Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
‘They didn’t understand’
Grieving family puts focus on fundraising
THE family of a woman who took her own life have raised more than £1,600 for mental health charities.
Hayley Darby, 23, died on December 5 after dealing with mental health issues for more than 15 years following a fire in which she lost her baby brother and sister.
Brooke, two, and Jack Darby, five months, died in the blaze in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, in March 2003.
Hayley’s last post on social media featured a video with the caption: “Sometimes there is no next time.”
Her sister, Jess Darby, 25, said Hayley had never fully recovered.
The family moved to Dundee in 2005 and to Forfar in 2011, where Hayley had lived up until her death.
Jess, who has since moved back to Wakefield, said: “She was only 23. She had struggled since the fire. She had been through counselling and grief counselling and things, but everything just seemed to get a bit too much for her.
“There were never any signs that anything was wrong. It might have been she was speaking to people about how she felt but no one took any action.
“We want to raise awareness of the signs to spot – because at the time we thought she had come through everything and was doing OK.”
After rushing back to Forfar Jess found out her sister had previously made an attempt on her life some months before – something that the family hadn’t been aware of.
She said: “I think people were used to her saying things and didn’t think she would do anything (to act on them). That means people didn’t understand.
“It’s become quite popular, if that’s the right word, to jump on the bandwagon of talking about it.
“Hayley was still going to work, she wore a smile. We didn’t know she had been struggling.
“You think people just sit at home when they have depression but it’s so unique to each person. We just never thought for a second we would be directly affected.”
Hayley’s family set up a fundraiser for Scottish mental health charity Penumbra. For £20, Penumbra can send a volunteer on a home visit to someone having a crisis.
“We want to prevent any other family from going through this,” said Jess. “It doesn’t feel right to be enjoying this time of year so we are focusing on this – we’ll never know what the outcome would have been if someone had spotted the signs.”
See justgiving.com/fundraising/ hayleydarby.