SAVED BY MY BROTHER PAUL
Gazza’s sister tells how he and their mum talked her out of suicide
AFTER losing her son, her father and her marriage in the space of just two years, Anna Gascoigne considered ending it all.
Tormented by suicidal thoughts, the heartbroken mum planned her own funeral to join her son Jay who died from an overdose of prescription medication in April 2016.
It took an intervention from her famous brother Paul Gascoigne and mum Carol to make her see the devastating consequences her actions would have on their family.
And Anna credits the football legend with saving her life, and has bravely shared her story and urged others battling mental health issues to open up and seek help.
Anna, a charity worker from Dunston, Gateshead, said: “When Jay died it was like my life had become a nuclear winter. Life had no meaning for me any more.
“Then, if losing my son wasn’t enough, my marriage collapsed and that was quickly followed by the passing of dad who has been our family’s rock. I was reeling, numb, in shock and I hit rock bottom.
“I just couldn’t find a way out of the sea of grief I found myself in. I wasn’t thinking straight and I convinced myself Jay was all alone somewhere, that he needed me and that I should end my life so I could be with him. I had set my mind that I was going to end it all.”
Still grieving from the loss of her son, Anna’s 10-year marriage collapsed just weeks shy of the first anniversary of his death.
Husband Michael admitted he had met someone else in a text to her the day before Mother’s Day.
The couple agreed to work on their marriage but the damage was already done, and Michael moved out of their home in April 2017.
Anna said: “A grenade shattered our lives and we didn’t recover. I’d thought there was no further down I could go, but I discovered I could go lower. It was a terrible time.”
Anna was then struck with another tragic blow when her dad John lost his fight with lung cancer in February.
He was diagnosed months after Jay’s death, and had looked to be on the road to recovery after undergoing gruelling chemotherapy.
But John’s health deteriorated over winter as he suffered from pneumonia, and he passed away at the age of 72.
Anna said: “The day I found out he was diagnosed with cancer was horrendous. I just kept screaming ‘I can’t go through this again.’
“Losing him, on top of everything else, was just the cruellest blow.”
Crazed with grief, the heartbroken mum wrote her will, planned her funeral and sorted her financial affairs to ensure daughter 23-year-old Harley “didn’t have anything to worry about.”
Looking back, Anna says these thoughts were driven by a desire to ensure Jay was not alone.
She said: “I convinced myself he must be scared and I just wanted to go and comfort and look after him. I told myself Harley would be fine as the rest of my family are here to look after her.”
It took the intervention of her brother Paul and mum Carol just months ago to dispel Anna’s suicidal thoughts.
Sat by the memorial garden to Jay at her Gateshead home, the family counselled her and made the mum realise the devastating impact suicide would have on daughter Harley.
Anna said: “Paul said to me: ‘Anna, you know I’ve had my problems, just as Jay did and I’m worried for you. Checking out isn’t the answer and we are all here for you. We all love you and we need you here with us. What you are thinking about isn’t the answer.’
“My family made me see taking the exit wasn’t the answer.
“The suggestion that my other child would kill herself if I committed suicide was so shocking to me, that it snapped me out of it. Paul and my mum snapped me out of it, thank God. I’m not sure I’d be here now if my family hadn’t made me see sense.”
Two years on from Jay’s death in April 2016, Anna still doesn’t have a death certificate. The inquest into her son’s death is due to begin on September 25.
But in the past few weeks, Anna was dealt another blow when she was refused Legal Aid for representation. She has launched an appeal for help. She finished: “I hope to raise enough to fund a lawyer as I need to know the truth about what went wrong and why my son died before he got the help he was begging for. I feel that Jay was let down in life, and I want to ensure he isn’t let down in death as well.”