Helen’s Story – No-one wants to hear the happy never after

 

Please read Helen’s story. This is her view and experience of Dad’s services and support, particularly around the impact of suicide.

Please be aware this blog speaks about loss of a loved one through suicide. there are links to crisis support at the bottom should you need them.

No-one wants to hear the happy never after

“What if my partner were offered a chat, given information on how to cope with losing a baby, becoming a dad again, would my journey of been a different one?” – Helen (mum)

 

I lost my partner to suicide, I was pregnant at the time, we also had an 11-month-old, and both had previous children, additionally we had suffered a missed miscarriage before our 11-month-old was born. During this time, no support was offered to my partner, he was told to “look after her”! Dad did not matter, just mum, dad just had to be strong and look after mum, shoulder it all with no support no offer of talking about how this may affect him, that just does not sit right with me, and thankfully it does not sit right with the Dad Matters team.

What if there was support for dads UK (world) wide, what if my partner were offered a chat, given information on how to cope with losing a baby, becoming a dad again, would my journey of been a different one? We will never know, but what I do know is that dads need support and that is why we need the Dad Matters core principles to matter to services, government, and society. Both mum and dad’s mental health matters, as take it from me when you lose someone you love to suicide the impact is far reaching and last a lifetime, the impact also increases your possibility of completing suicide yourself, and of your children being at an increased risk of attempting or completing suicide. Getting access to services, this is vital to ensure dads are receiving the correct care at the time they need it, perinatal care is specialised and caring for dads is specialised so services like Dad Matters are so especially important, with timely and correct care, we do not have to lose more to suicide. Attachment and bonding are key to maintaining parental wellbeing, and the child’s development, dads play a pivotal role in this, and no child should have to miss out of this due to the dad not receiving or being able to access to support he needs during the perinatal period.

Thankfully the perinatal field is full of truly wonderful lived experience journey of recovery, and people who are now a voice for the 1000’s who suffered in silence or like my partner are no longer able to use their voice, I am so so thankful that there are so many happy ever after journey as I would not want anyone to go through what we have a family and still do to this day, yet my journey is often pushed aside or used but in a tokenistic manner, why well because suicide is still so misunderstood, the word suicide evokes fear, my life comes with a ‘trigger’ warning! Imagine your life having to start with a warning, the happy never after.

Suicide grief is called complicated grief as the acute stages of grief are so complex and then this stage is also elongated by many factors that do not occur in other types of bereavement.

The effects of losing my partner to suicide at such a venerable stage in my life where to begin with are indescribable really, but the physical and mental effects took the form of me losing my emotional capacity to be a mum to my beautiful 7-year-old (at the time), I was overwhelmed by emotions so could not hear, think or do anything. Our them 11-month-old also in essence had lost his mum and essential parts of his childhood, as I was only able to do the bare minimum, I could not access play groups etc as this was just too much, hearing all the other parents talking about day-to-day life sent me over the edge. I was unable to bond with my unborn child, I did not talk, touch or look at ‘it’ I just could not even begin to “be pregnant” as I was in the first stages of this complicated grief, the only time I remembered I was pregnant was when I caught glimpse my reflection. Thankfully I did have a fantastic perinatal team looking after me and support from family and friends to keep us all safe during this time.

Physical effects ranged from, malnutrition which I was hospitalised for, I lost a vast amount of weight during and after the pregnancy, SPROM (spontatious premature rupture of membranes), sleep deprivation, lack of self-care which led to hair loss and gum disease.

The effects keep on coming, the fact I can never change my partners heart breaking choice, he truly will never get his happy ever after, my life 7 year on is still far from easy, lone parenting, stigma, PTSD, situational depression leading to diagnosed depression, suicidal ideation to name a few. The trauma my daughter went through has had some devastating impacts on her mental health and wellbeing, these effects will and are life changing, as we will have to take many different routes for education, emotional regulation and possibly life-long management around eating within healthy parameters.

Our 2 boys have had to grow up in a house that had low wellbeing and poor mental health, they have missed out on all the opportunities they should have had if their dad was still alive, I hear them say matter of fact “my dad is dead” to their friends because that is their life it is normal to them, but every time I hear that my heart breaks for them, it should not be normal, we should not of lost him, as there where ample opportunities to engage, but the services and I didn’t have the necessary education around suicide to intervene.

Thankfully we have been supported by many services and we are now fully into our recovery journey, we are able to smile and laugh, and I am emotionally available, and we continue to make amazing strides forward. I am so proud of my children they have such strength; they gave me the strength to get through my darkest time and I thank them and tell them daily how amazing they are.

Yet my boys will become men and currently the thing most likely to kill you as a man between 45-50 is yourself, this was true 7 years ago and is still true today! This needs to change, therefore I write this blog and keep pushing my journey as we must do better for dads of the future and dads today. My journey should not be repeated, but my journey also needs to be shared and heard in order to stop this, suicide happens, over 6,500 suicides happened in the UK in 2020, and 75% of those were men, how many of those 75% were dads?

Within perinatal services, dads still do not matter enough to receive the care and support they need, deserve, and are entitled to, not just for themselves but for the family unit and the wellbeing of the children. It is not the professionals within services that do not care, it is not the families that do not care, it is due to lack of education around dad’s mental health specifically within the perinatal period and the lack of funding for specialist support for dads.

What if there was support for dads UK (world) wide, what if my partner were offered a chat, given information on how to cope with losing a baby, becoming a dad again, would my journey of been a different one? We will never know, but what I do know is that dads need support and that is why we should (in my opinion) align ourselves with the Dad Matters core principles. Both mum and dad’s mental health matters, as take it from me when you lose someone you love to suicide the impact is far reaching and last a lifetime, the impact also increases your possibility of completing suicide yourself, and of your children being at an increased risk of attempting or completing suicide. Getting access to services, this is vital to ensure dads are receiving the correct care at the time they need it, perinatal care is specialised and caring for dads is specialised so services like Dad Matters are so especially important, with timely and correct care, we do not have to lose more to suicide. Attachment and bonding are key to maintaining parental wellbeing, and the child’s development, dads play a pivotal role in this, and no child should have to miss out of this due to the dad not receiving or being able to access to support he needs during the perinatal period.

Thankfully there are many like me who continually work and push towards better services for dads, we will and are seeing changes, and we can get to dads before suicide feels the only option left to them. Sadly though as many things it is currently a postcode lottery as to the support you can access as a dad. We need more we need UK coverage, gaining access to life saving support should never be a post code lottery, children should not lose a parent due to no support being there to intervein when a dad loses all hope and suicide is all he feels he has left.

We must do better, and we can all play a part in changing this life and death lottery, we can champion support like Dad Matters, we can ask why there is such a lack of support for dads, we can ask what is being done to remedy this, we can write to MPs. Professionals, you can ask what services we have and more importantly what do we NOT have, together we can make sure that no one else goes on a happy never after journey, and we can move forward giving the children the happy ever after they deserve.

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