Support Service. Light at the end of the tunnel for David Mason and Carla Leangmead. Photo Stuart Munro
Support Service. Light at the end of the tunnel for David Mason and Carla Leangmead. Photo Stuart Munro
Suicide has long been a taboo subject but the alarming rate at which New Zealanders are taking their own lives has brought the issue into the open recently. Emma Russell talks to people dealing with suicide, and two Whanganui men who tried to kill themselves.
Warning: This article is about suicide and may be distressing for some readers.
Two human beings. Two lives. Two different stories. Two similar stories.
Whanganui men David Mason and Ross Fallen have shown courage by opening up about their suicide attempts.
Both men tried to end their life at the age of 17 years; both went on to turn their lives around. No shame. No blame.
Ross Fallen 42 years after he tried to take his life. Photo/ Stuart Munro
"Everyone in my family faced their own life battles which involved violence and alcohol. I don't blame anyone.
"Initially the thought of ending my life was a dumb thought but, as time went on, I kept thinking about it to the point where I became obsessed with it.
"And then one night I wasn't distressed anymore and something switched in me and it said: 'Enough is enough, I'm tired and I can't do this anymore'.
"I woke up in the Wellington psychiatric unit. I was there for a few days but my family didn't visit me and when I came home we didn't talk about it.
"When your daughter is bubbly and she suddenly goes quiet, you get worried. When your son is bookish and goes quiet, you worry. But I was intelligent and vicious."
Two years later, when Ross was 19, his father attempted to take his own life and ended up in Queen Mary Hospital in Hanmer Springs. After recovery, he joined alcoholics anonymous and turned his life around.
"I realised if my father could get his shit together and I am my father's son, then I was going to be like my new dad.
"In the past 42 years since that event, I have contributed to this earth as a teacher, a friend, a family member, a community advocate, a missionary priest and sometimes a political advocate.
"I am worthy - I have no shame and no blame."
The phrases "Stop the shame" and "Stop the blame" echo throughout Ross' account.
"For so long we have lived in a society where ending your own life is not talked about." When entering his own dark space, Ross hinted at his emotions to a couple of people who he thought were safe.
"If my mother was having a good day, I would hint and she would back away; I would hint to my teacher and she would back away.
"I would drop breadcrumbs of hints and they would all back away."
Once he was met with resistance, his mind became locked.
"Locked inside your own prison cell inside your head - that's the danger."
He said the thing you always hear is that attempting suicide is selfish.
"We do not consider the ripples of people we hurt for the next day, the next week, month, or years.
"We do not consider the repercussions, we just see ourselves as a burden. We have no understanding of the pain and grief we are going to cause others ... you block that out very quickly."
Peer support, David Mason, has found his home at Balance Whanganui. Photo/ Stuart Munro
"I had already built up this perception about myself ... the way we see ourselves can be the biggest killer.
"When I was 17 years old, I got juiced up and I had two attempts to kill myself in that one night.
"A friend found me and rushed me to hospital. Later I was walking around town with these big bandages on. I was from a small town and I got laughed at and ridiculed.
"Mum and dad didn't know what to do, and I soon had to go back to work feeling lower than ever.
"A guy said something like 'You can't even do that right', so I walked around the corner and tried to take my own life again.
"My turning point was when I met another person in our home town who had tried to take his own life.
"He worked at the bank and we had this connection ... unknown to me, that was peer support."
For the past five years David has worked as an active peer support for Balance Whanganui, a trust based in Community House on Whanganui's Ridgway Street which works with those with mental health and addiction problems.
Colleague Carla Langmead said David had had such a positive impact on so many lives. "When he shares his story with someone else who is in a dark space, there is this barrier that is just lifted and people begin to talk."
Over nine years to June 2016, there were 60 suicides recorded in the Whanganui district, with nearly 72 per cent of them males.
New Zealand has the second worst youth (25 and under) suicide rate in the developed world and the worst teen (15-19) suicide rate.
