Suicide: its not as simple of its seems

Everytime there is a suicide reported in the press all I can think of is how simple they make it sound when suicide is such a complex thing and very much misunderstood.  I have wanted to start writing post about this for a long time but its such a complex one its taken until now to start.

On a basic level suicide is the act of killing yourself.  I do not say commit suicide and I wish many other people didn't as it suggests the criminal past which is no good for families left behind or those who have attempted.  Language is one of the biggest reasons why suicide is hard to talk about and understand.  I am not a survivor of suicide nor did my dad battle depression.  Battle suggests that he failed in defeating it and did not try hard enough.  Anyway language around this could take another post. 

From the day my Dad died I said at least he is at peace as he was in so much pain and was so ill.  It was not until I read this article about someone who lost their best friend to suicide that I could put this into words.

Suicide is not a wish to die but an inability to continue living. 

Some people say it is a cowardly and selfish thing to do.  How could someone want to leave their partner behind? Children? Friends and family?  Do they know how much they will hurt people they leave behind?  The people who say these things don't know of the anguish that leads for someone to think of ending their own life.

My dad probably knew how much it would hurt us for him to leave us but at the same time he thought he was a burden on everyone.  That he was not worth everyone's attention and that we would be better off without him.  There were many reasons for him finally taking his own life its not a simple, straightforward answer.  He loved me I know that and he was so proud of everything me and my sister did.  He was very much a loving person that enjoyed life.   

Do I wish I could have done more for my dad in the 6 months leading up to his death?  Yes I do all the time.  I wish at the minute I could have known about services that may have helped me to help him or even intervened.  However the crisis team were involved just a few months before his death and that changed nothing.  My dad's dad did the same thing, similar age and similar time of year but I doubt my Dad would have told doctors that information. Me and my sister did not know that our Grandpa died through suicide until a few years ago when we asked our aunt how he had died as he died before we were both born. 

I want to prevent other families going through the same thing and that the suicide is too high especially in men and younger people.  But on the other hand I want to be able to say that my Dad died from suicide to people without that pity and look of how can you come to peace with that.  To loose that stigma surrounds someone grieving from a loss through suicide.  If my Dad had died through a road crash or cancer or heart attack I think my responses from friends and others would be very different. 

This is only a short post for now but I want to write more about my own experiences and about suicide. 

5 Steps to wellbeing: Mind and me

When I first started feeling unwell and needing help I turned to the vast network of information called the Internet.  This at times is as helpful as it is unhelpful.  However key Internet sites of mainly charities that work towards better understanding and support of mental health offer some of the best advice.  

My favourite is from Minds Ecominds project.  There are 5 steps to well being to help anyone have better mental health.

As they say "We know that eating five portions of fruit and veg a day can help us to keep us healthy.  But researchers have found that people who introduce the following five steps into their lifestyle can improve their mental wellbeing too.'  

In this blog I am going to discuss each one briefly and how I try to say how I include them in my life.  They are not perfect but they do really help to keep my wellbeing going on a even keel.  It is not to say it will work for everyone but they are little steps that may help.

1. Connect

Advice: Build those connection with the people around you: your family, friends, colleagues and neighbours.  Think of these people as the cornerstones of your life and invest time in developing these relationships.  Building stronger connections will support and enrich your life. 

Me:  This can be a hard one as if your feeling low you may not want to see people or think people want to see you.  I try and do the following. 

1. Make time to see or chat on the phone to friends that are close to me locally and do dinner or just a chat and a cup of tea.

2. For those of my friends that live further try and arrange a weekend at some point to meet up and do something.

3. I try to be honest with how I am feeling with colleagues even though they do not know my history or depressive streaks.  So if I am feeling tired or down I say that to people and now I am starting a new job I will be honest with those around me.   

4. I try and do new activities where I will start to meet new people and build new connections through similar interests.

2. Be Active

Advice: Step outside.  Go for a walk or run. Cycle, play a game, dance.  Exercising makes you feel good.  More importantly, discover a physical activity you enjoy and suits your level of mobility and fitness. 

Me: For this to work you have to choose activities that you like.  If anyone suggests going to the gym that makes me feel depressed before I even get there.  By choosing something you like your more motivated to go and do it.  Also choose something you can see your own progress in.  I comfort eat and so I see the positives of exercise is loosing that weight.  I do the following:

1. Pilates - helps both physically and mentally.  It builds a strong core, builds connections in your body and  you are able to do it on every level.  I started because I had back problems which have just about gone now.

