Content note: this article contains references to suicide that readers may find upsetting.

What if I were to tell you that smoking was the leading cause of death for young people and men under the age of 50, and that the rate of women under 24 dying from smoking was growing faster than any other group? Something so preventable causing the unnecessary deaths of 125 people a week.

In the spirit of the general election and fact-checking, I’ll state here that this is fake news. The true cause of all of these deaths is suicide. 

In April, the Office for National Statistics confirmed that the suicide rate in England is the highest it’s been in 25 years. It’s a national emergency, growing at an alarming rate, and I believe that if it were any other cause there would be a public outcry. I know being the director of services at Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) affords me a reasonable level of bias, but any political party looking at the data around suicide would surely recognise this urgency and place suicide prevention right at the beating heart of its manifesto.

The nature of suicide, and the factors that lead to it, really are a marker of the society we live in. Often when suicides are reported on, it’s perceived as an isolated ‘personal’ issue rather than a ‘societal’ issue – a series of unique events that has led to this tragic outcome. But it’s this over-personalisation of suicide that benefits government and allows it to avoid responsibility for the wider context that leads to a person taking their own life.

Suicidal behaviour is not always synonymous with mental illness – not all people who die by suicide have mental health problems, and not all people with mental health problems will consider suicide. There are many contributing factors, including financial stress, addiction, bereavement, loneliness, isolation and domestic abuse. One in five of us will experience suicidal thoughts in our lifetime. 

For many people who try to take their lives, suicide feels like the only option – they can’t change what’s happened in the past, they feel unable to change their present situation and can’t imagine a future where things are better. Many people who have attempted suicide have said that they believed that the most useful thing they could do was disappear, and they felt that this meant they’d no longer be a burden to others.

At CALM we look at the continuum of suicidality, where at one end of the scale a person is absolutely fine, and at the other end they are at total crisis point. This is where we can differentiate between prevention and intervention – the intervention happens once a person gets to the latter end of the scale, but the vast majority of it requires suicide prevention. We look at it as providing ‘off ramps’ to allow people to work their way back to the ‘feeling fine’ end of the spectrum. We all need to be dedicated to building a society that prevents people from becoming suicidal in the first place.

A truly progressive government would step up and take its responsibility for suicide prevention seriously – the society it creates should provide the off ramps we all need to continually reset and recover from the challenges that come our way.

There are two key issues when it comes to previous suicide prevention action plans. First: they’re rarely fully funded. Many of the pledges we’ve seen, including the previous Conservative government’s suicide prevention strategy, relied heavily on the NHS and social care systems that we know are already stretched beyond their limits. 

The second issue is that they focus on treating the symptom and not the cause. You don’t treat cancer – you treat the behaviour of the cancerous cells. If someone is struggling with depression after losing their job, the thing to ‘cure’ is not their depression, it’s their unemployment. With mental health in particular, we have become a society of quick fixes because GPs aren’t afforded the necessary time and mental health waiting lists for specialist support are far too long. When parties are looking at the funding and management of the NHS, they have to find a way to enable us to ‘un-quick fix’ the system – to enable medical professionals to take a step back and understand a person’s biography and the circumstances that led them to this point, rather than labelling the symptoms and prescribing as a first port of call.

Politicians also need to stop the current culture war on mental health – the term is so demonised that those who are struggling are experiencing too much stigma to get the help they need. A recent piece of research we carried out found that stereotypes around women meant that those in crisis would often hold back from asking for help: 33% were worried they’d be seen as dramatic or over-emotional. Shame and stigma are intertwined with suicidality, and this damage has to be undone. We’re now in a position where we may need to rethink the phrase ‘mental health’ entirely and start afresh with a new, positive and proactive perspective.

The final critical area that must be addressed is poverty and the cost of living. The phrase itself – ‘cost of living’ – makes it sound like it’s just another naturally occurring factor and is no one’s responsibility, which is having a huge impact on people experiencing daily struggles to make ends meet. Research and analysis of anonymised CALM helpline data has found that people are choosing to end their lives because they simply can’t ‘afford’ to live, and living should never just be about ‘coping’. We are the Campaign Against Living Miserably; we work tirelessly to help people to end their misery, not their lives. But we need the government to share this commitment. Not simply to enable people to exist, but to allow them to live happy, fulfilling lives with suitable housing, enough food and access to a GP appointment when they need it, as this is what suicide prevention truly looks like.

It’s not only about the individual, it’s about the society that supports them and the government is in control of every single aspect of that. But we’re in control of deciding who is in government. Politics is always incredibly divisive and we often feel compelled to shut out the noise, but please make sure your voice is heard on election day. We’ve had a huge period of division, derision and blaming – what we need now is hope.

If you or someone you know is struggling with their mental health, you can find support and resources on the mental health charity Mind’s website and NHS Every Mind Matters or access the NHS’ list of mental health helplines and services.

If you are struggling with your mental health, you can also ask your GP for a referral to NHS Talking Therapies, or you can self-refer.

For confidential support, you can also call the Samaritans in the UK on 116 123. 

CALM hosts a suicide prevention helpline and provides online mental health resources for anyone who needs them.

Image: Getty