Our family is devastated. We’re still adjusting to life without him
Shannon Brown lost her 16-year-old brother, Callum Dunne, when he took his own life last May.
Here, Shannon, 24, of Wishaw, who also has an 11-year-old sister, reveals the devastating impact of her brother’s death, one of a spate of teenage suicides which cast a shadow over Lanarkshire last spring.
Suicide is all I’ve seemed to see and hear about this past year.
It’s a nightmare and it’s never-ending.
The effect it has on the whole of the family and on Callum’s friends is severe. The increase over the past year has been horrendous.
The figures are shocking but are not really a surprise to me.
Young men in particular seem to be affected.
You do hear about people not feeling able to talk about things.
When I spoke to my brother he would say: “I’m fine, sis, I’m fine”.
He didn’t seem to be worried up until it happened.
I wonder if people in Scotland just want to seem fine as they
don’t want people to think they’re not.
It sounds simplistic but people need to be nice to each other.
People say the most horrible things to each other but they don’t realise the effect their words can have.
It’s particularly bad on social media, of course. It makes things worse nowadays.
It broadcasts lots of different bad things and it’s all there for everyone to see.
It’s 24/7 – it’s constant and it’s never off.
What we need is for people to listen a bit more and try to help each another. It’s quite simple, really.
I have a two-year-old child, so everything is hectic and it stops you feeling down.
It was only four weeks after my maternity leave finished that Callum died.
Keeping myself busy was my coping mechanism.
My family and I remain devastated at Callum’s death. I am still adjusting to life without him.
You still look up and expect to see him bouncing in the door.
If I see a group of young guys I find myself looking at them to see if Callum is among them and then reality comes back.
We need to view this issue seriously and encourage more people to talk about problems they may be facing.