FEATURE: Life after death

Mark McLaughlin
Edinburgh Evening News
September 8, 2009

TODAY, Dionne McMillan looks healthy and happy as she wanders through the park in her bright purple dress and matching slip-ons, her hair in cascades of ringlets and a cautious but genuine smile on her face.

Back at home, close to the Royal Mile, her two-year-old son Callum plays merrily at her feet, as she fusses over him with pride. "It's just sad that his dad will never get to hold him," she says, stoically. "I'm determined to make his life as happy and as free of the problems that I've had to face as I can."

For, at 23, Dionne has lived through more misery than most experience in a lifetime.

Her partner took his own life while she was pregnant with their son and she herself has attempted suicide 11 times. She was sectioned in the Royal Edinburgh Hospital at the age of 20, following years in care and a history of self-harm.

Today, though, that is all behind her, and she is talking about International Suicide Prevention Awareness Week and its challenge to face the subject head-on.

"Nobody ever came out and asked me if I was feeling suicidal, and in some ways I was desperate to open up to someone," she recalls.

"If someone just came out and asked me how I was feeling, it may have made it easier to cope with these feelings."

Bullied at school, Dionne made her first attempt to take her life at ten years old. "I'd already been in and out of care before that.

"I just wasn't in a good place in my life, even at that age," she says.

"The more the bullying went on, the more depressed and desperate I became."

After surviving that first attempt, she continued to battle feelings of desperation throughout the rest of her childhood and teenage years.

She came close to death on a number of times, and was taken into care when she was 14.

Her life began to turn around after she was sectioned for her own protection in August 2006.

While a patient in the Royal Edinburgh, she met a kindred spirit, who was struggling with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and alcoholism. The pair hit it off straight away.

Three months later, both were discharged, and they began a whirlwind romance that resulted in Dionne quickly becoming pregnant - but within weeks her new partner would be dead, taking his own life at the age of 32.

"The last time I saw him we were talking about the future and how we were going to bring up the baby," says Dionne.

"That was the middle of December and then a few days later he broke off contact with everyone.

"He was prone to disappearing, but he would always turn up in the end.

"He was found on 1 January - but we don't how long he had been there before that.

"It's anyone's guess what caused him to do it, but we do know that he received a malicious text message from someone who claimed that our baby wasn't his, and that he would never get to see him after he was born.

"That person will never be forgiven. I just wish I'd had the chance to explain to him that it was all lies."

Losing the man she thought would be a life partner was inevitably a turning point in Dionne's life.

Thankfully, with her still-to-be-born child to think of, it spurred her to look forward and upwards.

She vowed never to return to the suicidal thoughts that had plagued half her life up to that point.

Dionne was brought up in south-east Edinburgh by her grandparents, who adopted her.

Her mother was struggling with depression, and her father had left at an early age.

As a youngster, Dionne struggled to make friends and spent a lot of time at home, helping care for her severely disabled cousin.

"By the time I left school, I was already in homeless accommodation, having been kicked out of a children's home, and I had by that point fallen out with my family," she says.

"There was no one around that I could trust and again I just didn't see much point in going on. In the back of my mind there was always something holding me back.

"Whenever I woke up and realised that I hadn't died, I felt a bit disappointed that my suicide attempts had been unsuccessful, but in another way it seemed like it was the right thing.

"It's hard to explain how you were feeling at times like that.

"Since I had my son, it's made life seem worthwhile. He makes life worth living.

"When I was alone in life, there were always support workers around, but their attitude was always 'gently, gently', like they didn't want to upset anyone.

"If they'd just come out and asked me if I was feeling suicidal, it might have helped me.

"If you ask the question outright, there are only two answers - either yes or no.

"Some people may deny it, but others may realise they have someone there to talk to that is there to help."

BEST TO BE BLUNT

THE best thing to do if you are worried that someone close to you is suicidal may be to tackle the issue head-on.

Sandra de Munoz, Choose Life co-ordinator for Edinburgh, says: "An average of two people die by suicide in Scotland every day.

"Approaching someone to ask if they are feeling suicidal is not easy, and sometimes people will be afraid that the question itself will put ideas the person's head.

"This is rarely the case and often the question itself can be a relief, and it will allow them to talk about their feelings before they have a chance to act on them.

"Most people who are suicidal don't want to end their life, they only want to end the pain and often talking about it can be the best way to do that."

CASE STUDY

'There's always someone you can turn to'

MUM-OF-TWO Emma* didn't realise anxiety could lead to suicide until her husband's first attempt in 1993.

"I thought it was only depressed people that attempted suicide," says the 47-year-old, who lives in south Edinburgh and whose husband succeeded in taking his own life in 2006.

She adds: "He was a complete perfectionist and he was always convinced that he was a failure, even though nothing could have been further from the truth.

"At the time of his death he was a manager in a software engineering firm, but no matter how much he achieved nothing was ever good enough.

"He used to worry about everything - his work, the house, me, our children - and I used to joke that if he didn't have anything to worry about, he'd worry about that. That used to make him laugh, and he usually agreed with me."

Emma met her husband when the two of them were students, and she recalls glancing over at the shy young man peering over a hand of cards at the poker table. She says the most difficult aspect of his problems was his unpredictability.

She adds: "After his first suicide attempt in 1993 he didn't want anyone to know about it. He said, 'It's my illness, and no-one else's business'.

"When he made his second attempt later that year I convinced him to tell his family and his employer, and to attend a course of cognitive behavioural therapy [CBT]."

CBT is a branch of psychotherapy that aims to get to the developmental causes of mental illnesses such as anxiety and depression, and change the way the person perceives these feelings.

Emma adds: "He was always resistant to CBT because he was convinced that no-one could change the way people thought, which I now know isn't true.

Your brain isn't hard-wired. It is possible to change the way that you see things, and all you need to do is get it out in the open and talk about it.

"No-one is ever alone - and there's always someone you can turn to for help."

*Not her real name