Joe in England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

[00:00:00] Even though it gets really shit at times, it can be fucking awful. I can hate every essence of my being and just want it just to be deleted. It's better to be alive and experiencing these things for me than not knowing what the hell comes beyond.

[00:00:21] Hey there, my name is Sean and this is Suicide Noted. On this podcast I talk with suicide attempt survivors so that we can hear their stories. Every year around the world millions of people try to take their own lives and we almost never talk about it.

[00:00:52] We certainly don't talk about it enough and when we do talk about it, many of us, including me, we're not very good at it. So one of my goals with this podcast is to have more conversations and hopefully better conversations with attempt survivors.

[00:01:02] In large part to help more people in more places hopefully feel a little less shitty and a little less alone. Now if you are a suicide attempt survivor and you'd like to talk, please reach out.

[00:01:13] Hello at suicidenoted.com on Facebook or Twitter at suicidenoted. I should say X, not Twitter. Of course you can reach out for any reason. I'd love to hear your thoughts, your ideas, your feedback, your questions.

[00:01:26] And if you'd like to help the podcast, you can rate and review it. That really helps people find it, which of course we want. You can also check the show notes to learn more about what we do and why we do it, including our membership.

[00:01:37] However you're a part of this thing, participate, support, listen. I really appreciate it. Finally, we are talking about suicide on this podcast and we do not hold back. So please take that into account before you listen or as you listen.

[00:01:51] But I do hope you listen because there is so much to learn. Today I am talking with Joe. Joe lives in England and he is a suicide attempt survivor. Hey Joe, what's up? What's up man? Not much. Just a bank holiday in the UK. So it's good timing.

[00:02:11] So Joe, you are in England, but you're from not England, right? Yeah. No. So I'm from Wales originally. I'm from like an area that's like quite rural. Yeah. No, I've just moved to Brighton. I'm doing a master's at the moment and it's, you know, it's just quite nice.

[00:02:32] Yeah. Like that's a lot of students experiences in the UK. It's sort of like moving to different cities all over the place. What are you studying? I do social anthropology. Wow. Very cool.

[00:02:44] No, no, it's nice. I really enjoy it. It's a nice subject that kind of keeps me grounded in a lot of ways. I bet. Yeah. Here's what I know about Wales and it's not just this. It's not just Gareth Bale or any of that stuff.

[00:02:57] I know that there are a lot of sheep. There are. There are indeed. Yeah. I know there are some excellent choirs, good singing. Yeah.

[00:03:07] I know there's at least, there's a town in Wales and I don't know where I saw this, if it was a movie or in a book somewhere. There was an exceptionally high rate for a period of time of teenagers, young teenagers ending their lives.

[00:03:24] I don't remember the name of the town. Yeah. No, I think that's Newport. Now that was quite a big story back in the day because like.

[00:03:31] Like whilst it wasn't like the earliest days of the Internet, it was like it was a really big thing where just suddenly there was some forum, I think, back in the day.

[00:03:42] And like a bunch of people just made a suicide pact, which, you know, like, yeah, it was really big in the news back home. Yeah, that's that's interesting that you brought that up. I do my best. Thanks for talking with me. Appreciate it.

[00:03:55] No, no, no. I'm happy to be on. I really like the show. Like when I get to listen to it, it's nice for I appreciate what you're doing. It's like a really good project. Thanks, man. Appreciate it. So why or how? Yeah, both.

[00:04:11] Why and how did you find this podcast? I'm always curious about that. For me, I struggled with mental health problems of some degree, like as far back as I can remember since like early childhood, really.

[00:04:27] And like I've always sort of sought out some sort of like audio stuff is like the best way I found for dealing with, you know, when you're in your real worst pits, like state, like, you know, you're just really in the trenches.

[00:04:43] And you just need something where like, you're not necessarily like doing anything at that moment. But you just need something from the outside to kind of break in.

[00:04:54] And I found your podcast because I was looking for just something mental health related to listen to during like a particularly bad, like late night episode, as it were.

[00:05:08] Yeah, no, I just found it really good because like, it's really good hearing other people's stories, even if it's just kind of like giving me kind of like context and sorts of like, or even just context, but kind of like grounding me that other people are going through, like the same stuff.

[00:05:25] And it kind of helped me fall asleep, which is something that, you know, is harder than you think sometimes in it. Oh, for sure. Why do you want to talk about it with me? And actually, you know, and other people will hear it.

[00:05:37] It's quite a relatable thing, I feel, for people who have mental health problems that we quite often gravitate towards other people with mental health problems of like may come from different situations. Maybe there's some element of commonality.

[00:05:53] I feel communities often kind of build around that stuff. And for me, for a long time, like my life has been very confusing and there's lots and lots of different things that have just happened consecutively.

[00:06:08] So one of my friends was like, well, actually, you know, a couple of people have said it. They don't like hearing like what I'm talking about or like when I talk about my life, but they said it's quite like useful because they go like, oh, shit, like if somebody else is going through all these things, you know, just by sharing my story, it's sort of like it kind of eases them a little bit.

[00:06:31] So hopefully, you know, like I think it's more about kind of putting my particular story out there where there's been successes. There's good lessons where I failed. Probably some useful nuggets of information as well that can be gleaned.

[00:06:45] I hope so. Or this podcast would not be a thing. Right. So as we talk right now and you are what in your room, living room, bedroom somewhere?

