My name is Steve Foyster and I’m a peer support worker with Norfolk and Waveney Mind.
I did get into a very depressed state in 1986. The previous year had been pretty bleak and I was put on antidepressants straight away, but that didn’t really solve the issue for me.
I did go to see a psychiatrist privately but I couldn’t really relate to the person unfortunately and things built up and built up. I was getting pressure from all different directions in my personal life and at work and I just thought at the time there was no way out.
Everything seemed so really bleak and grey and empty and in the end, I decided that I would try and take my own life, I did it in quite a dramatic fashion and I still suffer from the consequences of that every day.
It was a time of real emptiness and also there was a compulsion - you just didn’t want to be there. You just didn’t think there was any alternative.
It’s very strange because when I look back sometimes now, I think well ‘how did I get into that state of mind and how did I actually managed to do it’?
I think that information is accessible now, very accessible. When I had my original breakdown, it was very difficult to go and see anybody.
I eventually got to see community psychiatric nurses but that was after I’d tried to take my own life.
The REST hub at Churchman House in Norwich is accessible, anyone can drop in for a chat between 9.30am and 6pm during the day every day, so it means that people can just drop in.
Obviously, there are still stigmas around mental health, especially suicide and suicidal tendencies and I think people will just drop in and realise that there’s people to talk to who they find relatable. They understand their issues.
Especially with men still, when it was in the paper, just a brief resume of how I’d tried to take my own life 30 odd years ago, next to it it said the Samaritans have noticed an increase in suicides, especially in young men.
I was 30 then, so I think the fact that men are able to talk about it now and we do get a lot of men drop in to have a chat, I think that’s very important but also the accessibility we link with Norfolk and Waveney Mind into surgeries, and the surgery is the first place to go.
Doctors do have very limited time to talk to people, but now if they can know that there’s a place to refer onto, it should be much easier.
If you need urgent help, visit mind.co.uk for emergency advice.