Just recently you’ve been put in touch with Compassionate Friends, did anybody mention them or any other support groups a long time ago?

Yes I at the beginning I had the I had the number for SOBS, Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide and the Compassionate Friends. I did nothing for a very, very, very long time. Well until about it, it I mean it’ll be two years in November. And I should think I made contact with SOBS first, earlier this summer, maybe in the spring. But I rang and there’s absolutely no branch of a support group here in [this county of England]. In fact the person I spoke to didn’t know where [this county] was. I was actually just so appalled by it because it had taken a lot of courage to ring. And I’ve I felt I was opening myself up by ringing and to get a response which was so it wasn’t negative. It was idiotic. So that was the end of that. And I thought well I won’t approach anybody anymore.

And then suddenly a few weeks ago I felt I really needed to talk to someone or people in the same position as me because other people seemed to be moving o, not only my friends but my family. And I my counsellor had pointed out to me actually she thought I was getting stuck which I thought actually for eighteen months on was a bit odd really. Frankly I thought it was a bit harsh. But maybe she was trying a technique of moving me on.

So I rang the Compassionate Friends, and I must say they have been; I haven’t been to a meeting yet. But there is a group up here. And they were tremendously sympathetic and kind and immediately sent me literature and that did make me feel, yes I’m not alone.

The Coroner was magnificent. He sent me so much literature and contained within the literature was a leaflet for the Widowed and Young group. I discovered the Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide organisations through that, going onto the websites and then searching around.. I phoned their helpline I think every day if not twice a day in those first few weeks and months just to talk to someone else whod been bereaved by suicide was amazing. And I attended my first SOBS meeting in London three weeks after Simon died.

And did you find that helpful?

Yes I did. I cried and talked an awful lot but again that feeling of, what am I doing here? I shouldn’t be here. But just to meet other people.

Can you explain what happened at that meeting, just for other people who might be thinking about whether or not to go to a meeting?

The meeting, at that point it was facilitated by a lady from Cruse who hadn’t been bereaved by suicide but had been leading the group for several years and led it beautifully and guided it wonderfully. And basically you’d go round and you’d say who you’d lost and when you’d lost them. And she explained the confidentiality; that things said in that room were to go no further. And then it was just, almost as the spirit moved you. You spoke about your grief and if something you said moved somebody else they would say their piece. The lady who facilitated the group was very careful not to let people talk over one another. She also allowed everyone, if they wanted to, to say what they wanted. Eighteen months down this path I sort of liken those meetings to almost the meetings that my husband should have gone to; Alcoholics or Debtors Anonymous meetings. We whove been through it and apparently survived can help those who are starting off. So it’s not like, Hello Melanie I’m an alcoholic, it’s, Hello Melanie I’m a widow and I’ve been bereaved by suicide.

Yes. How often did you go to those groups?

Every month. And I also started going to the groups in [area] because although we’re lucky enough to have a group in [county name], their meetings are once a month but the way that they worked out I was going to a meeting every fortnight, once in [name] and once in central London. And they were my, and continue to be my lifeline.

And when you rang up you said you were ringing was it SOBS?

SOBS yes.

What sort of response did you get when you rang?

Well it varied. Everyone was completely supportive. The ability of the person on the other end varied because they are only volunteers. They’re not counsellors as such. And sometimes you felt more connected with one particular person than another, but just to know that you weren’t going mad.

So what sort of experiences have you had ringing up these help-lines?

Some have been totally bizarre. There’s been one helpline where I’ve phoned up and somebody tried to tell me all their problems [laughs] which actually worked in a way because it distracted me from anything that I had to talk about and I just thought, Oh please shut up so I can get off the phon [laughs]. And I had another one where somebody was convinced I’d phoned up before, and I had an argument with her about whether or not I’d phoned up before; that was the one through work and it was just a completely and utterly bizarre [laughs] and it was just, and it, it was quite amusing actually, but not at the time.

Which ones have you found helpful then?

Winston’s Wish have been really, really helpful because, you get to go and, if you’re lucky then you can apply to go on a weekend, through being bereaved through suicide, and that can be very helpful, and also the fact that they know you as an individual, that’s the thing that makes a difference. Yes, some [help-lines] are just frustrating because they’re well-intentioned but it’s just you get different people all the time and you feel as though there’s no connection with you and they keep saying, Oh try and talk about things And you just, O.

So if you ring Winston’s Wish, they’ll remember who you are or?

