The Mental Health Thread - (Help Contacts in First Post).

[btajim - mcfc]

He was never my cup of tea for a variety of reasons but the James Arthur documentary on iPlayer explains much and was an interesting watch.

It’s important to not judge people as you don’t know what they’ve been through. This is something I’ve been guilty of before. Dave at work is retiring soon. I’ve always found him mildly aggressive and on edge all the time. I suggested leaving drinks and he said he didn’t touch alcohol due to the medication he’d been on for years. At lunch, he was talking to the girls about how home was his safe place and he feared he’d never go out again unless he had to. As I said, I’d always found him aggressive and on edge…

[ironilunga]

So sorry for your loss Combs. As others have said please try and reach out for support and don’t be alone with your thoughts if they are negative - let them out to others, either on here or to people you know or to a helpline, counsellor or someone else. Its going to take time - don’t isolate yourself

[S-H]

One of my best friends, who has been suffering with his mental health for over a decade tried to commit suicide a few weeks ago. I won't go into detail about that, but it was no halfhearted attempt let's just say that. He only survived due to the quick response of the Ambulance service, and eventually required the Air Ambulance to take him to the Royal London.

I had only seen him the day before, and for him he was pretty good. Quite with it. Just goes to show you that you have no idea what's going on insides somebody's head.

This will be the 3rd time he has been sectioned now, and I just don't see a way out for him. It's all so very sad.

Sorry CB I somehow missed this.

Sorry to hear your poor friend, let's hope he can get the help he needs, and eventually find some peace.

Hope you're ok too, must be something that weighs heavily on your mind.

[mushy]

Combs,
That's an extremely hard thing for you.and your mates family to cope with mentally.
Being bereaved by suicide triggers all sorts of intense emotions including all the ones associated with the grieving process.
If you already idealise about suicide to what you might think is an unhealthy level then I urge you to reach out and seek help..
As others have rightly said you've made the first move by bravely coming on here to talk about it, but your feelings of intense loss and grief,.along with the normal anger and guilt are unlikely to go away easily.
Cruse charity (they specialise in bereavement) run a joint programme with the Samaritans specifically for those bereaved by suicide.
It's a six week course on Zoom and takes 90 minutes each week.
This course is very highly regarded and gets a very positive response from participants.
Details are below but they may insist you wait 3 months after the date of the death as these things are often too raw for some.
https://www.facingthefuturegroups.org/

I wish you nothing but the best mate and as DL has quite rightly said our DM's are open.
If you want to talk more about the course then get in touch via pm and leave me your number.
Take care and don't be a stranger on here.
Big love to you and everyone else.

[mushy]

Sorry CB I somehow missed this.

Sorry to hear your poor friend, let's hope he can get the help he needs, and eventually find some peace.

Hope you're ok too, must be something that weighs heavily on your mind.

Same here Cockneyboy, sorry I've missed this.
I can only echo Somersets words.
Only advice I can offer is try not to worry too much about asking direct questions as regards his suicidal thoughts. Sometimes just asking a mate if he's ok isn't enough (but it's always a good start),.you generally get a positive response because that's what they think you want to hear and it closes the conversation.
Asking a direct question such as "Are you currently having suicidal thoughts" doesn't trigger them at all and gives them permission to talk about things that they probably haven't spoken about with anyone else and can be a great relief. And just sometimes that's all they need.
Be prepared though to hear answers that might be difficult for yourself. In other words if you feel yourself that you wouldn't be able to explore and probe further what he/she might tell you (understandable) then it's probably better not to ask.
Best of luck to you and your mate.

[YorksHammer]

Gosh Combs, awful to hear and so sorry for your loss. As others have said, do reach out to someone to talk to beyond here, because you'll find there's a lot of good that just talking it out can do for you, for sure. Stay safe and well.

[ageing hammer]

Combs so sorry for your loss, there are great people on here that are advising you and care about each other. We all look out for one another on here and you did exactly the right thing pressing the submit button.

