Life After Suicide

My name is Angela Samata.

11 years ago I had an ordinary life with

all the normal worries and dreams that we all have.

And then, one night, everything changed.

I came home to find that the man I loved,

the father of our two boys, had taken his own life.

Since that day I've been learning what it means to lose someone

you love to suicide.

And why it's a very different kind of grief to any other.

I'm going on a journey around Britain to meet people like me,

who've faced a similar loss, and to try to break down

some of the stigma and fear that exists around suicide.

Because if there's one thing I've learnt above all else,

it's that we have to talk about this.

It's really important that we talk.

You may not know this,

but there's around 6,000 suicides a year in the UK.

And every year there are thousands of people like me

who are left behind.

And we often feel isolated,

as if we shouldn't really talk about what's happened.

Luckily, I have a family for whom talking has never been a problem.

Since my partner Mark died, every Sunday my mum Jenny comes

round to my house in Birkenhead to cook lunch for the whole family.

Put that in that broccoli, love.

The more concerned she is about us, the more food we get.

What are you cooking?

Roast Lamb, roast potatoes, creamed potatoes, new potatoes...

ANGELA TITTERS

..carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, mangetout, two types of peas -

garden peas, mushy peas.

So we're going for the low carb option today?

Oh, definitely. Go mad on a Sunday!

ANGELA LAUGHS

-We are a very close family.

-Yeah.

Which stood us in good stead, because when it...

When the whole situation around Mark happened, it kind of, er,

that became just really pivotal to everything.

It was such a big shock, because we'd had a conversation

the night before, hadn't we? About Christmas dinner,

what we were cooking and where we were having it.

All right. All right. You all right?

Come on, don't be crying into the peas.

'A lot's changed in the last 11 years.'

Ohhh... Yeah, good, thanks.

'I didn't have a career then.'

Hi, how you doing?

'I work in the art world now.'

I've got a new partner, Duane.

And my youngest son Benjamin is 14 years old.

He was three when Mark died.

Alexis was 13. He's just turned 25.

-Down at the other end.

-Yep.

We often talk about Mark. We want them to remember him

positively and not just because of that one night.

We wanted the boys to grow up and

for it to be about how Mark lived and how funny he was

and how he thought he was an amazing cook when he probably wasn't

and how he thought he was an amazing musician when he probably wasn't.

Frustrated musician, he was! THEY LAUGH

But we wanted it to be about that, didn't we?

-We didn't want it to just be about...

-We wanted it to be good memories, not about...

Well, not just about how he died, it was really important...

It was how he lived.

GUESTS CHATTER

Thank you.

Duane, where are you going, in between the kids?

-JENNY: I'll go in between.

-Are you going in between the kids?

'When this happens to you, as an ordinary person,

'as an ordinary family, very, very quickly you become aware

'of the stigma attached to somebody taking their own life.

'There's lots of people that don't know how to speak to you,

'there's lots of people who treat you differently.'

Does anybody else want mushy peas?

I think the only way we can help to challenge the stigma

and deal with the legacy of this is to be really honest and open,

and I'm kind of hoping that that's what me talking about

my experiences is going to -

in some very, very tiny way - help to achieve.

There you go.

Oh, yes...

I think we were probably both 16 in this picture.

And it was when we'd kind of not long started dating.

And, er, we thought it would be great to go on this day out,

to Southport I think it was.

You can see how young I am and how young he is.

Me and Mark met when we were at school.

I was 16 and he was only 15,

and we went on a date.

And his friends were saying to him,

"Oh, my God, you're going out with a sixth former, that's great",

and my friends were saying to me,

"What are you doing with a fifth year, what are you doing?"

And it kind of went from there really.

He was great fun, he was quirky,

he was interesting, he was dangerous.

I was 18 when I had Alexis.

At that point we kind of thought we knew it all,

and actually you look back and we didn't know anything,

we were kind of just muddling our way through.

And then this picture is Mark and me and Benjamin.

Benjamin was born when I was 29 and Mark was 28.

I mean, I look back and think, was that time of excitement

and kind of hope, was that just a sticking plaster?

So the relationship building up to Mark's death,

I was feeling very restless.

We'd always kind of managed to talk through things,

so we talked about it a lot, we talked about the fact that

I was feeling as if I was kind of, almost claustrophobic.

We decided that we were going to live separately for a little while.

If I'd have realised the potential consequences of then

what happened, maybe I wouldn't have said anything,

maybe I would have just continued things

and kept quiet, who knows?

Hindsight's a wonderful thing, isn't it?

This is the park that we used to come to a lot.

And, er, the house where we...

where Mark's death occurred is actually just over the way there.

I haven't been back here for years, it's...

mixed emotions, definitely.