Yes they have like a case on you
Oh that’s good.

hich is really helpful, and that’s what makes a really big difference being able to speak to someone, when you need, to who actually knows some background information.

You haven’t got to go over it all again?

Yes, yeah and that’s the problem with a lot of the helplines, well virtually all of them you’ve got to go over everything again, and it’s so frustrating to have to do that.

I can see that.

Yes, and again you can’t sort of progress and you sort of, well you can’t record any progress that you made with them so you just feel as though you’re just on the same old loophole, and finding things really difficult. Rather than if you phone up someone like Winston’s Wish they say, Wow well, you are finding things difficult but I can see that you’ve moved forward

Has anything helped you over the years?

We’ve had, fairly recently, in the last year or so, we’ve had some support from our Compassionate Friends group, that we go to once every six weeks or so. That’s a group of people whove lost children.

And they offer a befriending service. And really that’s what they’ve done for us, they’ve become our friends.

Would you like to say a little bit about that?

Yes, the SOBS meetings tended to be very heart rending. Very, for me, very difficult because you sit in a circle and people round the circle would say how their, the person whod, they’d know had killed themselves. How they’d done it. And people were so raw and, descriptions of the deaths, was so emotional that I found it difficult to go to these group meetings.

Didn’t find it helpful. There are lots, when you’re bereaved, there’s lots of anger about and lots of the people at the meeting were angry.

Admittedly, when we went to the meeting, we were fairly newly bereaved so perhaps we weren’t coping at the time. It’s difficult to see yourself objectively in, in social settings. And a thing we struggle with now, I certainly struggle in, in social settings, to feel accepted in a social setting. And some of that is, is because of the suicide. That, I think the suicide causes more trouble than the, the death of the child in social circumstances because people, some people have trouble dealing with that, with the suicide thing, with the mental health thing.

Do you, can you say why you think people find it hard to talk to you about it?

Well, all I can say is, really, I know people find it hard to talk to me about it.

And I know people find it hard to, to listen when I’m talking about it, because they change the subject [laughs].

Do you like to talk about Ben? Would you like to be able to talk about him?

Yes. Not at any great length, but it would nice, at times, to just acknowledge that he existed.

Yes.

And it happened.

So that must be painful in social situations. And how is Compassionate Friends different [from SOBS]?

Well, they all know. They all know what it is to lose a child so, it’s, it’s easy to be silent in a room with people who know.

That you don’t have to explain.

But it’s difficult to explain

So, do you still go to those meetings?

Yes. Yeah.

And what happens at a typical meeting? People just talk about what they want to talk about?

It starts, the meeting, the group we go to, I, I assume every group is different, but the group we go to, the people that run it have run it for twenty something years since their son died. And they know lots of the people; they’ve known lots of the people for a long time. But there are newly bereaved people there, and when we first went, you sit round and there’s perhaps, the meetings vary from ten to twenty people. You sit round in a circle, a sort of a circle, and you can go round the room and each person can say a few things about their bereavement if they want to. They don’t have to, but they can if they want to.

And that often happens. People usually say something. Some people get upset, and you can clearly see the diff., the length of time people have been bereaved by how they’re, how they’re functioning within the group, I think.

So I’ve found the groups very helpful, the people veryfriendly. No, no pressure, no questions. You’ve got, you’re at ease immediately because people have experienced similar things.

And when Ben first died we thought the, the suicide was the worst thing, but we now think that it’s the, the death of the child is the worst thing.

Yes.

And the suicide might be a bit of extra horribleness on top, but it’s, it doesn’t make it any worse than people whove just lost a child.

That’s the, the unexplainable thing, and it’s impossible to describe it to someone who hasn’t experienced it.

I went to a bereavement group a couple of times, I didn’t really like it actually because it was mainly; people who had lost children, and…

Was that a group specifically for people who had lost people through suicide?

That’s right, yes.

SOBS? Survivors of bereavement by suicide?

Yes, and I hate the name already, you know I just think you could at least come up with a name that just sounds a bit less depressing.

Mm.

I was depressed before I even got there, I felt like a naughty child when I was going there.

How did you find out about them?

I don’t know, somebody told me, I really don’t know, but

So did you find a group fairly locally?