[00:06:54] Yeah, I'm just in my bedroom, like in my shared house. I pay quite a lot for a very small room. I have privacy is quite nice, but it's also like I have maybe like a foot of space like around the bed.

[00:07:10] So like when I'm having like particularly bad mental health moments, I can feel a bit weird because like I'm in here and then I've got my door between me and the kitchen and I've got like my housemates kind of going about their day to day lives. I'm just like, oh, if you told your housemates that you were either talking to somebody about this on a podcast or even looked for podcasts like this, would they be surprised?

[00:07:31] Or some or all or maybe none of them would be like, no, I could see Joe doing that. That seems to track. So the Brits are opening up no more stiff upper lip at all times.

[00:08:31] It's kind of meaning that people are almost being forced to open up a bit more, which is which is good. And there's also like a kind of shared almost suffering, really, because we're all like trying to get access to like health care and medication, counselling, stuff like that.

[00:08:52] And like God bless the NHS that we've got, because it is it is brilliant because it gives us a lot of support for free. But the current government has a bit of a thing against it. Like, yeah, that that's sort of a shared experience with a lot of people in the UK.

[00:09:06] Yeah, it's good. But like, I'm really glad that I'm doing this in a sense because I feel like this is something I've needed. Something like this is something I've needed to do for a while. I realize not everybody like in the street necessarily wants you to be like, oh, hey, right.

[00:09:23] Listen to this podcast. Oh, yeah. And just to be clear with you and the listeners, this is not my way of trying to get new listeners. I'm just always very curious what people who are struggling share with people around them. That's it. I don't share much with people around me. So maybe I'm thinking others might not. Right?

[00:09:44] Yeah. Can they actually like hack it right now? Am I being like selfish, but like telling them things and stuff like that? I'll tell you what you're not being selfish about the very fact that you're aware of it and consider it. Gotta be aware of these things.

[00:10:27] You're right about that. People are busy, sometimes don't have the bandwidth. I wish it were different. How many suicide attempts or near attempts do you have?

[00:10:37] I've got two attempts and then probably another like one or two very close calls. I don't feel they like other people, you know, like they've been hospitalized and stuff and like have had really, really like deep brushes with like, you know, like the with death.

[00:10:58] For me, it's been predominantly kind of just fighting that like urge, like all the time. Constantly.

[00:11:06] It's interesting. The thing about comparing if that's the right word, like I've struggled for years. I have attempts or near attempts, but it's not like theirs. Theirs are more valid in a way. Like they're the real, it's like, I think you might not think this. I'm thinking it's just a constant battle of that too.

[00:11:26] I completely get that because like you, I don't know, you see some people who are going through like absolute hell and some of the worst, like, you know, like they mangle themselves and have like really terrible things happen to them.

[00:11:41] But then, and then you're just sort of like sat there and you're just like, I also have done like tried maybe not being as sort of like committed, maybe like as you and like it leads to that horrible, almost like double questioning of like yourself. And you're like, do I even deserve to like feel bad about these sort of things?

[00:12:03] Yeah, it's fascinating to me. And I don't think it's a morbid fascination, but it's more, well, shit, you're a social anthropologist. I'm sure you're equally or more curious than I am about human experience and all that. Even if you were hospitalized and even if you had put a gun to your head and pulled the trigger and you're still alive, I bet, I'm not betting anything, you would still be like, nah, but there are more.

[00:12:26] You know what I mean? Like, I do that. I think other people do that like now, but they tried more times or there seemed even more serious or they were in the hospital for a month. Just like the human brain or mind or whatever the fuck it is. It's just.

[00:12:38] Yeah, completely man, completely. As you all do say, and I think you might've said it once and I love it in the way you're using it. It's mental.

[00:12:47] The experience of going through just like everyday life and just like having like almost a near constant just sort of battling, just like going on where your body just sort of like starts to almost like turn on you.

[00:13:03] Like you've got all of these, like you're interacting with other people who've got really difficult things going on. And then you're also interacting with people who have like not any experience of these things.

[00:13:16] And you're just sort of like trying to almost temper the image of yourself that you're giving to all these groups to something that you feel is like acceptable. It's hard because like you don't want to sort of, it's almost like the kind of stolen valor stuff with like, you know, like the army people and just being like, what if somebody calls me out and says I'm not actually like suicidal enough or something? And it's like, oh, it's tough man.

[00:13:42] What are you in like your early to mid 20s? How old are you? I'm a, I'm 27. So that means that you were quite a young kid for nine 11.

[00:13:51] Yeah, no, like, weirdly, I don't have any real memory of like nine 11. And like a couple of people my age, I've like asked them, and I feel like it's almost culturally constructed the memory now. Like they, they remember like the images that have almost come after. Yeah, my first memories are all quite shit to be honest, and aren't relating to like these big cultural events.

[00:14:17] So I actually feel a bit jealous. Sometimes the people who go like, my first memory was like 911. And I'm just like, not to not to demean from 911. Of course. I like that term. It sounds like it might be some term you use in your studies cultural construction.

[00:14:33] I'm always clap banging on about it. It's, it's, it's a very important thing. I feel that, you know, we've got all of these different fields to talk about, you know, mental health and like our economic lives and sorts of like if economics for economic lives, like all these different things.

[00:14:51] And then we just I feel we neglect sometimes, at least in public discourse, just thinking about particularly mental health as like a cultural or like the at least the cultural dimensions of it at least 100%.

[00:15:05] So how old were you if you can recall, when you first started thinking about suicide.

