Helping to end the stigma over suicide​

​Every single death by suicide is a tragedy of epic proportions. But it is also commonplace. Figures published by the National Records of Scotland show there were 792 deaths recorded as probable suicides in 2023.

In our own island communities you may well have known someone who lost their life to suicide. Or a family bereaved by suicide. Or someone who has attempted it, or thought about it. You may even have thought about it yourself. According to the Samaritans, one in five people have thought about suicide at some time in their life. And yet still there is stigma and silence around it.

But an art exhibition in An Lanntair is aiming to change all that. “Slipping Through The Net” is on display now in the gallery area above the cafe bar and is the result of an arts project funded by SeeMe Scotland to help break the stigma around the topic.

The people who took part in the project have all been bereaved by suicide and they hope to open up the conversation around this most difficult topic, to lessen the stigma and ease some pain.

Artist Jane Harlington of Blue Pig studio facilitated the workshops. She said the exhibition was “powerful” and urged people to come to see it and contemplate where this art had come from.

Jane said people were “frightened to talk about suicide” and "frightened to talk to the people bereaved by suicide” but pointed out that we do not talk about mental health very much in general and hoped for a society where it could become “a kitchen table top conversation”.

“There’s still an underlying cultural sensitivity,” she said. “We’ve got to be sensitive but unless we talk about it we’re not going to have any impact at all.

“The whole thing is about stigma and what is that stigma that surrounds a death by suicide? Why is it set apart so much more in people’s hearts and minds? If you lose a loved one to cancer, people are very empathetic and engage but there’s something about a death by suicide that makes folk back off. In a way I can understand that but we must come alongside people. We’ve got to help the people that have been bereaved.

“Death by suicide is a reality in modern society and we need to do anything and everything we can to help people along that line. It’s talking about it, and I think we’ve started a ball rolling.”

Sometimes, the problem can literally be not knowing what words to use. Naturally, people dread ‘making it worse’ by using the wrong words.

Certainly there are words and comments that can be unhelpful, and the group have addressed this as part of the exhibition. Jane advised everyone visiting the exhibition to look inside ‘the red book’ which is there.

Within its pages there are pieces of writing and small art works that bring out the experiences of those who have taken part in the project and the lessons the rest of us can learn.

On one page, above a picture of a hedgehog with big spikes, there is a list of the “things that hurt”. These are: “At least he’s at peace now… God allowed this to happen… Not saying anything at all!… Avoidance in the supermarket… people cross the street.”

Jane said: “We get frightened of speaking because we don’t want to trigger that pain, but by not speaking we are actually compounding the sense of hurt.”

A common theme that came out of the project, and came across strongly in the exhibition, was the painful awareness of being avoided by other people, after having been bereaved by suicide.

This is writ large across one page of the red book. “PLEASE acknowledge my loss.”

Chris Matheson, who lost her daughter Rachael to suicide in 2018 at the age of 29, is one of those who took part in the project and she stressed the importance of this acknowledgement, and the value of simply being asked how you are.

“Say, ‘I know you’ve had a bereavement lately. Are you okay? Is there anything I can do?’ You don’t need to inquire as to what happened… but please ask. Assume nothing and always ask.

“In a situation like that, you’re so blooming isolated, you’re grateful if people are interested enough because you need the humanity. You honestly do. It means so much.”

Chris described a grief “so disabling” that she ended up staying in bed for a long time. And she stressed how important it is to talk to someone, ideally a counsellor.

“It is completely imperative,” she said. “It could mean your survival.” Although the feelings are horrible, it is essential to have someone “to check in with” about these feelings and have them “validated and normalised”. She spoke of a level of shock so profound that it alters the brain.

“Your nervous system goes into lockdown and physical things start to happen. You’re in fight or flight response the whole time.

“I feel as if I’ve crawled out of the rubble of the aftermath of an earthquake. That’s what it honestly feels like. You emerge from the rubble, reeling with confusion. I’ve been in a dark place for a long time. It’s a strange thing. It affects your senses, everything.”

Time serves “to solidify your perspective” and going through this experience had given her an “extra sensitivity to human nature and all of its nuances”, she said.

