Suicide is very easy to do when you are in an absolute state of total depression. The hurt you are feeling (and it is a physical painful hurt as well) is enormous but you don't realise just what it is at the time. All you think is that there has got to be a way that is less painful than what you are going through at the moment. Your thoughts are very irrational but to you at the time, they are like commonsense but of course they are not......
I know, I've been there. Why did I feel suicidal? Because my son, then aged 9, had tried to kill himself, to strangle himself. He could not stand the pain he was going through. His pain? He was an undiagnosed child with Aspergers. He was ridiculed at school, bullied, tormented by his teacher for being a "naughty boy" and all he wanted was love and understanding and it drove him to a total breakdown. Eventually he was diagnosed correctly, along with Clinical Depression and an Anxiety Disorder by CAHMS.
A mother's love for her child knows no bounds. A mother feels that child's agony but is helpless to do anything about it. I could not take away his hurt and pain just like that and when it was at its peak, then that is when the walls came tumbling down. I wanted to take him away, to protect him, to remove his hurt too. I felt no one in the world could possible understand any of this, I wanted him to have no more hurt.
I got help but not from the professionals. From an internet group set up by parents for parents of children with autism. I found it by accident. It was the best accident I have ever had. They talked to me, emailed me, wrote to me, telephoned me and all because they COULD understand the pain we were going through. They helped with school, they helped with DLA, they helped get the right support, in fact they helped in a million different ways and still do.
That was two years ago. Today is a different story. He is a happy, bright, intelligent little boy. He came off his anti-depressants at Christmas and so far so good. School, home and everything has improved tremendously but I have to say that it was not because of the help we received from the government or any other professional. If I had not found that site, then I wonder if my son and I would have been here today.
I for one think that there is an awful lot more that can be done for families. I hope that this investigation highlights the shortcomings.
And sometimes, just sometimes, when a person is mentally ill through sheer depression and stress, then they themselves do not realise that they need help and that can be the most critical time of all.
This poor mother and her son have died needlessly. She was crying out for help, she had threatened suicide before. Why did nobody hear her call?