[00:15:12] So I was relatively early really because I was about 1213 14. Those were some particularly like rough years for me, I was just really sort of like I had had a lot of trauma in my early years, like through by all the way through from, you know, probably

[00:15:34] through to like my teens. And then I was starting to ID a kind of when I moved into secondary school, which I'm not sure what the American equivalent would be, but it's like 1112 that sort of time.

[00:15:48] When you say trauma, I know some of this is sensitive. So if I ask a question you don't want to talk about that's cool. Of course, emotional, physical, sexual, all of the above.

[00:15:57] Yeah, unfortunately, like it was, it was a rough time. Basically, my da sorry, that's Welsh thing. Wait in Welsh you say dad as da? Or like it's not so much Welsh, but it's like locally we sort of like our go your da or something like that.

[00:16:14] I love it. All right. Tell me more about what happened with your da. He had been an alcoholic for I don't know, probably about 10, 20 years before now 10 years really like before I was born. And I was so like there's there's millions of layers to this.

[00:16:34] But I won't sort of like go too deep. Yeah, he essentially was just completely like falling apart at the seams. And what whilst like he didn't do anything specifically to me, as a result of his alcoholism, I was constantly being left in situations of neglect, like where he would be intoxicated.

[00:17:00] And I was essentially like left to like hanging around with, you know, a bunch of old men in Britain pub culture is obviously quite big. And you know, like as a child, I would be in the pub, like all the time from like, probably six months old onwards.

[00:17:16] And when you your person who's like looking after you is intoxicated, that can leave you like quite vulnerable because you're, you know, obviously you're a little child and you just sort of you're in an adult world.

[00:17:28] There were some things that happened there. Yeah, he he basically would just like abandon me like and go on benders and stuff. There was one time I was saying about short, like first memories, like my first memory is like being left alone in like a static caravan for like three days without food while he was like off on a bender.

[00:17:51] What sticks in my memory from that, I had like the only cop like thing in like video in the caravan was a copy of Mrs. Doubtfire. And I can just remembering like what remember watching it like on repeat for like three days while just like no food.

[00:18:07] I think I had some like cheese squares or some old cheese triangles from like the corner shop. I just didn't have anything else during that time. Dad was just like passed out in various like spots around like the around the static caravan.

[00:18:23] Basically, that happened like constantly like throughout my childhood. We would be in little car not crashes but like dings and like he would pass out at the wheel and stuff.

[00:18:36] He developed alcohol induced epilepsy. When my mum divorced him, I kind of became his primary carer in a lot of ways. So I even as like a child under 10, I was kind of taking on a lot of like responsibilities very early on for looking after like a full grown adult who was very ill.

[00:18:57] These things just sort of like they chained up and they chained up. It was difficult. Like my mum was very busy working like bless her she's a very hard working person but she you know like she was almost like too busy a lot of the time to really be able to like do much to like stop it.

[00:19:13] She's a very hard working woman but she's also from a very, she was a bit of an older parent when she had me and she came from a very difficult background herself. Her ways of like child rearing, I suppose were very informed by quite archaic ways of thinking about the relationship between adult and child, especially when it came to like difficulties of any kind.

[00:19:38] And you know, I feel like there was a good amount of like emotional abuse and like manipulation I feel on her part, particularly as a child. So like the first 10 years of my life were like pretty rough really just and then yeah I got to secondary school.

[00:19:53] And I was just like, I was just very like I was trying to go about as normal but like I was just starting to have like these really just like constant, not always constant but just really big bursts of just being like I just want to disappear.

[00:20:09] I don't want to exist anymore. Everyone around me hates me. Like my first kind of attempt was like jumping in front of a car in the main roads is like an early teenager, which doesn't sound that dramatic but and the costs were obviously because I'm here. But I did stuff like that quite a few times like during my kind of like early to mid teenage years.

[00:20:33] So you're getting a master's degree right now. I'm going to assume that during that time, at least when you got to school age, you were regularly in school.

[00:21:03] I was in school a decent amount of the time I did. I would have like, I don't know periods where I would almost like make up illnesses to, you know, like, like, like to like take care of myself.

[00:21:21] And I would try to basically just sort of like detach myself from stuff and just sort of like disappear because that was mainly like my my thing. But I did also miss a decent amount of time as well because my dad's situation just kept getting worse.

[00:21:50] And like I ended up just spending a lot of time checking if he was alive was the big thing because he had quite bad cirrhosis of the liver by that point. He was having epileptic fits all the time.

[00:22:03] And my mom didn't give a shit about him because, you know, she hated him for, you know, the marriage falling apart and stuff. Messy divorce things. I was in school, but I wasn't really thriving at all. Like I struggled a lot in school generally.

[00:22:20] Let's go back to the car. First attempt, young kid, pretty young. Is it impulsive or I know that's a weird word sometimes, but that's an interesting choice. Not so much the attempt as much as the method.

[00:22:33] Yeah, it was very much impulsive because I don't know. Like I didn't really have a kind of image of suicide almost at that point. Like it almost predated any thinking in my mind about mental health things, suicide, you know.

[00:22:50] So for me, it was very much kind of like a impulsive thing where I was just like, I just want to either die or feel pain or just like something. Like, yeah, like I can remember, like I told one of my friends, well, so-called friends about it at the time.