On the day that Mark actually died, I had just started a new job.

The boys went off to school and Mark normally left just before me,

but actually I left first that morning.

In the afternoon I got a call from Mark's work

saying that he hadn't turned in.

And it wasn't until 6 o'clock that I actually managed to

get hold of him on the phone, and he said,

"Remember that I love you,

"and look, I'm really, really sorry."

And I thought that he was apologising

for the fact he hadn't gone to work.

I collected the boys from my mum's house and drove home.

I walked up the path, put the key in the door, opened the door,

and then as I opened the door, I could just see his...his outline.

And at that point I realised that in fact Mark

had hung himself in the hallway.

And behind me I could hear the boys laughing.

It was the most unreal, surreal situation.

I can't... I find it hard to describe it really,

because it was just something that never ever

enters your head in your wildest imagination.

Mark's death was devastating for me,

but as I've since discovered, it wasn't unusual.

Four out of every five people who take their own lives are male,

and suicide is the biggest killer of men under 50 in Britain.

But I didn't know any of that 11 years ago.

I was just one of the many people left in shock,

with very little guidance about where to go or who to talk to.

It wasn't until about nine months after Mark died that one morning

I woke up and I felt very disorientated.

I felt as if I didn't know

if I wanted to sit down or stand up, or eat or drink, or...

Just felt very, very disorientated.

Fortunately I found a support group known as SOBS.

At first when I saw the acronym of "Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide",

I genuinely didn't know what to expect.

I think for me when I lost my son, er, and I look back now

and they were very dark days, and I was just desperate.

Desperate for help in how to deal with the feelings,

the emotions, the unanswered questions.

I get loads of support, I've got wonderful friends and family,

but sometimes I think, "Do they really understand us?

"Do people understand?"

Because I think that death by suicide is...horrendous,

and it's worse than any other kind of death, I think.

Well, I used the word a few years ago,

-but a tsunami of grief hits you.

-Yeah.

You think you're doing all right,

you're having an all right day. And then wham. And, er...

Ooph.

Some of the people here have been coming to

the support group for many years.

Others like Rebecca are much more recently bereaved.

I can't understand why my husband's left my children,

-and I see the pain in their faces.

-Yep.

I don't know how you can write

a letter to your children and then take your life.

-How old are they?

-14 and 18.

-And how long's it been?

-Five weeks.

-It is very recent, isn't it?

-Yeah.

I feel guilty in that I should have recognised that

he was in that dark place,

and I feel partly responsible for not perhaps understanding,

when he was a bit low, but I never thought he'd do this.

My son, there were no signs whatsoever.

-No.

-As a mum, you question yourself, "Have I been a bad parent,

"what have I done that's made him do this?"

But there were no signs. It was just...like that.

Losing someone in this way is a very specific type of bereavement.

We experience emotions that are very specific to suicide.

And it doesn't follow a natural pattern, there's no book that is

going to say to you, "You're going to go through this process,

"your grief is going to follow this path

"and this is what you're going to experience at this time."

It's literally that you can feel different emotions from

hour to hour, from minute to minute sometimes.

It is different.

You can go for a little bit, and you're all right,

and then all of a sudden it smacks you again.

What are you supposed to do, just stay in bed all day,

and just hope it's all going to go away?

Because, believe me, I do, and yesterday I've thought

to myself, "What is the point? What is the point to all this?"

There's something about being bereaved by suicide

and the fact that that person that you loved and you knew -

or you thought you knew - has taken their own life by their own hand.

Coming to terms with that can be very, very difficult

and can be a very long road.

If my husband had had a heart attack, been murdered,

knocked off his bike, although it would have been desperate,

I could have perhaps...

It was out of his hands, but it's the thought

that that morning he got up, he made me a cup of tea in bed,

he had his breakfast, he washed his dishes,

he emptied the dishwasher, he drove to work...

and three hours later he was dead.

And that's what I find very, very hard to understand.

The grief is unbelievable.

I can't tell you how painful, the grief... It's like, um...

if you've ever lost your wallet, or something happens

and you get a shock, and your heart stops.

That's it, but it's constant. Constant.

And I want the world to stop, but it's not, it's carrying on.

You know, it's very, very... Very, very strange.

When you openly talk about suicide, people are frightened of it.

And that's not because people don't necessarily

want to understand it, it's because, for a long time,

those conversations haven't been happening.

SOBS is just ordinary people who have been bereaved in the

same way who are willing to come along and share their experiences.

We are trying in our small way to deal with the taboo of the subject.

One of the questions that haunts you after suicide is "Why?"

Mark hadn't shown any obvious signs of depression,

and, like most people who take their own lives,

he didn't leave a note.

