I was put in contact with Cruse, but because it was a suicide they wanted someone who had dealt with suicide to be my counsellor.

Mmm.

So they did say that that might take some time, but I don’t think I, really got in touch with, you know; although I was given Cruse information I didn’t really follow it up until a bit later on myself, anyway. So I really didn’t have any counselling with them until the second half of the year, you know, coming up to the winter time.

Did they find a counsellor who could help you who had been involved in suicide eventually?

Yes, they did manage to find someone yes, I did find someone.

Did you go and visit somebody once a week or what happened?

I went to the offices yes. And I think it was once a week, yeah, it was once a week and then it maybe went on to once a fortnight.

And how did you find them?

It’s nice to be able to have somebody that you could just talk to, and just rabbit on to, and you know they’re there just to listen to you and that’s it, you know, I mean it’s nice to have friends and things that you know, I mean, the support I have had from my friends has been fantastic but, you’re also aware of the fact that they are your friend, I know, I know I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of and my friends know everything, you know, they know everything, but you are also always aware that they have their own lives, they have their own problems.

Mmm.

And, you know, they were there, and they’re at my beck and call, it was a case of you still sometimes sorta held back a bit ‘cause you sort of think ‘well,you know, I know they’ve got, you know, and I suppose in a way I felt guilty, you know, taking a lot of their time when, they probably didn’t feel that they were, you know, that they were just so glad to support me, do you know what I’m trying to say? It, it was nice to, it was nice to go to someone who has specifically been assigned to me

Yeah.

to give me that sixty minutes, or fifty minutes, or whatever where it’s just me, to talk about my feelings with that person.

Mmm.

And that’s what they’re there for and nothing else.

You didn’t have to pay for any of that?

It was, you could pay by donation if you wanted to, at the end, yeah if you wanted to do, yeah, but to be honest I don’t think she, I don’t think you should have to pay for something like that to be honest I think it should be offered as a matter of course.

So you decided not to go to a SOBS meeting or get in touch with them?

I did get information from them, but I decided not to join. There wasn’t a support group in the town, where I live, so the, the closest group for me would’ve been in the next big city.

Yes quite a way.

So yeah, and I don’t drive, so, you know, it would’ve been journey into town, then catch a train and things like that so I decided not to.

And is that when you decided to start your email support group to other people in the same situation?

Not straight away, not straight away but, I mean I was desperate to try and find somebody in the same situation as me but it was, how do I find these people?

And then did you use the internet for looking for any other support for yourself?

Well there was SOBS. As I say I decided I couldn’t, that wasn’t useful to me and I did find, there was also the WAY Foundation

Mmm.

which I, and I know there’s the National Association of Widows. I did join the WAY Foundation but not till a lot later, but there was another site that I used that’s an open discussion board which is open to everyone, so anybody can access this and I used that.

What’s that site called?

Merry Widow, which is not a very good term really but it’s for men and women, and that’s done by, I think she’s actually a journalist and she’s written books on it following the death of her husband. So it’s for anybody whos been widowed.

Did you find that helpful?

It was helpful, it was helpful, but a lots of people were talking, I mean I still look at it but there’s lots, lots of people talk about, how their husband’s have died and, you know, and things like that. And there’s a lot, there’s a lot there but there’s a distinct lack of anybody who talked about mental illness and suicide, and I knew that this wasn’t right, I knew I wasn’t the only person in the United Kingdom who had, suffered, and I wanted to try and get hold of people so in the end, about October 06, I plucked up the courage to put a post, on, that site under a pseudonym at the time. And, I just explained a bit about, you know, mental illness and suicide, and different, you know, how I’d said although being widowed, it’s awful for anybody but this additional

Yes.

there are additional issues as in, you know, children, when d’you tell the children? What do you tell the children?

Mmm.

And, and, stigma, nobody else suffers stigma if, you know, if somebody’s husband dies a heart failure or

Mmm.

you know there’s no stigma there’s no, you know it’s just, Oh what a shame. And you know? I mean all I can say is thankfully I haven’t, but I do know that people do, you know and just, from people that I’ve spoken to, and yeah I suppose I was frightened of stigma originally because I was worried about how my kids would be treated.

And did you have a response to that posting?

I got quite a lot of responses and I did put it at the end, you know I says, Please, I mean I’m not very eloquent [laughs] I’m not very good with words [laughs] but I did sorta say, can you please understand that this

I mean, I think we had about ten, fifteen minutes to play with or something, you know, maybe a bit longer than that, but obviously if we were going to be caught in traffic we thought ‘oh we’re not gonna make it in time’, and the headmaster had gone and got the kids, and we were in the headmaster’s room and he gave me a hug and said he was sorry and, and, and he said, Are you ready?. For, you know, for the kids to come out and I’d said, Yeah. And the kids just walked through and, the head teacher’s there, my friend was there, the policeman was there, although they were at another part of the room.

Mmm.

