Our wonderful kids killed themselves – we must stop coronavirus triggering a UK mental health epidemic

WITH the worldwide death toll rising, there’s little doubt about the catastrophic physical impact of coronavirus.

Yet experts and parents who lost children to suicide are are now warning that the toll on people’s mental health could be equally as devastating.

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Stuart Falconer’s “sweet” and “funny” 15-year-old son Morgan took his own life in May 2015, with no warning signs or suicide note.

Now, Stuart, 50, from St Albans, Hertfordshire, fears the coronavirus lockdown could “tip over the edge” people who are already struggling with their mental health.

He says: “The circumstances are unique and unprecedented, but the challenges to mental health remain the same.

“People are isolating themselves, they’re on their own, their world becomes smaller and smaller.”

This was tragically brought home this week by news of two young lives lost against the backdrop of Covid-19.

Emily Owen, 19, from Kings Lynn took her own life and was said to have been unable to cope with her world closing in and her future plans being cancelled.

“Emily was very concerned about coronavirus itself but more concerned about the mental health impact of isolation and the fear of the unknown,” said her sister Annabel Owen, 21.

It also emerged that a nurse on the frontline of the epidemic at a London hospital ended her life on Monday.

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The World Health Organisation (WHO) has already declared that the outbreak is causing increased levels of anxiety and mental health charities are also reporting a surge in calls to their helplines.

Those seeking assistance are both those already struggling with existing mental health conditions but also others panicked by the financial insecurity, loneliness and uncertainty the pandemic has left in its wake.

It’s why The Sun’s You’re Not Alone campaign is today launching a series to raise awareness of the pandemic’s effect on mental health, as well as providing tips to boost wellbeing.

Each day experts will offer guidance on how to use exercise, cooking, staying connected and entertainment to look after you and your loved ones during this challenging time.

We must take responsibility for people around us

The impact of quarantine or self-isolation is an additional challenge for many.

Last month, a report in the medical journal The Lancet said that “separation from loved ones, the loss of freedom, uncertainty over disease status, and boredom can, on occasion, create dramatic effects”.

Dad Stuart Falconer stresses the need for meaningful interactions.

“I feel for people who are going to be on their own because, ultimately, we all need human contact,” he says.

“Everybody can be vulnerable. If a young person was already feeling down, if they’d already got doubts about their place in the world and their own insecurities about stuff, this is going to exacerbate it.

Stuart believes people need to remain in contact with each other and have open conversations, saying: “We’ll never know unless we ask.

Everybody can be vulnerable

Stuart Falconer

“We’ve all got to take responsibility, not just for ourselves but for people around us. We live in a global community where we’re supposed to look out for each other,” he says.

“We all have to remain in contact with each other. When we come out of this crisis, I’d like to think that people will be kinder to each other, that people will be grateful for what we’ve just come through.”

Talk about other topics – we will come out of this

He adds: “Morgan’s the only person who knows why he took his own life – I’ll never know. All I know is that I didn’t have enough conversations with him about the things that really mattered – like ‘how are you?’, ‘what’s going on?’ and finding ways of trying to find out what was going on in his world.”

We’ve all got to pay attention to the people that we care about

Stuart Falconer

Stuart – who founded the suicide prevention charity The Ollie Foundation with two other parents – also warns against speaking only about COVID-19 with your loved ones.

“If we only ever talk about the coronavirus and all the bad things that are happening that’s going to play into people’s insecurities,” he says.

Uncertainty causes anxiety

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Elsewhere, mental health experts expect the implications of the corona virus both short-term and long term to be huge.

“As you’d expect, we’re hearing from many people whose mental health has been affected by the coronavirus,” Emily Weatherby from mental health charity Mind told Sun Online.

“Some have concerns about how they are going to access the things they need to live well, like their treatment or benefits.

“Others are finding the uncertainty of the situation is causing significant anxiety.”

‘We saw a spike after PM announced changes’

It’s a sentiment echoed by Anxiety UK, who are in “exceptionally high demand” – calls to their helpline are up by a third and there’s been spiralling web traffic to their online advice pages.

“On the day when the Prime Minister made his first announcement about non-essential travel we saw a real spike — around a 220 per cent increase — as people tried to understand what this meant for them”, says Dave Smithson, the charity’s operations director.

“The toleration of uncertainty is hard for any of us — the general thing I’m hearing when talking to callers is when is all this going to end?” he says.

“We’ve had callers who had said they thought they had their anxiety under control, but it’s mounted again.”

Keep youngsters talking

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Carole Fowkes’s 21-year-old daughter Alexandra Wilshaw hanged herself in her Durham University bedroom in March 2018, 170 miles away from her family home.

Carole, 51, from Bourne, Lincolnshire, says parents need to keep checking on their children.

She advises them to go for a walk with their kids once a day, play board games with them, “get them talking”, and encourage them to take an interest in things like gardening and reading.

And if they come to learn their children are feeling “desperate”, they should suggest calling a helpline like the Samaritans.

“It’s very hard to keep young ones talking – but I don’t want to see other people ending up like Alexandra,” she says.

Meetings have stopped but support continues

Emma Oliver, from Leeds, agrees. Her straight-A son Daniel Long, 15, hanged himself while revising for his GCSEs in February 2017.

Emma, 45, says one positive about the three-week lockdown is that parents can easily check up on their children to make sure they’re coping with the crisis.

“With Daniel, he became really withdrawn, he was really quiet, the mood changed, he lost his appetite [before his death],” she says.

“It’s easier for parents to check on their kids now – I’d go up every 20 minutes or so just to make sure they’re alright, see what they’re doing, sit on their bed, have a conversation: ‘Are you alright? How are you finding it being isolated?’

“Before, people who were struggling could get out and go to support group meetings – but now they’ve not got those meetings, they’ve all had to close.

“But there are online resources, apps and phone lines they can use.”

Her advice is: “Keep talking and keep going out for exercise.”

While the government’s drastic actions are safeguarding us for the short term there is, Anxiety UK’s Smithson says it can lead to “potential for bigger problems in the long term”.

“It’s important for us to prepare for that now and to make sure we have things in place,” he says.

In the meantime, mental health charities are doing their best to help people focus on the positive.

“The good news is there are things people can do to help stay mentally well, such as exercise or connecting with other people over the phone or Skype,” says Mind’s Emily Weatherby.

“It’s a challenging time, but we are focussing on ensuring we can support as many people as possible through this.”

Stuart Falconer believes that it’s down to everyone to pull each other through the situation.

He says: “Hope should exist for individuals. Yes, it’s a difficult time but we as a country will come out of it.

“The same applies to individuals. Individuals have hard times – but we can come out of the other side, we’ve just got to have that hope and belief that we can do it.

“We’ve all got to pay attention to the people that we care about. It could happen to you, it might happen to your son, your brother, your dad.”

Tomorrow: The simple home exercises to beat coronavirus gloom and boost happiness.