[00:23:06] And they just sort of laughed at me and said that like I was just being like a drama queen, tension seeker, all that sort of stuff. It was a weird experience. Yeah, no, I feel though that those kind of like little or not little, but kind of those almost like everyday things sometimes get overlooked when people are like looking at like, you know, whether a kid is having a bad time mentally.

[00:23:31] On that day, though, you just popped in front of a car. It like swerved away and then just like they slowed down in the wind. And it was like an older lady in there and she was just like screaming and swearing.

[00:23:43] Do you think that's an attempt? Because you said you had the near attempts. Like, is that an attempt?

[00:23:49] That's a near attempt, I would have called it. Because that for me was kind of like, yeah, like I count that as like early evidence that I was kind of like moving more in like that direction.

[00:24:02] Yeah. And then so like 15 or so years later, when you look back, did you want to die? I think I did at that point. Yeah. Like it was almost like before your thoughts kind of become more complicated about suicide and like wanting to end things.

[00:24:21] Like I feel if you are having those thoughts young, your kind of way of thinking about it is, well, this will hurt. This might kill me. This is a thing I've been told not to do because it's a risk. So I'm going to do it.

[00:24:35] And you know, like everyone's told watch the look out left side, left, right, left again, like for the roads and stuff. But I was just like, yeah, I just want to die in that second. How many people know about that day?

[00:24:47] Maybe one, two tops, like people I told immediately after and then because they kind of shut it down, like in would just sort of like, Oh, you're just being a fucking drama queen. I never really told anyone after that. I just went, Oh, it's just me being an idiot. So I'll just shut it away.

[00:25:07] How much time goes by before the next one?

[00:25:09] So I kind of did a similar thing like a couple of times, but generally things started to it was very rough at that point. But then I kind of finally started having like a bit of improvement. Like I wasn't engaged with any mental health services at this point.

[00:25:28] I also had bulimia at the time, which was a whole thing between probably the ages of like 14 and 16. I was like, I was just constantly purging, not necessarily binging, sometimes binging and purging, but a lot of it was mainly just purging kind of almost as an extended form of like self harm.

[00:25:51] That was the closest I came to having some form of like intervention from someone else outside because my mum saw that there was, you know, vomit stains in the toilet bowl. Obviously got suspicious.

[00:26:05] She went to my school nurse and my school nurse was like, okay, I'll ask him. And then she went to me, was like, Joseph, are you making yourself sick? And you know, you're a scared teenager at that point. He's scared of getting into trouble. So you say no, I'm not doing that.

[00:26:21] And then she was like, oh, okay. And then she went to my mum and he said, well, he says he's not being making himself sick, so I can't do anything. But doesn't he look so much better after he's lost all of that weight? Fucking bad.

[00:26:35] That kind of incited me to sort of like, I ended up just basically beating bulimia like on my own. I know that's not necessarily related to like attempts at the moment, but it kind of gives a context of like, it was a very like rough period.

[00:26:51] But then life started to sort of get a little bit better. I was just sort of like keeping trucking on and I was starting to actually do subjects that I wanted to do, like in school, like I was moving in a better direction. Things were still a bit shit. Like I wouldn't have called them good, but like I was kind of like starting to pull myself together.

[00:27:13] Then basically I had the shittest year possible. This would have been about 2015 now when I was 18, 19, that sort of age where basically first I developed thyroid cancer really randomly. I'd kind of been ignoring it for a bit, but I'd basically been developing like a massive lump on my throat.

[00:27:38] It was like it started off like quite small, but it just like got bigger and bigger. And you can just about see, I think you can see like, yeah, like my scars like they're nowadays. But yeah, that just sort of like shook me because it just kind of like completely uprooted me mentally, threw me all over the place.

[00:27:57] Like granted, thyroid cancer is not like the most deadly of all cancers, but it was, you know, I had to have a full thyroidectomy, had to be in hospital for like not long, long periods, but I had to do, you know, a couple of stretches. Had radioactive iodine treatment on top of that, which was a very surreal experience.

[00:28:21] Got through all of that, basically then had to repeat like my final year of like secondary, like high school, basically. About six months roughly after I first started my like kind of treatment for the thyroid, then my dad died very suddenly.

[00:28:38] And yeah, no, like I was there. I was witness to it. It was a very difficult like period. Like I had two quite heavy traumatic events in quick succession, which then led me to my next, like what I would call my first like proper attempts.

[00:28:56] I basically tried to hang myself. I really didn't do a very good job of it. It was very, very like mediocre. But I essentially like I managed to shut my tie into a wardrobe at school after I'd basically I'd just been told like I got a bad mark.

[00:29:18] And this was after like I'd had like both of those two things had kind of like happened by this point. And I was really, really in a shit state. I was mentally I was just a bit fucked all over the place. And I just couldn't take almost like this minor bit of criticism.

[00:29:33] And I went back to my room in school, like shut this tie in the door. Yeah, like it was it was just about high enough. Like I know you like I suppose you meant to kind of like have it so your feet aren't touching the ground.

[00:29:47] But I was just almost in this manic state. I can remember like being lent up against it, sort of jumping up and then puddling my feet away from underneath me. And then just like falling like down and like choking.

[00:30:01] And just like this kind of crushing sort of like, obviously you've got like the feeling of like, you know, like you've got it was a tie but kind of like the rope on your throat, sort of like feeling like I'm sure other people have experienced it.

[00:30:15] You know, like it's tight, you know, like you're panicking. I was convinced I wanted to die. So like I was trying to not let my legs sort of go into any position like I was trying to keep them straight.

