Submission 184

Dear Dad

It is thirty years since you took your life, and I am finally “coming to terms with it” if that is ever possible. I was ten and had not seen you for five years. You have always been a distant yet integral part of my life.

I recall your sister coming to my house and speaking with Mum at the front door. Later that day Mum told me that you had died, but not how. I did not know how to process this moment so the first thing I asked was if I could go and play with my friends. I seem to have repressed all the memories of our time together, except one. You and Mum had separated, and you were looking after me and we were in a shop, we had just left, and a security guard came running down the street. He stopped and searched you and discovered a bottle of Whiskey you had stolen. We then went back to the shop and the police were called and we were escorted in a police car to the station. I recall a female police officer showing me around the station whilst they interviewed you. It is not a happy memory, but it is a memory at least. All my other perception is based on what I have been told, found out for myself, and seen in photographs.

Growing up you were a taboo subject, I could not talk about you to Mum or Lisa, which is understandable as you were violent towards them, this is something I cannot forgive you for. When I was young, I remember being caught playing with matches, a normal childhood behaviour I think, and Mum screamed at me Your Schizophrenic like your father. This is something I can never forgive her for, when my struggles with mental health began, I thought I was going to descend into psychosis.  

I discovered when I was sixteen that my sister was biologically my half-sister, she was not your daughter and I think that piqued my curiosity about you. Most of what I know I have found out for myself, that you were born in Berwick and that you were a Cabinet Maker and then a Chef. Some information I have found out from your sister who for a time did speak to me via social media but then that stopped, and I am not sure why. She told me that you were happy when I was born, and your daughter Nadine, that you had a good sense of humour and that you used to like going to the beach- particularly Robin Hoods Bay. I now like to visit the coast around your birthday and death anniversary.  

Recently, whilst getting counselling from Suicide and CO which has really helped me to move forward in how I process your life and death, I managed to acquire the coroner’s report from your suicide. I do not know when I first became aware that your death was a suicide, I was not told at the time but somehow became aware, I think perhaps my sister told me, but I am not sure. I used to tell people that you died of Cancer, but I somehow knew this was not the case. I had built up a picture in my head of how your life had ended which was only partially the truth, for some reason I presumed you had hung yourself with a rope when in fact it was a belt. I also thought that when they found you, that you were dead, it turns out you were still breathing at this point, and you were taken to intensive care where you died a week later.

I am unsure if there is a word for something that is a memory but also, you’re not quite sure if it is a memory, but I feel I have a recollection of you taking my swimming and you diving from a high board. I have a similar type of vision of you coming to the house to look after me, this was after Mum was in a new relationship, and for some reason this semi recollection involves water being thrown but I am not sure why. 

For most of my life I felt blank emotionally about you, as well as about many other things as I think your suicide and not being able to express the emotions it caused, led to this emotional numbness. Recently I have felt the spectrum of emotions towards you. I felt Sad, said that you ended your life, sad that you had to use alcohol and drugs to a level where it interfered with your life and your care for me, sad that your brother had a relationship with your first wife which must have had a severe impact and sad that no one was able to help you. You were in a hospital when you hung yourself and were supposed to be safe. I also feel Anger, anger that you were violent and aggressive at times, anger that you once got drunk and left me alone in a cinema and anger that the fact that I was alive was not enough to keep you alive.

I was worried for a long time I would develop Schizophrenia as it is highly genetic, this was a particular factor when I started having mental health issues and was diagnosed with Depression and Anxiety and then later Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder. I have also had issues with alcohol addiction, I have been sober for nine months now, which can be genetic but unlike you I am certain I would never use Heroin and inject drugs. I also at times became angry and argumentative and lose control, and feel guilty after, but have never been physically violent and have never had any trouble with the police. I am aware you spent time in prison, I think for burglary, but this is not something I have been able to confirm. 

It seems overtly simplistic, but I wish you had not killed yourself, I wished you had been able to hold on and see things through. I feel there was lots of factors that led to your suicide, I read in the coroner’s report that you had recently found out that your mental health section for assessment had been changed to an assessment for treatment and so you could be kept, against your will, in hospital for up to six months. I know the day before your suicide you had a meeting with your consultant who said that she would challenge your appeal to leave hospital and that knowing your background she felt there was risk to the safety of other people if you were discharged. I wish I knew what she meant by knowing your background. Investigating your suicide has given me a great amount of clarity but also raised some questions I have not been able to answer, the consultant letter mentions that she is not sure how much of your mental illness over the ten years before your death was genuine and I am perplexed what she means by this. I would also like to know why you were in in prison.   

I wish you had been around when I was growing up and we could have had a relationship, my relationship with mums’ new partner was never good and I needed a father figure. I wish you could have been there to share my significant life events such as when I graduated from university and when I recently got married, to the person who has given me the strength and support to address your death. I am not religious and do not think suicide is a sin, I just wish you did not feel so lost and helpless. 

Your suicide has had a significant impact; I cannot watch anything on TV to do with hanging as it makes me feel verry panicky and nauseous. It has also made me feel defensive when people say that suicide is weak, that said though I am aware it does have a significant impact on the loved ones of the person who completes the act. It has also made me compassionate, I care about other people and have empathy, sometimes to a point where it hurts emotionally, to see other suffering. It has led to the type of work I do which has always involved helping others in some way.   

Discourse around Suicide can be cliché laden, and I feel I have succumbed to this, but I do hope that you found peace and even at the end you had some happy memories.