I've come to Glasgow University to meet Professor Rory O'Connor,

one of the UK's leading experts on suicide,

to see if he's got any answers for me.

What a place to work, it's absolutely gorgeous.

Great to meet you. Nice to meet you.

-So maybe we take a wee wander round?

-Yeah, great.

For me, the big question after Mark died was, why did he take his life?

Our research can never answer the question of why

a particular individual... So for example, we can't answer,

the question, sadly, of why Mark took his own life.

What we try and do is understand the

common features of the suicidal mind, we speak to people who have

tried to kill themselves, we try and understand

the factors which led up to why they attempted to end their own lives.

And it's not a selfish act. Suicide is not a selfish act.

It's an expression of unbearable pain.

People take their own lives often not because they want to

kill themselves, but because they want the pain to end.

We talk about this constricted thinking, this tunnel vision,

this tunnel logic, so that the person

maybe is not necessarily looking outwardly distressed,

but has decided themselves that for whatever

set of reasons, usually complex reasons, "I'm going to kill myself."

In a way, that's the end of their problems,

because in their mind they've found the solution.

Professor O'Connor and his team have conducted tests

with over 2,000 people who have attempted suicide.

I'm going to apply it gradually harder, I would like you to say stop

when it first feels uncomfortable.

Stop.

I'll just take over for a second, Karen.

So this is a pressure metre, or an algometer.

We exert pressure on people's hands, and what that does

-is it gets some sort of objective measure of pain and sensitivity.

-OK.

Because what we think might be going on is that people who

attempt suicide have a higher pain threshold.

They can put up with more physical pain than the average person.

Yeah. So this is a measure of pain tolerance.

Say stop when you feel this becoming too uncomfortable to continue.

Stop.

'The pain threshold test is one of many conducted at the lab,

'from which Professor O'Connor has built up a picture

'of the common factors that can lead to suicide.'

So this is us trying to piece together the sort of pathway to suicide.

How is it that some people develop suicidal thoughts and others don't?

And what we think is vitally important, if you're

feeling defeated and humiliated and you feel you can't escape

from that, you feel trapped, you're much more likely to become suicidal.

In particular, this sense of being trapped.

So if you've got that defeat plus the feeling of

this conical, constricted view of the world,

-then that seems to be a pretty lethal combination.

-Absolutely.

I'm just wondering,

when you're looking at things like entrapment, it must be

such a subjective thing, how do you even start having that conversation?

What we use are established questionnaires. I'll show you.

It's 16 questions, and crucially, we don't just look at one question,

they come together and tell us an overall score

of how trapped you feel.

So we've got...

SHE READS ALOUD

They feel like very poignant questions,

do people sometimes find them difficult to answer?

We've been doing this work now for 20 years, and in general

people are really, really glad somebody's asking about them.

And trying to understand why suicide happens.

Professor O'Connor's commitment to answering that question

is more than just professional.

Like me, he's lost someone to suicide.

Six years ago a very close friend of mine took her own life,

and that really was, er, just devastating,

and particularly devastating because I'd been working

in this area for so long, and I just felt such a failure.

That I'd let that person down, and that we were really, really close

and basically, why couldn't I have prevented her suicide?

What it really highlights for me is, yes, as a researcher I understand

the importance of objectivity, but it's more personal now.

Really, really much more personal now.

When Rory described how in the suicidal mind,

you know, that constriction of the world view,

and how problems that you or I may consider as small

may be magnified within that constricted view

and may seem insurmountable.

I could just kind of feel myself really, really relating to that

and just wondering whether that was how

Mark's view of the world had changed.

BELLS RING

It's really got me thinking about it in a completely different way,

in a way I haven't thought about it in 11 years.

For people like me who've lost a partner to suicide,

one of the biggest problems is how you explain

what's happened to your children.

This is a picture of Ben,

and it's when he was about two-and-a-half.

And, erm, he's got his buggy here, he used to love pushing his buggy.

Not a care in the world.

Benjamin's questions used to be, "Why did Daddy die?"

So we had that question quite a lot,

"When is Daddy back, when is Daddy back?"

And he would say that over and over again, and I would then have

to answer him each time saying, "Daddy's not coming back, Benjamin."

And then there's another picture here that's a little bit later,

this was done in 2009.

And then at about five I think it was, instead of saying to me,

"Why did Daddy die?", he said, "How did Daddy die?"

So that one word completely changed the question.

So I said to him,

"Do you know when Mummy tells you that you can't

"tie a scarf around your neck, tight, why do I tell you that?"

And he said, "Because it will stop me breathing."

And I said "Well, Daddy knew that if he tied something

"very, very, very, very tight that it would stop him breathing,

"and he would go to heaven,

"so that's what happened to Daddy."