Well it was relatively local but still an hour’s drive away. But I remember sitting there in this group thinking, I’ve got nothing to say here. I have no idea what you must be going through, just by having, you know gone through what I’d been through which you know, is an extremely traumatic event, I still felt that you know I, I couldn’t, I hadn’t, I, yeah I felt I had nothing, you know I had no, I had no idea what they could possibly be going through having lost a child, and I still don’t you know, having my own children as well.

Well, I think there’s groups, and I haven’t been to the groups. There’s groups all, all over the country in local areas which you can find on the SObs website, and really it’s very informal, you go along and you can go along once, or you can go along as many times as you like, and you can say a lot, or you can say a little, and it gives people an opportunity to exchange their experiences with people whove had similar experiences. And then they have, there’s a, there’s a conference in Birmingham every, every spring, where you have speakers, and workshops, where you can just discuss things, and they have things, people like coroners come to speak and they’re mainly you know, the real conversations go on in the coffee breaks often. And I remember once I went to a place in Bolton and there were these two women there and they’d just lost a, each of them had lost a partner, within the previous twelve months, and they were obviously very very upset and I was sat having coffee with them, I wasn’t really speaking but they, they’d just found each other really, and they were just talking to each other, and I think that was, it’s that kind of thing you can meet people and they’ve had a similar experience and you can share that experience, and you don’t have to, the thing about SObs is you don’t have to progress, you know, I mean there is an idea of progression but you know I think the idea of progression you know in a in a therapeutic way, you know it’s more of a sort of, more of a target of the counsellor rather than anything else ‘cos the counsellor has to prove that they’re, you know, they’re curing this person. So I don’t like the idea of progression and SObs doesn’t have that idea you know, you just, you just be there get involved.

Mm.

And then they have a retreat, there’s a, the, you know you can go on a retreat, and I went on the retreat, because I was involved really, I was on the trustees of SObs at one time, and I went you know because I thought I should go and experience this retreat, I didn’t really go with any anticipation of benefiting from it personally, it’s my sort of character to do business at arms length with this, with this, with this issue, so typically I was on the trustees you know, but I went to this retreat and I just found it wonderful. And what I found wonderful about it was the fact that you know there were all of these people in the bar afterwards talking and I was talking. You know, everyone was telling their story, like they do, and there was this guy there and he’d lost his son, and he said that he was glad he was quite old when he lost his son ‘cos there was less time to live without him, and I talked to him a bit about what had happened to me, in just, not expecting anything, and he said, You were very close to your father weren’t you? And it was something I’d never really admitted to myself until that point when I was in the bar having had a few drinks, and I said, Yes I was. And some part of me remembered that, yes I was close to my father. And I’d somehow forgotten that for over 40 years. So even if you’re very very cynical and not expecting anything out of you know meeting people, and I didn’t, and I was thinking, yes he’s right, I was close to him.

What happens at the retreat?

We always have nice food. We have a lovely hotel which the coordinator susses out before anybody goes. We’ve already done it for next year’s. And we have excellent food, excellent service, just a time to get together. It is fairly, it is very informal. The first full day, it’s usually held in a town where there’s a street market or there’s local activities’ steam railways, attractions, that sort of thing and there’s always shopping. And then in the afternoons the local college, health and beauty students always put on some sort of a massage and facials and that sort of thing. Because a lot of us find that, that you don’t actually take a lot of time for yourself. it’s very hard to feel that you’re worth taking time for.

I suppose some people are very busy earning money?

Absolutely yes, yeah. And then there’s always a candlelit dinner, always a candlelit dinner on the Saturday, which again could be a very emotional time but actually is usually a scream. Everybody brings a candle and then it’s, the staff from the hotel put them randomly on the tables so you hopefully don’t get your own candle and then the candles are lit and they’re just a symbol of why we’re there. Sundays some people go home, sometimes people stay the next, that night. it’s just a sort of social day really.

And the cost is just the cost of the hotel?

Yes, yeah, yeah. Yes so it’s quite good but it’s, I think it’s very important. We, we always, sadly always have new members. Always.

Can people come from all over the country?

Oh yes, yes. Once or twice we’ve had a contingent from way up North and South East, West, everywhere yeah, yeah.

Yes so I felt that a self-help group would be something that would be really valuable, because it was something that I had looked for. And to cut a long story short, eventually in February 2005 no just wait a minute February 2006, I begun a self-help group. And two or three friends supported me at the start to get it going. At the first two meetings only one person turned up. But we persisted, because we knew that it was a question of letting people know that we even existed.

