The mood was somber, interspersed with hope, as a group met at the United Church here Saturday to mark Suicide Awareness Day.
Members of the local Healthy Opportunities Promoting Empowerment (HOPE) – Destigmatizing Mental Health hosted the event to create awareness about the 4,000 people who commit suicide in Canada annually due to depression and provide information about community services available to assist those contemplating suicide. The local HOPE chapter is a support group working in the community.
Rain Saturday meant the event had to be held inside the church rather than at the outside memorial garden.
Among the speakers was Sandra Parkinson, community development and education services with the local Canadian Mental Health Association – Grand River branch.
“Hope symbolizes the work of the group,” Parkinson said of the local HOPE committee. “There is help available. We struggle, but we don’t have to do it alone.”
Wellington North Mayor Ray Tout also joined the 15 people who attended the event lending his support to the awareness aspect of the group.
“Suicide prevention is a good program,” he said. “When over 4,000 people a year are dying because of suicide that’s too many.”
Rhoda Seibert, who has chronicled her battle with depression, read a telling tale of the family of Phil Gravelle and how they coped with the suicide of their son Thomas. It was tale of coping with tragedy.
“This is not how it was supposed to be,” Gravelle wrote of the suicide experience. “The death of my son Thomas, at the age of 24, has put us in a state of shock. It has also triggered an outpouring of support for my wife Jean, my son Michael and myself, for which we are very grateful.”
“Starting in Grade 9, Thomas suffered from depression and a personality disorder that made social interactions very stressful for him. He sought refuge in alcohol and drugs, but also in the study of philosophy, and in acts of consideration for his family and friends. The greatest of these were his many courageous attempts to carry on.”
“No parent should ever have to come home to find that a child has taken their own life, but this is what Jean experienced,” Seibert read of the family from the Erin area.
“We are dismayed at the inadequacy of our mental health care system, both in staffing and scientific knowledge. Part of that failure was due to Thomas’ inability to accept all the assistance being offered. Ten years of psychiatry, medication, counseling, rehabilitation programs and behavior therapy did not enable him to live with his core problems.”
“One regret is that Thomas’ instinct, and ours, was to avoid telling people. If he had been attacked by an outside force, such as cancer, we would have felt comfortable in calling for immediate support and not felt so isolated.”
Parkinson said mental health workers are hoping to see the federal government pass a national suicide prevention program to assist those in need. Awareness, according to mental health workers, is the first step for families.
“Thomas was a mental health victim,” Gravelle wrote. “Let us be willing to ask for help when we need it, and accept it when it is offered. Let us reach out fearlessly to those in need, and be persistent in hope.”
Parkinson read portions of a eulogy delivered in 2009 by Prime Minister Stephen Harper following the suicide of MP and colleague Dave Batters.
“To his wife and family, he was a loving and beloved husband, son and brother,” Harper said in the eulogy read by Parkinson. “To his friends, he was unfailingly loyal, generous and caring. And among his colleagues in Parliament, myself included, he was greatly admired.”
“However, some months before his political career ended, I became aware that beneath his veneer of optimism Dave struggled with severe anxiety and depression and in the end Dave lost the fight against his illness.”
“However, this we know: in his struggle Dave achieved a life worth living. Depression didn’t stop that.”
“Dave was an idealist, but he was also a realist. When he decided not to offer again for re-election, he made the right choice: to rebuild his health and he spoke out about his illness. In doing so, he performed a great public service. We need to know that mental illness like Dave’s is shockingly common in our society. It affects the great and small alike, despite the stigma that still too often surrounds it.”
It was the message HOPE members want to get out.
The Mount Forest event was among several hosted across Wellington County Saturday.
