Suicide Prevention in Young People: A Conversation with Papyrus

Content note: This episode contains conversation about suicide. Please look after yourself when listening. 

This episode is a special one.

It’s part of Podcasthon 2026, where podcasters come together to raise awareness for charities that matter. For me, this one is personal.

In this conversation, I’m joined by Ged Flynn CEO from Papyrus, a UK charity dedicated to the prevention of suicide in young people.

We talk openly about suicide. Gently. Honestly. Without drama. Without sensationalising it. But without avoiding it either.

If you are a parent who has ever heard your child say the words that is every parents worst nightmare, “I don’t want to be here anymore,” this episode is for you.

We talk about:

• The myths that stop us talking about suicide
• Why talking about it does not “put the idea in someone’s head”
• The impact on parents and family members
• The difference between mental illness and suicidal thoughts
• Why neurodivergent young people can be at higher risk
• What actually happens when you call Hopeline247
• And something we don’t say enough to parents during these times… 

I also share a little of my own family’s experience, and why Papyrus became a lifeline for us when we needed them.

If you take one thing from this episode, please, please let it be this:

You do not have to do this alone. Reach out.

We never know what could be going on for families behind closed doors. By sharing this episode wherever you can, you might just help someone who needs to see it today. 

If you need support

Papyrus runs Hopeline247, a confidential support service for young people under 35 who are struggling with suicidal thoughts, and for parents or carers who are worried about a young person.

📞 Call: 0800 068 4141

📱 Text: 88247

🌐 www.papyrus-uk.org

(Available 24/7)

If you’re outside the UK, please look for a local suicide prevention helpline in your country.

Instagram, Facebook & LinkedIn

You can also find Ged on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ged-flynn-394273b/

If you would like to donate to Papyrus so they can continue to be the lifeline that families need you do so here

Transcript

Welcome And Podcaston Purpose

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Hello and welcome back to the Untypical Parent Podcast. I have someone very special with me today who I'm very, very pleased that I've managed to get onto the podcast. I've got Jed from Papyrus. So welcome to the podcast, Jed.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Thank you, Liz. It's a great opportunity. Thank you.

Papyrus Origins And Mission

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Thanks ever so much for being here with us. This is a really special podcast episode. So it's kind of for two reasons. One is it's a very personal reason for me and the links that I have with Papyrus and what an amazing charity I think they are. But also this is in relation to Podcaston. So Podcast is the largest podcast charity initiative bringing together podcasters globally to raise awareness for charitable causes. And it encourages podcast hosts to work alongside charities around the globe to promote them, which I think is amazing. And I think that's what's so cool about podcasts is actually it's often a lot more about what podcasts give rather than what we get back as podcasters. We're lucky if we often uh cover our costs as podcasters, but I believe actually it's a really important platform to give and to help other people. So I am going to put just a small content note on this podcast episode. We will be discussing suicide. It is a very important subject, but also a very emotive subject, understandably. And I just want to encourage people to listen with care, to take care of themselves. And if now's not the right time, come back at another time to listen. The podcast will always be here for you to come back and have another listen to at another time when you feel strong enough. But I do want people to be aware of that. So I'm gonna kick off with obviously Jed, you are the CEO of Papyrus.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

Yeah, so Papyrus was started in the late 90s, uh, after the death of well, several young people, but we we sort of talk about Jean who there's a mum in Lancashire, Jean and Jim, who lost their son to suicide in the late 80s actually. And that over the over the few years after that determined that with other parents they wanted to sort of formulate a uh some kind of gathering of parents, and it it morphed into the Parents Association for the Prevention of Young Suicide. There was a debate about uh whether we should focus on all suicides, but at that time the the suicide rates amongst the under 35s was was quite high, and it and that cohort sort of remained, and now it's the middle-aged men uh down the graph. So it's very interesting how that's sort of moved along with time. But uh sadly, suicide remains the leading cause of death in young people. So papyrus was onto something in those early days, and in those early days, they were really uh keen to influence parliament, make sure that suicide was on the map, not just mental health. Uh, we'll talk perhaps more about the correlation between mental illness and suicide because they're not always coterminous, but um, yeah, I th I'm I always say uh on the side of the first pound coins, it used to say we stand on the shoulders of giants. I'm conscious that anything I claim to have done as chief executive papyrus is on the shoulders of those brave mums and dads for whom the loss of a young person was is unimaginable.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

Yeah. And it's such a strong thing to do that, isn't it? I think when you those people that obviously set up papyrus in the beginning went through something that probably is, or not probably will be, every parent's worst nightmare is to to the loss of your child. And to be brave enough to to put a voice together to talk about it. Because I suppose suicide is one of those things that we don't talk about very much. People are often very worried by it. Um they worry, there's often quite a lot of myths around it. You know, if you if you talk about it, you might give somebody the idea to go and do it. Um, kids that people that do it are you know, they're attention-seeking, all that, all that kind of things, and it it kind of pushes the talk of suicide into the shadows, really, and that's where it becomes, I think, really dangerous, is and really scary and really worrying, is when suicide isn't talked about.

