Fighting the stigma of mental ill-health
ON September 18, 2015, after a stay at Ysbyty Gwynedd’s Hergest mental healthcare unit, Elfed Hughes died aged 56. The farmer, husband and father from Llanfechell on Anglesey hanged himself at home on the farm.
Now his eldest son Stephen Hughes, a broadcast journalist and radio and TV producer, returns to the family home in a powerful and personal film. Stephen talks about his father’s suicide with people who knew and lovedhim, in an attempt to understand why we find it so difficult to talk about mental health issues and suicide.
Although it was difficult for Stephen to discuss the matter face to face with his family and his father’s friends, he knew this was something he had to do.
“I felt nervous at first,” said Stephen, 33, who now lives in Cardiff and works for the BBC Wales news team. “I felt I was asking people to do what they didn’t want to do – to talk about the fact they don’t like talking about something... about ‘that’.
“But if this prevents just one family from facing what we’ve been through, I think it’s worth doing.”
Stephen admits the attention paid to mental health is better than it was, but there’s some way to go to completely banish the stigma.
“Depression is an illness, like heart disease, so why are people who suffer with it considered weak? Things don’t change overnight, but this is my small way of playing my small part.”