What would you miss? This episode is about suicide, my granddad's and my own, and the one question that kept me here. If you need help right now, the numbers are just below.

If you need help right now

• UK and Ireland: Samaritans, call 116 123. Free, any hour, any day.
• UK only, if you cannot talk: text SHOUT to 85258. Free, 24 hours.
• US: call or text 988.
• Australia: Lifeline, 13 11 14.

I was 12 when my granddad went missing from the farm. The next morning Andy woke me and said they had found him. At 18 my heart was broken and I tried to end my life, and later that year I broke my neck and lay in a hospital bed thinking I was better off not here. Years on, at rock bottom again, I wrote a note, printed it, left it face down and went out in my chair with a plan. I sat there for two hours. What stopped me was my stepdaughter Kember and one thought: I wonder what she will become. I did not want to die. I just wanted the pain to stop, and I think that is true of almost everybody who says they do not want to be here. Around the world 727,000 people a year die by suicide, one every 43 seconds. Three in four are men, and the men most at risk are 50 to 54, which is right where I am. So this is the conversation.

One thing to try: If you are anywhere near that door, ask one question. Not what will I lose, not what will I gain. What will I miss? Then hang on for a few more weeks. And if it is someone you love, ask them: just for a moment, tell me what you would miss.

In this episode

• (0:00) Who World Suicide Prevention Day is for, and a warning
• (1:47) 727,000 a year. Three in four are men, and I am the age most at risk
• (2:53) I was 12 when my granddad went missing from the farm
• (4:21) 18, heartbroken, and a cry for help
• (5:35) Lying in hospital with a broken neck, thinking I was better off not here
• (7:12) The note on the computer, and two hours at the edge
• (9:21) The thought that stopped me: I wonder what she will become
• (10:39) A permanent solution to a temporary problem
• (13:46) The text my daughter sends us now, and why it works
• (15:58) What will I miss? The one question, and the numbers to ring

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Steven

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For all those people who suffer because the worst of human tragedies happened too close to them.

He was the president of the International association of Suicide Prevention.

He was saying who the day is for and it is the people left behind and for those ones who are nearly there.

And I was one of those ones left behind.

And I am one of those that was nearly there.

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day and this episode is going to get real because I'm going to share my story, but I do want to give you a warning.

This story will be about suicide, my suicide, my grandad's suicide.

And I will give you numbers at the end and there will be numbers to get help in the show notes first and foremost.

But I wanted to give you that warning before I move on to my story.

I want to say about Suicide Prevention Day and go through some stats because they are truly shocking.

I don't think we talk about this often enough.

And this year's theme is about changing the narrative on suicide.

The call to action is three words.

Put it simply, start the conversation.

And that is what this episode is about.

It's about a conversation about suicide.

And around the world, 727,000 people die a year, one every 43 seconds.

By the time this episode ends, probably around 40 people.

In England and Wales, 6,190 last year, about three in every four are men and men at most risk are age 50 to 54.

And that's close to my heart because I'm right in the middle of that.

Don't worry, I'm feeling absolutely fine.

But I want to share my story.

And one of the things that these statistics don't tell you is all the near misses, all the people that go out to almost take their lives, that have the intention and don't end up doing it, and it doesn't count all the numbers of people that are affected by it, family members.

And I want to talk about three times in my life.

Once when I was 12 years old, when my mum and Andy, my stepdad, was called to the farm where my granddad was the owner and farmer.

And they went there to search for him because he'd been missing for over 24 hours.

And then the next morning I was woke up with Andy tapping me on the shoulder and said, they found it and he had committed suicide like so many farmers.

And we don't know why to this day.

And we could speculate, but I didn't know until then what death was like and how permanent it was.

And of course, I still miss him.

I was close to my granddad.

We used to do a lot of bird watching together.

I love my time on the farm.

I loved just being part of the farm life because a few years before I just moved to Truro as more of a city life and school and going up to the farm at the weekends.

It was amazing.

And it just come out the blue.

He had his breakfast that morning and he left.

Some say he was a bit chirpy, chirpier than he normally is.

Some say that he was a bit somber.

But we don't really know.

We never really know what goes on in people's heads.

It wasn't as if there was any signs.

And people often think that they would know.

And I don't think you truly, really know.

