Confessions of a Grieving Man

By Glen Brumby

The book tells of lived experiences leading up to and after a young man’s suicide explaining in detail, from a male’s perspective, what the experiences feel like and what it’s like living after losing a son to suicide (Chapters Two and Three). Secondly, it tells the stories of other men who have killed themselves and it explores what it is about men that makes them so very prone to suicide (Chapters Four and Five). Thirdly, it explains why our mental health system doesn’t work and adds some thoughts to the debate about how we might take practical steps to help stop men from killing themselves (Chapters Six and Seven).
One of the book’s themes is that men expect too much of each other and themselves. We are fragile in ways we don’t admit and we have a powerful need to be accepted and for our efforts to be respected. It explains the author's regrets and mistakes from a father’s point of view.
The book suggests that active strategies are required to save suicidal men. Treating men who are really thinking about killing themselves needs a special someone who knows how to reach out and find them. A suicidal man is not a candidate for self-help.
Another theme is how to understand men and look out for them. They don’t ever tell anyone what they are really thinking especially when they are troubled. When troubled, particularly if they feel rejected, they tend to hide. For big problems men have well-worn evolutionary pathways that lead to violence. They are prone to sudden decisions and shouldn’t be left alone to mull on their problems. Again, this is particularly the case if they have suffered a blow to their status. They have a limited emotional tool box and they can react very badly. With no outlet for their feelings of rejection and loss, no target for violent reaction, they can become victims, killing themselves to feel vindicated.
Finally, the book talks about improving mental health treatment, particularly in-patient hospital treatment, along with the need to reach into the psychology of men and be bold if it is going to save men who are really at risk.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Glen Brumby
• Release date: Oct 8, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301975280

Glen Brumby

I am married to Aija and we usually live at the Gold Coast in Australia although we are currently travelling around. Our children are Elise and Aleks. Aija and I have lived in the UK and in Germany. I studied arts and law at the University of Adelaide. I have had a number of interesting careers, including being a professional squash player, a fire-fighter, a teacher at Uni, a prosecutor and a senior public servant. I've also worked in a medium sized law firm for a while. I've also worked for a long time in building policy for the Queensland Government and I was proud to serve on the Australian Building Codes Board. Now I am writing and trying to keep fit. I have an ambition to write a novel that people say they can't put down.

Book preview

CONFESSIONS OF A GRIEVING MAN

FOR ALEKS

by

Glen Brumby

SMASHWORDS EDITION

* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY:

Glen Brumby on Smashwords

Confessions of a Grieving Man

Copyright © 2013 by Glen Brumby

ISBN 9781301975280

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. Your support and respect for the property of this author is appreciated.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to all of my friends who have provided feedback on the various drafts of this book. I realize the topic is hard to face and it takes a lot of effort to engage with it. In particular, I must thank Gerard O’Brien for his conversation, for the valuable books he has given me and for being such a great friend. In the same vein, my heartfelt thanks go to Mark Francis and Andrew Sinclair for their support. To Tony Dunn and Sue Turner, thank you for sharing your stories and your pain. Lastly, to my wife Aija, thank you for Aleks, what more can I say to you?

Aleksandris William Brumby on 20 July 2010

Aleksandris William Brumby wrote on the 22nd of January 2011:

"I am so sorry.

You gave me everything.

But I can’t hold on any longer.

Love Aleks"

Table of contents

1. Why now and what for

2. Aftermath

3. Facing the bigger questions

4. Hiding

5. Exile

6. Mental health

7. Practical steps

8. Conclusion

9. 2016 Postscript

Aleks shopping for sunglasses

Chapter one: Why now and what for?

Today would have been my son Aleks’ 27th birthday, 11 July 2013. He took his life in late January 2011 soon after Queensland’s latest round of floods inundated Brisbane. He crushed his anti-depressant pills with the active ingredient amitriptyline to make sure the drug would digest quickly, then washed the paste down with a mixture of vodka and bitter lemon cordial. The pills had been crushed in a pestle with the mortar we often used together when cooking to make our authentic curry pastes.

Jenny, our family doctor, explained to me and my wife a number of times that the pills and alcohol mixture would have stopped his heart very suddenly. She said he would have died quickly without any pain. Aleks used a massive dose of the drug that was certain to succeed. Ironically the pills came from his stockpile of prescriptions given out from a number of medical practices to keep him healthy. We later found that he had researched the dosage very thoroughly. He knew only eight tablets would be lethal for his body weight but he used a lot more just in case.

I found Aleks on the floor, in his bedroom, a couple days after he died. He’d fallen off the bed and landed on his side. He had vomited a little and his body seemed a bit bloated. It was summer in Brisbane and his bedroom had been sealed with the doors and windows closed. It had been quite hot but I didn’t notice any smell at all. I didn’t see his note. Our unit was taken over by ambulance and police officers and a great many other people. It became a crime scene and investigations were made to normalize it again. I didn’t see any of this. I don’t know how long it all lasted. I was in a deep shock, awake to some extent, but not really there. My world had changed and my nervous system was pumping out such prodigious amounts of adrenaline that I was feeling sick with fear.

Writing this is very hard for me. Tears still well up spontaneously at unpredictable times. But it is hard mainly because part of the legacy of my grief has been a big loss of motivation. The motivation that I do have to write comes from the realization that writing about my experiences and thoughts may benefit vulnerable men and the people who care about them. Even as I am writing, ABC TV News 24 is announcing a lead story about how groundbreaking surveys show we men are thinking more and more that life isn’t worth living. We men are now choosing death over life in large numbers.

