Kevin’s story

When I look back over my life, I've clearly always struggled with my mental health. But as a lad growing up in the 80s and 90s, you didn’t really acknowledge this – instead you hid it.

The generation I come from, we all had dads in places like the shipyards and on the rigs – the heavy industries – and mental health just wasn't talked about. I remember telling my dad about feeling insecure and him making me feel like it was wrong. After that I learnt to toughen up and not talk about my emotions.

Things came to a head for me five years ago, but I think it had been building for much longer than that. Back in 2016, we nearly lost my daughter at five months old. She became really sick and we weren't given any promises that she would pull through. It was an incredibly traumatic time, and I was later diagnosed with PTSD as a result.

Alongside this, there were things boiling over with my parents. My mum was very controlling and emotionally abusive when I was growing up, and sometimes this would turn physical. Back then I buried my head in the sand, but things became unbearable around the same time my daughter was sick. In the end I decided I could no longer take the abuse and cut contact with her, which was incredibly hard.

When Covid hit, I had been working as a coach driver, which I loved, but lockdown meant the work dissipated. I had always been on the go, and always travelling, which I think subconsciously I was doing to avoid confronting my problems. But I was forced to slow down, and with being immunosuppressed I couldn't leave the house for three months. I had too much time to think, which was dangerous. I said to my wife that I felt like a vessel. I was all meat and bones but there was nothing inside. I felt like I had no identity and no sense of purpose.

I was furloughed for a while but then that stopped and I needed to get a job, especially given that it was coming up to Christmas, which is already a pressurised time. I started working from home for a sports company on their customer service line. I was working on Christmas Eve when a woman called and was going crazy that the trainers she had ordered for her son hadn’t arrived. She made a horrible comment about me being an absolute nothing and questioned if I was proud of myself. Already struggling with my identity and self-worth, that felt like the final straw. I got off the call feeling absolutely terrible. I couldn’t bring myself to go downstairs and be with my family.

We have a Christmas Eve tradition where we get a Chinese takeaway and then put the Polar Express on, followed by The Snowman, before going outside to spread reindeer dust. I couldn’t ruin that, but I just couldn’t bear to be in the house. I said I was nipping out to get some beers while the shops were still open and before I knew it, I was driving up the A1 in floods of tears. My plan was to take my car off the road.

Maybe if it had been any other day I could have spoken to my wife, but it was Christmas Eve and I just couldn’t burden her with that. I felt like I had no one to have this difficult conversation with. I wanted to shout into the ether and tell someone how I was feeling. I needed some kind of validation and someone to listen without getting concerned by the things I was saying.

I realised I had a choice; I could end my life there and then or I could call Samaritans. And so I pulled into a supermarket car park and dialled the number. Before that night I can’t remember the last time I had cried, but I was probably a teenager. It was an Irish man I spoke to and he was softly spoken. I had assumed I would call and be met with someone just saying, “uh-huh, uh-huh.” But that wasn’t how the call went. He didn’t challenge my view, but he was able to remind me that I had a daughter, that I was a worthwhile father, and that he could tell from the way I spoke about my family, that they meant everything to me, and I meant everything to them.

I remember the flood of emotions – it was like a volcano erupting. I needed that conversation. I put the phone down feeling lighter and a million times better. It hadn’t solved all my problems, but I felt at peace. I sat in the car and gave myself 10 minutes to compose myself and make sure I didn't look like I'd been crying. I needed to be able to walk back into the house and say, “Right, are we putting this reindeer dust out then?” I waited until after Christmas to tell my wife I had called Samaritans.

I’m not saying my dance with depression is done but I know Samaritans are there if I need them, which is hugely comforting. If ever I get to a point where I feel I’m struggling and I’ve got no one, I can call and I'm going to feel lighter afterwards – it's going to take the heat out of the situation.

Sadly, not everyone has the same outcome as me. My friend Ed died by suicide last year, in her 60s. About 10 years ago Ed came out as gay and later began to live as a trans woman. There's still not enough acceptance of the trans community and I think that was a big factor. She came under a lot of heat and social media can be the absolute worst for people saying horrible things. I think she became embattled by it all. I’ll never know if that was a direct cause of her taking her life, because she was always so bright and bubbly, but they do say that’s a possible warning sign. On the surface Ed appeared to be very free, which is why I was in real shock when she died.

I always say to my kids I don’t care about your gender or sexuality, as long as you’re happy and as long as you’re loved. I think we need to make the world easier for people to navigate and be who they are.