First My Husband Then My Son
Kim, 51, was devastated when her husband took his own life when their youngest son was four. 18 years later, history repeated itself…
Dave was such an incredible father. When he took the kids to the park, it wasn’t just our kids, it was all the kids in the neighbourhood.
He’d taken my eldest, Perry, on as his own, and together we had Rachel, Jamie and Hayden.
But Dave hadn’t been well for a long time. He was diagnosed as manic depressive, now known as bipolar. He said things like: ‘I love you and the kids, but I don’t want to be here.’
He attempted to take his own life a few times. He’d taken himself to A&E, asking to be sectioned. Things were different back then. One nurse said: ‘Go home, your wife will look after you.’
In October 2002, Dave succeeded. Perry was cycling to school when he saw police cars. Curious, he went into the park and saw Dave, dead. ‘That’s my step-dad!’ he cried.
I’ll never forget the first day I was a widow. Surrounded by relatives, I said: ‘I’m a bit relieved. He was so ill. Now he’s not suffering.’ But then grief kicked in. For many years, I felt angry too. When the kids cried for their father. How could he have said he loved us, yet leave us?
When Hayden was 12, he tried to jump off a building. He was hospitalised and diagnosed with bipolar too.
He was medicated for a while. But a new psychiatrist told us he wasn’t bipolar, he was hormonal. The medication was stopped. I got a second opinion, but that doctor agreed with the first. Who was I to argue?
At 16 Hayden left school and got a job as a carer. When he got his own place, we’d speak on the phone several times a day. I always worried how Dave’s suicide would effect the children. My greatest fear was that anything that horrific ever happened to any of the kids.
In February 2019 I called Hayden and we spoke briefly, but he was off out with friends. I said I’d call later, he said his battery was running out. That was unlike him.
I called the next morning and it went straight to voicemail. I called his best friend, Jamie, who said Hayden had got a taxi home last night. I asked Jamie to go to Hayden’s flat but Hayden wasn’t there.
On Monday morning we reported him missing.
It took the police two weeks to go through CCTV and track down the taxi driver who said Hayden changed his mind about the destination, asking to be taken to the Thames instead. CCTV saw him sit by the river for 40 minutes, before throwing himself in.
Eventually, his body was recovered.
I’ve been diagnosed with PTSD since Hayden’s death. I’m awaiting therapy and still have nightmares and flashbacks. I ask myself what I could have done differently.
In order to reduce the number of men taking their own lives, we need to normalise mental health concerns. Dave’s diagnosis was our family secret. Hayden would never talk to me about why he’d tried to kill himself when he was 12, and he told me not to tell anyone when he was diagnosed with bipolar, or when he was medicated. The burden of shame, the weight of secrecy, can not help.
It brings me some comfort to know that CCTV captured a man approaching Hayden while he sat by the river. They spoke for a while. Then, the stranger gave Hayden a hug. I’ll never know what was said, but he had one last hug. It wasn’t enough to make him change his mind, but he left this world knowing he was loved.