Day 480

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Stay Alive – A suicide prevention pocket resource for the UK that offers help and support both to people with thoughts of suicide and to people concerned about someone else. The app can be personalised to tailor it to the user.

This app has been developed by Grassroots, supporting communities to prevent suicide, one life at a time. They teach suicide alertness and intervention skills to community members and professionals. Based in the South East of England, since 2006 they have trained over 5,000 people in suicide prevention and mental health both locally and nationally. They have seats on several advisory committees in Brighton & Hove and have contributed to both local and national suicide prevention and self-harm strategies.

Key features of the app include:

Quick access to national crisis support helplines
A mini-safety plan that can be filled out by a person considering suicide
A LifeBox to which the user can upload photos from their phone reminding them of their reasons to stay alive
Strategies for staying safe from suicide
How to help a person thinking about suicide
Suicide myth-busting
Research-based reasons for living
Online support services and other helpful apps
Suicide bereavement resources

Aside from Breathing exercises, grounding techniques and lots of useful tips and contacts, it has a section called ‘My Life-box’. Here I can add pictures that remind me of my reasons to stay alive. I uploaded a funny photo of Si, one of my Mum and Dad celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary and one of Saagar and I, happy together. This is the next best thing to a friend sitting with me, holding my hand when I am down and out.

Day 472

Posted by kidsaregifts20

Steve Fugate is 67. After loosing his son to suicide 14 years ago he took it upon himself to walk across America as therapy. Since then he has done it 6 times. He has walked more than 34,000 kilometers since. He calls it ‘Trail therapy’.
His simple message is: Love Life.

He does it not only because it helps him but also because he can’t bear the thought of the same happening to anyone else.

This is his message (on facebook) today:

“Good Morning!!!!!!
God I Love being me! Woke up this morning and I’m still me, the same damn one born in June of 1946. How great it is to be me and not someone else. I would not exchange the me I am for anyone else’s me… ever. I like being me, I trust me, and I follow my own lead. It bothers me not that others have more, have accomplished more, are prettier, are smarter, or dance and sing better. I am content with me and all my faults, past mistakes, and even the heartbreaks. My contentment comes from having found how to obtain perfection! Perfection to me, is the ability to Love all my fellow human beings even as much as I Love myself. That’s my mark in Life and I am aiming for it. I want a heart governed mind. Worry not of how others view you, nor of your possessions while living this precious gift of Life. Concern yourself only with loving your fellow human being with all your heart and you will find the true beauty of Life and a wealth money cannot create. LOVE LIFE.”

Day 462

Posted by kidsaregifts20

Shame

1a: a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming, or improprietyb : the susceptibility to such emotion <have you no shame?>
2: a condition of humiliating disgrace or disrepute : ignominy <the shame of being arrested>
3a: something that brings censure or reproach; also : something to be regretted : pity <it’s a shame you can’t go>b : a cause of feeling shame

Many survivors of suicide suffer a deep sense of shame due to the suicide of their loved ones. Some fathers don’t want to hear their son’s names. Some wives don’t want to talk about their husband’s death by suicide. In fact, they don’t want to talk about their husbands. Full stop. The morality associated with suicide is unique, probably due to historical and religious reasons. The tragic fact that they died seems to be completely overshadowed by how they died. The unbelievable pain of loss is compounded many times over by the associated shame. This is another big reason for the silence of suicide.

Shame is destructive.

There is no need for it in the present times. We don’t know the burden they carried. They fought their nightmarish battle alone. They carried pain beyond the limits of the human heart and soul for as long as they could.
They ran out of resources and hope. That is human.
No place for shame. Just love and compassion, for the living and the dead.

Day 454

Posted by kidsaregifts20

“I am sorry that I did not refer him back to the Community Mental Health Team but at the time of my assessments in September and October I did not feel this was clinically necessary”, said the letter from the GP.

I am sorry but I think this is ugly.
I am sorry but I don’t think you are sorry.
I am sorry but using the word ‘but’ is a justification and not an apology.
I am sorry but your clinical judgement was clearly flawed.
I am sorry but this is not good enough.
I am sorry but I might have to change my mind about taking this further before others come to harm.
I am sorry but this statement does not give me any idea of your understanding of the damage caused by this mistake.
I am sorry but it also does not indicate that any lessons have been learnt for the future.

When an apology is heartfelt, it comes through clearly.
If he had said, “At the time I did not think he needed a referral. I am really sorry I didn’t refer him back.” it would sound more real.

Is the litigious nature of medicine preventing us from connecting at a human level? Should we need lawyers to find the truth in a case like this? Are we not capable of looking at ourselves and our systems and figure out the deficiencies?

An apology is a regretful acknowledgement of an offence or failure. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Definitely no ‘buts’.

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Day 452

Posted by kidsaregifts20

Feeling somewhat triumphant about my recent article in the Huffington Post, I sent the link to a close friend and colleague. She wrote back, “I am sorry but I won’t be able to read your article. Although I never met him, Saagar conjures up images of fun and music for me. His final act was selfless and so full of love. For this I can only have total admiration for him. I can only believe that he knew the score and respect him, mental illness or not. It gives me peace. Saagar’s light shines bright. Xxxxx”

I was a bit surprised by this but then, the article doesn’t exactly make for cheerful light reading. That she could know that without reading it was quite remarkable. Was his last act ‘selfless’ and ‘full of love’ or ‘hopeless’ and a result of ’poorly managed illness’? Did he ‘know the score’ or was it a litany of errors that led him to a place where he couldn’t know anything?

Sometimes I feel that by writing about Suicide, Saagar and our story, I am spreading unhappiness. It is important for everyone to hold on to their peace and for me to find mine. On the other hand, it has been said that, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”