Depression & Suicide

My Parents were/are incredible people (my Dad died way-too-young) and wonderful parents, but they were brought up in a different age to myself and my brother. My dad was one of four boys (3 of whom were extremely close in age) my Mum was brought up by a single mother, my Grandmother, the most vile of creatures you could ever encounter - to my Mum, and I, at least; towards my Uncle and Brother she was a totally different person (my brother has said before we had 2 totally different grandmothers in the same body) although my cousin did tell me that in later years the woman wasn’t quite-so-nice to my uncle as she had once been.

I was, still am, an emotional person but as a child if I cried because I found something sad (and for no other reason than that) I would get told “if you don’t stop crying I’ll give you something to cry about”. Thankfully this didn’t mean being beaten; neither of my parents ever raised a hand to me (my Dad did smack my brother once; I’ve never seen a grown man’s face change as quickly as his did afterwards. I’m sure he went to his grave still racked with guilt). It was just a saying, but as a kid I took it seriously and 99% of the time it did the trick. I would stop - in front of people, at least, not so much once I got to my room where my toy panda would get a drenching from all the tears. 

That’s how it was back then; goodness that makes me sound so old, and yet I’m only talking 40 years ago - yes, yes, maybe a few more than just 40 but a lady should never be asked her true age! It was even worse for males; female were allowed to be a little ‘emotional’ because society deemed us the ‘fairer’ and ‘weaker’ sex. People could throw shade at us if we reacted to something with tears, passing us off as nothing more than being weak. Even as a young girl I never truly understood this for I am someone who cries when I’m angry too, and I’m glad I do, because I can feel the rage within myself. I don’t mind admitting that at times it scared the crap out of me; I think if I didn’t cry I could do serious damage to someone. Let us not forget at just 5’4” and weighing around the 140lb mark I was able to physically lift a 6’2”, 350lb man who was lounging in an armchair, by the throat where I dragged him into a kitchen, pinned him against a fridge freezer and was ready to slit his throat (had his girlfriend (my best friend)) not begged me to ‘put the knife down’. That’s how angry someone can make me at times; maybe it’s a good job I do cry (although I don’t rage quite-so-much since my hormones have settled down a little). 

Whilst being female and looked down on for getting ‘emotional’ I can only imagine how hard it must have been (and still is for so many) to be male. I remember watching something on TV as a youngling when a man got emotionally upset about something (I can’t remember what) and he got told to “stop that” because “REAL MEN DON’T CRY”. That’s the world we were living in. Men were not men if they were seen to show emotion, or cry, and back then they didn’t want to be anything other than a ‘real man’ because that could see them get all kinds of abuse, on a mental and physical level. Men were meant to be ‘tough’. They weren’t allowed to show emotion. As a teenager one of the lads fell of the rope swing we had in the woods, landing with a real “thud”. He had to have hurt himself, and so he cried. Words of “cissy” and “baby” echoed all around us from older lads hell bent on giving us younger ones as much grief as possible. Now, don’t get me wrong; I am someone who thinks if you injure yourself then you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and get on with it. I cannot bear people who whinge and whine because they’ve stubbed their toe, or cut their finger. A toe stub deserves a “f**king, wa**ker table leg c**t” and a cut finger deserves a “shit, there’s blood, get me a tissue” and I did tell the lad who’d fallen to “get up and move along, it’s my turn”. I do think molly coddling someone when they’ve fallen, or banged themselves doesn’t do them any favours - oh jeez, I am one of those people, aren’t I? One of those unfeeling, uncaring people? I would NEVER call someone names though for it because we all react differently to pain. I just don’t like whining; it gets on my nerves. 

The “real men don’t cry” label though really got me. I saw my Dad cry (only twice in my lifetime) when his Mum died. I didn’t think to myself “he’s not a real man”. I thought about how I needed to give him a hug because he was in an emotional pain I could never understand (at that time). He’d just lost his Mum, the woman he’d loved deeply. Oddly I found it comforting to know my Dad did have feelings, because although I knew he loved me, he wasn’t the kind of man to tell me he did. Once is the only time in my life he told me and that was the day he died. I don’t hold that against him though because, as I’ve said, he was brought up in a different time to me. He was brought up in a different world. He would have heard tales about men who were shot during the war for ‘cowardice’. They weren’t cowards; they were human beings who were terrified, as anyone who isn’t some kind of blood thirsty monster would be. 

Thankfully we are now living in a world where it’s more acceptable for men to have feelings; we see men cry in movies (Tom Cruise is the best at it when it comes to a movie; if that man starts to cry you can bet your ass I’m going to be sobbing with him - Brad Pitt too in the film ‘The Devils Own’ couldn’t stand the character he was portraying or what he stood for, but when he cried I was in bits). Having said all that though, there is still that underlying current, the one that washes over far-too-often that suggests men should “man up” and I cannot begin to imagine how difficult it must be to find yourself overcome with your feelings and yet not be able to talk about how you’re feeling because it’s not socially acceptable.

