Snowdon

There was a knock on the window of the mini bus. 

I was startled awake as the door slid open letting in the cold night air. 

I was immediately taken back seven years to that cold night in a car park in Nantwich. I had no idea where I was. Or how I had ended up there. 

But this time I was at the foot of Snowdon. It was 4am. 

Completely exhausted, I pulled on my hiking boots and clambered outside. 

Just one more climb.

I looked out towards the rocky Pyg track ahead of me. I willed myself to reach the summit. The final summit. 

And I could leave it all there. 

Just put one foot in front of the other. 

Focus.

Keep going. 

The 2017 Samaritans Report found that there were 6639 suicides in the UK and the Republic of Ireland in 2015. Female suicide rates had increased in the UK by 3.8% and male rates remained three times higher than those of females. 6639 tragic losses. Countless devastated family members and friends. The UK still faces a mental health and suicide crisis, yet it seems only now people are finally waking up. 

6639. 

Last year I had the crazy idea to take part in the UK Three Peaks Challenge in memory of my best friend Kannan. There were approximately 45 other people alongside me, all bound together by common experience and undertaking a physical challenge that was beyond comprehension. Each of us had pledged to reach the summit of the three highest UK peaks (Ben Nevis in Scotland; Snowdon in Wales; and Scafell Pike in England) within 24 hours. Each of us were there for a reason. 

The group had travelled to Fort William in Scotland the day before. As we descended on the town for a pre-challenge pint (or two), people began to swap stories of why they were there. Despite me being at a point where I was able to share my experiences, I kept quiet. I still did not feel able to share my memories, even with people who had likely faced similar tragedy to me. That’s when I realised. Sure, I had signed up to this challenge to raise awareness of mental health and suicide, and to do so in Kannan’s memory. But I was also there for me. 

I had to let go. 

View from Ben Nevis Summit

We set out to climb Ben Nevis early the following morning. The views were stunning. The contrast was stark. A feeling of being dwarfed by the Grampians versus the size of the grief I was carrying with me. As I approached the summit, freezing mist blocked the views around me and I was completely alone. In that moment, the disconnect Kannan’s suicide had caused me came forward. The isolation. Pushing myself to keep moving; seeing the path ahead; knowing there were people not far away but not being able to reach out to them, connect with them. This was the reality of how I’d been living over the past few years. All the feelings I discussed in my post three years ago were floating in front of my eyes. Guilt. Hurt. Inadequacy. Loneliness. 

At the summit of Ben Nevis
(Approx. 9am)

I walked on for twenty minutes without a word or sight of anything other than a wild stag wandering the path next to me. As I climbed, the mist began to disappear, and I realised I was emerging above some of the clouds. The summit of Ben Nevis was almost in reach. Part of the group had already made it. I touched the trig point at 9am, signifying a successful first climb and the view was breath taking. Our guide explained that he climbed Ben Nevis at least 15 times per year and had only seen a view from the summit twice before. We were lucky but there was no time to celebrate. We had two more mountains to face before we called it a day.

Scafell Pike in the Lake District was a long, rocky slog in sheer darkness. The group was silent the whole way up. There was an unspoken agreement to leave each other with our own thoughts as we climbed through the night. We summited at 11pm. By this time, I was already sick with exhaustion and my motivation was wavering pretty fast. I had nothing to give Snowdon at that time. But the memories of Kannan’s laughter rang out of the darkness as I made my way back to the bus. He was somewhere out there in the night and he was spurring me on. 

At the summit of Scafell Pike
 (Approx. 11pm)

It took every last morsel of energy to pull myself off the minibus and carry on when I arrived at Snowdon. This was to be no easy feat but I knew successful completion would change me forever. I clung to that. I needed to let go. 

As I climbed, the Welsh mountain threw everything it had at me. The wind raged through the valley sweeping me off my feet twice. The rain hammered against my face. The Llyns beneath the path lay menacingly ready to swallow a weary hiker. Pushing on, I felt I was battling everything I had suffered since losing Kannan in 2010. I was weak. Tired. Cold. Emotional. But I was determined. Eventually, I pulled myself up onto the ridge where the summit towered ahead.

My tears began to fall as soon as I saw the summit. I laughed to myself that I was about to complete the challenge. I was not particularly fit. I had never considered myself a strong person or someone who could overcome adversity. But here I was approaching the peak. The previous seven years had brought me to that point. My grief had carried me there. The importance of leaving that grief at the top and then carrying myself back down that mountain was exploding out of me. I pushed on. 

