He was a selfish Bastard

How often have you heard someone say something like the title of this particular posting? Maybe what you have heard someone say something like they don’t think of their parents and those they are leaving behind them. I speak of course of people that take their own life through one way or another – in other words Suicide.

Unfortunately such people are often of a certain generation, those that would have grown up in the day’s pre Vatican Two when Ireland and the world were much different places. In those days whether it was a church rule or a state rule or a mix of both for someone to take their own life was not really accepted and those that did and I am sure many would have, they were not buried in consecrated ground. This was the case if you were a Catholic anyway. I don’t know if you were buried if you were a member of say the Church of Ireland, the Methodist, Presbyterian Churches or any other religious grouping.

            On Saturday evening I took a book out of a drawer in my bedroom that I had purchased late last year on one of my many visits to Eason’s in Dungarvan. I had never heard of the Author – Collette Wolfe. After buying the book I did hear her speak with Damien Tiernan on WLR’fm’s Deise Today programme. It may even be even Maria McCann who stands in from time to time for him, I honestly can’t remember, and when the interview was been conducted I was not paying the same attention to the programme that I would have on other days, especially if the presenter was talking to someone that had written a nonfiction book.

In the last few years I have read some very good book;

Damaged by Paul Stewart

Walk Away and Forget Him by Gerry Maguire

First Hand by Eoin Hand

Nobody Will Believe You by Mary Manning

The Romford Pele by Ray Parlour

The Best Is Yet To Come by Alan O’Mara

The Boy on the Shed by Paul Ferris

Crying Into a Saucepan by Nikki Hayes

Sober by Tony Adams

Donal’s Mountain by Finbarr Walsh

A Different Shade of Green by Alan McLaughlin

Hard Knocks and Soft Spots by Paddy Doherty

People like Me by Lynn Ruane

Walk While You Can by Fr. Tony Coote

The Baby Snatchers by Mary Creighton

Overcoming by Vicky Phelan

Some of you might say some of these books are not for me. There is a priest’s name there, there is sporting people there, you might think that you are not into religion or sport and would rather than give these books a miss, but while there might be religion or sport mentioned in some of them, the main story in the book makes them well worth reading. For example Fr. Tony Coote’s book is about his battle with Motor Neurone Disease, Lynn Ruane has sat in the Seanad but her story in the book is not about her time there, but her fight to come off drugs, Paul Steward played soccer for a number of leading teams including Man City, Spurs and Liverpool but the point of his book is about the sexual abuse that he suffered as a youngster, Tony Adams played soccer for Arsenal and England talks of his battle with Alcohol and the work he is doing since beating his addiction to help others, Alan O’Mara played Football for Cavan but his book deals with the depression he has battled with for some time.

I thought that it would be hard to top two books that I read last year, Vicky Phelan’s and Fr. Tony Coote’s and those of Lynn Ruane and Nikki Hayes which I read the year before, but Collette Wolfe’s to me was a real page turner.

On Saturday evening while lying in bed I read two or three chapters before falling to sleep. I like to give myself a week to read a book and as Collette’s book “If I Could Hold You Again” has 296 pages not been a fast reader I gave myself a week to read it. On Sunday evening I could find nothing on the Television that interested me so I went to bed about half nine, turned Sky News on low in the back round so I had a little noise in the room, something I like and picked up reading the book from where I left off. By twenty to one this morning I had the book read, which for me suggests it was a page turner.

Collette in the book devotes much of it to the death of her youngest daughter at the age of 18. She died just over a week after celebrating her birthday. Collette and her Husband was abroad on holiday when they got a phone call that no parent or anyone wants to get. There only son phoned them to say their youngest daughter was found dead by her only sister. At first the pair of holiday makers thought that maybe she was killed in a crash, but when they rang back home they found out that she had taken her own life.

On the day of Collette’s daughter’s funeral the found out why she had taken her own life, she was on the end of some bullying by a number of people that she knew.

People that claim that those who take their own life are “selfish bastards”, “cowards” or who use any other phrase including “they don’t think of their poor parents” in my opinion don’t know what they are talking about. For every person that takes their own life there is a reason why they did so, like in the case of Collette Wolfe’s daughter who she learned was bullied.

When it comes to young people who take their own life as a result of bullying, the most of it will come from “their school friends”, who are not really friends. If they were they would not be bullying a person the way they do.

There are other reasons that people take their life. Maybe it is because on health grounds. Maybe someone has got some bad news from a Doctor which they might have kept from others and feel that they cannot go on any further maybe knowing that their final days will be spent in great pain even if they will receive medication to help them with much of it. Maybe a person will be told that they have contracted some disability and face a time in the future where they will need someone to help them with some thinks that most of us take for granted, like dressing or washing. Maybe they don’t want to be seen as any sort of a burden on anyone. Maybe they cannot face the day when they do not have their own dignity when it comes to something like going to the toilet. Maybe someone thinks there is something wrong with them, something like thinking they have found a lump on their body and cannot face going to a doctor.

Unless someone leaves a note or a diary which they kept we will never know why some people take their own life. Perhaps it is as a result of pressure put on a person by others. How many times have we heard about parents putting pressure on their children when it comes to exams they are sitting to make sure that they get a certain mark in exams, and if they don’t there is sometimes a lot of shouting. This pressure can come in many ways. How often have we seen parents think that their son or daughter will get better marks in their exams if they were sent for grinds or study groups after school.

Sometimes I feel the pressure comes from a person’s teachers. I was lucky enough when attending Saint Anne’s Post Primary School in Cappoquin that I can some good teachers. Some were even excellent teachers. Two of the very best of the teachers in the school are to be found today on my Facebook list of friends. But there were some bad teachers as well. Maybe they were not all that bad; it maybe was just that I did not relate to them.

For five years in the Cappoquin School a report was sent home on our performances twice a year after Christmas and summer exams. Maybe it was the done thing at the time and I don’t know if it is still done, but the majority of the teachers in their comments would say something along the lines “Thomas could do better”. I am sure that many of the 250 odd students in the school on any given year would have had something similar said about them.

Personally I always ignored such comments. I knew I was doing my best, or I felt I was doing my best. I may have been able to get better marks in some subjects maybe if I had a better teacher, or one that I could relate to. Nearly 30 years on I will never know now if I could or not. Maybe if I was a student today I might do somewhat better than I did back in the late 80’s and early 90’s as the way teachers are trained has possibly changed and the way things are done are different. Back when I was in school there was no explaining from some teachers. I felt we were told this is the way a thing is done and there was little or no explaining. I am 99% certain that has changed today.

Back when I was going to school I had no intention of going to College or University after my leaving cert. For the last 18 months or so in school I could not wait till it was all over all over for me. But I feel maybe that if I had plans to go to third level education getting comments like “Thomas could do better” knowing I was doing my level best could have pushed me over the top and if pupils are getting the same comments today it is pushing some over the top maybe damaging their mental health.

People who take their own life are not the “Selfish Bastards” or the “Cowards” that some people claim they are. They are many reasons why people take their own life and we have to get this into our thinking and do away with the stupid comments that some make when they hear of someone taking their life.

If you have ever spoke about someone that had taken or attempted to take their own life, calling them all sorts of names and coming out with comments like they don’t think of the parents, family and friends they are leaving behind can I urge you to pick up a copy of Collette Wolfe’s excellent book in a bookshop, online or in the library and read it. Take in what is said in the book. Maybe you have heard someone make such comments. Maybe you can after reading the book yourself recommend that they read it or say it have heard it recommended and suggest that they read it. People who take their life do so for a reason and the sooner we get rid of the stigma attached to suicide that existed in the past the better.