Please keep posting on here and ask for more advice as there are lots on here who have had similar situations and can offer really good help.

Look after yourself mate

[Cockneyboy311]

Sorry CB I somehow missed this.

Sorry to hear your poor friend, let's hope he can get the help he needs, and eventually find some peace.

Hope you're ok too, must be something that weighs heavily on your mind.

Thanks SH. He's been moved from Section 2 to 3, which means (as i understand it) a minimum of 6 months in the psychiatric hospital. As long as the medical professionals use this six months properly and really try to get to the bones of all his issues we might see some light at the end of the tunnel. Previously he's been able to silver tongue his way out after short stays and the end result is what we have now. It is difficult because he is very manipulative and convincing. He might be ill be he is extremely intelligent.

The family have told me and his other friends just to hold back for now, and they will update us as and when. We cant go and see him anyway as it's close family only.

We shall see, but something needs to give as he cant keep going in and out of hospital.

[Cockneyboy311]

So sorry for your loss Combs. As others have said please try and reach out for support and don’t be alone with your thoughts if they are negative - let them out to others, either on here or to people you know or to a helpline, counsellor or someone else. Its going to take time - don’t isolate yourself

100% this. Stay strong Combs.

[btajim - mcfc]

People of higher intelligence often do suffer from mental health problems. Sad fact.

[rigoberts song]

So sorry for you loss combs.

[fjthegrey]

Hi all.

It's going to be **** for a while mate. You'll probably spend too much time thinking about what you could have done differently even though deep down you know things could only have gone the way they did. But you'll still feel guilty in some sense, regardless.

You'll be absolutely levelled every now and then at something as small as the thought you won't be able to ping a silly text with some in-joke over to them, and get a silly in-joke response back that only the two of you would understand. One of the little things that enriches life more than anyone can tangibly define.

You'll think about birthdays, Christmases and other family events in the future that you would have spent together. Where you'd have watched your children become friends, where you'd have made all those same silly in jokes in person and where you'd be reminiscing about those great times together. Instead you're thinking about how they won't be there, how your kids won't even know who they are and after enough time passes, scared about whether you'll even remember what it was like to be around them.

You'll think about them when they were a kid. How funny they were in their own way. How full of potential and magic. How great it all really was being a kid with them. And how ****ing tragic it is that they were still basically a kid when they died. How we're all still kids when it's all said and done.

You'll be in a social situation and a song will come on that reminds you of them and you'll feel yourself die inside. The room starts spinning and you just want to curl up and be back in your old bedroom with them watching a film and laughing.

You'll feel the days speed up and start charging by even faster, feeling like the universe is pushing them even further away from you.

But you'll slowly start to notice that thoughts of them stop making you feel quite so sad and actually start making you smile. When one of those little in-jokes pops into your head it won't level you anymore, you'll smirk to yourself and give a little nod to the sky. The song that made the room spin will suddenly make the room rock, there'll be an additional layer to the music that wasn't there before and the beauty and magic of it will be overwhelming in a good way, special in a unique way to you and him. It'll be for you only and nobody else will or could get it.

When you think about how it was when you were kids you'll feel nothing but gratitude for the amazing time you had, how miraculously unlikely it all was that you and him even existed, let alone got to grow up together. You'll not be so concerned with the hypothetical future that won't be, just fantastically grateful for the past you did have. Childhood isn't to prepare you for adulthood, it's to be enjoyed. Life is to be enjoyed in every stage. Waiting for a future that might not come is a fools way to live. And I hope there was enough enjoyment as children to feel like he led at least in part a life worth living.

You'll feel an added motivation to make things better in your world. The preciousness, fragility, ephemerality of it all even more of an instigator. You'll hold the people you love even closer, you'll tell them you love them more, you'll be more supportive, you'll just be better, because you know you have to be, in order to make something good from something so utterly ****. You'll realise, in the devastating fallout of your brothers death, just how much of an influence one person can have on the world. And you will feel the compulsion to deliver a net positive to the world around you.

