I Wish I'd Been Able to Spot the Signs of Suicide Posted Tuesday, 10 September 2019 at 09:47 I’ve experienced first-hand the pain and stigma of
suicide. The confusion, bewilderment and the enduring agony of why and if only.
I know the sadness, the blame, the anger and the grief.
When my cousin took his own life, it was a bolt
from the blue.
One evening at home with my husband and daughters,
the phone rang at 7pm, interrupting us from our evening routine of bath and
bedtime. This unusual disruption was the first clue something wasn’t right, but
I completely missed it.
It was my cousin from Australia, who’d been my
soulmate since childhood, who told me all his precious secrets. The cousin who,
when my brother was tragically killed in a car crash, flew back to support us
at the inquest. The cousin who was my husband’s best friend; their
friendship made me smile almost as much as watching my children play.
So caught up with the excitement of the moment and
the business of life, I failed completely to register that he was phoning me in
the early hours of his morning. That was my second warning, and again I missed
it.
We chatted away about family and his next visit to
the UK. When the time came to say goodbye, he uttered the final clue, a phrase
I have replayed a million times in my mind ever since… “You won’t ever forget
me, will you?”
That night in the most shocking of circumstances my
cousin took his own life. I was devastated.
We know suicide is the biggest killer of men under
50, with men three times more likely to die because of suicide than women. We know
that men are less likely to seek help than women or to talk about their
suicidal feelings.
Last week the Office for National Statistics
published suicide figures for 2018, showing an increase in the number of
suicides, mainly male suicides. But alarmingly, these numbers not only show
that for the first time in five years, the suicide rate in the UK has
increased, but that the number of females under 25 taking their own lives is at
its highest since 1988.
Whenever a change in suicide rates occurs, the reasons
are complex and will seldom be due to one factor alone, but I am not complacent
that this is a real concern we desperately need to tackle.
The government’s National Suicide Prevention
Strategy recognises the importance of reaching out to vulnerable people at risk
and encourages them to seek help from organisations like the Samaritans, who
are supported by the government, or from the growing number of community and
local-based initiatives and provision.
Suicides are preventable — that’s why we are
investing £25 million to support prevention efforts locally over three years
and we are going further through the long term plan for the NHS by committing
to suicide prevention funding for every area of the country by 2023-24.
In the same way we are now far more aware of how to
identify when a person is having a stroke, I want to help people spot the
warning signs ahead of a potential suicide, hopefully saving lives in the
process.
If we all knew what to look out for, how to
intervene and signpost someone in need to vital, life-saving support, we could
make a real difference.
To help us achieve our goal, we are giving up to £2
million to the Zero Suicide Alliance, an initiative working across the NHS and
local communities to increase suicide awareness and training.
If you notice a change in someone’s behaviour, it
may be a sign they are struggling to cope. If a person you know suddenly
becomes anxious, irritable, talks negatively about themselves or starts acting
recklessly, is tearful or doesn’t want to do things they usually enjoy, these
could all be signs they may not be OK.
But suicide is complex and emotions may present
themselves differently from individual to individual. The signs are not always
visible. However, it’s important that everyone feels confident in starting
conversations with somebody they may be worried about.
My mission as minister for suicide prevention is to
open everyone’s eyes to the danger of a life lost and the role they can play in
helping to drive down the suicide rate. When we reach that point, no life will
be wasted.
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