Men and suicide - video transcript

Speaker 1:

So I think there is a two fold element of being not quite being sure that i needed help and not being sure how to ask for it or even if it would be listen to anyway.

Maybe I was expecting too much from other people to kind of step in and say oh well lets talk about it are there any other issues you want to talk about? Perhaps then I could have started talking about the more difficult stuff. But it's not easy to talk about. Maybe it's a sign of weakness as well like I didn't want to show weakness

Every way I looked at it I just thought there's only one way out of it without putting in lots of effort or exposing myself and becoming quite vulnerable.

Speaker 2:

I didn't know I needed any help I probably knew I wasn't coping but it didn't occur to me to ask anybody for help because I thought it was all my fault.

I didn't know what anyone would do I suppose, underlying that shame is inbred attitudes of a lifetime of not understanding what mental ill health is about not wanting to be branded as a nutter or a looney you know all those stigmatising attitudes were deep in me, and I suspect deep in many people.

The fear of the consequences of getting a diagnosis of a mental illness the fear of that being on your CV and damaging your future that's real the fear of being treated, the fear of being sectioned and taken to a mental hospital.

Speaker 3:

The trail of thought that shuts down every positive engaging with life urge. That was the only option I had that I knew of was just to go to the doctors and get some tablets and that's what you do and that's all there is to do. I wasn't directed to any other services at all I wasn't even aware of any other services as a possibility.

Speaker 4:

I just couldn't see a way out of it and I think the anger of all of this of not seeing my children was fuelling the desperate hopelessness I could just feel like I was falling into hopelessness I can visualise it because there was nothing, nothing I could do no-one to listen no-one to ask for help nobody I was in fear of going to the GP these things can affect you getting access to your children yet shouldn't it be a good thing you asking for help shouldn't it?

Speaker 5:

I am a survivor of bereavement by suicide and here I am thinking about leaving my wife and my daughter and my mother in a situation that I'm still struggling to cope with Everything seemed to be going

fairly well and yet I was in this tunnel this black tunnel with all the numbness and guilt and all the things that go with

depression as a illness.

Speaker 6:

I've been battling depressions very, kept myself very closed didn't tell my friends didn't go out and I'd sit days on end in my pyjamas just watching Jeremy Kyle and daytime telly I wouldn't do anything wouldn't even go out and that's how my life really started to tumble down was from there, I was in that mindset of what's the point?

And it kept on tumbling and tumbling and it was I don't want to be here anymore don't want to be here anymore and that's when I decided I wanted to commit suicide.

Speaker 7:

I didn't know who to talk to I tried talking to a friend (they) laughed in my face about it almost told me to suck-it-up it's all in my head type thing so I kinda I dwelled on that for quite a while and sort of the pressure of my GCSEs coming up as well and I couldn't do it and it was like really making me feel quite useless and what was kind of the point of me being here.

A lot of fear of approaching people as to kind of what people going to think of me if I approach them and say well I don't want to be here you know, I want to die you know I don't see the point of me being here like I was scared of approaching people so I didn't really know where to look for help.

Speaker 8:

Trying to put on a brave face but at the same time I'm trying to tell them look I'm feeling really suicidal I need help. I didn't think my voice was being listened to at that time there was still a stigma behind it even with a doctor, I felt to me that if no-one can help me what's the point of being here.

Speaker 9:

Going through a separation or a divorce is absolutely massively traumatic. The negativity had just got a grip completely. The person that I had become had had enough of the pain I think.

No-one knew you know I was very convincing. There's definitely this thing about men not opening up not wanting to open up which is a massive issue because if you don't open up then the outcome can be well fatal. but how do you do that? How do you get blokes to open up?