And the other time is when I was 18 years old, I want to talk about.

And I just had my heart broken.

No fault of anybody else, but just teenage love and things like that.

I took an overdose.

I went and bought two bowls of pills.

I couldn't buy them all in the same place, so I bought one from one place and one from another place and I took most of them.

And then I called the person that was I thought was hurting me and I told them and they called my family and said, you need to get down here.

And I was hoping that they would come back.

I was hoping that cry for help to get rid of the pain.

And my family did come and pick me up and they did call an ambulance and I went to hospital and they did drain my stomach.

So that was a lucky escape.

Then later that year, as many of you know, I broke my neck September 1st.

It was a long year for me.

And it was one of those years that was good times and bad times.

Well, mostly bad times, I guess.

And while I was lying on the hospital bed, so many times, I thought about my life and my future and most of it was positive.

I just wanted to get on with it.

I wanted to get out of bed.

I didn't care if I was going to be in a wheelchair the rest of my life.

I just wanted to see the outdoors and get on with doing these things, visiting the pub and doing all those things.

And at that time, I did think about what it'd be like to end my life, because being paralyzed and all the pain and all the things I would never do again, I would never feel below my chest again.

I would never be able to have sex properly.

And for an 18 year old guy, that's huge.

And I would never be able to walk.

I would never be able to to me be a father, to live any kind of normal life, to go and get a decent job and do all those things that I wanted to do.

That was it.

So there was times where I thought, do you know what?

I'm better off not being here.

And there was many times that I thought, do you know what?

I'm such a burden on the state, on people, on others.

Right to this day I still that there's an element of me that feels such shame about my accident that I don't always ask for help when I should.

But that's a different show, that's a different day.

And the other time was when I was heartbroken again and hit my rock bottom.

So I've written a note on my computer and I printed it out to leave it there face down to tell people I love them.

To tell people that no one's doing anything wrong.

And this is purely me.

And I just wanted the pain to end.

I left the house in my wheelchair.

I went down towards Idless, a place that I liked.

And I planned to drive the chair off this tall, this high bank.

I knew there's a river at the bottom.

I knew I would fall quite away.

And I knew there'd be a high chance no one would find me, especially if I'd done it in the evening.

And I was just hurting so much at that time and I just wanted the pain to go.

It wasn't the fact that I wanted to end my life and not be here anymore.

I just did not want the pain anymore.

And heartache, pain is the worst of all pains.

I remember being sat at a table once and looking up and saying, do you know what?

You could break every single bone in my body and it would not hurt as much as heartache.

And I believe that's true.

And that was one of the things that attracted me to junpo as a teacher.

Ken Wilbrow was talking about him one day and he said this guy that was one of the most enlightened guys that he'd ever known, he walked into his house one day and he was sat there on the floor crying, just absolutely heartbroken.

That comes down to a lot of my teaching now that we need to feel everything deeply all the way through.

And how do you really deeply love if you've never been hurt and things like that.

It all goes hand in hand.

But on this day I sat there for about two hours and just.

I had a thought come into my head.

And that was my daughter at the time.

My stepdaughter was.

She moved in with me when she was 4, along with her mum.

Me and her mum wasn't together at this point.

We had split up and I left the house and I was just sat there and I was just thinking, wonder what she'll become.

Wonder what she'll make of her life.

I wonder what her life will be like.

I wonder what her kids will be like.

And that stopped me.

That stopped me.

And okay, I was aware that I might hurt myself on the way down.

And it might not be instant, you know, don't know where that thought come from, but it was there.

But really the main thing that stopped me was Kemba and her future.

And I would miss out on everything.

And I realized in the moment, yeah, this pain is horrible.

This pain really sucks.

And there's no pain like it.

And it was day in and day out.

It wasn't just a moment thing.

I wasn't sleeping, I was drinking.

And I was so rock bottom.

And I don't think you could get any more rock bottom.

And I didn't do anything at that point, as you know, I'm sat here.

Pain would always be there to a degree.

But one thing you cannot get back is if you do take your life.

I heard someone once say that it's a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

And I think they're bang on, right, because very often I feel that you just want to ease the pain of that moment.

That's what you cannot cope with.

Now, whether that's guilt that you've done something or whether that's heartache or whether whatever the pain is, it's pain.

