Suicide is only the Beginning... Suicide rates are at their highest for the last 35years. While we may understand the consequences for the one who meets this fate, do we ever ask what it means for their loved ones? Written by Kerry-Louise Barnaby It was one of those moments; one of those rare, unbelievable, “happens to other people not you” moments. Your life changes forever and nothing will ever be the same. It’s a tunnel, and once you’ve gone through it, there is absolutely no turning back. It was a normal Thursday night. The girl of 15 was on the computer, while her brother of 18 was watching TV. It was 7.30pm when their cat came crawling into the living room followed by an agonising cry. Their cat circled the living room meow after despairing meow, before finally collapsing in front of the fire. An hour later...The front door opened, the children’s grandparents walked in, and everything changed... This particular story, in truth, started just after the girl was born. Her mum, a Mental Health nurse, while helping others battle depression, had been battling her own demons for as long as she could remember. Unfortunately, battles are not always won by the side we would hope. Everyone has their own views of suicide and depression, of that I’m sure, but do we ever think about the flip-side of that coin? People will rant until they lose their voices about suicide. Some believe it to be a sign of great weakness, others of great strength and others believe it is simply the sign that
someone has given up and cannot bear to go on living in this world anymore – after all, just as death comes with a flip-side, so does living doesn’t it? While living may be seen as the most natural and easiest thing to do in this world, is it not too, the hardest? When someone is left feeling nothing but hurt and empty, stuck in that dark, dank room which, however hard they try they cannot escape, what options do they have? If you were left feeling desperate and alone and like the whole world was against you, please, just think...What would you do?! This was the case for the mother. She had been battling depression for the best part of 14 years. Along with depression comes loneliness, isolation and sometimes, alcohol dependencies and even eating disorders, which we know are often linked to people who feel so out of control, they need to find something in their life which they can have complete control over. When the daughter was 12, her mum first showed signs of, “giving up”. She took an overdose. However, realising that she had made a mistake, immediately called a friend, who called an ambulance and came straight over to the house. The mother got to the hospital safely while the friend offered a hand to the children. As I said, we all deal with suicide and loss in our own ways, while the daughter was a heart-
broken, tear-soaked, desperate mess eager to go straight to the hospital to be with her mum; the son was just angry. She had always worn her heart on her sleeve, never afraid to cry and never ashamed to let people know what she was feeling. He, on the other hand, rarely cried. He struggled with emotions his whole life and in this case, I believe he was scared, hurt and angry. He couldn’t cope with it, so he stayed at home and tried to convince himself that nothing had happened; that everything would be alright. It was. Their mum had come out of hospital, still depressed but devastated by what she had done. Although she was not “cured” she managed to cope for the next few years. Then, on December 31st 2002, her son’s 18th birthday, she realised that she couldn’t cope any longer. She was admitted to hospital and the children were sent to stay with their uncle for a couple of days. I think it is important to note here that, at the time, none of the “adults” were being honest to the young girl. She wasn’t really sure what was going on, no-one told her that her mum was attempting to end her life. This knowledge was left for the girl to discover one day when trying to find something in her mother’s bedroom – the last thing she expected to find was a suicide note. After all that had happened, how could they let her find out how ill her mum really was in that way? How did they expect a 15year old girl to deal with that information on her own, her father had left when she was a baby and her brother was anything but emotional and caring at that
time. She was alone with no-one to talk to, finally seeing things clearly, finally seeing what was really going on...Her mum wanted to die, she wanted it all to end, she didn’t believe that she was good enough a person to take care of her children. Lies, lies, lies. That’s all her life had been, one HUGE lie. People trying to protect her from pain when what they should have been doing was being honest, caring and letting the poor child know that they were all there for her and that her mum was ill – her mum loved her children. The second attempt didn’t go down as well with the children, as I said, the girl didn’t really know the whole truth and the boy was just angry, how could she do this to him on his birthday of all days? When she arrived home, there was that sort of awkward silence among strangers. No-one knew what to say. The girl felt it was her responsibility to look after her mum, make her better. She managed to get her mum to agree to get some help. So...In mid-January 2003 her mum went in to a Mental Health hospital where she underwent Electroconvulsive Therapy as well as counselling and other talking therapies. She wouldn’t drink unless it had Bacardi in it and she wouldn’t eat. The girl went to visit her mum once, she took her a bottle of coke and some cup-a-soups hoping that it would help – it didn’t. It’s ironic that just as her mum finally decided to get help, it was too late. One Sunday morning the girl woke up to see her nan’s face staring back at her – Her mum had been rushed to King’s College
Hospital, London. The children were taken to see her in the ICU. Anyone who has ever been in to an ICU, I’m sure will tell you that it is a place where hope has died. A hole in the world where it’s hard to breathe let alone find any way of believing that your loved one will ever come out of it alive. To see a parent, or a loved one in an ICU, on life support machines is hard to describe. It’s devastating, heart-breaking. The girl could barely breathe through the sobs and the tears streaming down her face, but she had made a promise to herself. She would not be one of those people who said, “If only they had known how much I loved them”. So, somehow, she found the strength to utter those four words, “I love you mum” before collapsing. They were told then and there that there was a 90% chance. A 90% chance that she would die, so they should start preparing for the worst. The children clung on to that 10% hoping, praying. So we’re back to that Thursday night. That moment, when at 8.30pm on 3rd February 2003, their grandparents came in, and no words were needed. No words could change what had happened. All the children could do, was break-down and cry. Now, they really were alone. It’s been seven years since that moment. The girl managed to get her life together, and try to move on, believe that everything happens for a reason. Everything was going well, until she suffered a back problem which has completely changed the direction of her life. She has been
battling it for over 2years with still no diagnosis. She is lost. She has been given too much time to think and I believe that it has only been in the past few months that she has come to realise that what happened to her mum is real. Her mum isn’t there to guide and support her; she isn’t there to provide a hug when she feels like everything is going wrong. It’s been seven years and the girl still can’t listen to “The Circle of Life” (the song her mum requested for her funeral one carefree day when they were listening to music, without it ever occurring to the girl that she might actually need to know that piece of information). It’s been seven years and she still can’t look at letters she has saved that her mum had written to her. It’s been seven years, and that girl still doesn’t know how to deal with the loss. She is still not allowed to talk about it with the family, so she just doesn’t talk to them. It’s been seven years and she still doesn’t know how she feels about it. Did her mum, “give up” or did she find the ultimate strength and sacrifice herself because she truly believed it was best for her children? She still doesn’t know if she is sad or angry. The loss never goes away, and the feelings never seem to disentangle themselves, they are all intertwined, maybe one can’t be sad without being a tiny bit angry too...How would I know this? Because that girl was me.