Remember.....

As a human race we hurt people, those we have loved, lost, cherished, even despised. The hardest part for me is realising someone who was once your world has now changed their mind, they dislike you resent who you are, even hearing those words can destroy your hopes and aspirations, how they inspire and spur you on in life.

The worse thing I have heard is not an insult, nor an abusive message just a simple I don’t like who you are, this was from someone who I looked up, loved, and respected who’s opinion meant so much to me, that I have to question whom I am, and what a bad person I must be for them to use those words of me.

It doesn’t matter how long ago they were said, or how my life moves on or not. Those words in an instant destroyed my confidence, filled me with further self-doubt, and set me back. I thrive of other peoples support, maybe that is being dependant but I feel we all do in some ways.

One day I hope to show them they are wrong, but in the darkest corners of my mind, I know quite simply they are right. There is no solution for this no remedy, but do me one favour, those you love and look up to, tell me once in a while, it could mean so much to them and their own battles.

You never know you may hear something in the future, someone saying the same to you. Because in a way the depressed, the one’s who battle the demons, we are the strongest of them all, as we fight every day, just to see a tomorrow, so maybe we don’t believe there is a future, but we are here and trying to make a difference, remember that please.

Just remember who you are, and how far you have come, when those around you are being so hard.

A Reply From Norman Lamb's Office

Please note, this is the letter in reply to my previous note. I am checking their figures as you read this, so far they do NOT add up. Each figure each statistic is a life, is a person, I will in due course respond, but right now it appears they have made these up:

Our ref: DE00000788825 

Dear Mr Matthews,

Thank you for your email of 15 June to Norman Lamb about suicide.  I have been asked to reply.

I was sorry to read of your own experiences of mental health issues, and I appreciate the concerns you raise with regard to promoting suicide prevention.  You may be interested to know that the suicide prevention strategy, ‘Preventing suicide in England’, was published on 10 September 2012 to coincide with World Suicide Prevention Day.  The strategy highlights the importance of targeting people most at risk by providing the right interventions at the right time.

As well as targeting high-risk groups, improving the mental health of the population can play an important role in preventing suicide.  The implementation of the measures set out in ‘No health without mental health’ will build individual and community resilience, promote mental health and wellbeing, and challenge health inequalities where they exist.

Although good progress has been made in reducing the suicide rate in England over the past ten years, ministers are aware that it is important to be vigilant.  Around 4,500 people took their own life in 2011.  The rise in the number of people committing suicide is a cause for concern.  However, the three-year suicide rate has remained at approximately 7.9 deaths per 100,000 since 2005-07.  The 2009-11 rate represents a fall of 15 per cent since 1999-01.

Suicide continues to be a major public health issue, particularly at a time of economic and employment uncertainty.  Effective suicide prevention needs a co-ordinated approach with input from a wide range of partner organisations and sectors.

You may also wish to convey your sentiments about raising awareness of suicide in schools to the Department for Education.  The contact details are:

Department for Education
Castle View House
East Lane
Runcorn
Cheshire
WA7 2GJ

Telephone: 0370 000 2288
Website: https://www.education.gov.uk/help/contactus/dfe

I hope this reply is helpful.

Yours sincerely,

Harry Darnell
Ministerial Correspondence and Public Enquiries
Department of Health

A Letter To Our Goverment

Dear Sirs,

I am writing to you as someone who has not just experienced suicide, but been through the horrifying experience first-hand, luckily surviving. Someone how has helped many people through their darkest thoughts, to see the other side. I am one person but I am 29 and male, did you know that I am more likely to die by suicide then any disease or illness?

That is the shocking fact, I am writing as one voice who is collectively representing a group of us who are asking the simple question ‘what will you our leaders, our government do to educate teens, educate society, and tackle this issue’.

Quite simply the processes in place from education on mental health issues, to our NHS services are not working. When I attempted suicide I was sent from the crisis team to a councillor, who in term informed me the help I needed had been withdrawn for men due to “over demand in the service”. Is this right? Would you shut a school because too many children needed a place?

On average three men die a day from killing themselves, 5% of the population will attempt once in their lifetime, and even more saddening one in six people are affected by a death from suicide. Statistically speaking that means someone in Government has been affected by suicide. Yes, this is a massive issue and one that is buried in society. Let us not mourn another death but take action and fast.

I am pleading to you as someone devoting their life to help others, to improve the education in schools from awareness to better support, to take action. No one should go through what I went through, no one should feel alone, you can make this change, you can take action now by listening to people like me and those I represent, taking our ideas and developing them into policy, and changing the stigma and social awareness of suicide.

What I am asking for:

Better education and processes in school and colleges at a critical time, to highlight depression, and mental wellbeing, including access to peer to peer support groups, and educational programmes that highlight the issue of suicide.

A clear policy to tackle suicide, and offer better support to those who feel alone who feel there is no help, out reach programmes and a better campaign to highlight these issues. Remember suicide does not mean someone is suffering from a mental illness, and this needs to be made clear.