Stigma, History, And Language

SPEAKER_00 4:53

Yeah, one of the words we often bandy around, and somewhere I saw an article saying that there's more to suicide than stigma, but the word stigma is important, it means um a mark or a blot. You may have heard people talking about the stigmata in in churches, a sign or a or a stain. And uh, I think it's important for people to hear the the the origins of the stigmatization of of suicide because it kind of puts into context some of our language and behaviours around it, as you've just described Liz. So I always quote one of the medieval kings in the 960s, I think, thereabouts. Pre-deemed doomsday book. Uh one of the kings of Wessex, I think he was, determined that when one of his farmhands took the life that that he would as the king he would lose assets, he would lose income. At a time when sort of f feudal lords were reigning and and in the 900s it was pretty bleak, so that your aspirations were only to last as long as uh the end of the season or the end of the year because the weather, the life short life what's the word, how long you would ex life expectation was so short, you know, you you would tend to think, well, you would think suicide was a lot higher because there was very little to live for. But he determined back then that if you took your life, you would seize the family's assets and your body would be taken to the crossroads for burial if it was buried at all. So people started to learn that this was not a good idea, that the families would be ostracised, and and you can see already in that conversation how people started to hide their suicidal thinking, pretend that all was well, and I'm now I'm talking about the 2020s, not the 900s, you know. It's very easy to see how something that very systematically became taboo, off off limits, uh unspeakable. And I often draw the parallel between something else that was um decriminalized only in the 1960s. So in 1961, suicide was decriminalized. In 1967, in this country, we decriminalized homosexuality. And look where we are with that. You know, we have pride marches, and yet suicide is still the unmentionable, too hot to handle topic. So, yeah, we've got a long way to go, but at least we've decriminalized suicide and and worked hard at creating a narrative around it um in the last 30 years. But we have to remember that over 20 countries globally, where this podcast may well be heard, suicide is still a crime, and we need to work with those countries to change that so that people who are thinking about it can seek and get the help that they rightly deserve.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Yeah, absolutely. And it's changed some of the language, hasn't it? Especially because in in our country, it's it often people would talk about the words committed suicide because it was an offence.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

Yeah, I often think um people may think that charities like papyrus are the thought police, because we say don't say committing suicide. Frankly, my view is if you're worried about someone and you're courageous enough to ask them the question, Are you thinking about committing suicide? Then that may be the language that that person understands, and that's the right language to use in that context. However, as you've alluded to, committing suicide can be quite offensive because it's no longer a criminal uh activity. I mean the folly of calling suicide a crime and then the punishment was death, it it speaks for itself. Um, but you could see the history is the history's helpful because it makes people understand it was probably done for ulterior motives, but actually the criminalization originally probably also, to be fair, had a preventative uh impact as well. There were fewer deaths because people thought, oh, I'd I'll get my family in trouble. But of course, suicide is much more complex than that, and it's not going to go away if you don't talk about it. The opposite will probably be the case.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Yeah. And you touched on it a moment ago, Jade, about mental health and suicide. Can you explain a bit more what you meant by that? Because you kind of said the difference.

Suicide And Mental Illness Myths

SPEAKER_00 9:30

But there are two there are two things that are true of all of us. I can be diagnosed with a mental illness, and I can feel very well and live my life quite normally. Um that's my uh situation. So I I live with generalized anxiety disorder, um, something that surprises a lot of people, but but I live very well and I eat and I sleep and I take medication when I need to, and I go for therapy if I need it. And then you've got the sort of person who isn't diagnosed with a mental illness who could be m miserable and unhappy. So we're all on those sort of juxtaposed axes. But the other uh reality which many people are surprised by is in the year before most people die by suicide, uh a huge majority of them are not known to mental health specialists, they're not on the mental illness radar. So something conservatively about 60-70% of people who died last year or the year before, for which we've got the data, probably will have been to a GP, most of them, but uh a small majority only would have been deemed to be mentally unwell. Now we can make of that what we will, we can say, oh, you don't have to be uh unwell to suicide, or a suicide is impulsive. We we will never know what causes a suicide. We can extrapolate some antecedents to to it in retrospect, but we never know. I always say the coroner will say four questions are their purview. One is who died, second is when, and then third, why, uh sorry, where, and then how they came to die, but they never answer the why question. So we'll never know what causes somebody in the end to die by suicide. But what we have to demythologize and demystify is the assumption that we all carry with us that oh, it won't happen to me because I'm not diagnosed as mentally unwell, or I don't get depressed, so I want suicide. And then suddenly one finds themselves thinking about suicide or not wanting to live anymore, and and we can't process it ourselves, and so that impedes self-uh help seeking. So, yeah, those myths are not just for the classroom. I think we all carry them. I I tell you one, Liz, that I often share when I got this job, uh, my my colleague asked me to come round for a cup of tea, and as she was boiling the kettle, her daughter of eight asked me, What do you do now for live for a living? Do you still work with my mummy helping poor people as we used to do social work together? And at that point, the myth that is prevalent, which suggests that if you talk about suicide, you'll cause it, came right up to bite me. Because I wanted to s the ground to swallow me up. So when the girl said, What do you do? I I wanted to say I'd help children prevent suicide and in children, but I couldn't. And her mum came in and did it for me and said, When some people find life too difficult, they think about killing themselves and Jed's trying to stop them. And the little girl said, Oh, that's cool. Do you want a biscuit? Absolutely out of the mouth of babe. So maybe we need to go back to our pre-adult brains and say, Why are we scared of this word?

