Suicide awareness: ‘You’d have thought everything was going well, but it wasn’t’

THE anger, sadness, disappointment and heartache that Damian Martin had bottled up for so long finally came to a head one night in early 2008 and he put his foot to the floor of his car, took off his seatbelt and closed his eyes.

Speeding through Dublin city centre, it was only luck that no one was killed, or even hurt, and it was a wake-up call for everyone around the 22-year-old, and the beginning of his road back to happiness.

Now 26, Damian can talk about his suicidal thoughts, and hopes to help others by doing so.

“I was 22 when I attempted suicide. It had been building up for a while. I was a self-employed courier, I had a girlfriend and a young child and you would have thought everything was going well, but it wasn’t. I spiralled into depression and isolated everyone — my parents, my friends, and spent all my time in my room at home on my own playing PlayStation.”

After going through a bad patch with his girlfriend, things got worse as Damian didn’t tell anyone what was going on in his life.

“I was putting a brave on things and would have a laugh and a joke, as a young man you have this whole bravado image to maintain but underneath things were very bad.”

Damian says talking to someone was never an option, as he felt he would have been laughed at.

“Talking never crossed my mind because the fear of being rejected was so immense.”

Eventually it got to the point where he was driving around thinking about crashing his car to end his life.

“I was speeding and I would take off my belt and think about flipping the car. There would be no more anger, no mood swings, no problems, it would all be over.”

It was January 2008 when he finally exploded.

“I thought tonight is the night, that I would be better out of everyone’s hair. I was fighting with everyone and I was just so sick of everything. I was driving through Dublin city centre and I broke down, as everything that was going on came flooding over me.”

He took his seatbelt off and drove at high speed through red lights on North King Street to Dorset Street.

“My eyes were closed, my foot to the floor. I just wanted to leave the world, I didn’t wish harm on anyone else.”

He was arrested for dangerous driving and doesn’t remember much else. “I found out later on that I flipped out when I was arrested. Something snapped inside me in the Garda station and I lost it. I started banging my head off the wall and was trying to crack my skull open. I was put on suicide watch.”

Damian’s family were shocked by what he had done. “They said why didn’t I go to them, but at the same time because there was such stigma at the time around suicide, people were shushing it up, and I think my family and friends didn’t know how to react. My mother came into my room the next day. I was hiding under the duvet and couldn’t look her in the eye. But I thought if I don’t swallow my pride and ask for help here I am going to die.”

A few days later, he was in intensive therapy at Pieta House, a suicide prevention service. He believes he would not be alive were it not for the counselling he got.

“I didn’t know about any Pieta, or Console or any of those charities, and I really think it’s all about awareness and talking. We need to teach people not to be afraid to talk.”

He urges people to admit if a certain kind of counselling is not working for them.

“When I first started in therapy I didn’t have a connection with my therapist. There was nothing wrong professionally, just that the particular method did not work for me, and I was coming out and didn’t feel any different. I asked could I change therapist and I had an immediate connection with my new therapist and saw her for 11 months. I went from going daily to once a week to once a month.

“So I would really encourage people, if you do go to someone and if it’s not working, just ask to speak to someone else. It saved my life that I had the courage to do that.”

The Clondalkin man, now a father of two and in a loving relationship, has completed courses in counselling and psychotherapy and behaviour therapy.

He works as a volunteer on projects to help people — especially young men — who are going through what he has been through, and is on the board of management of Áras Rualach, the Clondalkin centre for the unemployed.

“I think the issue of suicide is a diabolical problem and the rates in young men and women are increasing all the time and the methods are becoming more violent. I would love to see young men, especially, talking more, just every now and again checking in with each other, and simply asking each other, ‘How are things with you?’”

Charity: State all talk and no action

IN the closing minutes of the final debate during February’s election campaign, Enda Kenny said “priority” would be given to the 300,000 people who suffer from mental illness and the 75,000 people who attempt self-harm and those who have the tragedy of suicide visit their families.

Six months on, head of the 3Ts charity Noel Smyth maintains this was more of same from our politicians — talk but no action.

“I don’t think we have moved very far at all, and unfortunately we are still in a very dark place when it comes to suicide. We have a government who promised to change things but still nothing is being done. The issue simply is not being taken seriously, it is disappointing to say the least after such lavish promises.

“You can find as many excuses as you want, but we have heard it all before. Governments think that suicide is like the issue of the poor — they are always going to be there, we can’t solve it. I think until it comes to the door of a politician in a real sense, then it will not be dealt with. And unless we get the Government to take this seriously we will continue to lose two people a week to suicide.”

New research from 3Ts is set to reveal that 16-18-year-olds make up the largest percentage of people taking their own lives. Figures from the Central Statistics Office show 520 people took their lives by suicide in 2009 and 486 during 2010.

However, it is widely believed there are many more deaths by suicide than those officially recorded as many suicides are catalogued as undetermined deaths in coroner’s courts.

According to Mr Smyth, there are concrete steps which can be taken.

“We need an audit of all the services in the country to be carried out — some are very good but some are appalling. The 3Ts wanted to do this, and we got a quote from top consultants firm McKinsey to look at everything and give us a complete picture of what’s going on. The cost was €400,000, we were going to pay half, and we asked the previous government to pay the other half. The offer was declined.”

Mr Smyth says he is more than willing to extend the same offer to the current government.

He says research has shown that suicide prevention is also best handled in the community.

“There are successful models out there and things can be done. The community is where people can look out for others and where lives can be saved.”

A 24-hour helpline called 1life, set up by the 3Ts and Console, is getting about 36,000 calls a year.

“These are from people who are in real distress and danger and who have real problems. There needs to be a defined location for people in an emergency situation can go.”

Mr Smyth says the ASIST (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training) programme needs to be rolled out across all sections of society. A “suicide first-aid” initiative run by the HSE’s National Office of Suicide Prevention, it trains health workers, teachers, community workers, Gardaí, youth workers and volunteers to recognise the signs of suicide.

According to HSE figures more than 70 trainers have been trained to deliver the two-day workshop nationwide and more than 125 workshops have been delivered to more than 3,000 participants in two years. Mr Smyth points out that what is needed for suicide prevention is a Road Safety Authority-style group.

“What we would like to see is a pyramid structure with the a suicide authority at the top, community at the bottom and the audit in the middle. The RSA is a proven successful model with all the information needed in one place, an independent body and no political allegiances.”

The 3Ts recently pulled out of a coalition of suicide charities — the Action on Suicide Alliance — set up to campaign for funding and action. Mr Smyth said the 3Ts wanted to remain as a strong independent voice.

“A point will come when the strong message we have to deliver will see us all join up as one again. We all have the same ideas, we just have a different way of delivering them and sometimes my way of doing things can be a problem.”