And he said, "OK."

'I just remember that moment, it took me

'a few minutes to get myself together and

'be able to actually look at him.'

My fear for the boys was that,

although I always wanted to talk very openly about their father

with them, I also didn't want it to...become an option for them.

So it was a... It continues to be a very, very, fine line

between having the conversation -

that I feel very strongly should happen -

and yet not having the conversation to the point where it becomes

so normalised that it becomes, like, an OK thing to consider.

Talking to my boys about their dad's death wasn't helped

by the wall of silence around suicide.

But now, a few people in the public eye

are starting to speak out about their experiences.

I've come to West London to meet the actor David Robb,

who plays Dr Clarkson in the TV series Downton Abbey.

18 months ago his wife, the actress Briony McRoberts,

having struggled with anorexia,

took her own life at a local tube station.

-Angela.

-Hello. Nice to meet you.

-Hello, come in.

Can I interest you in a tea or a coffee?

I would love a cup of tea, please. That would be great.

Right, come through to the kitchen.

-Thank you, that's great.

-Do you want to come through?

-Yes, please, yes.

I'll follow you, I'm on your turf.

HE LAUGHS

These are sort of random photos. So, this is Briony.

About five, six years ago. Pretty lady.

-Absolutely beautiful.

-So she's about 50, I should think.

-Wow.

-She doesn't look anywhere near 50.

-No.

And that's the play that we met in. Betsy.

And there she is, 18. Me, 28. we had this luurve scene.

-LAUGHING:

-And did it just last a bit longer each night?

It sort of did, yeah.

She had to grow up in it,

and the last act she had her hair up, I always remember.

And I used to have to stand behind her,

walking on stage at one point, and I loved the back of her ears.

I can remember quite clearly,

-sort of falling in love with the back of her head.

-Really?

It was a long time ago, 1975.

How long is it since your husband died?

It's a little while now, it's, er, 11 years.

-You found Mark, didn't you?

-Yeah, I did, yeah.

I just can't imagine the level of shock that that must have involved.

I had the opposite.

Briony left the house before I came down in the morning...

and didn't come back.

-And then the police turned up.

-Really?

At about 4 o'clock in the afternoon,

because she had my Oyster card, my, you know, ticket thing.

And...

-I was advised by the police and the coroner not to see her body.

-Mmm.

So I never saw her, she just walked out of my life.

So it's as if she's been erased in a nuclear explosion.

That's a very weird thing, and when I think of the memory,

the, you know, the physical memory,

and the smell of her and the back of her ears,

and all of the things that made her unique...no longer exist.

How? How?

Because I touched them for 38 years.

And that's difficult, really difficult.

Really difficult.

I have the opposite in that the last time I held him

was when he'd already passed away.

And so although my head can compute that it was kind of...

I know that it was very real and all of that,

it still has that same surreal sense that you have,

-so it's a small comfort. Small comfort.

-Mm.

It must have been so difficult for you to go through

such a private time so publicly.

It exploded in the media. Only for 24 hours, but it was huge.

And you suddenly realise that it wasn't just the people

you invited to the funeral that were going to pitch up,

there were going to be hundreds of other people.

And in some ways that was rather magnificent.

It was stupendous, and if she'd seen... I mean, everybody said,

-"God, if she could see..."

-Yeah.

I had a supermarket thing where a total stranger

came up and said, "I'm so sorry, I just want to say

"I always used to see you and your wife

"in here on a Saturday morning, and I know what happened

"and I'm just so terribly sorry."

-Well, that's very touching as well.

-Yeah, of course it is.

For me, 18 months was a really difficult time,

because it felt as if everyone else's life was carrying on.

-Well, everyone else gets used to it.

-And I think that's what I found difficult.

And they should, because it's quite right that people

are getting on, and...

Not forgetting, but it falls into some kind of perspective,

but it's not really falling into perspective for me.

You kind of think, "So who was this person that I was with?"

Because she wouldn't have done that.

And I don't think there's any real coming to terms with that,

you just have to somehow live with it.

-Tell me it gets better.

-Yeah.

-I can absolutely promise you that it gets better.

-Really?

-Yeah, absolutely.

-I've lost the person who was a rock for me.

You know, and in terms of taste, and being a homemaker

-and a brilliant partner and a glamorous woman...

-Mm.

HE EXHALES

You OK?

Unbelievable.

(You all right? You all right?)

Yeah.

So, it goes round and round, doesn't it?

Meeting David has taken me right back to where I was 18 months

after Mark's death, when I was still lost in the sense

of utter disbelief that the person I thought I knew

could take their own life.

It makes you feel as though you'll never be able to fully trust

anyone or anything ever again.