The annual rates have remained largely unchanged for around two decades, prompting people to question if enough is being done and bringing the difficult topic into the spotlight.
Last month David Mason held a group peer support meeting in Whanganui with about 20 people of all ages. He asked who in the room had experienced thoughts of killing themselves - more than half put their hand up.
Carla Langmead said the majority of people who visit Balance Whanganui were adults - "It is hard to engage with teens because it's hard for them to talk to adults."
She has had her own troubled experiences, suggesting a worrying gap between visiting a doctor and being referred to mental health services.
"I went through 10 years of darkness. If intervention had taken place at the beginning, I don't think I would be looking back at those 10 years of darkness. There is a gap."
Peer support Carla Langmead shares her lived experience with depression. Photo/ Stuart Munro
Community GP, Dr Andrew Brown, expressed his frustration recently at a Whanganui District health Board presentation given by University of Canterbury suicide preevention researcher Dr Annette Beautrais.
"In a 10-minute consultation it can very difficult to detect whether a patient may be a suicide risk," Dr Brown said.
Dr Beautrais said there was a number of ways to reduce suicide rates and they should not be dealt with one at a time.
"It can be extremely difficult to detect suicide risk and that was why mental health training needs to be mandatory across all healthcare staff," she said.
The Whanganui Regional Health Network is hopeful of making some progress in this direction.
About 18 months ago the health network and the health board started working on a pathway for primary health providers including GPs.
Put simply, it offers tools to be able to screen patients for mental health, provide evidence-informed information, including access to apps and websites, and manage referrals to other services.
Health network contract manager Chloe Mercer said: "We wanted to come up with a way to increase early intervention, improve the quality of patient care and ensure GPs and nurses were supported to address mental health.
"The project is not completed yet as we are still finalising the full electronic referral system. We hope to have it complete by December, and workforce development will be ongoing."
Carla said Balance Whanganui was already receiving referrals from Aramoho Medical Centre and more recently Gonville Health.
"We really want to encourage GPs to refer patients to us and we hope this will become more common."
It is estimated that one in five people in Whanganui will experience mental health issues in the coming year.
Health board director of area mental health services Jeff Hammond says that makes it almost as prevalent as flu.
"New Zealanders, and especially men, have become well-skilled at covering up their true feelings, preferring to 'man-up' or keep a 'stiff upper lip'," he said.
"Suffering mental health problems is not a sign of weakness but rather, a sign of being human."
Balance Whanganui consumer consultant Frank Bristol says eliminating stigma and discrimination around mental health issues and suicide needs a very intentional focus in our community.
"Nearly nine out of 10 people with mental health and addiction problems say that stigma and discrimination have a negative effect on their lives," he said.
If it is an emergency and you feel like you or someone else is at risk, call 111 For more information about peer support contact Carla or David at Balance Whanganui: 06 345 4488; 021 262 8370 http://www.balancewhanganui.org.nz
Kept largely under wraps for so long, suicide - and the mental health issues around it - is finally being discussed openly.
The New Zealand Herald has run a lengthy, thought-provoking series, both in print and online, called Break the Silence (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11885593; nzherald.co.nz/breakthesilence).
And this week the Prime Minister's chief science adviser Sir Peter Gluckman released an evidence-based discussion paper about youth suicide - in 2010, New Zealand's teen suicide rate (ages 15-19) was the highest in the developed world.
Also this week, Health Minister Jonathan Coleman announced extra funding for the Suicide Mortality Review Committee, saying: "Our suicide rate is too high, particularly for youth and specifically Maori and Pacific young people."
Following the suicide prevention summit with Dr Annette Beautrais, the Whanganui District Health Board committee will consider its programmes and services at a meeting next month, while it has already made submissions to the Ministry of Health's draft suicide prevention strategy.
Every year, more than 800,000 people die by their own hand, with up to 25 times that number making the attempt - World Suicide Prevention Day is on September 10.
