Is Suicide The Last Taboo?

Now don’t get me wrong, mental health stigma is far from gone but it is going in the right direction. Things have changed massively in the last decade in terms of how people view, treat and talk about mental health conditions. However, when trying to find support for suicide survivors I found very little. But there was a huge amount of information about suicide prevention and for people affected (ie supporting someone suicidal) and bereaved by suicide. It got me thinking — is suicide the last taboo?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot since my own suicide attempt, but this turned into the idea to blog about my journey when in Waterstones. I was in looking for a gift for my Dad when I decided to peruse the self help section and find out if there were any books about dealing with suicide. Now don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t expecting miracles from the relatively small self help section. But what struck me was the number of books claiming to make me happy, or giant books like “an anatomy of depression” — who has depression and can contemplate reading a book that size when you have already gone over the depression and the many reasons you may have it with a fine toothcomb?

For anyone like me who does in fact judge a book by its cover, none of these stood out except Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig (which I have read and would recommend highly to everyone) and Shoot The Damn Dog by the late Sally Brampton (which I haven’t read yet but have heard good things about). But that is only 2 books in a whole section. And Matt Haig’s is the only one I saw which quite clearly is going to deal directly with feeling suicidal. I know the other books may well cover this within their covers, but it just feels odd that there are sections on depression and bereavement but neither seem to outwardly address suicide.

I have found it equally as difficult to find UK sources of support for suicide survivors, I challenge you to google it and if you find anything, please let me know. I did find a couple of things which are good — there are some stories on Write to Recovery and recently I have heard about the Recovery Letters, but can’t get on to the website at the moment.

I found lots of resources for prevention and supporting someone who is suicidal/dealing with bereavement due to suicide, but very very little for suicide attempt survivors.

This is wrong. It is a traumatic experience.

There are 24 hours which I have almost no memory of other than hallucinations and being pissed off and confused by all the wires I had attached to me.

I am still dealing with the guilt of what I put my family and friends through (don’t tell me not to feel this, I can’t help it).

I can’t drive because I had a seizure.

I am nervous taking tablets, I refused to allow myself to take my prescribed tablets for a migraine because I knew they would make me drowsy.

I felt like my heart stopped when I saw sleeping tablets at my parents house.

I am terrified of going back to That Dark Place and there being anything similar easily available to me.

All I would like is to meet and speak to someone who has been through something similar to chat to and discuss this, and hopefully gain some insight in to how others have dealt with the myriad of thoughts and feelings which come as a result.