SPEAKER_01 12:53

Yeah. I think it is, it's a really it it has it it brings so much with it, and I think that's why I had to put the the content note on the on the podcast, because it it does bring a lot for people. And I suppose what I'm also kind of interested in, Jed, is that you know my son is neurodivergent, and we know that there are some stats around kind of suicidal ideation and uh all sorts of things around suicide to do with the neurodivergent population. Do you see a lot of that at papyrus that neurodivergent kids and families reaching out?

Neurodiversity And Risk Factors

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Yeah, yeah, I do. Um so I've worked with papyrus since the summer of 2010. What's that, 15, 16 years now? And I I can't say there's a type. Uh you know, I I always tell the tale of a woman who went to see the therapist who looked after her son and he he subsequently had died, and she wanted to sort of piece things together. She said, I can't you can't tell me what he said because that's confidential, but how was he? Had he combed his hair and so on? And she said, of all the people to die by suicide, I wouldn't have expected your son. So we we carry with us a sort of an unwritten typology, and I think that's wrong really, because I've seen over those years tall, small, gay, straight, black, white, poor, rich die by suicide. So it's indiscriminate. However, if I were to estimate it's I wouldn't necessarily say it's a number, but at least I'm gonna say at least a third, if not more, of those stories would have included some mention of neurodiversity, autism, ASD. Now, as soon as I say that, people who are listening, I'm conscious of family members who are autistic or or have family members who are, they'll be worried sick. Well, well, everyone should be as worried as as I am about suicide because it is a common reality. But I I would definitely say that amongst the high-risk groups, those who are neurodivergent or as or undiagnosed or diagnosed have a particular lens on the world, and sometimes it's the I don't want to suggest the reason why that's the case, but maybe some neurodivergent people fascinate around a subject and and and investigate. Some people won't be able to express themselves as neurotypical people might find their I I don't want to suggest at all that it's the person who's at fault here because I know myself that sometimes the world doesn't understand me. It's not that um there's something wrong with your son, there's something wrong with our world that doesn't meet his needs, and I'm very clear about that. That sometimes there will be I'll say me safely, that there are things that I will struggle with that the world doesn't, and vice versa. So yeah, there is there is a a red flag around neurodiversity for me, and and and I'm fascinated by it. Um it's sad to say this really. I I've not I I've I've touched into neurodiversity over the years. I worked with groups of people with learning disabilities where autism was fairly commonplace, and parents who talk to me about that. I've worked over the years with the deaf community, and again some difference was expounded. But uh sadly to say, it's only when it comes to comes close and when family um is trying to seek a diagnosis of autism, for example. It's a bit like suicide, really. Most of the people who come to papyrus, probably, if we're honest, have not come because it's a a cause close to their hearts, it's a cause that became close to their hearts. Suddenly we you know, I I like to think that these things we are as human beings protected naturally to to think of other things than death. If we're sitting in the pub or a cafe, we say, oh, come on, let's cheer up, let's talk about something nice, and that's that's a nice protective factor as human beings, otherwise we'd all be fairly moribund all the time, especially in the world we inhabit today. But I think there's something about um if we can raise awareness of the the dem of the demographics that do die, there are high-risk groups, and then there is the out-of-the-blue suicide, didn't didn't tick any of the boxes. Then I always think like my glasses, suicide prevention is does well to remember the two lenses, high-risk groups and then everybody else.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

