22 days.

I have read that people don’t like to hear your distressing thoughts and feelings at times like this. They grow tired of hearing them and they make them feel uncomfortable. But those people aren’t your people. And I do not intend to be quiet. In those moments where my only thought isn’t that I want my heart to stop beating, I find talking or writing slightly distracting. I am still very much aware that my world has ended. I am still very much aware that I am in a deep, unbearable, overwhelming pit of despair that I won’t ever escape from, tormented by the million missed opportunities to save you. I am still reliving that day and the days following. They play on a loud, repetitive loop that won’t let up. But I am numb enough for a short while to have other thoughts that run alongside of those.

I have called helplines these past few weeks, mainly in the early days when I was convinced someone could provide some kind of answer or help to this absolute unbelievable hell I have found myself in. ‘Oh how tragic’ they said. ‘Poor, poor you’. The Samaritans didn’t say much of anything and the silence was so loud. Jesus someone just help me! But they couldn’t. And how could they? How can anyone? ‘Do you think you might harm yourself?’ This is in my plan, yes. But what about those that can’t say? What about those who muster up courage to call a helpline and are met with silence? What about those who don’t realise things are not okay? We tell people to talk but what if they don’t feel there is anything they need to talk about? Or what if they can’t? What’s the plan then? I called Papyrus Hopeline. I wished that other people would call these. But if you don’t feel able or if you don’t recognise a problem, why would you?

There seems to be a massive difference in those that openly admit to feeling suicidal (like me now. Too much? No fucking secrets from my end. I’ve always encouraged my kids to talk things through and always said there is nothing I can’t fix, well that clearly didn’t work. I will shout the importance of this from the rooftops if it helps someone). And those that complete the act without reaching out. Those ones are the ones that just blindside their family and friends. Those that present as being ‘okay’, managing with the usual trials and tribulations that life brings. How do we fix that? How can we read their mind?

Would it help if I told you that you are destroying lives? That the people who love you would give up their lives for you to live yours? A lady on a helpline said to me ‘maybe you could have saved him and he would’ve gone on to live happily ever after, but you would have lived the rest of your life on tenterhooks’. Are you kidding me? I’d have given that boy my sight, my heart, my lungs, I would have given up my life and walked beside him for the rest of his if that’s what it took to keep him alive. Should I have reminded him more of that? Should we remind people more of how our lives would crumble in a split second if they were to choose this?

Would it help if we told them that seeing their lifeless body and trying with all our being to resuscitate them will bore into our memory, leaving only room for guilt, self loathing and despair every single second of the day or night for the rest of their days? Would it help them if they knew that their loved ones would have to give a statement to the police for the rest of that very same evening, pausing throughout to vomit and scream? Would it help if they knew that their mother writhed and howled and her legs buckled trying to take their shoes into the funeral directors? Don’t even get me started on the ordeal of funeral arrangements. Would it help if you knew your mum spent her days breathing in your smell from your clothes because that’s all she had? That she did not want to take another breath in this world and had thoughts of wanting to be with you, in your coffin, her ashes mixed in with yours?

Suicide is a significant national social issue in the United Kingdom. In 2019 there were 5,691 registered deaths by suicide in England and Wales, equating to an average of 18 suicides per day in the country. Suicide is the single biggest killer of men under the age of 45 in the country. What does it take? What would help?

Would it help if we pleaded and begged our children to just tell us? To talk? Just talk! I guarantee you there will be someone who will be ready to pick up your pieces, to hold you, to talk with you, to fix you. And they will be so thankful that they are able to. You can not even begin to comprehend the mess you leave behind. Maybe knowing that will help? What has happened is far from okay.