Community / ‘Just come and ask’: Charities plea for anyone struggling to seek help
“NEVER feel like there’s no-one there – just ask, come and ask.”
Mental health charity Mind Your Head is eager to reinforce that it is just a phone call, email or conversation away from offering help and assistance to those in need.
The last year has seen at least three people under the age of 40 die by suicide in Shetland, a stark figure for an island with such a small population.
The reverberations from the deaths have been felt all around the isles, and have left many shocked and still grieving.
Figures from Mind Your Head and Shetland Bereavement Support Service sat down with Shetland News to talk about suicide, its lasting impact and where anyone in need of help can go if they are suffering.
“It’s been an extremely tough year for Shetland as a community, without a doubt,” Mind Your Head’s chief executive Anouska Civico said.
“It’s difficult for everybody. It’s a small community and you can feel that sadness.”
Shetland Bereavement has found itself incredibly busy over the last year as more and more people seek support for their grief.
Project co-ordinator Ellen Hughson said that suicide in particular “affects a lot of people”.
“There’s the immediate people, the responders and then the wider community,” she said.
“It also brings up past bereavements, so there’s a huge impact on the number of people affected by one suicide.”
The last year had proved especially tricky for Shetlanders, Mind Your Head service manager Gill Gover said, because they were “more likely to know” those that have died.
“In Shetland you’re more likely to have connections with all of those people, and I think that cumulative effect is really difficult.”
Civico said Shetland’s charities were “not equipped” to deal with the number of suicides seen over the last year.
“It feels like the voluntary sector are trying to respond however we can,” she said.
“It’s extremely difficult for us to respond to it and to know how to respond to it.”
Shetland Bereavement now has 25 people waiting for one-to-one support as a result of a challenging 12 months.
Hughson is the only full-time member of staff, with all the service’s support workers working in a voluntary capacity.
January this year saw the service receive 10 new referrals. During the first two weeks of February, they got another six.
“We’re a very small service, so as a charity it does have a big impact on us,” Hughson said.
People on the waiting list are told to expect to wait four to five months to be seen, she says, but that may extend to five or six months if the list continues to grow.
“We don’t have folk in the office 9-5 so we can’t say, ‘in two-three weeks we’ll get you an appointment’,” she said.
“We’ve never been a crisis service, we don’t have the capacity when someone comes to straight away say, ‘we can see you now’,” Hughson said.
“We’ve never been able to do that.
“It’s about managing people’s expectations with what we can deliver. Some people need help straight away, some people need time to reflect.”
She admitted this year had been “extremely difficult”.
As well as the one-to-one support, which comes as 12 free sessions, Shetland Bereavement offers memory boxes to families struggling following a shared loss.
It also holds a fortnightly drop-in support group at Market House, called Life after Loss, and offers information and help through its website.
Mind Your Head offers support to co-workers and workplaces after a suicide, and Civico said the key thing was “trying to normalise that kind of grief”.
“We can’t prevent all deaths from happening – there will be deaths that will occur,” she said.
“So it’s about making sure people know where to access support after it’s happened.”
Civico said workplaces often call up looking for support in the days after a death – but she said that was “not the time” for them to come in.
“When we experience a loss, particularly with suicide because it’s a huge shock, it needs to just settle a little bit,” she said.
“We’re not going to come in and take this pain away – we just can’t.”
Hughson agreed, saying that there was “no magic pill for grief”.
“That’s hard, especially with young people that have experienced these recent suicides,” she said.
“They’ve maybe never experienced grief before, and it’s a very traumatic bereavement and grief they’re going through.”
People will feel a lot of emotions after a suicide, Civico said, ranging from anger to guilt – all of which will be “amplified”.
Families and co-workers “just need to be together, feel those emotions and support each other through their sadness” in the immediate aftermath, she said.
Suicide, much like alcohol or drug use, can carry a challenging stigma.
Asked whether the deaths of the last year have helped to tackle this, Civico said she felt the stigma may have grown again since the Covid pandemic.
“Just because we have suicide doesn’t necessarily mean it tackles the stigma,” she said.
“Pre-Covid we talked about suicide quite a lot. People were feeling much more comfortable about saying what it was and saying the word out loud.
“Suicides are happening and it’s okay to say the word. I think people are becoming a little bit frightened of the word again.
“What does it mean when I say that word – does it plant the seed for someone else to contemplate suicide?
“No, it doesn’t. It’s not a bad word, it happens.”
“The death does not say anything about that person. Let’s remember the person.” – Anouska Civico
Civico reiterated that suicide may be the cause of death for some people, nobody should “forget the individual”.
“The death does not say anything about that person,” she said.
“Let’s remember that person.”
While grief may feel like a universal issue that everyone will have to deal with in their life, Hughson said some people were still reluctant to seek help for it.
“We had one lass access the service because she said she didn’t want to talk to her mam and make her mam upset,” she said.
“I totally get that, we get that quite a lot.
“A few days later I had that parent on the phone saying she wanted to access the service because she felt she didn’t have anyone to talk to, because she didn’t want to upset her daughter.
“So that’s two people going through the same bereavement who feel they can’t talk to each other because they don’t want to upset the other.”
Hughson asked how often you hear people talking about their grief openly, and said it was still quite rare.
She added there is no right or wrong way to grieve, and there is no timescale attached.
“We all grieve in our own way, in our own time,” Hughson said.
“I know that not everyone will ask for help, but it’s about giving people the confidence to say that they need help.”
Civico and Gover both emphasised that Mind Your Head’s waiting list is not huge, and that if anyone is struggling they should seek help straight away.
“Pick up the phone or walk in,” Civico said.
“There’s many ways you can get in touch with us, but please just ask.
“I think people don’t want to ask because the perception is you’re extremely busy, you’re over-run.
“We’re here, we’re here to respond. We want to have those questions.
“Never feel like there’s no-one there.”
Support is available locally at either Mind Your Head or Shetland Bereavement Support Service, they all stressed.
There are a number of websites you can access if you are struggling or need support outside of office time. These can be found below:
Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide (SOBS) – https://uksobs.com
Shetland Bereavement Support Service – https://www.shetlandbereavementsupportservice.com
Samaritans – https://www.samaritans.org
Mind Your Head – https://www.mindyourhead.org.uk
Breathing Space – https://www.breathingspace.scot
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