I want to help others after tragic loss of my brother
THE sister of a hero hospital worker who tragically took his own life says she will be grieving for the rest of her life as she begins raising cash to help those in mental health crisis.
Charlene Marsden, 33, has also opened up on her own battle with insomnia, a condition that saw her brother enter a ‘mental health spiral’ prior to his death.
David Marsden, a much-loved and popular lab worker at Stepping Hill Hospital, was found dead at the family home in Stockport on November 21, 2019, aged 22
An inquest into his death last year heard David, from Adswood, first began struggling with insomnia during a family holiday in the summer of 2019 which he was forced to cut short.
He then fell into a ‘vicious cycle,’ becoming so anxious about his normal life ‘slipping away from him’ that he became increasingly mentally unwell during episodes of depression, anxiety and insomnia. He spent some time on a psychiatric ward at the hospital where he worked and had been allowed home on leave at the time of his death.
The hearing at South Manchester Coroners Court in Stockport heard he died as a result of toxicity produced by ingesting a chemical.
Charlene said: “He was loved by so many people. And it’s sad because my brother was the person who all his friends, family, and colleagues, including myself, would go to for advice and help when we were feeling low. He knew exactly what to say. His smile would light up the darkest of rooms, but unfortunately, when he found himself in a dark place there was just no way of getting him out of it.”
Charlene said her grief triggered posttraumatic stress disorder as well as her own terrifying bout of insomnia.
She said: “I had hypnotherapy, counselling, the lot. But I’m just pushing through as for me it’s like I owe it to my brother. Just to show him that I can do it. Obviously it destroyed my brother and I’m not going to let it destroy me. I’m proving it to him, that it doesn’t matter how bad things get, you can push through it.”
Last year Charlene, and her and David’s mum Fiona Marsden, set up a support group for those bereaved by suicide and began holding monthly meetings at the Xenos Haven Wellbeing salon in Heaviley.
Members have now decided to climb Mount Snowdon in order to raise vital funds for four specially-chosen charities which are close to their hearts. They are aiming to help Stockport-based mental health charity Open door, Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide, men’s mental health charity Andy’s Man Club and Once Upon a Smile, which supports all those who have lost loved ones.