come through the other side. It’s hard to be a friend to someone who’s depressed, but it is one of the kindest, noblest, and best things you will ever do[xiv].”

The important thing is that you make it crystal clear that you are there – that you care about them and that you will do anything in your power to help. This is often enough to console someone that is struggling with mental health issues. So, the answer is simple. Try to understand. Understand and extend your compassion, your sympathy and your love. You won’t always get it right. You will say the wrong things, you may even upset them, you may make them angry but you have to try your best. Saying something is often better than saying nothing. So, show them that you love them. Show them that they are valued in your life and that you cannot conceive of a world that does not include them within it. These are the things that will keep them battling through the most difficult of moments. Your love is something that they can hold onto no matter how engulfed they are in the flames of crisis. And take it from me, they will hold onto that love pretty f*cking tightly – they will do everything they can to not let it slip from their grasp. Keep them hanging on, vocalise your love for them.

Concluding remarks

No one chooses to feel suicidal intentionally, but this feeling is a reality for many people. We need to talk about it. We need to start showing genuine compassion and love to our friends and family. Hopefully this article will have shed some light on the issue and will help you deal with not only your own personal issues in the future but help you assist others with theirs.

Finally, if you are currently struggling; then, these concluding remarks are for you. No matter who you are, or how suicidal you feel, you need to remember that there is only one, and will only ever be one of you. Never before, nor in the future will someone walk this earth as an exact replica of you. For your friends and for your family, you are irreplaceable. No matter how badly your illness tries to convince you that everyone would be ‘better off without you’, this is far, far, from the truth. Your departure from this world would turn your friends and families lives upside down. If there is anything left living for, it is knowing that you can continue to put a smile on the face of a person that you love and when you are struggling, remember this. Your struggle is preventing their pain. Fight for them. Leaving the world prematurely is as they say, a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Now the reality – unfortunately for some of us – is that the problem is not a one-off occurrence but a recurrent problem. Suicide however, is not the answer. Not only are most suicides unsuccessful and extremely painful, your last fleeting seconds on this earth are going to be plagued with regret. For obvious reasons, I can’t quote any solid statistics but if I had to conjecture, I would imagine that out of the totality of individuals that have carried out a fatal suicide attempt (I did not use the word ‘successful,‘ as it is not a success) in the history of time, a large proportion of these individuals final moments would have been spent regretting their decision. Kevin Hines – the man famous for jumping off the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco and surviving – reinforces this point:

“What I am about to say is the exact same thing that nineteen golden gate bridge jump survivors have also said; the millisecond my hands left the rail, it was an instant regret. And I remember thinking, no one is going to know that I didn’t want to die.[xv]“

No matter how hard things may be, do not rob yourself of the opportunity to see them improve. All storms pass. Furthermore:

You will never experience the sought-after relief from taking your own life.

You won’t experience anything. You may disagree due to religious beliefs, however, if you subscribe to any of the monotheistic religions it’s going to require some serious mental wrestling to reconcile suicide with a pleasant afterlife – you’re better off struggling here. A life of struggle is better than no life at all.

To be no more. Sad cure! For who would lose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
Those thoughts that wander through eternity,
To perish, rather, swallowed up and lost
In the wide womb of uncreated night
Devoid of sense and motion?

– John Milton, Paradise Lost.

Learn to value the small things. Breathing in fresh air on a crisp winters morning. Classical music. The smile on your mother and fathers face when they are proud of you. Your sibling’s friendship. Kindness. Stop asking why the world is so unfair to you and ask yourself what value are you currently adding to the world? How can you make this crazy planet a better place? Start tomorrow. Wake up, have a strong coffee and go about making as much positive change to other people’s lives as you can. See how you feel when you go to bed after a day of making positive change.

“We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness – not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another… The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way…Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little…we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities… all will be lost….You, the people have the power… The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure[xvi] .”

Tomorrow is another day. Fight on..

Article written by Scott Newall,

To my family; my loving father, mother and brother – thank you for always being in my corner, and refusing to let me drop my guard.

sn13385@my.bristol.ac.uk

References:

[i] Robert Duff, Hardcore Self-Help. F***K Depression, p. 51

[ii] Dean Burnett, Robin Williams’s death: a reminder that suicide and depression are not selfish https://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2014/aug/12/robin-williams-suicide-and-depression-are-not-selfish

[iii] David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest,

[iv] David Mitchel in ‘Cloud Atlas:’

[v] Sally Brampton writes in ‘Shoot the Damn Dog: A Memoir of Depression

[vi] Dean Burnett, Robin Williams’s death: a reminder that suicide and depression are not selfish

[vii] Albert Camus, A Happy Death

[viii] Matt Haig, reasons to stay alive, page 4.

[ix] Ned Vizzini It’s Kind of a Funny Story,

[x] Andrew Solomon, Noonday Demon

[xi] Albert Camus, The Fall

[xii]  SUICIDE STATISTICS REPORT 2016 https://www.samaritans.org/sites/default/files/kcfinder/files/Samaritans%20suicide%20statistics%20report%202016.pdf

[xiii] J. P Tate, Feminism is Sexism.

[xiv]  Stephen Fry

[xv]  Kevin Hines, I Jumped Off the Golden Gate Bridge: Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcSUs9iZv-g

[xvi] Charlie Chaplin, Final speech from The Great Dictator Copyright © Roy Export S.A.S.