10/09/2026
Today is World Su***de Prevention Day.
Thank you to Samaritans and Paul below for sharing his story and showing that su***de isn’t inevitable and that suicidal thoughts can be interrupted. 💚
“A few years ago, I was really struggling. I was working 80-100 hour weeks in a very senior role which came with a lot of pressure. Having been away all week, I’d get home at weekends and need to squeeze family time into two days, alongside managing a million and one other things. It felt like a constant treadmill of trying to please everyone else and living up to expectations. I felt tired, burnt out and broken. It was from here that things started to go wrong.”
“Although this wasn’t the reality, I started to feel like I was the root cause of every problem and if I removed myself, that would fix everything. I tried to access support from my GP and found it near impossible. It seemed that because I was managing to go into work every day, I had a nice house and kids, there was nothing to worry about. To them I was just a bit tired, I wasn’t dying.”
“One evening, when I was away on a work trip, I decided I was going to end my life. I headed out and was crossing the road unobservantly when a taxi stopped me. The driver must’ve recognised that something wasn’t right. He got out and started to chat to me, asking if I was OK and what was going on. He then went back to his taxi and got a card with the number for Samaritans. He said something like, ‘you need to talk to someone, so talk to Samaritans.’ I wandered around for about an hour and a half, as I didn’t know what I was going to say if I called. I felt like I needed to have a story prepared.”
“I don’t remember much about that first call. I couldn’t say if the first call was a man or woman I spoke to, but they helped me get through the night. It helped me go to bed and try again the next day.”
“It’s all very subtle and Samaritans don’t really tell you anything, but they listen and enable you to offload – they’re a safety net. Sometimes, I think that’s all people need. At that point I felt like I had nowhere else to go. It’s very hard to say to your wife, we’ve got this wonderful life, but I’m utterly depressed, because it feels like an insult.”
“If I hadn’t called that night, I might’ve just wandered around feeling slightly distracted by my interaction with the taxi driver, but I would’ve been back in that same place a few days later, about to do something drastic. It seems a bit dramatic to say I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for that conversation, but that is the reality.”
Thank you so much to Paul for sharing his story for World Su***de Prevention Day and showing that su***de isn’t inevitable and that suicidal thoughts can be interrupted.