And emotional pain is the worst of all pains.

You can take painkillers for physical pain, you.

You can get help, you know what, where.

What it is about.

But emotional pain, there is no painkillers.

There's no little pill you can take to ease it.

I know time does ease it, because it does, but not to.

It takes so long, so painful.

So that's why I wanted to share with you today.

Suicide is something we need to talk about more often.

And even my daughter was touched by suicide at school because her friend Courtney, we don't know how lost her life and we don't know whether that was suicide.

I can't remember where the coroner came in, but it was certainly Unexpected.

And yeah, it's just.

Oh, it's just horrible.

You know, sometimes being human is bloody horrible.

Sometimes it's really damn painful and you know, you don't know where to turn, you don't know what to do and you just want to ease the pain, but that's the reality.

You just want to ease the pain and just share your story.

Just sit down next to someone and say, do you know what?

I'm finding this pain really hard sometimes I feel like I want to get out and stop it, but it is temporary.

Whatever the pain is, whatever the reasons, I don't know your story, I don't know anybody's story.

I don't know why anybody does it, apart from my own experience.

But I know being human sucks sometimes it really sucks.

But I think we need to bring suicide to the forefront.

I think sorry about this episode is, you know, not the positive upbeat, but it's the reality of being human.

Even the Buddha said, to be alive is to suffer.

There will always be the desires.

It's so emotional.

And thank you for still listening.

I did not want to die.

I just wanted the pain to go.

And I think when somebody says they don't want to be here, they almost never talking about being dead, they just don't want to be here in this pain.

I genuinely believe that.

Now I'm going to share some practical advice because we're talking about suicide and we're talking about having a conversation now.

Then a number of years ago, my daughter went off grid.

She turned the phone off and she disappeared for a few hours.

And she terrified us, terrified me and her mum.

And we always have this agreement now that when she is feeling like that, when she's really feeling like she needs escape, she's to text us or phone us first and say normally text, because if she phones, we tried to go in a fix it mode as you do as parents and sometimes you don't need to fix.

Sometimes you just need someone to know you're suffering.

And she'll text now and say, well, I'm turning my phone off.

I really cannot cope with advice.

I cannot cope with the pain at the moment, but I'll be okay.

I'm not going to do anything silly.

And just to let you know, I'll turn my phone back on in about three hours.

And we've said that to her no matter what.

So we don't have to worry.

We'll still worry, still panic.

But it's that conversation we had beforehand.

You know, it's okay to feel alone.

It's okay to want your solitude, please.

It's not okay to suffer alone in a way that a simple conversation or a phone call could make sure you're here again next week or a year, week after.

And look at me.

So when I did leave the house to do that, if I hadn't done that, I would never have met my granddaughter, I would never become mayor.

I wouldn't have this podcast talking to you now.

All of these things just would not have happened to me.

And I've got an incredible life now.

Yes, sucks sometimes.

Cause it does been paralyzed and all those things.

But you know, think about at any point, if you had taken out your life, all the things after that did go well that you would have missed out on.

Even the Netflix programs, for Christ's sake.

Even the little things we enjoy in life, we would have lost them all.

So I'm going to wrap up now and I'm going to say, look, if you are anywhere near that door, there is one thought that did more for me than any other.

What will I miss?

What will happen that I will miss out on and just hang in there for another few weeks.

You don't know if things will get better or worse.

You don't know if you'll grow that wisdom and that muscle to be able to deal with it.

Not what will I lose or what will I gain, what will I miss.

I think that's really powerful.

So I'm going to say a couple of numbers now.

And it's free any hour, any day, 24 hours a day.

Just give them a ring.

You're not a burden at all.

And in the US, call or text 988.

Call or text 988.

And if you cannot ring, text someone.

Just.

Yeah, just reach out.

Don't do that permanent thing if you are near that door and talk to people, talk to your kids about suicide.

Talk to your relatives about suicide.

Being from a family that has been massively affected.

Yeah, okay, look, have a, have a discussion with your kids.

Have a thought.

And I know so many people have been affected by it in some way or another.

And ask the question, what will I miss?

Ask the other person.

If a person is contemplating, say to them just for a moment, tell me what you would miss in the future.

Okay.

Thank you for being there.

Much love and take care of yourself and each other, Sa.