“Early intervention is tragedy prevention”: what losing my best friend at 14 taught me about mental health.

By Ray Munn

For many children and teenagers, the most difficult thing they will deal with whilst they are growing up is the death of a loved one. When I was young, I always assumed that, naturally, I would first deal with loss (outside of pets) when my grandparents would pass away. I never thought that at 14, I would deal with one of the most emotionally taxing types of bereavement there is: bereavement caused by suicide. 

At 21 years old and seven years later, I’m still coming to terms with the choice my best friend made that day.

Bereavement through suicide is a special kind of grief: the questions that remain unanswered scream and demand to be asked, some of the most difficult, complicated, and painful questions someone can ever ask. What happened to make them feel this way? Why didn’t they talk to me? How did they come to this conclusion? How long did they feel like this? When did they decide that this was the solution? This list goes on forever. For many of us, the idea of taking such a permanent solution to life’s problems and pains is inconceivable: even after being bereaved by suicide and being plagued by dark and difficult thoughts, I can’t quite wrap my head around it. Grief and grieving is never a straight line from the moment the person dies to the day you “get over it” - many people say it's a rollercoaster. For me, I liken it to a rocket sent into space - it never ends, it just keeps going, with obstacles along the way, but always continuing and never stopping. The questions I was asking were that of grown-up origin, yet I was still a child myself. I was dealing with the emotional challenge almost all of the adults in my life had not encountered themselves. But one question, in my experience, stands out to me the most: “Did I do something wrong?”

All of the questions survivors of suicide bereavement will have and want to ask will never truly be answered in black and white - either because our loved one did not confide it in someone, or because the issues themselves are so complicated and wide-ranging its impossible to pin down an answer. Sometimes it has felt that I’m standing at the edge of a deep, deep hole dug into the earth and screaming the questions down, only to hear the echo of my own voice, and then a deafening silence. When someone takes their own life, the wave it sends through the community is strong and far-reaching; often, many people do not know what to do in the face of something unspeakable. There is no plan or procedure when it happens and sweeps everything away like a tsunami, so sudden and destructive. In my experience, the adults in my life who were meant to help me - my mum, my dad, the school we had attended together - did not know what to do either. Many of them had never been in my boat. I felt that after my friend had died all they could see me as was this broken child, like a porcelain doll that had been dropped and shattered.

Many people I have spoken to since her death have been apprehensive to talk about it: but why are people so scared to talk about their mental health? It is my personal belief that organisations and communities have a duty to step up and analyse the structures around us when we are faced with tragedies such as these. It’s been amazing to see more open discussions around mental health as I’ve grown up, and I have made a conscious effort since losing my best friend to encourage starting those difficult conversations - including starting them myself and talking about my best friend, to show others they aren’t alone in struggling with depression, anxiety, self harm, bereavement, or even suicidal ideation. 

When I undertook a Mental Health First Aid course, a phrase was said at the start of the course: “early intervention is tragedy prevention”. Others will say phrases along the lines of “a problem shared is a problem halved”. The general idea is, talking about what’s on your mind helps the mind come to terms with the feelings and emotions. It can be as simple as “hey, how are you?” to help someone feel comfortable enough to confide safely, push that ball and keep it rolling down the hill. One of my hard and unanswered questions in the aftermath of my friend’s death was “why didn’t she talk to us?” - and I never want to ask that question about someone else. It’s time that we think about how to create these safe spaces and teach ourselves that talking is the best way to make progress. It’s more common than you think to be struggling with emotions and issues we feel we cannot talk about. 

One in four of us will battle mental illness in our lifetimes, yet so many of us feel isolated and alone. 

In my experience, the people around me didn’t speak about mental health until it was too late to keep her with us. Suicide is an unspeakable tragedy, but the thoughts of it shouldn’t be unspeakable - silence is not the answer. We must, as a collective society, ensure we make these conversations happen, start them,
and keep them going, before more people experience what I have experienced, and still carry with me every day.

In an ideal world, nobody would pass away in the same circumstances as Sophie did.