When you're in that place,

it feels impossible that you can ever rebuild your life.

But my experience is that you can - if you can talk about it.

11 years after Mark's death,

my oldest son Alexis feels like he's done all of his talking.

His dad was a keen amateur guitarist

and Alexis now expresses himself as the drummer of a band.

Whooo!

His brother Benjamin and I, of course, are his biggest fans.

# I'd love to wrap the stars around the moon

# Of you-ou-ou... #

Alexis started drumming when he was about 14.

I don't know whether some of it was

because he'd not long lost his dad, or whether it was just something

that would have happened naturally anyway.

But now he's been drumming for ten years and you can tell he loves it.

As a parent, you kind of live for those moments where you

see your child just completely absorbed in what they're doing

and just completely enjoying what they're doing

and you get a real sense of that when you see Alexis drum.

When he first started playing gigs, it was really, really difficult

because when I used to go and watch him play,

and it's still the case now, really,

you do kind of wish every time he's on stage that his dad could

see what he was doing, really,

because I think he'd be so proud of him.

Nights like tonight, he would have loved this.

# I am the mountain now

# And the rain. #

CHEERING

SINGER: Thank you, we love you all, thank you very much!

I understand now that there was a part of Mark that couldn't share

how he was really feeling with us, his family.

But I've often wondered

whether things might have turned out differently

if he'd been able to get away for a bit and speak to someone else.

Here in a residential street in North London there's an organisation

called The Maytree,

which offers that option to people who feel suicidal.

I've come to meet Angela Rodrigues,

who's worked here for the last eight years.

-Hello, is it Angela?

-It is, hello. Welcome to Maytree.

-Thank you so much.

-Come in.

So, Angela, when people come here, what are they coming here for?

Because it's not... It's quite a special place, isn't it?

It is, a lot of our callers will have been googling ways

to kill themselves.

-Really?

-Yeah.

We pop up at the top of the page and then they see Maytree,

and they'll have a read,

and that's, they then have a think about it, then they'll call us.

And is Maytree a one-off?

You know, are there other Maytrees around the country or is this

-the only...?

-No, this is the only one so far.

What we do, we offer a safe space.

We work with suicide. This is where you can come in and be honest,

without that fear of feeling judged or upsetting anyone.

After an initial assessment, Maytree offers its guests a five-day

residential break from the pressures of everyday life.

So, on this floor we've got two bedrooms and a bathroom.

And this is one of our newly decorated rooms.

So they're spacious and they're airy.

Oh, wow. This is lovely.

And as you can see, we've got nurse alarms for people that have...

If anyone has difficulty in the night, they press that.

So they're designed with, you know

with safety - again, you'll notice that the curtain pole, it bends.

These are collapsible, aren't they?

I noticed that as soon as I walked in...

Yeah, so if anyone does try and make an attempt, it's not going to work.

Have you ever had guests here who have actually taken it

-as an opportunity to attempt to take their lives here?

-Yeah.

And what we say to guests, we make it very clear,

we have a guest agreement, er, that if someone does make an attempt

here, that, er, we will have to intervene.

The most important part if that happens, is being with them

and trying to hold on to our relationship with them and not

to just hand it over to someone and walk away - we wouldn't do that.

-We'll be with them, we'll stay with them at the hospital.

-OK.

And hopefully, depending how bad it would ever be,

if they're able to come back and finish their stay, they come back.

The Maytree was set up 20 years ago by two former Samaritans,

who wanted to offer a refuge to people who felt isolated

by their suicidal feelings.

I mean, the stigma around suicide,

I mean, I've felt it as a bereaved person, er,

is it something that you feel or that you think that the guests feel?

Oh, absolutely, we need to be talking about suicide,

we live in a society that's scared to talk about death, let alone suicide.

We need to be able to be open

and talk about it, without that fear of being judged.

That is so important.

We need to use the word, stop hiding from it,

stop hiding from it, let's talk about it and that's the key - talking.

How did you first come across Maytree?

Was it in a working capacity or was it in a different...?

No, I'd actually...have made several attempts myself,

I've been through the mental health system,

er, I'd been in psychiatric units.

Er...

And I struggled to find a reason to live.

I mean, I couldn't even leave the house,

I couldn't even take my children to school.

How many children did you have then?

I have three daughters, yeah, who were small.

I suppose we're on opposite sides of the fence, because I have wanted

and thought about how Mark must have felt

just before he took his life. That's been a major part

of my bereavement, my grief, really, is trying desperately

to understand how it feels to be

in that place where you really are convinced 100% that your children

will be better off without you.

I remember kissing my children good night...

Here goes...

-Sorry.

-It's OK.

And just thinking that they would be better off.

That they would not have to... watch their mother not cope.

Mm.

