the now

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 471

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The burglar alarm was serviced today. The technician asked me to review the phone numbers on the panel. These numbers are called if and when the alarm rings. Saagar’s number came up. I smiled. I didn’t really know what to say to him. Keep it? Delete it? I hesitated and then asked him to remove it. It doesn’t matter if his number is gone. His blessings are here.

I was struggling to carry a heavy suitcase up the stairs at Moorgate station. A handsome young man came up to me and offered to carry it for me. I smiled. I had tears in my eyes. I let him carry it. It was not Saagar. But his kindness is still here.

The trainer at the gym walked me up to a set of elastic straps hooked on to a metal frame. I recognized it – the TRX! Saagar never travelled without it. He would often hook it on to a door-frame and demonstrate the incredible exercises he could do with the help of the TRX. He would have loved to see someone making me use it. He is not but his wicked sense of humour is still here.

Even though he is not here, he is so ‘present’.
This moment is filled with him.

Day 470

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Today I was an anaesthetist.

I helped sixteen patients get through their minor surgeries. I am grateful to have a job I enjoy, to have colleagues who are friends, to be able to laugh and sometimes make other people laugh and to have the strength to get through a busy day calmly and artfully. Here’s a lovely poem written by my friend and colleague:

I, Anaesthetist

I don’t want you to feel trepidation
similarly, any anxiety
Relax, I’ve come to explain
How with profound sedation
I’ll drain your synapses of electricity,
To create a state of dissociation
Yes it’s true, it’s what we do
Temporarily abolish your sentience,
Take over your physiology
Until there’s not much left of you

And when you are where I need you to be
I’ll stay with you, diligently
through Alpine fluctuations
of muscle tone and circulation
below raging tempests of nociception
of which you’ll have no recollection
As I said, you will be fine
I’m out of sight, you’re out of mind

And when the filleting is done
and suturing, and cautery
I’ll bring you’re back up from the abyss
but you’ll have no idea of this
and you’ll open eyes, without pain
and ask have you had your surgery?
as recovery nurses say your name
and offer you a cup of tea
– Dr Michael Duncan

Day 467

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Same house where we lived together.
Same local railway station that we used routinely and I still do.
The same one where he ended his life.
Still here.
Thought about moving away but couldn’t.
Am I stuck or is this normal?

When I wake up at 3 am for a drink of water, the only thought that crosses my mind is – I really didn’t look after him properly. I could have done more to help and understand him. A snippet from the rest of the time that I am awake.
Am I stuck or is this normal?

His school is designing a bench to install in his memory. When I ask his friends and our family for suggestions on the inscriptions that could be engraved on his bench a week ago, I hear nothing back.
Am I stuck or is this normal?

These people love him but they have their own priorities, lives and commitments. I am sure they also have their own way of experiencing and expressing their love. Am I being unreasonable? Is something wrong with me?
Am I stuck or is this normal?

Once again I am looking outside for things I already have. There are 2 memory books filled with messages of love. This blog is now more than 92000 words long. The words are there. I don’t need to look for them anywhere else.

Even though sometimes I feel like I am going mad, there is no need for labels – ‘normal’, ‘strong’, ‘stuck’, ‘mad’ or anything else.
It is bloody painful but it is what it is.

‘

Day 466

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Of all the vibrant colours in life and in pictures, why is white and black imagery most appealing?
Of all the melodious sounds, voices and notes, why is silence most soothing?
Of all the fancy foods, drinks and delicious delights, why is fasting most cleansing?
Of all the fabulous places to see on this planet and beyond, why is looking within most healing?
Of all the travelling and exploring possible, why is the journey inwards most alluring?
Of all the wise words of sermons, books and blogs, why does my inner voice ring most true?
Of all the festivities of a charmed life, why does the lure of a peaceful soul surpass all?

“There’s a hidden sweetness
in the stomach’s emptiness.

We are lutes, no more, no less.
If the sound box is stuffed
full of anything, no music.

If the brain and the belly
are burning clean with fasting,
every moment a new song
comes out of the fire.

The fog clears, and a new
energy makes you run up the
steps in front of you.

Be emptier and cry like
reed instruments cry.
Emptier, write secrets with
the reed pen.

When you’re full of food and drink,
Satan sits where your
spirit should, an ugly metal
statue in place of the Kaaba.

When you fast, good habits gather
like friends who want to help.

Fasting is Solomon’s ring.
Don’t give it to some illusion
and lose your power.

But even if you’ve lost all
will and control, they come
back when you fast,
like soldiers appearing out
of the ground, pennants
flying above them.

A table descends to your
tent, Jesus’s table.
Expect to see it, when you
fast, this table spread with
other food better than the
Broth of cabbages.”
– Rumi.