And now we’re eighteen months on and we generally have eighteen to twenty people come long. And that is actually increasing the more we’re getting out in our local community and making people aware of the self-help group, more people are coming along. So we over the summer we don’t meet because we think that encourages people to support each other rather than depending on the group. So if they’ve made friends in the group they can meet up. And then we will resume in September. And we’ve had quite a lot of inquires over the last three months of people wanting to know more about it and you know encouraged to come along. So we are anticipating that that will extend a bit further.

But I found it very rewarding because there’s always that element from I think any bereavement, but suicide bereavement has got a particular element of the trauma, and the particular things of, you know, you’re involved with the police, you’re involved with the coroner’s court, you’re involved with the press. And most of us who are bereaved through suicide haven’t been involved in that type of scenario. So therefore you those experiences stay with you I think more strongly. And there are times when even though you’ve come to terms with what’s happened, you still find it helpful to talk through things. And what I find from running the group is that it does give me that chance to maybe revisit some things or even look at situations differently. I would say you know that I’ve dealt with my bereavement, and that I’m comfortable with it. But I don’t think the pain ever goes away and that surfaces as, as any painful experience does for anybody.

Hmm.

So therefore running the group, it’s helpful to be able to share my experience. But it’s also it’s still a comfort being with other people.

Yes.

Who have gone through the same thing.

Does your group have any particular name?

It does yeah it’s linked with the Survivors of Bereavement through Suicide, which is a national charity.

So would you see yourself as part of that?

Yes we are part of that. We’re linked with them.

Hmhm.

But we you know run our own group. The national group does give support to anyone who would want to set up a group. So if there’s anybody, you know, that wants to start a group, they can get in contact with the national SOBS and they will guide and support them into doing that.

Do you mind explaining what, what might happen at a typical meeting, at a typical group meeting?

I can’t speak for any other meeting because I haven’t been to anyone else’s meeting.

No, your own, your own.

But our own meeting, we come together and generally we, we always start off just explaining that what is being discussed in the group is confidential and that we respect that and that we don’t discuss it out whatever’s mentioned in the group we don’t discuss it outside. We emphasise that we’ve come together for what we share in common and that we don’t tolerate discrimination of any sort. So therefore we really try to aim, focus on what we agree on and what we; you know our common experience of being bereaved through suicide. And that we respect that each person will maybe respond differently. And we have found people really do respect each other. We’ve got people who come who, you know, have got deep Christian belief or belief through some other religious way, and others who have no belief at all. And you sense that people do respect that between each other.

Hmm.

And you see both the the questions that people ask from both those perspectives, and also you’ve got different age groups. We’ve got people from their early twenties up until people into their eighties. And again we’re just united by the fact that we’ve gone through the same thing.

Hmm.

So it’s very wide, you know, what we discuss, and the people who are attending.

And do you leave the floor fairly open for people to talk about what they feel like talking about or would you lead the discussion in some way?

We always start off with leading the discussion in order to provide a platform from which to begin. But we always have a session of, you know, is there anything that’s really bugging you, you’ve come to this meeting tonight and we haven’t covered something that you really want to discuss.

Hmm.

And then we hope that that will avoid people going away and thinking well I went tonight and didn’t get a chance to say what I wanted to say. We also at the end of meeting we have a drink and nibbles and things to eat so that people intermingle and may of not been confident to speak out in the group but they will have somebody in the group will have mentioned something that’s dear to their heart and they will, they will then go and speak to them.
Hmm.

And that happens a lot.

Hmm.

And we also have books for people to borrow. And we try to keep up with whatever’s happening in the world of surviving you know supporting survivors of bereavement through suicide.

Hmm.

So it’s quite on open forum really where people can move on. And we do emphasise that it is about moving on. And it the encouraging thing is that we find people come when they feel they need to.

We had a first in SOBS this year.We put together a Thanksgiving service at Tewkesbury Abbey, which was in April.

Oh, that’s nice.

It was a national event.It wasn’t just for local people bereaved by suicide. People came for literally all over the country and this chap flew over from Ireland.

That’s a really nice idea.

Well, it was a Thanksgiving, twofold.Thanksgiving for all the things we’d shared with the person we lost and it was a Thanksgiving for the support that we offer to each other. It was the most wonderful spiritual occasion.Of course it was a Christian service, it was a Christian church but I don’t mean it was an overtly Christian; it was the spirit of the people in there, a lot of emotion.But I was quite clear from the outset this was not a memorial service, this was upbeat, happy, and strong event.