Survivor breaks the silence
Outreach key to stopping suicides: widow

Cindy MacDougall
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Feb 28/00) - "It was such a violent, violent thing."

B.J. Tees shakes her head as she speaks of her common-law husband, Ed. Five months ago, he killed himself, leaving Tees with questions and a grief she felt she couldn't share.

"The worst thing is the silence," she says. "It's a feeling of aloneness. You feel like you're the only one in the world this has happened to."

Tees says she decided to break her silence after reading an article in last week's News/North on a rash of suicides and attempts in Holman. Around the Northwest Territories, the suicide rate doubled in 1999.

"I don't want this to be all for nothing," she says. "If anything I say can change someone's mind and they make a different choice, I've succeeded."

Ed committed suicide in October, a few months after the couple separated. Tees says she had left him because Ed, who had been sober for three years, starting drinking and became abusive.

"He started acting totally bizarre. He had never acted like that before," she said.

He had a history of suicide attempts, but was seeing a counsellor, Tees said.

"He did so many things right," she says. "He got help."

But when he showed up at her office one day in October, she says she knew he was thinking about suicide.

"He was giving away all his things," Tees said. "He asked me to take care of my daughter and said good-bye.

"I said, 'Ed, don't lose your head.'"

He shot himself the next day. He was one of 16 people in the North who killed themselves last year.

Tees says she didn't know what to do for him.

"I could call the cops and tell them he's going to do it and they'd take him to the psych ward," she says. "But this was his third or fourth attempt.

"He was on antidepressants. I don't know if his counsellor knew that, or his doctor knew he was seeing a counsellor, or if either of them knew he was an alcoholic. It just all came together."

Gail Gaudon, senior support counsellor at NWT's Help Line, says many of the 100 calls they get each week are about suicide.

She says there is help for family and friends of someone thinking about taking their own life.

"If they feel that someone around them is giving signs -- giving things away or dropping hints -- they should definitely get support," Gaudon says.

"Often, they don't say anything. They can speak to someone they trust, or a health professional trained to know the signs and signals."

The Department of Health has trained community members across the NWT in suicide intervention, according to mental health co-ordinator Sandy Little.

She says Holman's wellness plan, which focuses on preventing suicide, is a model for other communities.

"We like to think this is already a priority in the department," she says. "We do need more support.

"We hope it (the suicide rate) will impact on those outside the department, such as the cabinet."

Tees says the most important thing for those touched by suicide is to reach out to the community.

"I don't think it should be put all on government," she says. "If you rely on government, you get conditions. You're there to heal. Can a government heal you?"