My story
My name is Catherine. A month ago on 5th Jan my husband committed suicide. He was a young music artist who was about to blow up in a big way worldwide because of his amazing talent, he was a father of our four year old son who was about to start Kinder, he was a twin brother to my sister in law and he was my husband. But he was addicted to Ice and the effects his drug use had on his behaviour, his health, and his mental state destroyed our family and took his life.On several occasions we tried to get him help. We called the police too many times to count with no results. We tried to get him into rehab but there was no space available to him. We later tried to get him help with his mental health and again he was prescribed a week’s worth of anti-depressants and shown the door.
On all occasions we as a family were not engaged by the very services set up and funded to help people in his situation, even though we pushed and pushed to be heard and to be part of the process. I as his wife was told by a case worker that my husband had convinced her mental health service team that he was not on drugs, and his only concerns were about our relationship and that we should get relationship counselling before they closed his case and sent him on his way to his GP with a mental health plan. Three months later he committed suicide on Ice.
My husband would be here today if he had received proper treatment. He would be here if we as a family were engaged and treated with dignity by public funded services who seem to think people effected by drug abuse and mental illness exist in isolation.
I was forwarded details about the National Family Drug Support Day by a colleague and for the first time since my husband's death I felt some hope that perhaps something is being done out there for families like mine and perhaps future lives can be saved through initiatives like this.