April blog
I wanted to share a more detailed story to hopefully help others. Mum suffered from mental ill health for over 20 years. During this time, she had been an inpatient of the Derwent centre at Harlow Hospital on several occasions. In October 2017, she was on a downward spiral and I had contacted the crisis team on several occasions. I call my mum every morning and, on that morning, she was not answering. I continued trying repeatedly, by this time I knew something was wrong. Eventually someone answered the phone, it was the transport police at Harlow Town train station. Thankfully on this occasion they had noticed that mum was not in the right frame of mind and managed to save her from hurting herself. She was then taken to hospital for treatment, which included electric shock treatment at the Linden centre Chelmsford.
Mum was well enough to come home, we had some good times, but her demons kept finding a way to creep back and she also had some very dark days.
Mum had a routine GP appointment February 2020 to discuss her repeat prescription. She was under the mental health team for her psychiatric medication but was on routine medication from the GP. Mum mentioned that she was feeling very anxious, the GP changed her psychiatric medication quite dramatically, she then went on a bit of a downward spiral. I contacted the mental health team and managed to speak to the psychiatrist assigned to her, who was understandably quite concerned that the medication had been changed. He then wrote a prescription for mum to go back onto the original medication. I expressed my concerns, as she was in an unbelievably bad way at this time. She then started back on the old dose and she seemed to slightly improve. Mum had been staying at my dad’s, they were separated, but got on. The morning of 9th March 2020 mum had got up taken her medication and packed her overnight bag to go home and had eaten breakfast. Dad took the dog for a walk before taking mum home. On his return, he came in to find mum hanging from the banister. He got her down called an ambulance and performed CPR, until the ambulance came. Again, that morning I had been ringing and ringing, eventually dad answered the phone and gave me the devastating news, I then got to his as soon as I could. The ambulance crew done all they could, but she had to be put on life support and after the scan results had come through after the 72hrs you have to wait. It was bad news and mum had suffered extensive damage. Mum was a donor, so then we had to go through the process, and this took another day. Mum was able to donate some organs and tissues, which gave us some comfort, that she was able to help others.
I am hearing of the same devastating stories, like ours nearly daily. Do we need to be actively about to take our lives to be heard? I have since found out that there are a few organisations locally that I did not know about, I am in the process of adding these to the website, also a folder to be kept at the hub. Please reach out for help. You may feel as if there is no way out, but I can assure you that you can get through this with help and love of others. Do not suffer in silence. Its also devastating for those left behind and leaves a very heavy hole. I am also setting up bereavement groups, specifically for those suffering through the loss of suicide.
I am now a mental health champion for mind, they are offering some great training for suicide awareness, I think everyone should be trained in this to help others and just be more aware. Please use the link to find more information on this free training. https://www.mindinwestessex.org.uk/.../suicide-awareness.../