[00:30:29] Like I was trying to hold myself up, gagging, choking like is a really horrible moment. And I genuinely didn't want anything other in that second just to be dead because I just couldn't deal with all of the crap that was like going on.

[00:30:47] I kept doing it and then like it I was like, oh wait, hold on. Then I tried like again. And then it snapped. I broke my tie, which I got in trouble for later, which was quite ironic.

[00:30:59] I don't know why I just like sat there on the floor, like crying my eyes out for like ages. I was just like, I just fucking hate existing right now. And I can't even manage to kill myself because I'm you know, like I feel like an idiot right now because, you know, like I can't even do this relative seemingly quite simple thing.

[00:31:21] At that point, I felt fucking awful. Again, it's like my mind kind of like doing the thing double guess, like second guessing myself is like, oh, well, you know, like it's not like you're doing it properly. But like to me, I have kind of acknowledged in my head that that was like a proper suicide attempt. Yeah, like it's kind of fixed in my mind now is like the first moment I was like, oh shit, I should probably get some help.

[00:31:47] Right. Weird question. Do you still have the tie?

[00:31:50] Yes, I think I do actually back home like in my wardrobe. It's kind of like I don't think I kept it like entirely intentionally, but like it just ended up in a box like kind of at the bottom of my wardrobe.

[00:32:03] After you try and then you're out and you're crying for a while. Do you walk out to somebody find you? Do you get help? Do you go back to school? Like what happens?

[00:32:13] Like nobody walks in. Nobody found me. I was just like done with it all. I think I think that day I literally just like walks out of school, just left and just went home. Didn't tell anybody. Like there's very few people who know about this to this day as well.

[00:32:29] Like it was it was most of like my just mental health stuff. Like whilst I am quite open and honest with most like anyone who asks, I don't really sort of publicize it a lot of the time. It's very. Yeah, it's just quite an internal private thing.

[00:32:45] Yeah, like I just went home feeling like shit. I had some like slight bruising around my neck that like I like basically tried to hide and didn't good enough of a job of it that like I hid it away, tried to pretend it didn't happen.

[00:33:01] I can't remember if I did it again. I don't think I really tried doing that exact method. It was a weird time. Like there was just so much going on. Like I was doing, I was smoking a lot of like weed at the time. I was trying to sort of blast my head out drinking by just trying to sort of like do some form of like mental escape. So a lot of stuff like happened in that era that I don't really remember now almost.

[00:33:27] I always wonder like what you know, you try to end your life and then the next day, the next day, the next week you're you're alive. Yeah.

[00:34:11] Back then, no, I kind of just got this real paranoia in my mind that somebody's going to like get cross with me. Someone's gonna get angry with me. Like I would have failed. So yeah, I just kept it like bottled up. That never works.

[00:34:27] Yeah. So I guess is that you keep it bottled up once in a while life does change and somehow you make it through and you just live your life. But I yeah, I think most of the time. No. So what happens after that? So that's 2015. You're officially an adult, so to speak, right? At least the way our governments tend to measure it.

[00:34:47] Yeah. So I'd had to do the extra year of secondary school because of the cancer had been like I missed like these important exams. So I'd like had to basically just re-sit a year. You know, like it was also quite a weird time because like having had cancer and your dad die, people are kind of being nice to you.

[00:35:08] But, you know, like they're also sort of like I didn't really like a lot of the sort of like at my secondary school. Not that they were all like bastards or anything like that, but like I was just not really sort of fit in.

[00:35:22] I didn't really fit in in that environment of like kind of private school, relatively kind of middle class people just sort of like living relatively comfortable lives back home. It wasn't like we were on the bread line or anything like that, but we just didn't really have any money.

[00:35:38] I was just always kind of trying to find some. I just didn't really have much of like a group of people and what friends I'd had as well had like, particularly after my dad died, like a lot of my friends had moved away to go off to uni themselves while I was doing that extra year.

[00:35:55] I was also just in a bit of a mess because like I kind of geared myself and my life up until that point to joining the army because I was just like obsessed with it as a kind of like a way out of like kind of my shit situation, finally escaping home and like my conditions and stuff and making myself into something new.

[00:36:14] But obviously you can't do that if you've had cancer. That was a rough time, so I ended up just really randomly just going to uni. I got into quite a good uni to be fair. My school hadn't been amazing. I'd done all right. It was all just like, oh, you could be so much better if you applied yourself.

[00:36:34] Why aren't you working harder and stuff like that? And obviously, I was trying desperately just sort of clinging on for dear life all that time. Yeah, no, I went to uni. I was kind of away from everything for the first time. It's a weird time. You finally got freedom to be a bit more questioning of who you are and stuff.

[00:37:01] You know, like it was during that time I finally came out as bi as well. That was a big thing that just been raging. Let's not even get into that. That was just an extra layer on top of these.

[00:37:12] I gravitated towards a group of friends who also had kind of come from similar sorts of situations, if not worse. Again, you meet people who've had really horrific deaths around. When my dad died, I had seen him being given CPR and stuff like that.

[00:37:36] I watched the ambulance slowing down because they were trying to revive him. It stopped and that sticks in my head for me. But one of my friends had watched her mum die of a heroin overdose.

[00:37:50] We created almost like a little community around people who just had all these different fucked up experiences. It was kind of good. It helped in some ways, but I was also very suicidal during that time. At least in the ideation sense, it was constant.