But it's going to be ****, for a while. You just have to ride it out. Don't be afraid to talk about them with your family, don't be afraid to think about them and definitely, definitely don't be afraid to feel bad. You're supposed to feel bad. And you're supposed to think about them. You're supposed to laugh and cry about it all at the same time.

You're never going to get over it. It's going to be with you forever, but that's how you know it mattered and was good.

[Tenbury]

From the heart, FJ, excellent post. Top man.

[Samba]

You'll feel the days speed up and start charging by even faster, feeling like the universe is pushing them even further away from you.

After my dad died, that awful sense of loss made me think that I'd driven away from the hospital with my dad getting further away & smaller in my rear view mirror & each day after that, only increasing the distance between us.
Some years later, I realised that if there is an afterlife & that we do meet up again, each day that passes now, I am actually moving closer back towards him.
And if there isn't, well, it won't matter then.

You're never going to get over it. It's going to be with you forever.

And that is so true. Why on Earth should we 'get over it'? It's not about that.
It's more about somehow coming to terms with it one day.

Wishing you both all the strength you need Cockneyboy & Combs.

[chelmsfordhammer91]

It's going to be **** for a while mate.

Top post FJ, hit the nail right on the head from my experience of similar.

Word for word encapsulates a lot of what I know can be hard to verbalise or make sense of.

[Cockneyboy311]

What a great post FJ. Absolutely spot on and made me well up.

[Combs]

Hi all

I did have mixed emotions after posting, but I'm glad I did. Thanks for all the kind replies, they were consoling and I have since sought help.

FJ, your post totally smashed me, but you are right and I really appreciate you taking your time to say those words.

[ageing hammer]

FJ your post is one of the finest things I have ever read on this thread, truly amazing words.

[Cockneyboy311]

FJ your post is one of the finest things I have ever read on this thread, truly amazing words.

Without giving him a big head, I'd say on this site full stop.

[PF.]

Sorry I’m not sure what message this is meant to be but by typing this out and having a good sob in the process I am hoping that my current pain will lessen.

Mate, my brother (a poster on this here site and a regular at the Vic Tavern / Boleyn) committed suicide in 2014, a few weeks before the birth of my daughter (our first). He left behind two young boys. I was living in Malaysia at the time and he was in the UK. It was unexpected but I riddled myself with guilt and looked for people to blame for a long time afterwards - looking back now it was wasted energy.

I can't tell you how to deal with your grief as everyone is different. What I can say is that there is specialist help out there if you want to talk to someone (I didn't feel I needed to, so did not - meaning I can't tell you what the process is like).

I came back twice (on the day he did it and then flew back again for the funeral). At first, I wasn't going to fly back the second time but a mate gave me some valuable advice (through his own experiences) and said that I must be there. I flew in that morning and went straight into it, jet-lagged and entirely dazed. He was right. I had to be there as it meant everything to my family and friends.

It's strange being the sibling to a suicide death. There's a lot of sympathy to the parents and to their own kids (and rightly so), but the sibling seems forgotten, or maybe it was just me and how I felt.

I was told that things would get easier and to be honest, it went in one ear and out the other. The fact is though, combs, it does get it easier. Trust me.

There will be days when it will tough and there will be triggers that I'm not sure will ever go away. There'll be a few tears when West Ham win an important game or you're standing watching a final like I was with England in the summer just gone. "He should be with me" is a regular one for me. It sounds strange, but I take this as my 'melancholic' side trying to drag me down- and whilst I acknowledge the feeling, I will not allow myself to be dragged into enforced self-pity.

You're going to go through a multitude of emotions brother. You're going to have dreams that seem real. You're going to look for answers and for signs. But the fact is, there is nothing you can do about what has happened, all you can do now is look forward.

Go out and live your life to the fullest mate. It's the only way.