“Time itself doesn’t heal but through time things do, because you’re distanced from the initial shock of it all. I’ve found that things have got easier. I’m able to talk quite openly to you but I wasn’t at one point, I was tranquillised up to the neck. You heal through that distance.”

Chris spoke of the pain of avoidance and being “utterly mortified” that nobody came to see her from a church congregation that she had belonged to for 11 years.

“I was going there all that time and they knew me and they didn’t come out of their comfort zone, despite all the teaching they had, and come to my door or send a card. I just found that shocking. Where’s the love? Where is that? Where’s Corinthians 13 when you need it?”

That aside, Chris said: “The situation that I’ve been in has been met more with kindness than adversity. I’ve been really fortunate. The core of the people here is good. People historically know what it is to survive in the face of adversity.”

Island adverse events have included the loss of the Iolaire, a subject so painful that it was shut down from conversation for years.

Chris spoke about the importance of talking for people who might be feeling suicidal – “get help, talk to someone” – and the importance of people being sincere and committed if they are going to offer to ‘be there’ for someone in a future time of crisis.

“Otherwise don’t offer it,” she said, “because you’re dealing with someone who’s hanging by a thread. Make a meaningful offer.” To those suffering, she said: “If someone has offered to be there for you, take them up on it, even if it is 3am.”

Those who took part in the project tell of common experiences including failures in the services, gaps in the system, societal judgement, a sense of ‘othering’ and a feeling that their loved ones were taken by an illness, not by themselves. There is a sense of a battle that was ultimately lost, casting a great shadow over the many other battles that were won along the way.

The Samaritans stress that not all people who die by suicide have mental health problems at the time they die, although many will have struggled with their mental health. The Samaritans also stress that the majority of people who feel suicidal do not actually want to die; they just want the situation they are in or the way they are feeling to stop.

One entry in the red book quotes from The Healing of Sorrow by Norman Vincent Peale. “Our friend died on his own battlefield. He was killed in action fighting a civil war… They were powerful adversaries. They took toll of his energies and endurance. They exhausted the last vestiges of his courage and strength. At last these adversaries overwhelmed him… we give him credit for his bravery on the battlefield. And we give him credit for the courage and pride and hope that he used as his weapons for as long as he could.”

Another entry in the book cites the Irish mystic Lorna Byrne’s view that “each and every suicide in the world diminishes you and me”.

For Sheena McKenzie, whose son Hugh died by suicide in 2018 at the age of 19, we have to be willing to engage with the topic, with those who are struggling, and be prepared to be direct.

Many other problems are “visible and people are there”, said Sheena, “but if you’re struggling with your mental health, people step away, because this person has ‘issues’.

“You have to talk. You have to ask the question. You’re not putting ideas into people’s heads.”

Sheena spoke of the pain that comments such as “he’s at peace now” can cause. “He shouldn’t be at peace. He should be out there running, he should be on the football field, he should be out with his friends, enjoying and embracing life. He was only 19.”

She said: “We need society to be watchful.”

Hugh wrote poetry, even at the age of 11, and his father, Campbell, spoke of the comfort he had found in reading poetry, such as Love (III) by George Herbert. Campbell said his advice to anyone having suicidal thoughts was simple. “Don’t. Please don’t.”

He added: “It’s the commonest cause of death in men under 35 and you would think it’s such a rarity. People perceive it as a rare event and it’s commonplace.”

Suicide is also a leading cause of maternal death during pregnancy and up to a year after birth.

Sheena said she hoped many people would visit the exhibition because suicide is “on our doorstep” and it is “crushing”.

Reflecting on the exhibition and their aims for the arts project, Jane Harlington asked: “How do we remove stigma from suicide? To be honest I haven’t the faintest idea.

“But have we raised awareness? I think the answer is yes. Have we brought it into conversation? I think the answer is yes.”

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n Mental health helplines are all free and confidential:

Samaritans 116 123

YoungMinds 0808 802 5544

Breathing Space (Scotland) 0800 83 85 87

Childline 0800 11 11

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