World Suicide Prevention Day

World Suicide Prevention Day ribbon held in hands

World Suicide Pevention Day takes place on 10 September 2020.  Many of us will be affected by suicide in some way during our lives.  Every life lost to suicide is someone’s partner, parent, child, friend or colleague.  Suicide prevention is everyone’s business.   Suicide is preventable and we can all play our part in making a difference.

World Suicide Prevention Day provides the opportunity for people across the globe to raise awareness of suicide and suicide prevention. The theme again this year is ‘Working together to prevent suicide’ and we have arranged a virtual event and resources to share related experience, knowledge and practice within Nottinghamshire Healthcare.

There will be focus on:

  • Suicide prevention is everyone’s business. 
  • Nottinghamshire Healthcare’s Towards Zero Suicide strategy and how we can work together, and with our community partners, to prevent suicide 
  • Self-care, wellbeing and making a safety plan
  • Making connections and reaching out to others

To find out more about our Towards Zero Suicide ambition or any aspect of our suicide prevention work, contact SuicidePrevention@nottshc.nhs.uk  

In recognition of World Suicide Prevention Day, we are sharing a number of poems that people have written about how suicide has affected their lives.  Thank you to everyone for sharing their personal experience in this way.

World Suicide Prevention Day Poetry

For My Sister

We didn’t hear your muffled cry … We didn’t feel your pain
We didn’t even say goodbye … Before your final wane
That dreadful day was so unkind … And helplessly we gathered
The details are etched in my mind … Our lives were completely shattered
The days went by, but oh so slowly … With questions we could not answer
The why’s and how’s were endless … And grew like a spreading cancer
The pain began to change with time … Into bitterness and fear
How could you have left us all alone … When you knew we needed you near?
Our family was incomplete … Because of your selfish action
No mum, sister or daughter now … We hated you with a passion
But overtime we could recall …The subtle cries, the sign
We hadn’t acted as we should …We didn’t have the time!
How very unhappy you must have been …And in such a state of despair
If only you had taken steps …To open up and share
At least we can remember you now … And the happy times together
Now sister, mother and grandmother too … We will remember you forever  

 

You Didn't Talk

You didn’t talk or give me a chance
You left without a second glance
You didn’t trust or talk to me
To let me know what I couldn’t see

But that bridge has already burned
And there’s nothing I have learned
I look at the end of the tunnel for light
But nothing’s there, out of sight

I don’t know what my future will be
I keep looking, but cannot see
I don’t know what I’m here for
All I know is that I miss you more and more

My life has now come to a  halt
You did this. It’s your fault
Did you stop to think about me?
Or just yourself and how you couldn’t be

Do you know what my future holds?
What I will do when I get old?
It’s hard not to be angry
But I miss you and me

Amended February 2020 (18 months on ….)
 I will somehow get through
A life without you
I really am not angry
But I really, really miss you and me

I still wish you had said something
And I still feel nothing
I just want you near
And future is the thing I still fear

You really didn’t use your voice
But I know you had no choice
No choice and you had to go away
And felt you couldn’t stay

I still don’t know how I feel
But what I feel is real
I know you felt you had to go
And I still don’t know …………

I will always love you and you are mine
But you left me behind
And you left me alone
And the rest is yet unwritten …. ;

Writing on the Wall

So the writing was on the wall
But yet I didn’t read it all
It was there.  I wish I had
I didn’t.  I really should have

But I’m reading it now you’re gone
Is that what you wanted all along?
May be you had to go and not stay
You wanted me to read the words you couldn’t say?

They were always there for me to see
Is that you wanted from me?
I could have read them and helped you through
You must know I could have helped you

Strange that they are now so clear
But they don’t keep you here
If only you had said the words to me
We’d still be together like it was meant to be

If only you had shared what was going on
You’d still be here and not gone
If only you had told me what to do
Then it wouldn’t be the end of me and you

So, I’ve read the wall but I don’t understand
I would have just held your hand
But the writing is so unclear
If I understood, may be you would still be here

You really cold have trust me
Why didn’t you see?
We could have read the words together
If we had, you would be here forever

Sometimes I really can’t breathe
And I actually don’t know how to grieve
But the writing on the wall, I didn’t see
It really was the end of you and me

So, what if I’d written on the wall
Would have read my words at all
But I would have trusted you with what I wanted to say
And I would have wanted to be you.  To stay

May be you had to go for me to listen
But this is now, and that was then 
If only you had given me a clue
The writing would have told me what to do

So now I don’t know what to do
I really, really miss me and you
I didn’t read the writing on the wall
I want you here with me.  That’s all.

Suicide

Why did you take your own life
And leave me, your friend and wife?
You left your family and kids
Do you have any idea what you did?

You did what you did and we don’t know why
But all we know, is that you made us cry
You should have talked so we knew
We needed to know what you were going through

May be you thought that we’d be strong
I’m sorry to say that you were wrong
We don’t know what to do or how we should be
You needed help.  Can’t you see?

We know it was your life and your choice
You should have told us and used your voice
You should have told us how you felt
And maybe, just maybe, we could have helped

We wish we had time, just one more day
There’s so much we would like to say
You should have said, you should have tried
But instead you didn’t talk and you lied

We will never understand what went on in your head
All the things you could have done or said
And now we don’t know how to feel
As we don’t know what was true or real

Even though you did what you did
And kept your sadness and feelings well hid
You must know that we will always love you
If only we had listened, if only we knew

Maybe you thought you were protecting us
But you didn’t say.  You didn’t trust
It seems that you just didn’t care
But we don’t know.  We weren’t aware.

We never knew you were so desperate
Our feelings now feel so inadequate
We will in time forgive but not forget
But not today.  We’re not ready yet.

Distant Goodbye

A week away, as in the years before,
Sun shining, flowers blooming, a garden to explore,
Garage door ajar, a new car inside,
The closest I’d felt to saying goodbye.
The new car is shiny, small, clean and blue,
I know what happened there, as we all do,
You had gone, you left, a space now empty,
The silence is loud, the words too heavy,
A sad truth that has always stayed with me,
And nudged me when I have felt need to leave.
But where to go- not here, not there, not where,
Is that how you felt, tired hopeless despair?
I can still see now that shiny blue car,
That sat in the place where you had once left.
I do now because of you, and those who miss you,
For me, for them, for others to find ways to stay.

 

 

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