Yeah, yeah. And I think we know what's just talking about, you know, why people might start to you know get involved with trying to find support or um you know why it becomes important to them is you know, it happened to my family, is what you know, and that's we were talking just before the time came on, is that actually the reason that I know papyrus is that I've had to lean on papyrus. The papyrus were there for us as a family when things were really, really tricky for my for my son, who is neurodivergent. And you know when and he knows what I'm talking about, what we're talking about today. I won't go into massive amount of detail because that's his story to tell if and when he chooses to, but he knows what I'm going to talk about today. Um, and I think we had the first attempt by him when he was seven, and that is incredibly young, and often people think what doesn't happen in younger children, and actually the feedback I got from CAMS, and I can say this having worked in CAMS myself, but the feedback I got from CAMS when I reached out for help was that the statistics showed he would be highly unlikely to actually succeed, and I thought, I'm not taking that risk. What do you mean he's highly unlikely? I've got a child that's telling me he's not okay, um, and I got put on a waiting list for years on a waiting list, and it was awful, it was really, really awful. Now, I'm not saying that happens everywhere in every CAMS department or every CAMS unit, but that's what our experience was, and I think out of desperation we reached out to papyrus, and papyrus were there when we really, really needed somebody, and people might know and might not know that my background is that I worked in CAMS for a long time. I worked with young people that had suicidal ideation, had made attempts as well, and um you know, creating safety plans for those kids and those families to try and keep them safe. So when I was reaching out for help, it meant I really needed help. I kind of had skills in my kind of arsenal, if you like, to be able to help our family, but actually I was going, This is even more than I can cope with, I need some extra help, and there wasn't the help. And papyrus was there when we needed it, and what was so amazing for papyrus is you have a helpline, don't you? So we use the helpline, and that was brilliant for us because although you can't offer the magic wand, what you did do in that moment was one, I think give me some breathing space as a parent to go, okay, he's talking to somebody, I'm here, but somebody else can just take over for a minute because the impact on parents is ginormous, but also it talked through things with him and actually moved us from the crisis point that we were in just enough to stay safe through that night and out the next day, and that I will forever be very grateful for papyrus and and what they offer. And you know, if anyone ever says to me, I've got any just papyrus is what I was saying, and I have to share quite a lot of your stuff on my social media, but your telephone line was a we have a we have a terrible name.

A Parent’s Story And CAMHS Gaps

SPEAKER_00 20:41

The Parents Association was great, and then it morphed into papyrus for good reason. But we joke and say you can't really pronounce it, and we always say, We don't care what you call us, just call us. And once you've made that tremendously courageous step of picking the phone up or or sending a text or jumping on a call with us online um web chat or sending an email, you've broken the back of the problem and you've started to say there is a problem, and the problem is only a problem until it's shared, and then it starts dissipating. You start I when I went to my GP with something wrong with my hands, there's nothing uh mental health related, this one. At some point she said to me, Now we've got a plan, and all it was was we're gonna take a tablet a day or whatever it was until it got better. I always remember that now we've got a plan. So as soon as you've got it wrong, you've made the decision to get a plan. Not for suicide, but for safety, and that's what we affect. And uh it might be worth sharing a little bit about what happens on the helpline. Firstly, I hope somebody said thank you for calling because it takes a lot of courage, whether you're the person or or the other. Um I love the word other because uh we often ask in our training, what's your job? And then we say you're police, are you doctor, are you a lollipop lady, are you uh a therapist, are you whatever flower arranger, or an other. And there's so many others in the room, and I always say it's the others who save lives, you know. It's the it's it's the conversation over the fence to my neighbour where he says, Hey, you're you're into that suicide thing, aren't you? And before you know, he's telling me about his life, you know. Or it's the casual conversation when you ask directions and somebody says, I'm really struggling here, and then Off we go. It's not because I wear a white coat, which I don't, or I've got a blue light on my car. It's usually those other conversations, so that's important. So when you call us or text us, you'll get somebody saying, Thank you, they'll establish what we do so that you're clear that this is a suicide hotline, if you like. We're an advice line more than a hotline. A hotline suggests you've got to be an imminent danger of death. And you don't, it may be just rumination. I think rumination is very clear, very close to the word rumination, isn't it? And and that overthinking is something that you don't have to be suicidal to experience. I ruminate on things. My grandfather apparently used to say, I'm worried about things that won't mend. And that's what our brain does, rumin goes over and over. I mean, this is interesting. I'm doing this by accident. That's that's a sort of pejorative sign for madness, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 23:23

Yeah.

