I’ve been thinking about suicide a lot recently.

Not committing it myself of course I hasten to add, just in case you were worried.  I know I’ve been going through a bit of a low patch recently but I haven’t been so low that that has ever been a possibility.  It’s just been on my mind in general, for various reasons:

First there was the ever-so-sad case of Robin Williams.

In the weeks following his death I have been personally affected by no less than three ‘fatalities’ on the train lines as I’ve travelled to and from London (and I’ve been told of another two).  Let me say that again:  Five people have jumped to their deaths in front of a train hurtling at 125mph speeds in the space of a few weeks.  Two of those fatalities were actually on the same homeward-bound journey, in two different places along my route.  The four-hour delay I was subject to on that day, on my feet the whole time because the train was so packed, is absolutely nothing – NOTHING – compared to what those people must have been going through in their heads (and what their families and loved ones must now be trying to come to terms with).

On one of my trips that was (thankfully) uneventful, by chance I happened to bump into the Chairman of a charity called Papyrus, which provides services, raises awareness and campaigns to prevent young suicide.  I’d been knocked sideways in the gargantuan crowded rush to get to my train after the platform was announced, he saw me stumble and kindly stopped to make sure I was ok.  We went our separate ways until I was getting ready to disembark at Stafford and he turned out to be getting off at the same stop, from the same carriage.  We had a brief, polite chat about why we’d been in London that day (me: seeing clients, him: submitting new guidelines about suicide to NICE) and off the back of that conversation we exchanged email addresses.  We are now in discussion about how we can potentially connect professionally in some way.

I’ve also had a couple of clients who have been struggling with suicidal thoughts and have therefore been having to manage those situations safely and appropriately.  It can be hard sometimes to leave your work at the office and not bring it home with you – I do often think of clients who are having a particularly hard time even though it’s my ‘day off’.

And then yesterday morning I received the news that a man I have known all my life has committed suicide.

I don’t believe in coincidences – it’s just all of the dots joining up.  I need to write about this, just in case someone needs to read it.

David was about my Mum’s age, a neighbour in the street I grew up in in North West London.  I saw him on an almost daily basis – on the way to school, en route for a quick trip to Sainsbury’s with my Mum or as I got ferried backwards and forwards to various after-school activities (gymnastics, horse riding etc…).  He was always ready with a beaming smile, and he always seemed to have boundless energy.  I remember that he had kind eyes – they crinkled up at the corners and shone with laughter as he stopped you for a chat in the street.  A chat that could last minutes or hours and would be about everything and nothing.

He spent some time with me when I was ill.  He followed a macrobiotic diet, so the anorexia was keen to interrogate him and find out how it could use that as a way of eating less and losing more weight.  The part of me that was still me was just grateful for a change of scenery from either home or the hospital and for someone who would listen to me unreservedly without judging.

His house was full of rainbows.  Quite literally.  He loved rainbows and decorated every room with them.  They’re a pretty accurate representation of who he was – colourful, creative and joyful.  Rainbows are how I will always remember him.

Oh.

“Was”.

It hurts, writing that.  I’m not sure I’m ready for that yet.  I still haven’t quite wrapped my head around the fact that he’s not here any more.  He is genuinely the last person I would ever think would kill himself.

I haven’t got all the information yet about what happened – apparently he’d been struggling with constant and severe stomach pain for several months.  After numerous inconclusive tests the GP dismissed him, saying it was “all in his head”.  Allegedly he’d been talking about suicide for weeks, and yet no-one intervened.

I am deeply shocked and utterly saddened that his light has been turned out and yet another soul has been lost because he felt that he just couldn’t go on any longer.

As always when something as terrible as this happens, it serves as a reminder that you never really know what battle someone is facing.  And it makes you realise how damn short life can be and why it is so, so important to make the most of every single day, as clichéd as that may seem.

Having suicidal thoughts is a pretty scary and lonely place to be – I know, I’ve been there.  I don’t think I would ever have actually gone through with it via any of the more widely-known methods.  I chose to do it slowly instead.  Death by starvation.  Because that’s pretty much what I was heading for.  I didn’t want to be here any more and the anorexia convinced me that if I didn’t eat, eventually I wouldn’t exist and the world would be a much better place without me.  All rubbish of course.  Tricks that my mind was playing on itself.  I’m very thankful that I got the help I needed that allowed me to get myself out of it.

As a therapist I want to be there to help any one of you who is struggling.  I also have to remember that I am not the fourth emergency service and that there is only so much I can do – that’s the harder part of my job.

If your thoughts are becoming overwhelming or more frequent please, please, PLEASE talk to somebody.  Don’t keep it in your head.  Talk to your friends, your parents, your siblings, your doctor, your therapist, the Samaritans, the Crisis hotline, anyone.  Because then they can take positive action to get you the help you need, instead of you taking the negative action that your head is trying to convince you to do.  Ditto if you are worried about someone you know – talk to them about it, spend time with them, listen to them and don’t dismiss them – help them take a step in the right direction to getting the support they need.

Too many lives have already been lost and I guarantee that every single one of them was loved unconditionally and had great things to offer the world.

All of you matter.  More than you’ll ever know.  Every single one of you.

Please remember that.

You matter.

You are important.

You are good enough.  More than good enough, in fact.

You are worthwhile.

You are loved.

I’ll say that last one again:

You Are Loved.

2 Comments for: Suicide

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Absolutely agree with you Lesley – I’m sorry to hear about your friend, even if it was a long time ago. Apparently David had been talking about committing suicide for weeks, and all his friends just dismissed it as him being “a bit depressed”. It’s definitely something that needs to be taken seriously.

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