They gave me time to just, you know, just say to the kids and I just said, you know, I says, Your dad’s dead, and that was it, really, came in and we sat for a while and obviously they, you know, we hugged and things like that, and we sat for a while and then we sort of thought ‘right well we better get, try and get back home before the rush, of the schools coming out’ and because obviously there was a police car sitting outside the school, it was a case of let’s get out quick, you know, get out quick and on our way home before school actually finished ‘cause otherwise that would’ve drawn attention to the kids that, you know, why are they going in a.[police car]

How old were the children?

Then they would have been fifteen and eleven.

And how did they react to this terrible news?

Just quiet, just quiet, and I didn’t actually tell them, my daughter did ask that night if dad had committed suicide, and, I just said, You don’t need to know that. You know, I says, You don’t need to know anything about that yet. I said, Just. You know I said, Your dad’s died and that’s it. And I can’t remember whether it was the next day, or the day after, it was probably the next day when people had been in touch and, obviously the head teachers from the schools had communicated and they’d sort of said, you know, Should they really, the kids need to be told, obviously, because of word had escaped somehow. And so I brought them into this room, obviously ‘cause there was lots of people still coming and going and my family from the north of England had come up, that night they were staying with me and they were all in and out, I just put the kids into this room and I just said, Right. I said, I think you need to know.

Mmm.

You know that your dad committed suicide. And, my daughter just nodded her head and my son sort of said, Well I gathered that. And I sort of say, You don’t need to know how.

No.

But you need to know, you know, this is what’s happened, and they said, Yeah okay.

For other mothers in this situation you’d recommend being as honest as possible to your children?

Yes, yes, definitely. I think obviously it depends on age, it would depends on their age

Mmm.

but also because, of the length of the illness that we had had, we had all suffered as the, as a family, and, we were always quite open, very open with the kids and, as soon as they were of an age, well they were old enough to sort of understand, they were both aware that their dad had had previous attempts before

Mmm.

and I also used that to try and explain as to why, mum perhaps, maybe we overreact, I overreacted or I felt as though I had to give more attention to their dad, at times and I didn’t want them to think that was anything to do with them.

Mmm.

So from, I don’t know maybe about ten, ten-ish, nine-ish, ten-ish they sort of knew that, dad was dad, but, you know, there were times that things were a bit fraught in the family and I just had to reassure them that, you know, it had nothing to do with, you know, they weren’t the cause of it or anything like that, but I so wanted them to understand that you know? I had to focus on their dad at times and that sometimes they felt as though they were maybe, weren’t getting the attention that they should be getting but it seems to have worked okay, it seems that, you know, I think they’ve come out of it okay, touch wood I’m, I’m alright.

Well he had previously attempted suicide twice before in nineteen ninety-four

Mmm.

and that was when he was first diagnosed with depression and anxiety, so really all that, all those years it’s been a case of, watching him, making sure he’s okay ‘cause he was always, always anxious, always anxious and he worried about everything, not like the state of the world or anything like that but he worried about the kids and if something, if, you know, is, if, that, whatever little crisis there was, oh I shouldn’t really say a little crisis ‘cause it was always a big crisis to him, you know, then it would just move, he would just move on to something else to worry about.

And I walked in and I looked around and, and the house is always a mess, we’re not very tidy but there was a note on the dining room table, and I can’t remember exactly what I’d said but so, He’s left a note. And then my manager said, Do you want me to go upstairs? And I said, No. I said, He is my husband.

Mmm.

Says I, It’s me, you know, I want to find him. And then when we got to the bottom of the stairs there was a dining room chair at the top of the stairs but that didn’t, didn’t register anything, that there was a dining room chair up the top of the stairs, it just didn’t mean anything to me at all, that didn’t you know, you, but it’s, being a bit surreal at the time, and I went up the stairs, half expecting to either find him in bed, thinking he’d maybe would’ve taken an overdose because he had tried an overdose before, or in the bathroom, maybe in the bath or something, with his wrists slashed ‘cause he had attempted, he’d attempted that before as well, so I got to the top of the stairs and I just turned my head off to the left and he, he was just there [sighs]. But he just looked like a, he just looked as though he was standing in the corner, you know he was, obviously very, very still but, he was very, very tall so his feet were fractionally just off the ground so it didn’t look

Mmm.

you know when you see on TV and things like that you, you, you know, you see, you think

What a shock.

the sway, you know, you think it’s swaying and there’s a big gap off the floor but, there was nothing so he just looked as though he was standing in the corner.

How sad.

and I sort of said, I just, Oh Mike, and I tried to feel his, you know, feel his pulse but my hands were freezing anyway ‘cause I’d been outside and I couldn’t and then I said to my boss, He’s hung himself. And then, then I had to say, Come on up and have a look. Because I couldn’t believe that, you know, I had, somebody else to see, you know? And my, am I imagining it? You know what I mean?

I’m glad you weren’t alone.