Inside The HOPELINE247 Approach

SPEAKER_00 23:24

It's actually sign language for loud. Yes. But actually, as I do it, naturally, it's things going round in my mind can make me mad and make me sad and make me do things that I may regret. So sometimes good suicide prevention is simply the pause button within that rumination for mum or for dad or for doctor or therapist who wants to say, I had a patient today, I'm worried, maybe I I regret saying something or not saying something. And just a reflective practice space for all of us as humans to say, Hold on, you didn't do a bad thing, you didn't try to encourage someone, you just wanted the best for them. Let's think, and maybe you'll get a chance to speak again, and we'll give some practical advice. I think it's important to say that we don't um put volunteers on our helpline usually, it's it's most well it's always at the moment, certainly, um, professional paid staff, and that's one of our sort of unique uh selling points or a bit of a term really. We don't um farm this out to volunteers, we want to be able to control properly with paid staff professionally contracted um their clinical practice. So hopefully what you will have experiences is some uh opportunity to share a story to say what's going on for you or for your loved one. And then always within that story, if it's the young person themselves telling us that story, we will listen patiently and wait for any sense of ambivalence, and where there's ambivalence um we can juxtapose that with the desire to die. And where we get that juxtaposition and life begins to appear, and the person begins even tentatively to move towards that life, then we can work together with them to, as you beautifully said earlier, Liz, just for the night, keep them safe just for today and maybe until tomorrow, and then we create their safe plan, not ours. We want to say, what about this and what about that? No, what they need to do, and we will influence that because we'll always uh include a GP or a or a clinician if they've got a community psychiatric nurse or a CAMS worker, we'll always feed them back into that existing care plan if we can, and we'll always give them a helpline if if they don't want to call us or they do want to call us, but it's always a helpline, and if we do an intervention in the street or in the supermarket, we'd encourage them to ring Hope Line 247. So you would there would always be a path that that leads them to life, but it's that they desire the life, not we do. And then we'll do that sort of vicariously with a parent or a concerned other, we they are professional or a familial contact, because often it's you who would know your son better than us. It sounds like we did a bit of a three-way with your son, so you we we helped him, you helped him, and and you continue to, and we'll help you as well. And it's really important as well. The child may never want to or need to contact us, but mum, dad, parent may. So we're very key. I'm particularly keen that we're out there for parents. And one of one of my uh funders, uh one of our funders asked me last year, if you had a wish, what would it be? I said, I want to meet more parents than I do bereaved parents. And it sums it up really. It sounds a bit dramatic, but I'm delighted that you called us. I'm delighted that many parents find us before it's too late, and then and then advocate for us and and speak to other people. You're you're more likely to persuade parents on this call than I will. Uh because I sound like I'm selling a service, I'm not, it's free. Um, but uh but you're you're there as an advocate for what you've received, which is life, isn't it? Life again for that moment.

SPEAKER_01 27:31

Yeah, I think it was so important to us as a family, and I think it there's a you can go out and and get support, and and often people and parents are very good at going out to find support for the kids, but what what I think we're not very good at is looking at support for us, and I know we're gonna have just kind of briefly touch on just something that I feel very, very strongly about is actually not taking away from the support that the the kids and the young people need because that is absolutely that is always as a parent your priority, but actually there is a huge impact on the parents when their child is talking of suicide, um, how they don't want to be here anymore, and the impact that that has on us as a parent, and that's not to play any blame on those children because that's how they're feeling in that moment, and that's important to acknowledge that. But I think it's also equally really important to acknowledge that as a parent it is your worst nightmare, it is your worst nightmare, it's truly traumatic to to live through it, and I think there I I do remember we went through this as a as a family, and uh it wasn't until right at the end when we had been through this, you know, this thought when he was seven, and we probably things eased off a couple of years ago for us now, and he's now 14. So we went through this for a number of years, and at times it was worse than others, and no one ever asked if I was okay, ever. Even when we were sat at CAMS and they were making safety plans for us at CAMS, it was all about what did he need when he was in crisis. What did he need? That is important, that is probably the most important bit, but actually, I was in crisis as a parent, and not because my mental health was particularly really bad, yeah. My anxiety was up through the roof because I was trying to keep him safe, but actually, as a parent, it is your worst nightmare, and at times you can feel totally out of control. And how can I my main job as a parent is to keep my children safe, and there might be things that are happening outside our control for my son, it was school and the impact of school. I had no control, I felt I had no control over that, and it was having this huge impact on our family. Also, for my other son, he discovered notes that my son had written, and that's had a long-term impact on him. So, actually, it's not even just about the parents, I haven't thought about that, but it's siblings as well that might have discovered something, seen something.

The Weight Parents And Siblings Carry

SPEAKER_00 30:04

It's so powerful listening to your story there, Liz, because when I do these podcasts, sometimes I I'll roll out some stuff that I've said before, I'll you know, think out loud, but but very beautifully, what if I if I had asked you what you needed from those providers, you would have said X, Y, or Z. But what you actually just said is you wanted somebody to say, How are you? That was it. And you may have wanted more, but but if anyone listening to this podcast thinks about anything, and including myself, one of my colleagues is brilliant at this. We're in a uh the two of us work closely together and we're we're talking to somebody, and in the middle of something she'll say, And how are you? And I think quietly, I wish I had thought of that. It's so powerful. I remember I had an old boss once who I went to see once a quarter and shared all my woes with him. And in the middle of it, literally in the middle of this list, he said, And I'm just wondering, how are you in the middle of all this? And I just started to cry. And I'd been carrying all this burden of difficult people to manage and burden you know, balance balancing the books and all the things I had to do in my job. But somebody just is saying, How are you? It's very powerful. Very powerful, yeah. Yeah, I've got a a lot to think about with parents, and and I'm conscious that not everybody defines themselves as parent by by biology. Family is what family is what the young person deems that family to be. But for shorthand, we'll call it family and parent. I'm trying to be as inclusive of as we can be in that. But I think stay with that how are you? If we could ask parents nationally how are you, a lot of them will be worried. So excuse me. I often quote back in the day a a certain provider of internet uh telecoms asked all its customers for those of you who are a parent, what's your top worry on this new thing called the internet? Sex came in at number 13.

