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It would be remiss if me to let today go and not talk a little about #WorldSuicidePreventionDay 
on this platform. We lost Caoilte four years ago. Sometimes it feels like yesterday, other times it feels like forever ago. #AnyonesBrother
on this platform. We lost Caoilte four years ago. Sometimes it feels like yesterday, other times it feels like forever ago. #AnyonesBrother
In Ireland, it’s likely you know someone who has died by suicide, or has been affected by suicide in one way or another. One thing that people recount is the shock after the loss and whether or not they could have done something, if only they knew... #WorldSuicidePreventionDay
Well we did know. We knew the torment Caoilte was in. We couldn’t begin to imagine the pain he was in, but we could see it. His death came as no surprise to us. If anything, we had spent the best part of oh - I don’t know - a year trying to prevent it. #WorldSuicidePreventionDay
Caoilte was self-medicating with alcohol. In Ireland, if you have a “dual diagnosis”, it makes it much harder to get help. There are lots of intricacies, but to square it into a tweet, essentially you can either be treated for one issue (alcoholism) or the other (mental illness),
but not both together. He was in and out of hospitals, Garda cells, discharged from wards without notice to the family, self-harming, harming others, utterly upset, angry, violent and lost. #WorldSuicidePreventionDay
In the end, we lost him after he had been discharged and nobody told us. It was New Year’s Even when we had to report him missing, but we knew he was gone. We searched for him in the gales of a winter storm, and found him in January 2nd. #WorldSuicidePreventionDay
For me, I’ve often thought of the tiny things his life never afforded him, the things we all take for granted; singing in the shower, stealing a kiss from a loved one, sending a text to the wrong person, the casual instances we take for granted. #WorldSuicidePreventionDay
At the time, we held a vigil for Caoilte outside Government buildings, I drew masks for everyone to represent how we all put on brave faces at times, and we called for legislative change. We called it the #AnyonesBrother campaign. Caoilte could have been anyone’s brother.
It got a lot of attention, and sparked some real solid governmental discussion, and added to the voices calling for change and the implementation of Government’s Vision for Change document. #WorldSuicidePreventionDay
But over time, we tucked ourselves away to mourn and to try make sense of it all. Life rolled on, and Caoilte became a memory. And that’s ok. We went easy on ourselves. We kept up to date on procedural changes through the likes of @dualireland. #WorldSuicidePreventionDay
So today, go easy on yourself. One voice may not change everything, but could add to the rattle of a cage that can shake a system. Be kind to one another, especially these days. #WorldSuicidePreventionDay #AnyonesBrother
#AnyonesBrother
