Bereavement due to suicide

Did your own GP help you at all?

She has been wonderful. I continue to see her every fortnight, every three weeks for me to say the same things over and over again. I’m on antidepressants at the moment. I was on sleeping tablets. I’ve come off the sleeping tablets and I’m cutting down on the antidepressants. She has been a tower of strength.

Did you have any private counselling?

I had through my work and my work has been fantastic. I had listening counselling. I had 12 sessions of that. It should normally be 6 or did I have 10? I can’t remember. It was 10 or 12. It’s normally 6 but the lady who was doing it felt that because I was in such terrible state I needed more. And that really was just almost an unburdening of my soul, a sort of purging of everything. After that finished I went to see my GP and I was then referred to a counsellor, ironically at the mental health unit where Simon had been treated. And I found that, because I was at a different level then, it was the right sort of counselling then. It was more challenging. It was more questioning, it was more getting me to consider things.

So that was NHS?

NHS yeah. The first lot of counselling I had I went to one lady who was very nice but I didn’t really click with and I was allowed to have a second bite at the cherry and try a second lady and that, that was great. So I’d say, you know, if you don’t click with the first counsellor don’t be afraid of saying, ‘I’d like a change’.

All provided by the National Health Service, that was?

Yeah. That was through my work so that was. So I had a work counsellor first

Right.

And that was provided by work and they were fine about me saying, ‘Could I go and see someone else’. And then the second person I saw was through the National Health Service and I had 6 sessions.  And I’ve also gone back onto her waiting list because I just feel I need to be able to go and see someone and talk to them completely independent person still.

On a regular basis.

On a regular basis but again that probably is only going to be another 6 sessions.

What encouraged me to do it [have counselling] was the fact that she reassured me that it would be between me and her, and it wouldn’t go out of the room, what stays in the room stays in the room, and I’ve been told that, and it enabled me to start the process of speaking about my problems, of letting out what was inside me, and to be honest with you I, I spent most of the first few weeks just crying. And I learnt that crying wasn’t a bad thing.

And I owned the concept of it being okay to seek support to talk about your problems and I went through my university degree, part of it with a counsellor again, and even today I would, if need be, speak to a counsellor in that environment if I felt the need to be, because nobody can carry all that pain on their own. I don’t believe they can.

And I would encourage anybody to consider that because you start the process of releasing the things that are holding you prisoner in your mind and you start the process of letting go of the most important thing for me and that was guilt. And once you start doing that you actually start seeing the “you” in all of it.

Would you look for support anywhere else?

No I, I mean when I saw my GP and tried to talk about these things, I remember on a couple of occasions I was given antidepressants, and I just refused, and he thought I was taking them, but I’d go home and throw them away. Because I just didn’t want to take them. I was scared to take them, I’ve never taken drugs before and it just didn’t appeal to me to think that I was depressed either, so you know for me the talking was the therapy and even today it is, and I’ve learnt to structure myself, tap into the people, the very few people I can count on my hands that I would go to, for support and that is so important because ultimately I don’t have my family and even people who have families may not be able to turn to family members regardless of what ethnicity you are, you know there might be some guilt or shame attached to going to family members or you might not want to put your pain onto them ‘cos they’re grieving as well, so it’s important that you have others that you can talk to in confidence, that have the ability to be impartial, objective, and that can offer you that unconditional kind of love and support.

I had a very good counsellor actually, a psychotherapist I think he was. And I saw him for about twenty something weeks, something like that, sessions anyway. And we covered lots of different things. And it probably was helpful. But I think by this time my antidepressants had sort of kicked in. So I wasn’t, I wasn’t able to reach within, within you know, my emotions became more numb, if you like.

How long did you have to wait to see a counsellor?

Fairly long. I don’t remember how long. But it was …

Weeks or months?

It was weeks. It wasn’t months to fair, it was weeks. But by then the antidepressants had surely kicked in.

Yeah.

And I wasn’t crying an awful lot. The same thing was happening with my mum, she wasn’t crying. She wasn’t, you know, the antidepressants were doing their job really. We were functioning if you like.

And not, not … yes we were … I think the antidepressants help you to function, carry on. Not reach in and not feel that raw pain and emotion as much as you would without them.

…I think initially it’s about speaking and about opening up and talking, you’re given the opportunity really to talk about how you feel (during counselling). I was asked how I felt and my relationship with my brother and how this has affected me. And, and from, from that other things emerge, you know, about your, I mean, my, my former life, before my brother, the way our childhood was. So it obviously can become in, intensive in that, and things do come to light, you know, come to the surface a bit. But it’s worth persevering really. For instance, it sort of dawned on me through psychotherapy about our childhood, whereas it hadn’t before.

So this was psychotherapy rather than just counselling, wasn’t it?

Well both. I think counselling will do that as well.

Yes.

Psychotherapy is a bit more, it’s a bit more practical I would say. Counselling is sort of more about the patient or the client or whoever speaking, opening up. The counsellor, counsellor more, offering, steering the, the client in the right direction. Whereas psychotherapy is very focused on treatment and maybe sort of how to review your thinking and other things. Many aspects are covered in psychotherapy.

By treatment, do you mean to, to help the person reassess and think in a different way?

Yes. Yes.

Or did you have something else in mind?

Yes, that’s about it, to sort of change your thought processes and negative thinking and ...what you can actually do to, practical things, what you can actually write down things, you know, write down events and how they’ve affected you and, you know, just sort of very practical, so that you can actually see what’s happening there.