You are in a box, whichever way you turn,

it's just blackness all around you.

It's almost like being in, you know... I remember times thinking,

"Come on, there must be a way" and it's like being in treacle,

you cannot move, you're rooted and the world's just whizzing past you,

you can't see, and that's what's so important here,

because for someone that's walking through this door that is suicidal,

at that point, they may never have had contact with someone else who

is suicidal, so when you see guests sitting down and talking, that also

enables them to see that, "Wow, it's not just me, other people do suffer."

And around this table, the conversation, it can just happen,

it's very organic, it's very natural.

It's just been wonderful to see this today

because you're doing amazing things here.

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

Almost all of Maytree's guests say that they suffer fewer

suicidal thoughts and attempts after staying here.

Which makes you wonder why, when suicide is such a big problem,

this is the only house of its kind in the UK.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but I just wish that

if Mark had known about somewhere like Maytree then maybe

he could've come somewhere like this for a few days.

I just wish that he'd have known about this.

If the stigma around suicide can make it difficult for adults

to talk about it, imagine what it's like being a child.

When Mark died, my boys, Alexis and Ben, lost one parent

and were left with me, the other, completely traumatised.

While I did my best to let them know that they could always talk

about what had happened to us,

I'm interested in how other families deal with suicide

and I've come to meet the Ebdons, who live in rural Somerset.

It was something like that.

Then everyone's happy.

Farmer Simon Ebdon lost his wife Domine to suicide five years ago,

leaving him to bring up their five daughters on his own.

Three years ago, he met his new partner Vicky.

Where shall we put it? There we are.

Where's mine gone?

There we are. There's yours, Em.

-Do we need a bigger tree to fit it all on?

-Yeah.

'They've kindly invited me to their home a few days before Christmas.'

-Hello.

-Hello.

-Nice to meet you.

-Nice to meet you, too.

-Come on in, come through.

-Thank you.

And then you can meet the family.

-Hi, girls!

-Hi.

-Hello.

So this is Rosie.

Hello, Rosie, nice to meet you.

-This is Molly.

-Hello, Molly.

-And that is Izzie.

-Izzie.

And there's Charlotte.

Great to meet you. You're Em, aren't you?

I just spotted all your pictures, they're gorgeous.

'Vicky came to live with the Ebdon girls two years after

'the death of their mum, Domine.'

When you first became part of the family,

you weren't just dealing with Simon's grief, you were dealing with

the five girls, as well, and the baby was a baby...

There were days when, you know, Mum's name would be mentioned

and they would get upset, and Simon would do... He would cry

all the time, and the girls would...

They just couldn't bear it,

so it stopped them from crying, so they were too scared to cry

because it would make Simon cry

and then it was just a vicious circle.

I've come from a family where we do a lot of talking.

I think it's important if you have something inside you,

that you let it out.

'Vicky contacted Winston's Wish, a charity which works with bereaved

'children, including those who've lost their mum

'or their dad to suicide.'

So when you went to Winton's Wish, tell me about that.

They talked to us and told us about, like, the camp.

-OK.

-The weekend we went,

then we went to it, and it was really fun, cos there wasn't

actually much talking.

-Well, there was,

-It was, but they tried not to make it...

-Too upsetting.

-Yeah.

We, like, had, on the first day, we did loads of...

Activities and stuff.

Activities like archery, and we were in, like, groups, each of us

were in a different group.

We did all the games first, so I think it was like a

trust-building thing, and we all sort of, like, learned

a lot about each other, sounds like stupid stuff but it does matter...

No, but you got to know each other first as, kind of, people.

-It was good, cos you realise that you're really not the only one.

-Yeah, OK.

Even though they say that you're not, like, you don't

really know anyone,

but then you go there and everyone's in the exact same boat.

You struggled, Char, didn't you?

-You found it really upsetting, you didn't like it.

-Nope.

-No.

She still doesn't like it.

-Still doesn't like talking about it

-Tell me why.

I just don't feel the need to. It's not that I don't want to,

I don't mind talking about it, I just... It's OK,

-it's just, yeah, it is upsetting.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

-This is Domine.

-Let's have a look at this. This is your one.

This is on holiday, a fantastic place.

-Do you have this one in your bedroom?

-Yeah.

My boys have pictures of their dad in their bedroom, too.

This is quite a nice natural photo, er,

which we only found a few days ago.

Domine was my best friend, the person I loved, she was everything.

Fantastic mother, you know. You'd never think

she would do anything like that, you know, but obviously she was

in a bad place, you know,

and was just... Well, couldn't take it any longer.

(Are you all right?)

You're OK.

You all right? You OK?

It's very sad.

There are days when it's actually really difficult.

