People across Teesside urged to ditch the stigma of talking about suicide
Charities say it has gotten better but more needs to be done
Last updated 10th Sep 2024
People across Teesside and the North East are being urged to ditch the stigma of talking about suicide.
Charities say it has gotten better but more work needs to be done to highlight that it's OK not to be OK.
The Office for National Statistics shows the region had the second highest rate of death by suicide last year - 109 were in Teesside.
Leigh Trimble, chief executive of Red Balloons, a mental health charity based in Stockton that supports everyone in the Tees Valley, said: "There's still a lot of people out there who are suffering in silence because they feel that nobody would understand what they're going through. When your mental health is poor, that's often what your mind is telling you that people won't understand, that you're a burden, that things will never get better.
"We're only a very small charity based in Stockton and we cover the whole of the Tees Valley. We're not a crisis service as such, we're not resourced for that but we do find ourselves often working with people who are suicidal and we work with some people on an on-going basis who are really, really struggling with their mental health.
"We've got busier since Covid. We became a charity three years ago but we've been around since 2017, and we knew during Covid that the aftermath of Covid when things got back to some kind of normal, whatever that is, that we would get busier and we have seen that.
"I do think that the stigma is better than it was around mental health and around suicide, but there's still a long way to go. We're very busy on the gorund but that's what we're there for and we're happy to use our experiences to support other people.
"Often now we find that the people who are struggling the most are people who've had traumatic events happen in their lives, particularly in the younger days that haven't been dealt with in terms of things like trauma counselling, that's not available through statutory services, you have to pay for that yourself and a lot of people can't afford to do that.
"Talk about how you're feeling and often that'll help you start to feel better. I would say to other people if somebody comes to you and tells you that they're struggling with their mental health, have some awareness that it's taken them a lot to step forward and to actually say that, so don't dismiss somebody and say 'you'll be okay', or 'think positive and everything will be fine', that person's probably plucked up the courage for weeks."
North Yorkshire Police Sergeant Elaine Malcolm says she lost her dad to suicide when she was just 12 years-old.
Now, Elaine leads the Darlington group of Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide (SOBS), a national charity offering support to those grieving such a loss.
Reflecting on her father's death, Elaine said: “I often think about what things would have been like now if my dad was still alive, and what would be different if someone had asked if he was okay and checked on him.
She is urging everyone to take action: “Ask people if they’re okay. Ask your friends, ask your family, ask them twice, ask them four times if it’s going to prevent them from being in the same boat as my family.”