Suicide awareness week 2020

 This week is suicide awareness week.  It's a topic close to my heart as I'm proud to say I'm a survivor. Unfortunately too many people aren't as lucky. Suicide is a taboo subject but we need to talk about it to be able to prevent so many avoidable suicides. 

I've struggled with my mental health since I was a child, anxiety, depression and eating disorders which I struggled to get professional help for for years. At 21 I had severe bulimia and despite asking for help for years, never got specific help getting sent away from services...either too high functioning or too complex once I was self harming (which is different to suicide although people who self harm become higher risk of committing suicide).

After 10 years of struggling with my bulimia, I needed a pacemaker for my heart as it had made a hereditary heart condition worse but I wasn't suicidal at that time (although I had always said I thought I had deserved to die at 28, the age my birth mum was when she died as a result of me being born which I always felt guilty about)so suicidal thoughts were always at the back of my mind but i had life goals and wanted to train as a nurse and help others as I had worked as a carer/support worker for years with adults with learning disabilities and mental health problems. I went in an eating disorder clinic but got no therapy but continued trying to focus on my goals, did an access to nursing course and continued to work as a carer. I got some CBT therapy for my eating disorder 2 years after discharge from the eating disorder clinic which was helpful but wasn't for long compared to how long I had struggled with my eating disorder (10 years).

In 2012 I developed strong suicidal thoughts which only went when I acted on them, which was a scary place to be. Between 2012 and 2015 I took alot of overdoses which I regret as they caused  physical health problems including heart failure and chronic kidney disease, by the end of 2014 I couldn't even walk across my bedroom without being out of breath and coughing, I was diagnosed with heart failure with an ejection fraction of 20% and was told I might die, by then I was suicidal and didn't care I had lost hope of my mental health problems improving and of my life ever getting better and felt if I wasn't working and being productive I deserved to be dead and felt a burden to my parents who have always been supportive and I'm close to. 

In 2015 I started the year in Leeds general infirmary with heart failure, then went to a therapeutic community in London for people with personality disorders which I got diagnosed with once I got so suicidal and local mental health services had classed me as too complex to treat. My mum found this therapeutic community in London which was funded by the NHS but it was an open hospital where you were there in the week for therapy then went back home for a weekend but I was too unsafe to be living in the community and took more overdoses.  I was then admitted back on the acute ward locally and was sectioned as by then I was tying ligatures and had totally given up on life, it was the darkest place i had ever been and I had staff with me 24 hours a day for 7 months, 3 months on the local acute ward then 4 months at a locked hospital in Mexborough. The support workers helped me feel more positive again and I managed to stop acting on self harm and suicidal thoughts and then I got meningococcal septicaemia and pneumonia and ended up in Rotherham hospital in the high dependency unit and got scared of dying.  I was still struggling with my bulimia but wasn't suicidal and got discharged to a local mental health rehab, which was a flat with staff on site who ran activities and did medication but it was alot less support than the locked hospital and my suicidal thoughts came back which I continued to act on as I struggled to adapt to living back in the community, my social anxiety meant I ended up only going out with support workers or family and my old friends lives had carried on without me in as I had been in hospital for a year so I rarely saw them., but I'm proud to say the last time I acted on any suicidal thoughts was 2018. I have self harmed a few times since but nothing severe and have been going to a therapeutic community for therapy for a year to help with getting better at dealing with emotions that cause me to self harm and have my eating disorder. 

I joined AFO choir 2 years ago and that has helped my social anxiety and I have refound a love for singing which I did when I was younger in a church choir.  In 2019 I still had strong suicidal thoughts but literally planned goals for the year, choir gigs, volunteering at events for Bransby horses rescue and rehab charity and a sponsored swim and as I achieved my goals the suicidal thoughts get easier to fight. 

If we had ended up in lockdown a few years back I'm not sure I would have coped as well as I have, choir has given me a positive focus, I'm doing another sponsored swim for Mind the mental health charity as it helps me with my own mental health and is helping a charity that I have been supported by and supports so many people across the country and locally providing support and information on mental health problems. 

I'm 40 in February, for lots of reasons I never thought I would be here at 40 but now I'm trying to focus on life beginning at 40, I have so many things I want to do before I go anywhere. I want to get back to helping other people and work again as a support worker and teaching horse riding again once my physical and mental health has improved, I want to hopefully go on a tour with choir, I want to go on holiday abroad with my friend and want to be here to continue to be a good owner to Warwick my old pony.

Please don't judge people who are suicidal, often people share suicide awareness posts but then judge people who have made a suicide attempt but everyone has a story that has led them to becoming suicidal, so we all need to be kind to each other, we don't know what others are going through. A kind word can make all the difference.  I was once taking an overdose in a park and a man who I didn't know asked me if I was alright as I looked depressed ( I didn't tell him I had taken an overdose) but his care made me decide to go to the hospital to get help. I'm thankful I'm in a better place mentally than 5 years ago and I want to "release my past" for "recovery".