But they are coming through it, and maybe they won't ever

get over it, I don't... You can't get over something like that,

but you can adjust, and you can learn to live and live alongside

what's happened and that's kind of what I wanted for them.

I just think from everything that I've heard today,

the fact that you came into the family

and enabled those conversations to happen, I think is probably

the greatest gift that you could have given any of those five girls.

-Did you get a bird, as well?

-No.

And where's Rosie's?

Lovely!

-It all looks beautiful, doesn't it?

-Yep.

That's all right, though, Em.

-Izzie, can you put this next to you?

-Yeah.

Before I head home for Christmas myself,

I'm heading to Norfolk to meet a woman called Jacqui Page.

I think going to see Jacqui today is going to be really difficult

out of all the people that we've met.

Jacqui has had to deal with one of the most tragic aspects of suicide.

That those left behind are sometimes at risk themselves.

24 years ago, her husband Rod took his own life.

Seven years ago, her son Simon did the same.

Today is going to be me facing my worst fears really -

so it's going to be a tricky one, I think.

That was Simon when he was probably about three or four there,

in the snow with his rabbit, bless him.

That was on holiday in Cornwall with Katie.

And that was graduation day.

We just asked someone if they'd take a photograph, that was 2001,

-so it was six years later, almost to the day, that he died.

-Yeah.

Wow.

You lost your husband Rod, he took his own life...

-In 1990.

-In 1990.

It was very, very hard when he died,

I was left with two small children - an eight-year-old and

a ten-year-old.

Simon asked me a lot of questions about how Rod died, but those were

questions he asked me a lot when he was much older, I'd say when

he was in probably his early 20s,

er, and I've regretted at times actually telling him

because, you know, he said, "How did Dad die, Mum?"

and obviously Rod hung himself, and I think, "Was I too open?"

You know, but, as a parent I've always been honest with them

and open in that way.

He went down to London, he wanted to go into finance,

er, and then his troubles began, really.

He'd ring me virtually every day, he'd got anxiety, er,

and stress with the job, and he started to become ill.

But anyway, he came home and even though he was so ill

we had six amazing months, really.

And I'm grateful that I had those six months with him.

The day that Simon died, I came home, I walked in the house

and, er, his boots were by the door,

and I sort of...

The landing light, the light was on at the bottom of the stairs

and I just...he was there hanged at the top of the stairs.

Er...

I just went absolutely hysterical.

And I remember holding him, it was just horrendous.

Absolutely horrendous.

I mean, for me listening to you now it's, er...

I knew today was going to be difficult, because...

-Are you all right?

-Mmm, yeah.

My worst fear is that, you know,

one of the boys would... do the same thing.

It really is my worst fear.

You can't go through the rest of your life thinking that...

My circumstances aren't necessarily going to become your circumstances.

-I mean, there's no guarantees, is there?

-No.

But if you keep talking to them and...

I think that's the thing really, you know, you do, you keep having

the conversations, don't you? And you keep kind of, you keep

the lines of communication open.

Yeah.

-And so, where are you at now?

-Where am I at now?

-Yeah.

I'm at acceptance with it.

I don't want to accept it, but I can't change it.

And I think when I got to about two and half years

after Simon's death, I reached... I used to go to his grave every day,

but then I got to a stage when I was thinking about moving to

Norfolk and I just thought, "You can't continue like this, you've got to change,"

-and Norfolk's been a turning point for me.

-Really?

I love it down here.

'Since moving to the Norfolk coast,

'Jacqui has started a new career and set up a support group

'for others who've lost people they love to suicide.'

What did you hope to gain by moving here, Jacqui?

Peace of mind, I think.

Time for myself, some reflection time,

it's been a turning point, really. I love the place, I'm home now.

-Really?

-Yeah.

I mean, it's so beautiful here, I can definitely see why.

Life isn't wonderful all the time, is it?

Nobody's is, but everything since I've been here has gone right.

-For me personally, it's been a healer, really.

-Yeah.

I knew today was going to be really difficult.

Once Jackie started to talk about Simon, you know, losing her son,

I knew it was going to be emotional,

but, er, I think that...yeah,

I kind of hadn't realised what an impact that was actually going to have on me.

Before going home to my boys, there's someone I'm keen

to catch up with.

I've been thinking a lot about Rebecca,

who I met at the Liverpool support group.

'It's only ten weeks since her husband Andy died.'

-It's really nice to see you again.

-And you.

'After any suspected suicide there has to be a public inquest

'and the one into Andy's death took place yesterday,

'just before Christmas.'

That's in, er, Turkey, just before he died, actually -

about a month before.

And then that's one of us at a charity ball a few years ago.

-You look amazing!

-Oh, well, yeah.

-Absolutely amazing.