It’s a well known fact when you get a group of females get together they’ll chat about their life. Even me and I didn’t really have female friends. If something was getting me down I’d go to my bestie and share exactly how I was feeling. If I was sad I’d shed a few tears; she’d give me a hug, make me a shit cup of tea, and I’d leave feeling better. Whatever was upsetting me hadn’t gone away, but I felt better able to deal with it because we’d chatted about it. Yes, there were the few times when I found myself in such a dark place even she wasn’t able to lift me out of it, however, I called the Samaritans and am still here today, so again, talking to someone helped, and is the reason I’m sat here, in my shop on a cold, damp Wednesday afternoon, tapping away on a keyboard in the best place (mentally) that I have ever been, and I’m in that place because I talked, because I shared and because I cried; there have been lots of tears. Men, sadly (a lot of them) don’t do that. I’ve known so many men in my life who would have baulked at the chance of telling their mates how they were feeling. Instead, they took to a life of drugs, or alcohol because that was seen as more acceptable than sitting down telling their mates they were feeling a little low. So many of them are now dead, either because of the drugs/drink, or because they took their own lives, and that is not acceptable. They were good people.

 
In my job during the past 5 months I have served the families of 12 males between the ages of 23 - 54 who took their own lives. TWELVE; that’s an average of 1 every 12.5 days. Just in my little shop, in my small local area. Roughly 14 men each day - that’s FOURTEEN men EVERY DAY, take their own life. The highest percentage (by age) are those in the 50-54 year age bracket. Men around my age. Men brought up in the era that I have been. Men who were probably told “Real men don’t cry”. There’s no guarantee these men wouldn’t have still taken their lives had they been brought up in a society where it was ok for them to talk about their feelings; where it is ok for them to actually have feelings, but even if just one of those lives could have been saved because the man felt comfortable enough to open up to someone, or one of his friends had taken the time to ask “hey bud, is everything ok, you seem a little distracted” the world would be a better place. Of course, some of them may not want to talk about what they are going through, or how they are feeling - I know when I planned to end my life I told nobody and I’m sure if I’d gone through with it people would have said after “We had no idea she was feeling that way” because some of us get good at hiding how we feel. There are things about me, and my life, that even now I have never shared with people, but talking about the other stuff that kept me awake at night, that haunted my dreams, and made me feel that life wasn’t worth living, have helped me to deal with the things I won’t talk about in my own head. I could never have done that if I’d not made room and dumped all the other stuff that was bouncing around inside of me. 

I’ve experienced loss in my life, some of which I still struggle to understand but just because I lost my Dad doesn’t mean I know how someone else who has lost their Dad is feeling. Just because I lost the man I considered to be my soul mate (yep, that’s not something I ever thought I would say in public) doesn’t mean I know how someone who has lost their wife, husband, or lover is feeling. Just because I got dumped by my fiance on Christmas Eve because he was shagging a girl from work, doesn’t mean I know how my niece felt when she found out her fiance was cheating on her. Yet, what those experiences have done is make me more empathetic towards others; they’ve made me realise how important it is to let people know it’s ok to talk about it. It’s a two-way street. Sharing my darkest feelings with them has made them realise I am a human (I did bottle an awful lot up for many years) and they can see I’ve been to depths they may never reach (I truly hope they don’t) but I am still here and right now in the best place I have ever been. I understand there are people who have been way deeper than I could ever even imagine, because of my own darkness, and that has helped me to become a better listener. That’s why I signed up to become a volunteer with a mental health charity; that’s why I was accepted and trained by them. I could never have got that far had I not opened up and talked about how I was feeling. Had I not relearned that it’s ok to cry; I now think of crying as my “pressure release” valve. When the tears come (unless I’m on a bus, or in the middle of a shop) I don’t stop them. I accept they are part of being human, they are a part of my brain trying to make sense of something, and I literally go-with-the-flow. Seeing my Mum cry when we watched a movie a few years back also had something to do with that, because as I’ve said she was brought up by a tyrant. She would have taken a beating if she’d ever shown a sign of emotion. She was a great Mum when I was growing up in so many ways, yet we were never close and that was because I believed her to be some of kind of emotionless robot. Discovering she isn’t, that she does care, that she does have feelings has brought us so much closer together. She is a pain in my ass, drives me crazy, yet I could not (and do not want to) imagine my life without her, and as a teenager/young adult I honestly couldn’t have said that. I would have missed her, obviously, she wasn’t a bad Mum, but I never thought I could love her as much as I do.