SPEAKER_01 32:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

Suicide and self-harm were number one and two. So and and then it's very interesting how much when we all of us, when we go to work, whatever our whether we love our job or hate our job, we all sort of carry a mantle, like a coat called responsibility or role or job. And when you go on your holidays, usually you get a cold because your body's going, oh, really? I think parents must carry that mantle 25 hours a day, and it never leaves you, even when your children are 85. Yeah. And I think that's a burden that we must as a nation get better at recognising. And if we did nothing else but said to each other, How are you doing? we'd be a much healthier nation, wouldn't we? Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

There they're only, you know, a couple of words that m that just mean I think I realised very quickly, my mum said it to me because I remember getting very frustrated that he he wasn't getting better and nobody was doing anything. And my mum said to me, Well, what do you want them to do? What do you actually expect them to do? The services. And I went, I don't know. But I think what I was finding so hard was that there's a lot of expectation on you as a parent. This is what you've got to do to keep your child safe. And ultimately, if I get this wrong, the worst could happen. It's is your kind of fear. And that's really hard to do.

Systems, Training, And Shared Responsibility

SPEAKER_00 33:55

It is very real because I I heard a couple of stories. One is a parent who received a phone call to say, and this is how he told it that he received it, if you you need to come and take your daughter home, she's been in psychiatric unit for 90 days or whatever it was. And he said, I can't bring her home, she's just too unwell. And they said, Well, we've done everything we can here, she needs to be back home now with the loved ones, which was probably well intended and well diagnosed, but who knows? So with great sadness, he he delighted and loved his daughter, but delighted in her but but wanted the best for her and thought that was in hospital, brought her home and and she died at home uh the the worst nightmare. And he always berates the NHS for letting his child down, but who am I to say? Maybe maybe they were doing the right thing by the daughter diagnostically and and therapeutically, but who knows? And the other story I I I heard recently is a woman who stood up at um a conference and was berating how AE had let her down, and that she went in and said, I'm in current suicide crisis and I need to be sectioned and I need to come in and have a bed. And the AE person had said, I'm sorry, that's not gonna work, we haven't got a bed, it's therapeutically, it's best if you come back in the morning, we'll get you booked in as a daycare, blah blah blah blah blah blah. Now, you almost anticipate the ending of that story, but here's the end of the story. The person sitting next to the woman who was recanting this terrible tale that had happened to her six months previously was the woman from the AE department who had supposedly sent her home erroneously. So I think there's something about we in that story, we have to remember that the person in the mental health team, and you've been one of them, Liz, is a human being who's worried about her own children, who's got a life, who's got a dog to walk, who's got a chicken to put into the oven tonight for the family. We're all trying our best. So the first premise is anything that comes out of my mouth that's beating people up is misplaced. There are bad players in the team sometimes, but most of us do a good job and do our best by each other as human beings. So none of my charities desire is to sort of berate the the the the um the the the rubbish CAMS team or the terrible doctor. Actually, most doctors would tell you they're not trained in this stuff. They get a module of mental health if they're lucky. GPs have to go for fire safety and child protection training. But you know, uh the w I was in the GP once and they um they called an ambulance because somebody was having a heart problem and and they thought he was having a heart attack. And afterwards I said to the receptionist, how often does that happen? She said, That's the first one I've seen, and I've been here 12 years. And then another time I asked the GP how prevalent suicidality is, he said, every day. But they don't get trained in it, so they know what to do when there's a now. I'm not saying they, they, they as though all doctors are the same. I'm actually on the side of medics and professionals here that we sadly know how under-resourced our systems are.

SPEAKER_01 37:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:19

But that behoves us all to get better at doing what we can to intervene at home, to be preventative. I know you're gonna say to me, or somebody will say to me, I did all that, but the system let me down. Of course, of course, but surely if we go upstream and we teach people, don't be scared of taking antidepressants, because they're good for you in the right context. Don't don't be frightened of going to therapy, don't be scared of picking the phone up to a helpline. We're human beings and we've talked to each other and we'll all work together to do the best we can. Surely life will prevail and we'll be a healthier society for it.

SPEAKER_01 37:57

Yeah. I think it's interesting when you say that, because I think actually when my mum said to me, What is it you want CAMS to do? And I thought, actually, I don't know what I want them to do. And actually, where the the difficulty was coming was from elsewhere. It was you need to do with the education system that he hadn't been diagnosed at that point. There was so it's so complex, and like you talked about, suicide is it is complex. We'll never truly know what moved someone to that point.