[00:38:09] There were times when I had a lot more close shaves during that time as well. I would just go out drunk during the night on my own after drinking alone and then go onto high ledges and stuff.

[00:38:26] I would just scream into the night, like, just fucking do it. Screaming abuse at myself, trying to get me to kill myself because I was just battling, rocking back and forth. There was one particular time on a bridge in Birmingham where I went to do my undergrad.

[00:38:46] I just had this constant thing going against that. There was self-harm involved, lots of drugs, just trying to have some sort of release. It was just a really rough time. The first time I was left alone almost to work it out in peace, then things did get better.

[00:39:11] I asked you how many attempts. You said two attempts and one to two near attempts. You shared about the car and the hanging. You also shared about bulimia, cancer, the hanging, and then a good amount about college. When does the next attempt happen? Because those to me are kind of the anchors as we talk.

[00:39:34] Yeah, so the second one was just at the end of my first year of university. I just took loads of paracetamol, which is a really terrible way to do these things because honestly it just fucking hurts, man. It's the kind of cliche one.

[00:39:56] I didn't take enough to get hospitalized, but I was throwing up. I was in pain. I felt awful for days afterwards. Again, it was another thing where I kept it to myself because I was just trying desperately not to let anyone really...

[00:40:21] Even though I had friends who also had similar problems, I just really didn't want people to know the extent. It was just before summer and my uni flat was empty. I basically just sat myself down because I didn't go home really much at that point. I didn't really want to go back to the place where a lot of things made me feel shit.

[00:40:43] I stayed on my own, isolated at uni. Yeah, no, one day I just sat down. I got as many paracetamol from different shops as I could because you can only buy two packets, I think it is. And even then you have to do an ID check for just one packet and stuff. They've made measures to try and make it hard, but you can just go to different shops.

[00:41:09] I didn't take all of them. If I'd taken more of them, I probably would have actually had to go to hospital. But I just kept cramming them down. I felt awful, man. I knew what I'd done was stupid straight away. I was just like, oh, fuck, why am I doing this? I was feeling sick. My stomach just felt painful. It didn't come straight away, the pain, but it was shit.

[00:41:39] I had to go to the toilet and make myself sick. I was crying. Obviously, your eyes are watering, but it was just a disgusting moment where you're almost at your lowest in those seconds. You've just got tears running down your face, snot out of your nose, on your knees by the toilet, just trying to throw this stuff up.

[00:42:02] And you're just like, why the fuck am I doing this right now? What the fuck has brought me to this point? And yeah, I can remember just being there on my own in the flat, crying, sort of hoping that somebody would hear me crying, but also just being like, I'm such a fuck up right now. Why the fuck have I done this? Again, not many people know about that as well because I just kept it private.

[00:42:27] You talked a little bit about some other things that were happening at uni, now college. I know who the fuck I'm talking to and I know how y'all are. What's it been like since about that time till now? So you finished college, and I know that because you're in graduate school, so you must have finished college.

[00:42:45] Yeah, so I had a bit of a bumpy road after that. It does happen where you end up being one of those people where college or uni, my undergrad at least, sort of stretched on and on because I'd keep getting deferments and stuff. They were very helpful, the uni. They did facilitate just getting through it in the end.

[00:43:11] Yeah, I ended up in a relationship that was quite interesting, let's say around that time. It gave me a lot of stability, but there were some elements in it that were... and for her sake, I won't go into all the details because she wouldn't necessarily want.

[00:43:29] She did some quite fucked up things during that relationship. And yeah, then COVID hit. Another big thing happened for me, unfortunately, where I was on my way to go and get a tattoo. And I was at the train station waiting. Basically, I was sat there, normal day.

[00:43:49] I looked up and there was this girl on the other side of the platform, on the other platform opposite. She basically just sort of jumped onto the tracks in front of a train. It was right in front of me. It was not something you can look away from. I watched this girl getting mangled by train wheels. Very graphic, sorry.

[00:44:13] I ran and got the train station guy and tried to stuck around, gave a statement for the police and stuff. For me, that's also kind of had an effect on how I see suicide as well. Witnessing that in that it really sort of hammers home because I don't think she actually succeeded because I was standing outside the station waiting for the ambo and the police to arrive.

[00:44:40] Yeah, no, she just started screaming. Just the worst blood curdling scream you ever fucking hear in your life. Because I'd seen her legs getting pulverized by this train at this point. It was horrible. But what I think had apparently happened is she'd been knocked out by the initial impact.

[00:44:59] And then she'd woken up with her legs fucking mangled by this train. I could hear her screaming. That stays with me to this day. Nowadays, because of that, even though I still struggle with the ideation, I think it kind of almost prevents me from acting because I know how much a suicide attempt can fucking ruin your life even if it doesn't kill you.

[00:45:26] That's the big fear, right? Is pain and it doesn't work. I don't know if she's a listener at all, but maybe in like a twist of fate. But if she is, I desperately hope you're okay, mate. Like genuinely. I hope you're making the best of what you can.

[00:45:43] Right, for sure. Have you ever been to a hospital, mental health hospital, psych unit, that kind of thing? No, I did get the police called on me once, but I've never actually been sectioned. Have you gone to a therapist or a counselor?

[00:45:56] Yeah, multiple at this point. Constant, near constantly over the last eight years of my life. Ever get a diagnosis you think is correct?

[00:46:04] Sort of. Yeah, a lot of GPs, they tend to diagnose you I think with low mood and anxiety. And then they'll add that you've got suicidal ideation on top of that, rather than say you've got depression. So I don't I think I've kind of been a bit unsatisfied in that regard.

