Suicide prevention dayno one is ever truly alone

To mark World Suicide Prevention Day, Cavan based community worker Daniel Downey recalls his experience of living with depression and his relief that his attempt to end his own life failed. 

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. How we mark it and how we deal with it is a reflection on the community in which we live. Suicide is a fact of all our lives now as never before. The World Health Organisation estimates that it is the thirteenth-leading cause of death worldwide and the leading cause of death among teenagers and adults under 35, with 10 to 20 million non-fatal attempted suicides reported each year worldwide. Here in Ireland there are thought to be roughly 400 deaths from suicide per year and this increases annually. For every death from suicide, it is estimated there are 10-30 times as many attempted suicides of incidents of self-harm.

Where are all these motivations coming from? Why are so many of our young people simply opting out of life? Despite youth and energy and the promise of a long life ahead so many, particularly young men, are choosing to end their lives. 

As a young man who attempted this perhaps I can communicate what it feels at the time or perhaps help to identify some of the potential warning signs displayed by those who may be in need of support, or an ear to listen. There was often in my own personal experience a deep despair about the future and the futility of wanting to be a part of it or to be a part of anyone else’s life.

When a person feels depressed enough to want to give up they often become distanced from people and hopes, withdrawn and isolated. Very little can pierce through that veil of protection they wrap themselves in, and very few people can inspire them or help them rally the inspiration they need to help themselves, and so a negative spiral is created, pressing their world ever downward and away from the supports that might bring them back from the attempt of taking their own lives. It can show itself in mood swings, irritability, seclusion and isolation and a tendency to be completely detached from people they would previously have called friends or family, but who are cut off from them by their own dark thoughts and feelings.

When the darkest part of the experience shadows that person’s world, relationships which could be made are usually kept at arm’s length because of the futility of building anything that might be lost and creating anything of worth or lasting length is seen as pointless against the worthlessness felt and the meaningless of living anymore.

Find a footing

What can we do? If you are that person you have two options, either you can find something, anything, in your life which means even the tiniest thing to you and from there begin building upon it, like a tiny rock in an ocean of meaninglessness. You just need one sure thing to find a footing and it can get better.

The second option is to tell someone. Telling someone has two benefits, it can guide you through to a better place simply by sharing and it can mean someone is there for you, that life outside yourself does care about you.

In my case it was purely accidental that I failed in the attempt to kill myself but I eventually chose the first option and began to build my life up piece by piece. It can take years, it did take years, but my life became something I never thought it ever could. It became meaningful and helped so many other people find meaning, it made the act of not dying worth more to me than succeeding in dying. That is worth hanging on for, and in time, by stepping back from an act you can never undo, you will find a place where life is good. I promise you that from my own experiences. Yes, it may take years and yes it does come back from time to time but life is about overcoming our challenges, growing in ourselves to meet them and transforming ourselves into better people. It’s not all an upward journey but it is meaningful.

My own fight with depression and my living with it and achievements over it give my life satisfaction and this can be true of others who “beat the blues”.

Be a friend

If you know someone who may be in this situation, what can you do? In many cases it is so very hard to help people who push us away at every turn, or in my case who ruin their friendships and relationships to get away from them (some self destruct their lives before they self destruct their life). But just simply being there and being persistently a friend, even when they seem disrespectful, can save a life. As Stephen Fry once said “It is hard to be a friend to someone who is depressed but it is one of the kindest, noblest things you will ever do”.

People should also take it seriously and not make light of the fact that “that’s crazy” or “those aren’t real problems”. Remember it may not be an actual problem as much as a lack of meaning itself or a reason to live. I refused to tell anyone for many years because of those very things I heard others say of it, other people who spoke to me, not knowing of my own experiences. So if you are near someone who may harbour these feelings be there for them and don’t try to push them out of it, don’t assume you have the answers to their problems. Just support them enough to find their own strength and their own solutions. In this way you can genuinely save a life.

My suicide attempt gave great insight into the place many of our young people can sometimes find themselves in, but my secret and ashamed battle with depression brought me to the point where I was strong enough to help those in need, to support people in their own problem solving and to try to keep friend’s spirits up as much as I could, recalling when I thought I didn’t deserve it when I needed it.

To help you do this, whether you are a sufferer of these things or want to support a person in need there are also so many supports beginning to grow around helping you all. SOSAD, Suicide Ireland, Suicide Prevention Ireland, Console and other agencies have good, friendly and supportive staff to help find some of these solutions you or your loved ones may need.

No one is ever truly alone and though you or a loved one may feel it now, that won’t always be the case. Life is just around the corner, turn it and see what it has to offer in the way of adventure and meaning.

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day, let’s just remember for today at least to be there a little more for one another and to give our kindness and support to everyone, you never know what battles they wage within. Thank you to those who supported me and those who support others. You are all heroes in these personal struggles.

“The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.” Ben Okri