A committee of people, doctors, and patients, that report back to the government strategising policy and reviewing its success, from education to the NHS. This must be made up from not just health care professionals, but those like me, who have experience first hand, and also third hand.

Thank you for reading and I hope to hear from you soon.

Yours Sincerely

Richard Matthews

Hurry Up We Are Dreaming (suicide education campaigner) 

Another Way

Sometimes, doing even the simplest things seem beyond me, getting up, getting going. The worse I think was just pretending like nothing is wrong, like I was okay, because I was too ashamed to show any weakness to afraid how I would be judged how people would perceive me. I think in reflection it was two parts a certain amount of pride, and one part thinking “I am a man, I should be strong, I should not show weakness”. Of course fear of people not accepting how I felt, accusing me of attention seeking always played a big part, and yes still does.

The worse part for me was asking the doctors for help, for advice and being fed these tablets that quite honestly make you ten times worse before you get better, that numb your mind, so you feel like you have no grip on what is around you, like a zombie just existing, no one to talk to professionally because they had taken away that service, too much demand from men, that it was now only available to women (too quote my doctor).  

Have you ever been so low that the only escape the only hope, is knowing what you are about to do will mean no tomorrow, no new dawn, the only escape? The point where you feel (though no fault of there's I hasten to add) that you have been abandoned by those who you thought cared, that loved you. That knowing your death would be unmarked unnoticed, at least that is what you think in your mind.  

Your own self worth and value is so low, the pain as you sink through a bottle of pills the pain in the pit of your stomach knowing the end will bring a bitter sweet relief, that tomorrow will not come, that the only hope you have is it will all go away death will put you to bed, put that peace in your head, the only hope is that this time you have solved it all you have control over it, and it ends now.

You wake up cold confused, a sleep full of dazed dreams, and you know something I still remember every dream that night, the pain in your stomach remembering what has happened, you feel like it is day one unsure what to do. And god let me tell you, I still think every single fucking day (sorry for the swear) I should not be here.  

So why I am writing this? It breaks my heart, makes me sick thinking someone feels the same, I spent months, over a year after this “incident” on forums trying to help people who felt the same, every night not giving up on them, I could not even tell you there names, just screen names on a forum, I doubt deep inside they would remember me, but that isn’t the point, I just had too.

The point I am making and that we have to realise, is that there is always another way, I guess even now I do not trust myself, but know who to trust, and yes I hate to be a burden and to worry those who care, but caring is unconditional, do you not care about those closest? And worry too?

I have had moments of bliss, of hell, I have laughed and cried, I have loved and since I tried to die. But I tell you this I feel alive, good or bad, I am here, I am me, if this is too much do not read. If you want to hurt me, you cannot even touch me as much as I can hurt myself. And I tell you one more thing I will not give up fighting for people who think suicide is the only way out, because we all need a voice, and sometimes we are to weak we need someone there to scream for us. And it is okay, believe me it is more than okay to hurt and to think these thoughts, you just have to remember there is another way out.

There is always hope, I promise you I live by it every day, it is okay to dream because it is and makes us who we are. Remember dreams don’t always come true, but that one time they do, you will never forget. I am not saying I am fixed, I am not saying I am okay, I am just saying I am me, and maybe just maybe that is okay, because I am still breathing.

Why Am I Here?

Last week I started a petition in the UK, to petition the government to do more about suicide rates in this country. Having survived several attempts myself, and spending many years on forums, listening and talking to people in a similar position, despairing at the lack of help and support. I decided quite simply to get proactive.

The statistics I found scared me, hurt me, and upset me. Being in that positions when all hope I believed had gone, feeling nothing but a pit of emptiness knowing in my heart of hearts that the world would be a happier stronger place without me, well I am still here, I don't like to count my chickens, and maybe I will be here longer. Even writing this stirs something in me, that I cannot explain, a feeling I should be gone, that I do not and should not belong here.

I tried to get help on many occasion, only for red tape and cutting of services to stop that, to be told the NHS was so overwhelmed they stopped the service the support I needed, is that right? No.

I am asking whoever is reading this within the UK to take 2 minutes, to sign this:

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/47232


This is what I wrote on it:

Suicide rates have increased in this country, In 2011, the number of men and women under 30 in the UK who killed themselves hit a nine year high

This is directed at the Minster of Care & Support, Norman Lamb, to address and put in measures to help support and educate suicide prevention.

One death is too many, yet there is no awareness, no campaigns. In most instances something could have been done to stop someone ending their life.

To quote Mr Lamb

Mr Lamb said: "We have a complete responsibility to reduce the number of people taking their own lives.

"One suicide is one too many. It's this awful sense of the torment they must go through which means we have to give this a high priority."

It remains the biggest single killer of men in the 15 to 29 year old age bracket.

Let us hold him to his word.

I shall write more in the coming days, thank you for reading