2. Dancing - something I will blog more about but its something I have always done.  I currently do pole dance and I love it because it is a challenge to me and that motivates me to go and get better. 

This does not mean I don't find it hard getting my arse out of the house to go and be active.  I just know if I go I will feel better and it gives me such a buzz when I come home.

3. Take notice

Advice: Be curious.  Catch sight of something beautiful today.  Notice the changing seasons.  Savour the moment, whether you are walking, eating lunch or talking to friends.  Awareness of the world around you, what you are feeling and your experiences will help you appreciate what matters to you.

Me: This is one I probably do not have solid examples of.  I have tried to take more notice of what I eat, what my friends are doing, what music I like.  I try and be thankful for small things that happen during the day.  How the mornings are starting to get lighter and spring seems to be on its way.   

4. Keep Learning

Advice: Try something new or rediscover an old interest.  Sign up for that course.  Take on a different responsibility at work.  Learn to play an instrument or how to cook your favourite food.  Learning new things is fun and will make you more confident.  

Me: A lot of this comes under being active for some things.  I have decided to take a new direction in my teaching career so I am always learning new things about special needs, disability and autism.  I am enjoying learning how to cook new things from scratch without adding jars of sauce or packet mixes.   

5. Give

Advice:  Do something nice for a friend, or even a stranger.  Take time to thank someone. Smile.  Volunteer your time.  Join a community group.  Look out as well as in.  Seeing yourself and your happiness, linked to the wider community can be incredibly rewarding and creates connections with people around you.  

Me: Sometimes it is just little things like I agree to help a friend with something or have a look on internet for something they need.  At work I help those that may not have the ICT skills or share things I have created for my class.  I have also volunteered with GirlguidingUK for the last few years and love being a leader and giving a chance for other girls to develop skills outside of traditional education.

I know that at times even doing one of these things can feel too much when you are really low but they can help in small ways.  Being active might be as simple of a walk round the block or a game on the wii but it may give you that little encouragement to try more.  Connecting might be texting a friend or having a coffee after work with someone.

Do you think any of these would help you to feel better?  

Getting help: me vs NHS

I recently managed to start grief counselling but it has been a long time coming and a lot of the frustrations I feel about how I feel and dealing with my Dad's death is about how I have not been given help and the fight to get help.

When my Dad died I was 24 years old.  An adult supposedly.  How we were treated by the Police at times was disgusting and horrible.  Were we offered support? No.  I know through a previous experience when I was teaching that if I was under 18 there would have instantly been a team of support around me.  Educational Psychologist recommending the best ways to support someone with teachers, counselling given on a short term basis to the child and all matter of other things.  So at 24 years old getting no help I was just expected to cope.  

Did I cope? No.  Do I cope now? Just about sometimes.  

I only had 3 months until I went travelling so I knew there was no point getting help to start with and being away at times was the best for me then.  However coming back I knew that I needed to get support and help as those friends who had been there for me, still were but I knew I needed more professional help.

June 2012 despite trying to keep my head above water I just sunk into a black sea of depression and despair.  I ended up going to see my GP which was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.  It takes so much energy just to compose yourself and talk about it that afterwards you feel drained and exhausted.  She said to ring the service in Derbyshire called Rightsteps which you can self refer yourself for help.  At this point I was unsure what I really needed as it was a mixture between help with the grief and the depressive feelings.  

I called Rightsteps, a massive step as I hate using the phone, and I could not get a face to face appointment in the evening so instead settled for a telephone appointment.  I knew this was not really right for me but I just put up with it and waited the 3 weeks until it was my time.  When it came I spent at least an hour answering a lot of questions to in the end be given the choice of self help stuff or self refer myself to a charity for grief counselling as its not a service they provide.  This was the end of June 2011.

I put off referring myself to the charities that help with grief counselling for 2 months and finally summoned the courage to email one of them in August.  Did not hear anything back so just carried on coping until things came to head after splitting with a guy I was seeing and feeling like falling down the big black hole again.  She was very empathetic and really wished she could do more on the NHS.  She decided to write a letter to the same charity I had been trying to self refer to.  