At the summit of Snowdon
(Approx. 8am)

When I reached the summit, I became 20 again. The 27-year-old who had been so worn down and consumed by his grief disappeared immediately. I saw the faces of my friends. Kannan’s friends. Kannan’s family. My family. Those who had supported me. I saw every opportunity for friendships, relationships and experiences that my grief had taken from me over those seven years. I saw my guilt, my loneliness, my anxieties. I watched as the howling wind blew all of those demons away over the mountain range. I was no longer that person who was controlled by grief.

I walked off that mountain the person I was when I met Kannan. 

I was me again. 

When we build close friendships we impress part of ourselves on that other person and they likewise impress themselves on you. Your existence becomes connected. When Kannan died, the part of me that was impressed on him was ripped from me and died with him. Forming new friendships in the years after his death was not easy. The rejection and hurt I felt coupled with the feeling of having been an inadequate friend prevented me from being truly receptive to anyone new. I was not prepared to take the risk of becoming attached to anyone else. Since Snowdon, that inability has completely disappeared.

The week after the UK Three Peaks, I qualified as a solicitor and relocated to Birmingham. By leaving that grief on Snowdon and having a complete fresh start, I have been free to hit the ground running ever since. I’ve met some fantastic people, been open to new experiences and most importantly, I actually like myself. 

Even after my experience, I do not profess to know the best way to support a friend with depression or how to support a friend who has also been bereaved by suicide. Until very recently, I was completely unable to offer any comfort to anyone suffering a bereavement by suicide due to my own upset. Other than an acknowledgment that there will forever be unanswered questions and closure will be difficult to achieve, I had no other words to offer. I am still not sure that I do. 

But I do know that talking is important. Sharing our experiences is important. The more people who discuss mental health and suicide, the more support can be offered and more tragedy can be avoided. 

I return to the closing paragraph of my post from 2015. I still do not accept that time is “a great healer.” We need much more than just time to heal from grief. Time just rumbles on, leaving those grieving stuck within it. It cruelly reminds you that your inability to process your grief is interfering with your experience on this earth. 

The real healer is courage. If you can build up the courage in yourself to confront your grief, you will heal.  

#Hatnav

"The beautiful courage of us, the hope that defines our kind, is that we go on, no matter how much life wounds us. We walk. We face the sea and the wind and the salted truth of death, and we go on" 

- from Mountain Shadow, the sequel to Kannan's favourite book - Shantaram 

Everyone has a private battle, and some people are losing theirs.

It’s a common cliché that a smile is a mask worn to hide pain. Certainly when someone uses that phrase, I can often be seen rolling my eyes at the drama of it, however, unfortunately it is also true. The happiest person in the room can also be the loneliest. The saddest. This was true of my best friend.

This week is Mental Health Awareness Week 2015. According to the Samaritans, the current rate of male suicide is the highest since 2001, and in Wales male suicide increased by 23% between 2012 and 2013. The way I see it, us males are facing a depression and suicide crisis. After all, happy men do not kill themselves.

Secrecy is suicide’s biggest aide. There is a lack of open discussion in our society about people’s experiences of suicide. Often in my experience if you tell someone that you have been affected by suicide, they do not know how to react. It is a conversation killer. It also prevents people affected by suicide from benefiting from others sharing their experiences.

I do not offer this post as an authority on grief, or “a dealing with suicide” manual. I offer it as an account of my experience following the suicide of my best friend. And just that.

I want to see fewer friends grieving their friends’ suicides. And although I have had open discussions with the friends who shared my grief, I would expect some of the contents of this post to be new to them. A lot of what I thought and felt at the time went unsaid.

22^nd July 2015 will mark the fifth anniversary of my friend's suicide. Kannan was a fun-loving guy, who oozed charisma and was frequently centre stage. He was British born to a Tamil Hindu family, who originated from Sri Lanka. He was deep yet fun to be around and a free spirit. He even had a positive mantra for life of “Always walk in the sunlight and your shadows will fall behind you.”

He was not someone who you would ever expect to have depression.

But therein lies the majority of the problem. Us “non-depressed folk” have a preconceived idea of what it is to be depressed and who should or should not be depressed.

Looking back now, I think Kannan’s problem was that he saw the sunlight as an unachievable aspiration. But there I am falling into the category of a non-depressed person attempting to explain the thoughts and feelings of something I cannot comprehend, as I am not experiencing it.

Along with society, I am guilty of questioning what other people have to be depressed about. At the time, I could not understand what Kannan possibly had to be depressed about. But the issue is that we always look at the lives of others through rose-tinted spectacles. In questioning people with depression, I think we not only ignore the entire picture, but we also place our own ideals and life expectations on others. In my experience, this just makes a person feel worse as they themselves cannot understand why they feel the way they do and more often than not, they can also recognise the positive aspects of their life.

