This weekend marks the sixth anniversary on my son taking his own life. I am yet to come to terms with the fact or even to understand what was so bleak about his life that he felt that was the only recourse left. As he left us to understand, it was the person he was in a relationship with that figured predominantly in his depression.
A year later, a colleague did much the same because his health condition meant he could no longer be the super soldier, a commando in the Australian army, that he was.
I know I have been depressed in the past. Thirty years ago, I lost everything in the financial meltdown that happened at that time, perhaps ten million dollars according to the change in property values now and then, (I was a developer). I lost my fancy cars, my business and anything and everything I held of value. My marriage fell apart so I was left with a small bag of black clothes and a need to reconsider what was really important in life.
There is a life outside of where you are now.
Lifeline Australia has reported over 3,400 calls to their centre in one day last week. Lifeline Australia chair, John Brogden, said “The good news is that people who need support are reaching out and they’re getting it.
If we look at what is going on in the world, at best, our problems are first world problems, in relationships, money, loss of prestige, a bully who is in fact weaker than you are. None of these are really significant, we just believe they are. There is always, and I mean always, an alternative.
I am a three-year Afghan veteran, not military but humanitarian. I have colleagues who are still there, solving problems bigger than their own. I found a life in making changes to the lives who were less capable than I was, so can you. Consider the lives of people in our community and the difficulties they are currently facing and ask yourself, are my problems bigger than theirs?
There are people in our community who need help that you can best provide. You know intimately your hardships and can relate to theirs. There are old people, disabled people, young people, foreigners in a foreign land, people going through financial hardship, people who are lonely, all sorts of people that need help.
Go out and find that person, find yourself by doing so. If you can’t there are people who will help you see through the fog.
Lifeline Australia 13 11 14
BeyondBlue 1300 224 636
Suicide Call Back 1300 659 467
eheadspace 1800 650 890
Kids Help Line 1800 551 800