SPEAKER_00 38:26

We want to inherently we want to. I don't want to use the word blame because that can be auto-suggestive. We want to have an answer for things. Yes. So what is it that you want isn't seeking an answer? How can I fix this? Seeks an answer. But the reality is after a death, we want to know why this person die. There are two broad camps in suicide. The the majority of people talk about suicide as complex, and then when it happens to us, we default to say, Well, my son wasn't complex, my son was because of his autism, or because he was gay, or because he was X, or Y I Z. And I think what what we're trying to do as human beings is to find a neat little uh place on the bookshelf to put that in, put it away, and then it's safe. But that's a natural thing that our brains do, and they don't serve us well. So after death, we do that, but we also do that beforehand. My daughter is being let down by the university, can mask the fact that you may have pressurized us to go there and not put a portion in blame. She may want to be there because all her friends have been there, but she's not as academically uh skilled as others, you know. She might secretly want to be a plumber and you've asked her to go and pursue being a doctor. All of that complexity can mask the reality, and but our brain is still set. We get I get calls from parents who say, I'm making a I want you to stand by me in a complaint against the university. Okay, what's the university doing? Well, she's in a two up two down in Sheffield and the roof is leaking. The university isn't even aware of the housing conditions, let alone responsible for them. Now that's a simplistic but true example of how our brains want to fix things. Who wouldn't, as a good parent, you want the best for your child, you want to know that which university, which school they go to. My friend's uh child has just been given their uh favourite school to go to in September this morning. So that's a good thing, but what would happen if she didn't? Would it be a failure? And it will it's a complex life we live with young people, and all of their disappointments are opportunities to learn. They don't feel like that at the time, do they? Your first breakup, your first time you get a pimple on your nose, the first time your haircut looks terrible or whatever. Um that can be cataclysmic for a child, and we just need to walk with them. And I I keep coming back to that thing about parents, you're you're there when papyrus is not. So one of my passions is how do we get to more parents to understand that that this is complex but it's common. When when sadly somebody calls and says, My son or my daughter or my child has died obviously gives sympathy and support, but when I share with them the numbers of people who die by suicide in their adolescence, in the hundreds and hundreds, it somehow makes you realise it's not because you're a bad parent. It's because this is a common, sadly, it's not it's not a it's not the numbers are high, but they're too high for something that is eminently preventable.

SPEAKER_01 41:54

Yeah.

Means Reduction And Practical Prevention

SPEAKER_00 41:55

So for those who are listening who don't know the numbers, so in the UK context, we have about 7,700 deaths, which is really quite high at the moment, but it's not the highest ever, it's just that the the graph has been coming down like my hand is now since about 1850, and then there's there are moments when it drops down when, for example, when we put catalytic converters on cars, you're less likely to use carbon monoxide poisoning in the car because it will work, you know. When we've when we've reduced the sales of paracetamol and uh things like that, having to pop them out of a packet reduces that rumination because your brain has to do something else, and over 30 years that the sorry, over a period of 12 years, I think the research showed um there was a 30% reduction so in that method. So we know that reducing the access to the means of suicide can help with that, uh, with the diminution of risk and deaths. Um, but also I think we need to get parents to understand that um talking and adding into the support uh is equally important, you know. Um but we we also need to think about what we know around suicide prevention is it's it's not um one person can fix it. So I need you, you need papyrus, you need CAMS, CAMS needs the social worker, the police. Everybody can play their part in preventing suicide.

SPEAKER_01 43:34

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that I think that kind of brings it perfectly together for me, is actually I don't think it ever was one thing, and like I said probably right at the beginning, was that papyrus wasn't the magic wand, but I didn't go in expecting it to be a magic wand. I went in because we were in crisis, and it doesn't always have to be in crisis for you guys to get involved, but but actually at that moment in time, what it did was it took a bit of pressure off me to allow me to take a breath because this was a lot, and we've been going through it for a long time, and it was a continuing, and I just needed some breathing space, and that gave me the breathing space. But it I think he needed the breathing space too, actually. He needed somebody else at that moment. It was like a tag team.

SPEAKER_00 44:15

There's a lovely piece of research, um Exeter University about nine about 2008. A woman called Christabel Owen. She's a I think she's now emeritus professor down there. She did a piece. Of work which basically summarizes says this the young person will hide from their parents their suicidal pain because they don't want to hurt them, and so they need somebody else to help them, and and then the the parent normalizes unusual behaviour and and ignores it at worst because they think oh that's what teenagers do.

