[Trigger warning: this post references suicide]
Thirteen years ago, Harry lost his Dad to suicide. Today, to mark International Survivors of Suicide Loss day, he shares his story.
I hope the below can act as a warning but also a reassurance to anyone, that you should never suffer in silence, even if everything is telling you to do just that.
Here goes, [takes a deep breath].
For ten years, I couldn’t hear or say the word, suicide. It made me feel sick. I couldn’t even think about putting the words ‘Dad’ and ‘suicide’ in the same sentence. For ten years, I couldn’t keep eye contact with anyone who would talk about ‘family’, I couldn’t be around ‘happy’ families, and I diverted any conversation on the above as soon as I could. I became pretty good at it all in the end. It was potentially my greatest asset; The ability to divert all conversation away from topics surrounding Dads, families, celebrations or growing up.
St. Ives, Cornwall, 2007- I lost my Dad to suicide. I was 12 years old at the time. He had everything to live for - he was planning his dream holiday on the same evening he ended his own life. It broke everything around me.
My coping mechanism was to keep my head down and act as if nothing happened. I lost my Dad, and it broke my entire family. The circumstances in which it happened created a blame-culture fueled by anger, upset and underlying tension. The reaction of a local community and the subsequent newspaper articles created an association that was so heavy on my shoulders, that I could never tell anyone about the real me- ‘Who would want to employ/date/be friends with someone like that?’ It sounds ridiculous, but this was so firmly in my head. I was embarrassed, and I felt sick talking about it. All I did for ten years was bury it as far away as I could. I actively tried to bury it so far that I would live most of my days forgetting about it.
"My coping mechanism was to keep my head down and act as if nothing happened."
Head down and hiding all feelings even remotely connected to what happened, I completed school, college, university and I now work for a company that I love in London. I would go into new encounters during these stages in life without really connecting ‘in full’ with anyone; I always held back slightly, in almost all instances because I didn’t want to get close to my past. As such, I rarely built meaningful relationships and I never put myself in a position to help others, quite simply because I never addressed the most significant thing that shaped who I was. As a result, I often became, irritable, frustrated and angry. I felt a strong sense of injustice, and I questioned why nobody understood me.
Just over two years ago, everything changed. I was at work, one month into my new job and in a brand-new city. While looking out the window, I saw several men standing on the roof of the ITV Tower Studios. Glasses now on, heart rate pulsing- I couldn’t for the life of me work out what the hell I was looking at. I quickly searched on Google, ‘Men on roof London, ITV’, my heart-sunk, chest tightened, it then started to sink in. These weren’t real men at all, but it was, in fact, a stunt by the Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM), this was #Project84 - referencing the number of men who take their own life each week in the UK (this number has since gone up). These statues on the roof were representing real people with real stories. To this day, this was the single-most-important moment that has happened to me. I am forever indebted.
Suddenly, I was struck with the sense that I’m not the only one who has had to suffer in silence. There are people who understand how I feel. I suddenly felt a compulsion to tell my story. I remember thinking that there must be so many people like me who feel the same. I started to work out some simple calculations of the number of people who have lost a loved one due to suicide in the past day, week, month, year. I started to feel as if there was a grave injustice. At that moment, without any intention to do so, I found what I wanted to dedicate myself towards- supporting and creating environments where people can be open about how they feel.
"Suddenly, I was struck with the sense that I’m not the only one who has had to suffer in silence".
I don’t have everything together yet; far from it. I still get that feeling inside my stomach when I speak about my past, hear certain songs, smell or see certain things. But these feeling are not angry anymore; I don’t try to forget that I’m thinking about them. I can now comfortably share these feelings with people. Over recent years, I have finally started to tell people who I truly am. When you start to open up, you can almost feel the weight fall off your shoulders. I began to lean into those people who wanted to get to know the real me. I started to not let the past control me, but instead use my story to create meaningful and long-lasting connections where more people can feel safe to tell their story too.
There is always someone who wants to hear how you feel and there is always someone who wants to get to know the real you. Please, rest assured that you are never alone in how you feel, there is and always will be someone who will listen.
If you are having a mental health emergency, or are worried about someone else, please reach out for support. Here's a list of emergency contact numbers, helplines and organisations that may be able to help.