I know it can be tough to reach out to someone, to admit you’re struggling, to show emotions and there will still be some people who will call you out on it - remove these people from your life; you do not need that negativity, but please, PLEASE, if you are struggling with how you’re feeling or having thoughts of suicide reach out to someone; anyone. It doesn’t have to be your mates, your family or associates. Call up the Samaritans, text into Shout or do what I saw some guy do the other day - which took huge courage and made me feel immensely proud of him (someone I’ve never met, will never meet and knew nothing about, yet there I was, my stoney heart swelled with pride and respect for him) because he popped onto Twitter “I’m struggling today with my mental health and have nobody I can talk to”. Over 2000 people (when I saw it) random strangers he had never met commented, offering him their personal email, whats app and facebook pages. Yes, social media can be an evil, vile place, and I am sure there were many who spewed viles things to him (usually the more vile the troll, the more emotional baggage they are carrying themselves too) but it can also be a wonderful place, connecting random people to each other, who may, just may, be the light you are looking for at the end of your tunnel. I know how it feels to be in a room full of people and still feel completely alone and isolated but maybe if I’d reached out in those rooms, I might have made contact with one person (and one person is all it takes) to find they were also standing there, feeling the same way and suddenly neither of us would have been alone any more. They say “it takes a whole tribe to raise a child” and I understand that now. The world is a more open place, the internet (for all it’s bad) offers us all the chance to now find our own tribe. 

You may feel as though you don’t belong in this world; you may feel as though everything is stacked against you, that there is nothing worth fighting for anymore, that your life has no meaning. Please believe me when I say it does. It so does. Christmas Eve 1996, I found myself single, homeless and totally penniless. My heart had been shattered into a million pieces. My Dad was dead, my Mum and I (back then) weren’t close and my brother was off making his own way in the world. I was dealing with losses that I felt were too substantial to bear (I’ve dealt with a lot more losses since then) but that one phone call I made kept me here, kept me alive. Those losses still affect me - I don’t think you over get over the loss of a parent, and just a few small years later I lost the man I would have ended up married to, followed by my best friend, the one person on this planet I believed would always be there. I know how grief feels, I know how very hard it is to get up in the morning, knowing those you loved with all that you have, are no longer there. Those feelings never leave, you never stop loving them, or missing them, but I have learned to honour them. By keeping going, by not giving up and walking away from life I feel I am respecting their memory, their legacy, their lives. 

I’d rather not have dealt with any of them; in my perfect world I’d be married to John (he’s still alive and so far the only true love of my life in a romantic sense - he just didn’t want me). My Dad would be driving me as equally crazy as my Mum does, and I’d be laughing at the 2 of them driving each other crazy. Louis would still be here (he’ll always be my soul mate and the love we had for each other was unlike any I’ve had for anyone else) living his life in his own little way, and Non (my best friend) and I would most likely still be bitching about the world on a Saturday night, and planning out the different places we were going to have our walking frame, and wheelchair, races when we are 90. Life isn’t perfect though and I owe it to each-and-every-one of them to live the best life I can. I will forever mourn them. I will never stop missing them. As I’ve said, I’m in the best place I’ve ever been on an emotional/mental level (the physical side of me needs a LOT of work and I’m working on it) and I know that is all because I reached out to someone.

If you’ve just read all of this - well done for sticking through to the end of it all - and you’re in a dark place, feeling like there is no other options, please reach out to someone. If you don’t want to use one of the ‘professional’ teams out there waiting to help, and can’t feel as though you can talk to your friends/family/associates, then hit the “Contact me” button on my blog. Better still CLICK HERE and drop me a line, or 2. I won’t always reply immediately (work and life do keep me from sitting on the interweb all day) but I WILL REPLY if you want me to. If you don’t want me to but just want to get it all off your chest, then drop me a message and get it all out; you might find yourself surprised as how much better it can feel once you’ve shared. I’ve never shared anyone secrets before, and since becoming a volunteer have taken a vow (signed documents) to guarantee I will never discuss what someone has told me - obviously I’m not a lawyer or priest; if you tell me you’ve murdered someone I may have to pass that on to the authorities (I can do that in my voluntary life too). For everything else it stays with me. I don’t even had to read through if you don’t want me to. Ask me not to read it and I guarantee you I won’t. Just as some people write a letter about how they feel that they seal and burn so nobody else reads it, I’ll treat your email like that letter. You write it, hit send, pop in the subject “Do not read” and I’ll virtually burn it for you, leaving it completely unread. Oh, and I won’t offer advice; I may point you to people who might be able to help, but I’ll never tell you what to do. That’s something you have the capacity for to work out yourself. 

As the old BT adverts used to say “It’s good to talk”.

To reiterate my point; as I finished this and was getting ready to post I took a call from a gent ordering some flowers. I don't know what the occasion is for right now (I'm assuming he's lost someone) because he broke down in tears on me. As he did so all he kept saying to me was "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry and forgive me, I'm so sorry". He had NO reason whatsoever to apologise. My heart aches for him that he's obviously going through a really tough time yet still feels he has to say sorry for showing emotion. He doesn't. You don't either.