MIND MOVES:Revealing the fragility of our mental health, writes TONY BATES
STORIES ABOUT suicide have been a recurrent motif in the press in recent years. They seem to erupt from places where we least expect to hear of them with disturbing regularity.
They raise questions that do not have easy answers, but questions that nonetheless need to be asked: what happened in this person’s life to push them over the edge? Could something have been done to avert the tragedy of their death and the shattered lives they left behind? What does suicide say to those of us who are tasked with caring for people who experience mental health difficulties?
Carl O’Brien’s current series in this newspaper has once again brought this public health issue to our attention. Each of his articles highlights a particular story about a real person who died by suicide and the people who loved them.
The person at the heart of the story is remembered and allowed to live again for a moment in our awareness, so that their death, when it is described, feels like a personal loss. And we sense, even if only to a small extent, the pain of loved ones who continue to experience the aftershock of the trauma they witnessed.
Each of his articles considers the unique life story of a real person and the particular consequences of their death. Each is a brief psychological autopsy on a life that was overtaken by despair. By looking more closely at suicide than is usually the case, these articles have the potential to spark a more personal and more honest consideration of what happens to make people act in this way.
Those who die by suicide are not a separate category of human beings who are afflicted by some particular “suicide virus”; they are ordinary people like you and me who experience emotional distress that makes them feel they are hopelessly trapped: people who face crippling financial debt without any way to pay it off; young people between 18 and 25 years who achieved impressive qualifications, only to find themselves with no opportunity to apply their skills; and people who carry the wounds of early trauma that reopen in their adult lives and cause inner torment and depression.
Telling personal stories in some depth reveals something to all of us about the fragility of our mental health. This does not deny our immense potential to tackle what may look like insurmountable problems, but the stories remind us that our survival depends on each other.
One of the hopeful outcomes from these stories is that we will all be a little more honest with one another about how dark our lives feel from time to time and how much we need one another’s support to make it through these times. In the past two decades, we have oversold the message that our mental health is in our own hands, that we have within us all we need to make it. As empowering as this may sound, it’s an illusion and one that can cost us our lives.
In October, we witnessed a moment of liberation in Chile that had been made possible by people using their combined ingenuity to reach 33 people trapped in a dark space. While those who were trapped came close to giving up on themselves, those above ground never gave up on them. They built a channel of communication to them through which they ultimately became free. Pain and tragedy can either bring us closer to each other or drive a wedge between us; the potential of this series is that it can open up communication between those who hurt and those who care about them.
Suicide, as Geraldine Kennedy pointed out in her introductory remarks to this series, is the convergence of many troubled strands of experience. We need a debate that respects the complexity of this phenomenon and leads to creative solutions to which each of us can contribute.
In this column next Tuesday I will be making some observations about what these articles teach us about suicide .
Tony Bates is founding director of Headstrong – The National Centre for Youth Mental Health (headstrong.ie)