I got a phone call within a week of the letter being sent and an appointment to be assessed for a couple of weeks time.  Unfortunately I was to ill to go to this due to getting pneumonia so I had to wait another 2 weeks to have this assessment.  At this assessment my frustrations about lack of support were evident and the counsellor was really supportive in saying that now I was on their books I would not be forgotten about.  I have managed to get a volunteer counsellor just after a month of that assessment.  Finally some help February 2013.  

I know others that have got help much quicker but they have been more severe having both self harm and suicidal thoughts neither of which I really have.  But if I did not get help in some way I could see myself continuing down that path.  Why not help me now when I am asking for help?  If I had a physical illness would I have had to wait so long to get treatment?  Would I have had to rely on a charity to give me that treatment?  I do not know if my depression is based sorely on grief or if it depression.  I have no idea and probably will never have that.  The doctors at the minute are trying not to see it as depression as when I asked for more help they gave me sleeping tablets I asked for but were reluctant to give me anything else before this counselling started.  

I know counselling is going to help with some of my feelings.  Writing this blog has already helped because a lot of my feelings are around frustrations and anger I feel in particular in getting help.  I know I am not the only one out there that feels like this.  The NHS is there for all and I know it is stretched but at the same time is our mental health not as important as our physical health?           

One thing I found on the Internet which helped me back in June and I still dip and out of is the mood gym programme.  It has simple exercises similar to CBT looking at how you are feeling and why.  It can be done at any speed and it saves the work as you go along.  It is definitely worth a try looking as it is not trying to give you answers but help you find answers.  It is easy to create an account and use and like I said you can do as much or as little as you want at any time.  It has sections on feelings, thoughts, unwrapping, destressing and relationships.  It has tests on anxiety and depressive feelings so for me it gave me validation that I was feeling highly anxious and depressive not just making them up.

Have you got help quickly or still waiting?  Did you manage to get it through NHS or relying on charities to fill the gap?

    

Introducing my Twitter - @adandelionmind

So I am new to twitter but I wanted to use it to connect my blog and a place where I could share things quickly without using facebook at the minute.  I have started to understand the power of twitter and more importantly how it works.

My name is @adandelionmind if you want to come on over and have a look (there is a handy link on the right hand side of the blog).  I have found it interesting a place to be to connect to some new places of information and support just by following Time to Change's twitter feed.  A lot more useful then I ever thought it would be especially as I personally use facebook a lot.   

One example is finding the website mens minds matter which is specifically about men's mental health and research they are carrying out.  They need more men to go and take the survey on their newest research so go and have a look.  I want to write a bigger post on men's health and mental illness through my personal experiences of family and friends but I have no time at the minute as preparing for interviews and sending more job applications of.   

Time to Change - Unfriend survey findings

Time to Change recently published this advert about how mental health affects those from a survey they carried out. 

Like Time to change say you do not need to be an expect in mental health to be a support.  By being silent you make things worse - inaction is an action.  The five little pictures at the bottom are five little tips about helping those that might need help.  They are simple things that may work to help someone even in a small way.

For me the biggest shock was the fact 73% said it was not their responsibility.  Being a friend means supporting and helping others no matter what.  If it was a physical illness I bet 73% of people would think it was their responsibility to help not to stand by and let that person struggle.

Finally I made my pledge - Time to Change

Time to Change is an anti stigma campaign run by charities Mind and Rethink Mental Illness.  One of their ways to encourage people to talk about their mental health is their pledge wall on their website.  Anybody can make a pledge either through a written pledge or video pledge.  There are many celebrities, organisations and normal people who have made the pledge to talk about mental health.  At the minute the count stands at 29,982.  

I had not made a pledge until yesterday when I finally made the pledge and included the link to this blog.  I had known about this part of Time to Change but had not done it.  I do not why I had not done it; fear, scared, unsure?  I am not sure.  However I decided yesterday to just do it and share my blog as well within the link.

So please go and see My Pledge and others on the site as well as other information on Time to Change campaign.    

Introducing Time to Change.

Time to change is an anti-stigma campaign run by the leading mental health charities Mind and Rethink Mental Illness.  You may have seen their new TV adverts which have started running this week.  I wanted to just give them a quick mention as a place to find some understanding about what you are going through and how to start a conversation about how you feel.  My favourite video that they have producded is the one below.  They also have a lot of blogs from a vareity of people saying how they cope and share with other people.

For more information visit: http://www.time-to-change.org.uk/