[00:46:22] What's your self diagnosis? My self diagnosis is I've just had a really fucking shit bunch of things happen to me. And I struggle with depression, anxiety, PTSD, psychosis, or not necessarily like long term psychosis, but like having really manic states where like I can't break out of it.

[00:46:46] I can't necessarily put all of the bits together on that. I feel like a proper professional has to but yeah, I just call myself ill.

[00:46:55] Ever wish as we speak today or maybe in the past sometime as well, the attempts at least one of them had worked and you were you died?

[00:47:02] Yeah, I sometimes wish I particularly like the hanging one when I'm like in worse states obviously when I'm really suicidal, like or like feeling like ideation really strongly.

[00:47:14] Is it kind of like goes like I could have cut out years and years of crap that just happened afterwards. But yeah, that's the only one I kind of ever go but most of the time though, I'm glad to be alive to some extent.

[00:47:30] How often do you think about dying ideate that kind of thing?

[00:47:33] Currently, it's like every day at this point, something I've managed to kind of like control, but it's like the constant creeping thing from the back of my head that just has a habit of like making everyday little things.

[00:47:49] They just become massive. And it just Yeah, you just like I why the fuck do I even try? I wish I wasn't here basically.

[00:47:57] For any of those the car, the hanging the OD, maybe some others we didn't get to near attempts or is there anything anybody could have said or done that may have changed your mind or your actions?

[00:48:09] I think if my mom or my friends had just made it seem less stupid that I was having any kind of like mental problems. I wish people their first reaction when you're telling you're being open and vulnerable with them wasn't just automatically what you fucking stupid.

[00:48:39] Why are you doing that? Yeah, like why? Why are you doing this? You're just if they're not like maybe they are feeling it. Maybe they're not but you know, like they all like they've got experience of it.

[00:48:50] But just the reaction of like just fucking idiot man. Just like almost discounting it.

[00:48:57] Yeah, how many hands do you need to count the number of people in your life? You can talk to and feel decent about talking with them and bring up things like suicide or ideation or anything around that.

[00:49:09] That's a really good question. I like that. I'd say two hands. Yeah. Okay. I don't know why I framed it that way. Usually I say how many people but I'm gonna I think I'm gonna go with the hands one from now on.

[00:49:20] I think that's a really good way. Yeah, I like that. How many tattoos do you have? I have about 15 16 at the moment. Do you drink today? Do drugs today? Not necessarily this day, but you know what I mean?

[00:49:37] Yeah, I gave up alcohol for five years. And like partly due to relationship with my dad and his problems with it. But I now do drink on occasion.

[00:49:51] I don't have an issue with it. But I feel I did. I actually really don't enjoy drinking to be honest, these days. It just makes me feel a bit gross. My stomach feels a bit grim. And obviously the next day you feel a bit shit anyway. So and I do I do smoke weed still. But you know, that's about all my vices these days.

[00:50:15] Did you ever talk to either your dad or your mom about I don't know, your childhood? Let's say?

[00:50:21] Yeah, my dad, he was incredibly difficult to talk to. Not that he wasn't an emotionally capable person. I think he could have done but it was more he was always to some degree inebriated to intoxicated. So I couldn't almost like it would like it would be like talking to a brick wall.

[00:50:47] Like I would talk to him. But he would be like dropping off to sleep like midway through. My mom, I have but she very much dislikes the idea of kind of like trawling through the past because I don't think she's really someone who likes talking about these things. So if I'm honest, I often make a kind of like compromise and don't really sort of push it.

[00:51:13] Makes sense. What's the state of your cancer?

[00:51:16] It's in remission. It's yeah, like I luckily just needed a complete like thyroidectomy but did the radioactive iodine cleared out and to my knowledge, all I have to do to this day is just keep taking the meds. So like, yeah, you have to take thyroxin medication for the rest of your life. But hey, that's what price I pay for being alive, I suppose.

[00:51:41] So the question around myths, are there any myths or misconceptions around this stuff you want to dispel?

[00:52:11] I mean, I think it's a bit of a Nirvana like moment where you know, you finally get to that stage where everything's all sunshine and roses. Like, bit cliche and trite, but you know, to be commenting on this, I suppose. But really, your life is shaped by all of these events and the people in it. And you just got to look like as shit as it is. You've just got to find ways to live with it.

[00:52:38] And I feel like it would do a lot of people who are especially in the early stages of kind of mental health, like difficulties. I feel almost being a bit more honest that like, it's not that it doesn't get better. Of course it gets better. And there are times when you feel so much happier, so on.

[00:52:58] But maybe pushing more for like thinking about, you know, how to deal with this stuff as like a thing that's going to be with you for a while in the long term would be good.

[00:53:28] So, yes, I think that's a good message. I'm not pushing back. But that's also part of an important narrative. I think we just are so uncomfortable talking about not necessarily you and I, but in general. So hopeful to say it gets better and it does, but not always.

[00:53:58] I think there's a bit of a veneer sometimes of allowing men to kind of get away with not necessarily men, but like at least the public perceiving like men as always closed off. And as almost like this monolith of people who are like emotionally stunted, have like an inability to communicate.

[00:54:20] I know a lot of blokes who are very articulate. I know a lot who are also incredibly locked into, I don't know, just like feeling that any sign of emotional weakness or vulnerability is a failure. It has probably coloured my thinking about this stuff in the past.