SPEAKER_01 44:51

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:52

But I think from your story, firstly, you didn't ignore it, you dealt with it, which is great, and and secondly, you you realize that you're not the solution, you're part of the solution, and we all need each other to survive this roller coaster life. I just wanted to say a little bit about the young person generally as well. They are wise and intelligent and skilled and knowledgeable from their earliest days, you know. Navigating post-womb is even in the womb, I think, is is quite a challenge for the human person. And and we we we tend to talk about preserving childhood as though we need kid gloves, but children have always been wily and wise and uh creative and innovative. If you think back at Victorian children down the mines, however unconscionable that is for our day, they were inventive, the the artful dodger. There's a lot to learn from the ability of a young one, and we forget that art peril. If you watch lemas, it's the little people. The little people can do things that we have forgotten. We've created stigma, they don't. They don't need to. So I think there's something about the wisdom of the child, and what we've tried to do is capture that in a programme called Seasons for Growth. So going upstream from the crisis point where a child is considering shall I stay alive or not, or a young person, going right back, so when they're six, seven, eight years old, asking them to join a small group for eight weeks, usually at school, maybe an after school club or in the church or wherever they find safety, and learn about life skills. So it's looking at we use the seasons of the year autumn, winter, spring, summer, and talk about the normalization of change, where you won't always be the best in the football team, you won't always be um the best at maths, you won't always potentially have your mum and dad. Grandparents may not be here forever. So learning that the hard way, once they've had a separation, a death, a change of school, a change of class, whatever it is, gathering them to talk about and sharing their story through the pain of winter and then through spring and summer to find life again. And it's a short, it's a short-term education program, but actually the outcomes are brilliant and give children a literacy around feelings. So a child may not be able to say how they feel, but they might say, Hey Mum, I'm in winter today. And Mum will understand that because it's a metaphor. So yeah, look out for that on our website.

SPEAKER_01 47:44

Can they? What I'll also do, Jed, is I'll put the link in the show notes so people can find it direct. They don't have to go search, and I'll put the link in there.

SPEAKER_00 47:51

Yeah, brilliant. Yeah, we'll we're just in the throes of updating our website. So, but if you if you contact papyrus at the office, one of us will talk to you about that.

Breathing Space And Three‑Way Support

SPEAKER_01 47:59

That's no problem. That would be amazing. I think we just kind of draw it to a close. I just want to say thank you ever so much, Jen. I really appreciate this conversation because I say this was a very personal one for me, and I've waited a long time to talk about it and have veered away from it, partly because of I didn't want to trauma dump on other people with what I had been through, but actually this felt like a really safe space where to talk about it alongside Papyrus, but equally get that message out there. We um there will also be a link in the show notes for people to make a donation to Papyrus. So, like you say, you know, the people on the end of the telephone they are paid for, they have a salary, um, but you are a charity, so if anybody out there would like to donate, there is a link in the show notes specifically to do that, and I would encourage everybody I will be making my donation as well to the charity. So that's really, really important. Just to kind of leave people, Jed, is there anything in particular you would like to leave them with a kind of a to sum it up or something really important? Obviously, we'll put all the links in the website and the hope line and all that kind of stuff we will put in there. But is there anything you would just you're kind of leaving comment for parents and and maybe yeah, for parents that are listening?

SPEAKER_00 49:15

Two things really. Hope line 247 is there for you and for your loved ones and and anyone indeed. So please um just take courage and pick up the phone. And if you're scared to talk to us, think how scared your child might be to talk to you directly. So feel the fear and do it anyway. And the second one is to quote Alex, my colleague, who said beautifully if it takes a village to raise a child, it may take a town to save one. And you can save one by sharing what you've learned on this podcast with somebody else. And even just mentioning papyrus can save a life. If you follow papyrus on any of the social media feeds and somebody sees it on yours, it gives them courage to countenance suicide prevention. Don't be scared if you hear that in your school they've been talking about suicide, they will have been talking about suicide prevention and be happy because that may have saved your children's and their friends' lives.

SPEAKER_01 50:17

Perfect. I mean, I would reiterate as well on your um social media platforms, there's always really helpful kind of tips and ideas and thoughts around how to how to support people, young people that are feeling suicidal, including their parents. And I share that as far and wide as you can. As you say, you just never know that one person that needs to see it that day, you might have shared it and they've gone, I need to phone them, and it makes a difference. And I so what that's why I share it. I think I you never know what's going on behind closed doors, and to share it, somebody might see it at that moment when they need it most. And I think, well, for me, I'm incredibly grateful for what Papyrus do, and you know, they got us through an incredibly difficult time as a family. Um, and I'm very grateful to everything and all the people that work at Papyrus. So my thanks to all of you. Um, but thank you ever so much for joining us, Jed. I really appreciate you being uh here with me.

SPEAKER_00 51:10

I'm delighted, and please tell your son to keep going and how brave he is for enabling us to be alongside him and you.

SPEAKER_01 51:19

I will do. Thanks, Jed.

SPEAKER_00 51:26

Stop.