Have the hair done.

-That's the one with sugar, yeah?

-Yeah.

It's so lovely to see you again,

after I met you in the support group.

And yesterday was the inquest, a particularly difficult day.

I was a little bit disappointed that, er,

-it went ahead with it only being three days before Christmas.

-Yeah.

I asked if it would be postponed because the children are on holiday

from school. I mean, they're not little, but even so,

you have to consider them, don't you?

-Yeah. And did it last for a long time, the session?

-No.

-How long were you...

-Gosh, it must've only been about 30 minutes, if that.

It just felt as though we were dealing with, I don't know,

a parking ticket or a shoplifting offence or something.

And I don't agree with it being open to the public, either.

I can't understand why. He wasn't a criminal, he'd done nothing wrong,

you know, he hadn't hurt anybody else, but, yes, it's such a private

thing that becomes so public, and you have no control over.

Yeah, that's right.

So, did they go through the events of the day?

They went through, obviously, the date and the time he was found,

who found him, who identified him,

and then they went into the cause of death,

but they went...and that really upset me because I burst into tears

because they went into detail about the rope around his neck.

Apparently he died very quickly.

I was comforted in a little way that he died quickly,

-but I don't think I needed to know the full details.

-Mm.

And then the verdict was, er, suicide.

That my husband was depressed.

-OK.

-And that was it, basically.

He honestly didn't realise all the impact of what he did.

And the after effects. And he wouldn't have wanted to leave me,

-I don't think, with all of this to deal with.

-No.

But he has.

He was in a dark place and, you know, couldn't take any more.

How did you feel, did you feel let down?

I feel a bit angry and let down. Yeah, I do.

He's died and I'm now left

with a lot of things he couldn't cope with,

on my own, so, yes, he's out of pain

-but my pain's started now.

-Mm.

Yeah.

It's hard.

Yeah, it really, really is.

Yeah.

Sorry.

No, it's all right.

And how do the boys grow up, you know?

How do they form relationships? That worries me, as well.

You know, always say that things happen in a child's life

affect them when they get older, don't they?

And that's what worries me. When they grow up.

I think that is, for me, you've kind of just hit

the nail on the head, really. For me, that is the most difficult part

of the legacy of this, really, is we share the same fear.

You know, er, I mean, I have to say, Rebecca,

you strike me as somebody who is just incredibly strong,

I mean, the fact that we're sitting here having a conversation today

and it's the day after the inquest, and it's only ten weeks since...

since you lost your husband.

My GP wants me to go in on the 5th of January with a five-year plan.

I don't quite know what my five-year plan's going to be, cos I can't

think about what my next five-minute plan is, never mind five years.

-A five-year... A five-year plan?

-A five-year plan.

Oh, God, I don't think I could even do that now,

-let alone three months after Mark died.

-I know.

I've made it home to Birkenhead for Christmas

and while I'm still convinced that honesty

and openness are the best way to deal with losing someone you love

to suicide, when it comes to your own kids, you never stop worrying.

I've been speaking to lots of different people,

and some of it's been quite upsetting, and it kind of just

got me thinking about whether the fact that we'd always been really

honest with each other and we'd always been able to talk about it,

well, whether you felt, actually, we had always been able to talk

-about it...

-We have, I think.

-Mm.

-But, yeah, on the...

On the whole, I think I've come to terms with it quite well.

Yeah. Do you think you'll always have questions?

No, I think I've asked all my questions, but again,

-I will ask the same questions, because I forget the answers.

-Yeah.

You know what worries me about the way that Dad died,

and it worries me that if you were ever feeling,

you know, you kind of were struggling with anything

and I always say to you, don't I,

-that...

-I can talk to you about it.

-Yeah.

Do you think that because of what we've been through,

-you will always be able to talk to me about things?

-Yeah.

I would always tell you, of course,

before I actually felt the need to do something.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

So do you think that we're OK?

-Yeah.

-Do you think I did the right thing by telling you?

-Absolutely.

-Yeah?

-Positively.

-Thank you.

-You're welcome.

'We're not having Sunday lunch this week because it's Christmas,

'but my mum's organised a Christmas Eve tea.'

We've got some of Mrs Bishton's delightful caramel cupcakes.

'And, as usual, there's enough to feed an army.'

Ham, cranberry and stuffing on them, plain ham, ham and tomato

and some plain turkey.

'Mark's death was the worst thing that's ever happened to us

'as a family,

'but 11 years on, like Benjamin, I think we're doing OK.'

-Alexis, are you still working on Christmas Day?

-Yeah.

-Aw!

'You don't ever get over losing someone to suicide.

'But if you can talk about it, then one day you can be happy again.

'More than anything, that's what I've learnt.'