[00:54:38] But I feel, you know, especially like in the UK, we kind of have sometimes people who trumpet the cause of men's mental health almost as like a kind of like this virtue. Like, granted, I know lots more men. I'm not trying to say that, you know, it's all roses and stuff that like, you know, more men do kill themselves.

[00:55:03] But, you know, when you speak to a lot of women on this matter, like a lot of them are going through really terrible shifts as well at the same time. And perhaps by just sort of like reframing things, not in terms of very sort of like strict archetypes of like or strict categories and ways of thinking about mental health for entire groups of people.

[00:55:27] I'd love to see just like more mental health help slash stuff that just talks about people because people experience things and people are mentally ill. That's not to say that being a man doesn't shape it, but I feel like the aspiration should be for a mental health that's for people, not just sort of like particular groups.

[00:55:49] Yeah, give you a pink and purple pill. Let's say right now the color doesn't really matter. But should you take the pill, you fall asleep are in no pain, you die. And we can add this part. Nobody knows that it's a suicide. You just young Joe with a cool mustache and a bunch of tattoos died. It's tragic. Do you take it? Do you save it or do you just get rid of it?

[00:56:13] Yeah, that's, that's a good way of like thinking about it. No, I don't think I'd take it. And I think that's really a sign of where I am now. Really, because as much as I have had these moments where like I just the thing about my ideation, don't know if other people can relate. It's almost an impulse more than it is a thought for me.

[00:56:36] It's not a fleshed out thought. It's not I've really sort of like, you know, I'm thinking through all the consequences. It's almost like a bodily reaction for me. When I think about all of the thought that I've put into whether I want to die, whether I find life interesting, whether I find, you know, just the everyday things that happen to give me some sort of like kind of reason to stay.

[00:57:01] I think I'd much rather be alive, even though it gets really shit at times. It can be fucking awful. I can hate every essence of my being and just want it just to be deleted. It's better to be alive and experiencing these things for me than not knowing what the hell comes beyond.

[00:57:24] What happens tonight? I know it's what seven o'clock there, eight o'clock?

[00:57:27] Tonight, I've got some group work. I've just got to get on with my uni course. It's just pretty. I'll probably go to the gym later as well. For me, exercise when it's not sort of like infused with some of the more kind of toxic elements that I think, I don't know, can sometimes invade people's thinking about going to the gym.

[00:57:52] I think it can actually be a really nice way of just having an hour, an hour to two hours of just like you time just to think, you know, sort of like listen to some music that you like. I listen to some podcasts. They're good. Yeah.

[00:58:06] Oh, I know at least one podcast you listen to that's good. My final question, because you had mentioned you are getting your degree in social anthropology. At this point, do you need to get like really focused and narrow and within that?

[00:58:21] Yeah. So at the moment, like the way like master's courses in the UK are quite intense. What a lot of countries around the world do in over the course of two years, you do it over the course of one. I've got like an I'm coming to the end of like all of my assignments and stuff. And then I've got this big dissertation, which is like a thesis for you guys.

[00:58:43] I think there's do at the end, which I've got like a couple of months to work on. And, you know, I'll just keep plodding away at it and just keep trying. What is it that you are defending or talking about in the thesis? Yeah. So my subject is basically like undocumented migrants and how colonial history like shapes the everyday experiences of people in communities.

[00:59:13] And I think like the contemporary France is like my area. And I'm just very interested in that. I love reading about it. I love just learning all sorts of like bits that I can getting attached to it. And yeah, anthropology for me, I know some people like lots of people just like try to find like a kind of anchor in their lives.

[00:59:37] My anchor is this subject because it allows me to understand people, why that people are more complex than just sorts of like immediate impressions and stuff. And like there's almost like a whole universe going on inside everybody's head. And it's really interesting. And, you know, I'd love to be as live as alive as long as possible so I can hear as many stories of different people as possible.

[01:00:02] Possible memoir title, Joe in England, the universe in my head. What do you think? Exactly. It's a little corny maybe, but we're just the starting point. What else would you like to share before we get back to our lives, Joe?

[01:00:46] I think it can seem in those moments where you are just alone, you feel that there's nothing left for you. The world could just collapse and you just don't like have any reason to just keep going. I can't like there's no silver bullet, even just sort of like going about everyday life, hopping to the corner shop and just getting yourself a little sweet treat or something.

[01:01:11] Just find something, just find something to do and keep plodding on. Just keep going. Well, thank you. Not at all. It's been an absolute pleasure. I'm really grateful for you having me on. Likewise.

[01:01:23] No, I really appreciate what you're doing, man. Like genuinely, like I said about stories, it's just really cool that you're like going out there and actually taking the time to listen to people. It's really good. So please keep doing what you're doing.

[01:01:37] I plan to keep doing it, my friend. Absolutely. You keep doing what you're doing. Thanks again. I hope you enjoy your evening or your gym or whatever that entails, man.

[01:01:45] Thank you, man. I appreciate it. Hope you have a nice like end of the day and I hope the week goes as well. Goes well too. Same to you, man. Thank you. God bless, man. See you in a bit. Take care. Bye. Bye bye.

[01:02:10] Follow at suicidenoted.com on Facebook or Twitter slash X, which I rarely check. But nonetheless, at suicide noted, check the show notes to learn more about the podcast, including our membership. And that is all for episode number 219. Stay strong. Do the best you can. I'll talk to you soon.