Despair and Hope

Aug 02, 2024

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WARNING THIS ARTICLE TALKS ABOUT SUICIDE

Uneasy bedfellows - hope is sometimes the only thing that saves us from utter despair. I say it often these days: I despair of politicians; I despair of the state of the natural world; I despair of humanity, sometimes, and yet hope sits in the soul - maybe not quite like Emily Dickinson’s feather - but certainly a sliver of light in the darkness of my despair at the state of things. The state we have made of things, more accurately.

It only takes a match to extinguish the darkness and it only takes a tiny bit of hope to extinguish despair. Look at the terrible things that happened in Southport this week. The killing and injury of young girls, and the unimaginable grief of those families, followed by the awful violence - targeting the police and the Muslim community. Such hatred is enough to make you want to despair at what the human race is capable of. And then there is hope: builders repairing walls together with their Muslim neighbours, people re-tarring roads, people giving out food and drinks. We have such capacity for kindness, generosity and care and this happens all over the place all of the time. Everyday kindness doesn’t sell newspapers, so unless you experience it first hand, it can be hard to be believe it’s happening, especially when we’re bombarded 24/7 with so much negativity.

A friend of mine has a daughter called Hope. One of her legs was unusable and she was in constant pain. She was bought to absolute rock bottom by the situation, true despair. A young girl unable to do any of the physical activities she wanted to participate in. She succeeded as a swimmer and swam at competition level and then she persuaded a surgeon to amputate her leg, after several had refused. She had to crowdfund to do it. There was a lot of negativity and criticism, as she was so young at the time, and some people felt it was too drastic a measure. Hope was resolved and had the support of friends and family. She had her leg amputated and made a recovery in record time. Today she is competing as a rower in the para-olympics. The most splendid example I know of hope - or in this case Hope - combating despair.

Some people undoubtedly feel the full weight of the hopelessness of the world and how they perceive their lives and end up in despair and suicide. The figures are truly horrendous. The Samaritans use data from the National Office for Statistics to extrapolate the data for England and draw the following conclusions:

5284 suicides were registered in 2022. This is 65 more than in 2021.
The overall suicide rate was 10.5 per 100,000 which is the same as the previous year.
The male suicide rate was 16.1 per 100,000, compared to a female suicide rate of 5.3 per 100,000
Males aged 50-54 were found to have the highest suicide rate (23.1 per 100,000).
There is regional variation in the suicide rates. The North East of England once again had the highest suicide rate (12.8. per 100,000) although this decreased slightly from the previous year. The lowest rate was in London (7.0 per 100,000) which was statistically lower than any English region.

The figures for Scotland are worse, with an average 13.9 deaths attributed to suicide per 100,000 people.

These are only the deaths reported as being from suicide and do not include rulings of misadventure or where suicide cannot be proven, nor people’s attempts to take their own life. It’s a huge problem and impacts families and communities.

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I don’t have personal experience of that type of despair, but I do have personal experience of people feeling things are so hopeless that they want to take their own lives, experience of people attempting, but not completing suicide, and sadly, people who have been successful in completing suicides. I worked for a mental health charity 4.5 years and before that for an advocacy charity, working with young people. The youngest person I met who had feelings of despair and suicide was 11 years old. If you’re not exposed to this area of life, it can be a real shock. There are lots of factors which contribute to people’s personal despair - and it’s too big a subject to cover here - but bullying, isolation, financial and relationship worries are some of the big ones. The lack of community mental health support and long waiting lists, especially for young people, is a big concern and certainly contributes to people reaching the end of their tether. Early intervention is always the ideal, but when services have been stripped bare, it simply isn’t possible.

Sometimes there is no intervention that would help, because some people are good at hiding their pain and despair and don’t tell anyone. Sometimes even close relatives have no idea that their partner/husband/wife/son/daughter is feeling so desolate until they complete their suicide. The guilt can be crippling and the ripples from suicide stretch far from the individual and their families into communities.

If this is sounding all very hopeless, I’ve included some agencies at the end of this article that can help. The Samaritans is the obvious one, but there are many other charities, including some very local ones, like our own Highland Mikey’s line. Founded in 2015, following the tragic deaths of good friends, Martin Shaw and Michael Williamson, within 48 hours of each other. Mikey’s uncle Ron Williamson, Speaking to Martin and Michael’s peers at their wake, heard that young people felt that they had nowhere to go when they were at a loss struggling with mental health issues.

So Ron, along with other key individuals, founded Mikeysline with the aim of changing this so that others might receive the help and support that Mikey needed.

Out of utter tragedy and despair hope was born in the form of Mikey’s Line, which provides support for the staggering number of young people in the Highlands who struggle with their mental health.

Loneliness and feeling there is no one to talk to is often a key issue, cited by young people. If you have teens, try and foster an open relationship, p where they know they can talk to you about anything and listen to what they have to say. Be a good friend to your friends by actively listening to what they’re telling you. You can even be a friend to strangers by passing the time of day, or even simply smiling. You have no idea what is going on in someone else’s life, so be kind. If you would like to take another step then think about volunteering for one of the charities. There are usually a variety of roles and not all of them are frontline.

If the thought of talking to someone with suicidal thoughts, or someone who is attempting suicide scares you, you can be more prepared by taking the suicide first aid course. It’s usually a full day’s training and will teach you approaches for intervention so that you have a toolkit at your disposal. It’s a useful course and isn’t only about ‘talking someone down’ from jumping off a bridge, though it does cover various scenarios. Some councils run courses as well as local organisations who have an interest in suicide prevention, so check what’s available locally. I’ve referenced the Suicide First Aid organisation at the end. I would strongly urge you to do an in-person course if available, rather than an online one, though any learning is better than none.

I realise this article may not be a subject which everyone will want to think about, or engage with, but the topic affects all of us. I guarantee there will be people you know who have suicidal thoughts or feel suicidal. According to the mental health charity Mind UK, 1 in 5 people have suicidal thoughts. It would be unlikely if no one in your family or social circle had felt this way.

The figures are depressing and what this means for real lives, even more so, yet there is hope- there is much greater awareness of suicide, more people are talking about ‘OK to not be OK’ and a range of organisations out there at grass roots level are doing sterling work.

Personally, I know people who have thought about suicide or taken steps towards completing it and all of them are still alive (though I do know of people who succeeded in taking their lives too) - some are now living their best life, others still struggling. There is darkness and despair yet there is always, always hope.

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Despair and Hope

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