So were you encouraged to write about what had happened?

I was sort of made to write about things, and I remember having a lot of fears and worries about something happening to my younger brother mainly.

So I was, that was put more into perspective in that, you know, what are the like, what’s the likelihood? What would be the event? What would be the, you know, that sort of analysing.

And the risk factors and trying to sort of get it into perspective so you’re not overwhelmed and thinking, “My God, this is going to happen to him.”

Yes.

Tomorrow. You know. And also [sighs] also I sort of, when things come, come to, came to the surface a bit more, how to sort of practically create boundaries, say with my mum, trying to do that sort of stuff, because it’s been quite tough because she’s been left isolated.
 
And I became a bit entangled, you know.
 
So therapy helped you decide on how much you should help and when you should help?

Yes.

And that sort of thing.

Yes, and that’s been a very, very long and difficult, and it’s still going on…

Did the GP say he could arrange any sort of counselling for you?

When I went off sick, the second time in the October, no, I’d sort of managed okay, just ticking along, but then really depression set in and I have been a sufferer of depression myself in the past, also those other things going on like my, my son wasn’t too great at that point in time, and I was worrying about him, and, and, you know, how we were going to get through this and, in the, yeah so I ended up, I ended up on anti-depressants again and then, then she arranged for me to have counselling, well cognitive behavioural therapy.

That was paid for by the National Health Service?

Yes, yeah.

Do you want to say a little bit about what that is? People might not know.

It’s really just [laughs], this is how much have I picked up on it, it’s really it’s just a way to challenge, challenge your thoughts and your thinking. My self-esteem had gone rock bottom, I had no confidence in myself, I had no confidence in my standing as the family, in the family because all the dynamics had changed, and I sort of even had lost, I hadn’t, I wouldn’t say I’d lost parental control but it was a case of, everything had changed and, because my son was going through his own problems, due to Mike’s suicide, it was just very-very, very-very fraught and, I’d felt very desperate, very, very desperate at times.

And they were able, they were able to help me look at thing, look at situations. I talked, I talked, you know, when I went, I used to go once a month and it would be, “Right what’s happened? What’s happened this month and what, what’s been going on and how did you handle that? And did you not think if, if we’d done it this way, you know, or you could look at some, look at a situation as so.” It just gave you different ways to think about how to handle a situation and also if I had handled a situation I was able to report back on it and they were able to say, “Yeah that was right, you did good there.” And, and, you know, that was, that was the right way to do it, or absolutely, or, “Well done you’ve got through this situation.” And, you know, it, so it was it was really just to help challenge the thoughts, the negative thoughts and, and, really boost, you know.

Your self-esteem.

boost my self-esteem and my, and my confidence and to be able to take my standing back in the family as that, I am the mother you know?

And did it help?

Yes, yeah it did definitely. Also I looked at my work as well what I wanted to do about my work at, ‘cause at the time I was still off sick And I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I couldn’t make decisions, and it’s a case of do you stick with the devil you know or the devil you, or do you go on the devil you don’t know, and I just didn’t know, just didn’t know what I wanted to do and eventually I got to that stage where I made the decision that I wanted to change, change what I was doing, and they supported me while I looked for other jobs and, and things like that and, you know, let them know when I had an interview and how I got support with that.

That’s good. Did you always go to the same therapist each time?

I had the same, yeah it was the CPN, Community Psychiatric Nurse, was assigned to m.

And you went to the hospital to see her or the clinic or?

It was at the, not my doctor’s surgery but it was at another doctor’s surgery in the community.

Not too far then?

Not too far, no.
 
Oh good.
 
Not too far at all.
 
That was a helpful thing to do?
 
Yeah, yeah, no it was, it was great, yeah that was very helpful.
 
How many months did that go on for?
 
I had, I had I think I had two initial sessions where it was, you know, circumstances were discussed. You know, obviously I had to be referred by my GP so oh that was just, and then we had six sessions of the actual therapy in which I was given things to do, I had to, you know you had to write a mood diary and, and that, you know, if you had situa, you know, you came across a situation you had to, it was homework really write you know, write, write down the situation, write your automatic thoughts of, of that situation and then you’re also asked to look at it objectively or, or what I was taught to do, to think about it was to say, “Well if that was your sister or your friend that that was happening to what would you say to them?.” And I know when I was put, you know, put this hypothetical other person in the same situation I was able to empathise with them and treat them in a completely different way to the way I was doing myself. I was treating myself so that was helping me understand that I was.
 
the thoughts, the way I looked at things myself was different for the, I expected, I would speak to others, does that make sense?
 
Yes it does. So that it helped you.
 
Yeah. You know, ‘cause like if, you know, if your friend was upset or something like that you would say, “But, you know, it’s not your fault.” Or you know, “Well what makes you think? Why, why d’you feel that, that’s the case?” And things like that, so you, so it was helping me challenge my thoughts, my automatic negative thoughts by just sorta, just going that little step further, as if to say well if that was your friend, or if that was your sister what would you have said to them? And of course I said, of course I would say something completely different to them.
 
so it was a case of well, well if that’s what you would say to your friend or your sister, if that’s what would you do why d’you do that to yourself?
 
Could you go back and see her again if you wanted to?
 
Yes I’ve had, I’ve had a follow-up session, I think it was maybe after three months and then I have another one in a month’s time if I want to.
 
Oh that’s good.
 
Just to re-cap, just to see how things are going.