A lot has changed for men in recent years and I wholeheartedly agree that we are dying too often at our own hand. A fulsome account of my grief and my regrets may be of interest to others who worry about their sons or the men in their lives. An understanding of the impacts of the immediate aftermath of Aleks’ suicide on me may also be instructive, even cautionary, for anyone thinking about the relief they will feel by ending it all. The impacts on your loved ones are serious consequences that must be included in your calculus.

With the time that has now passed since Aleks’ death I also realize I do have things to say about grief and loss as well as about suicide and men. Recently, I realized I’ve been very close to too many suicide events and grief in my life. I’d like to explore some of those events because, sadly, when I mention that my son died by suicide, people often tell me they too know someone who has killed themselves.

Also, after Aleks died, sadly, I’ve become aware of many other suicides of young men in our local network. Two in particular hit me pretty hard and they have certainly contributed to my motivation to write on this topic. A close work (Fire Service) friend of mine, Tony, came to Aleks’ funeral. His son Michael was roughly the same age as Aleks when he decided to hang himself six months ago now. He’d fought with his girlfriend and after a few drinks and some text messages he went to a building site near where he lived with Tony and ended his life.

The second suicide was that of Guy Turner, a young man who was very similar to Aleks in many ways. Guy went to the same high school at about the same time as Aleks (they didn’t know each other) and he too was an exceptional student. He was almost twenty six when he hanged himself in a tree on the river bank behind the school yard in November last year.

My experiences and stories may help in understanding whether there are destructive patterns in the way society treats men and the way men think about life and death. I believe there is a need to analyze and understand the uniquely male attributes about the way men think to try and limit the harm caused by suicides. In the age group 20-24 for males, in 2011, 29% of all deaths in Australia were from suicide. The recently released report, ‘Suicide and Suicide Prevention in Australia: Breaking the Silence’ makes the point that despite all the existing global research, prevention strategies lack ‘defensible evidence’ regarding their efficacy (p14). This is despite the research showing that after the fact, clear warning signs were present in almost all of the cases. In many cases there were multiple signs. In my son’s case there were multiple signs. He even told the psychiatrist he was going to ‘jump off a bridge’. I think publishing stories will help because we learn from stories and they are very hard to forget when they are told sincerely.

To reinforce the point, the Report has a Break Out Box in its Executive Summary (p12) to help focus the mind. There are at least seven Australian suicide deaths every day (on page 20 the Report says it is now more likely to be 8 per day). 80% are male. Forget war, disease, accidents and crime, otherwise healthy men should fear themselves. Men kill themselves at more than three times the rate that females do (down from four times the rate in the 1990s). The Western Australian Suicide Prevention Strategy for 2009 to 2013 shows just how extreme the male suicide problem is in Australia when compared to other countries, citing a 4:1 ratio of male to female suicides (see page 17).

Comparatively, suicide is one of our society’s biggest problems. 1727 Australians killed themselves in 2011. Australian Bureau of Statistics data for 2009 shows 1059 Australians died on our roads. We hear so much about road deaths. Clearly suicide is a bigger problem. These numbers are not perfect. Some sources give higher numbers for both road deaths and suicides although the comparative magnitudes remain roughly the same. But however one looks at the issue, even if male and female youth suicides have declined a little in recent years, compared to the categories of other preventable deaths, the numbers are awful. And let me be very clear, they are a lot more awful when your only son is one of them.

It gets worse, the Breaking the Silence Report says suicide is under-reported, mainly because some traffic deaths may in fact be suicides by car. Suicide and attempts reportedly cost Australia around $17.5 Billion dollars a year (2007-2008 dollars). Attempts at suicide are thought to out-number completed suicides by a factor of 20 to 30, or around 65000 per year. These are big numbers that emphasize the scale of the silence.

Suicide is worthy of a greater focus than road deaths. Each suicide death has lingering consequences for relatives and friends. In this context, I’ve learnt a few practical lessons about how to cope with grief and repair a life and I’d like to share them. Along the way I’d also like to explain why my wife and I feel so let down by the medical/health system and the platitudes that are so readily trotted out by people, including health professionals, who profess to care for men at risk.

I don’t think we can seriously expect that Aleks, Michael or Guy, in the state they were in, would make a call to a stranger in a call centre to seek help. If they did, I doubt it would help much. I wonder if that physiatrist in the mental health ward is wondering about the inadequacies of the ‘health’ system given that Aleks told them about the relief he would feel if his life was over and that he wanted to ‘jump off a bridge’. What emerges from the records is the story of a person who is so very afraid of what he is thinking that he asked to be taken into care. He told the doctors that he needed to go into hospital because he felt he was so close to killing himself after nearly five years of severe depression. He told them that he felt as bad as he ever had and things were getting worse. Every indicator was negative and they faithfully recorded each one. They even thought he was delusional and that he had no idea how much at risk he actually was and in their Emergency Admittance Assessment form they use the phrase ‘has little insight into how unwell he is’. But because he wasn’t hearing voices they said there was nothing they could do and they let him go.

An extract of the hospital’s Admittance Notes are provided in Appendix C to show, in black and white, how useless the health system’s efforts