I do not write this piece to speak about the right or wrong way to support a person with depression because I do not know what that is. I certainly made plenty of mistakes in the support I offered, and to this day I feel guilty at my own lack of understanding at what my best friend was facing back then. I should remember however that I was only 20 at the time, which is hardly an age to tackle this issue.

Kannan decided to tell me about his depression about 5 months prior to his suicide. He did not tell many others. From that point onwards, I supported him as he accessed counselling services; I was there in the middle of the night when he needed to talk; and I secretly monitored a stash of painkillers that he subconsciously purchased. I never really understood why I had to do any of these things though. They were just things I did because he was my friend.

Despite the knowledge of his depression, the news of his suicide came as a terrible shock. As far as I knew, he was making progress with his counsellor. He seemed happier. I had even been to visit him in his hometown of Luton only two weeks prior to his death, and he was a different person. His mood was lighter, it seemed.

Memory is a funny thing where trauma is concerned. I wish I could describe how I found out about his death and what happened next. But I have no memory of this. I know that I was in a cottage in Yorkshire but that is because I am told I was. There is a photograph taken of me earlier that day on a rope swing. I have no actual memory of that day or the weeks following his death.

I am told that at some point I went to visit his family. At this time, I must also have been asked to speak at his funeral, as I gave a eulogy in front of hundreds of his family members and friends. I am told that so many people came to the funeral that there was a “live-screening” of the service in an adjacent building as not everyone could fit in the crematorium. I wish I could remember the magnificence of this but I can only imagine.

I only have two memories of that period. The first is a sound rather than a memory but it is of a Hindu song or chant that his family must have included within the service. The second memory is the panic I felt when I found myself in a supermarket car park after midnight in an unknown town in Cheshire. I had no recollection of how I had gotten there or why I was there. It was almost as if I had just appeared.

It did not get any easier over the following year. Returning to University was particularly difficult. His empty bedroom remained cleared and unoccupied in our student house in Sheffield. Some days I would sit in that empty room for an hour or so. Not knowing what to do. Or how I should react.

Kannan was a well-loved guy and was well known on campus. Following his death, and the spread of the knowledge that I knew he had depression, I felt unable to face people that knew him. I felt I had let him down quite severely. That I could have prevented his death somehow. My guilt made me feel that others also thought that way. The result of this was that I disassociated myself from people who I did not consider to be close friends and I became unreceptive to new people.

I found my friendships with most people to be strained and harder to maintain. I immersed myself into the third year of my law degree, and spent the majority of my time studying and trying to ignore the fond memories of my time in Sheffield. I was reminded of Kannan everywhere I went, and it hurt.

I lost a great deal of my social confidence in the aftermath of Kannan’s death and it is only in the approach to the fifth anniversary of his death that I feel I am beginning to regain it. There is an aspect of being the friend of someone who committed suicide that stays with you. The feeling that you were not a good enough friend. You dismiss the opportunities of new friendships on the premise that you were not good enough previously. 

I remember that my graduation ceremony fell exactly on the year anniversary of his death. That was an odd day. One of simultaneous celebration and grief. For me, it marked the end of a difficult year. I was more than ready to leave Sheffield and to leave the bad memories behind. To this day, I have not yet returned to the city.

With suicide there are questions that will forever remain unanswered. It has a nasty habit of preventing closure. No-one can ever provide a true explanation. No-one can ever correctly understand why. I know that I will always continue to wonder what would have become of Kannan. What would he have achieved? Where would he be now?

I have found the hardest aspect of his death to be that as each year passes, I am one year further away from the person I was when we were friends. One year older. One year wiser. He will remain forever young and forever caught in time, as life around me continues to trundle on. I find that hard to accept.

Suicide is a permanent solution to an otherwise temporary problem. A mendable problem. It’s like using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut. As a response to depression, it is completely disproportionate.

I firmly believe that suicide can be prevented. By discussing experience openly and remembering that the faces we see on a daily basis may not truly reflect the way that a person is feeling. Everyone has a private battle they are facing, and some people are losing theirs.

I think whoever first said that “time is a great healer” was incorrect. Time does not heal. It does not alleviate the pain suffered by those left behind by suicide. Perhaps it does help people to learn to live with the pain but I am not ready to accept that the pain lessens over time. Not yet anyway.

 “At first, when we truly love someone, our greatest fear is that the loved one will stop loving us. What we should fear and dread, of course, is that we won't stop loving them, even after they're dead and gone.” – A quote from Kannan’s favourite book, Shantaram.