RUOK

In recent years we've been seeing this cropping up - RUOK Day. When we are all supposed to check on each other's wellbeing. Is it purely a mindless trend, like the Karen Cut and the Full Sleeve? I thought so.

A while ago, though, when I was writing Barefoot Tango, I realised I was deficient in the area of suicide attempts and getting one's stomach pumped, etc. It was necessary to the story, and I never, never skip my research. As a very wise person, I wish I could remember who, once said, 'Time spent in reconnaissance is never wasted.'

It's a delicate subject, and so I reached out on Facebook, trusting that among my many friends and followers there would be someone who could help me. I posted asking that if a person had been involuntarily admitted to a psychiatric facility, or had had his stomach pumped, and if he felt comfortable doing so, he contact me privately, in strict confidence, to share his experience. I wasn't very sanguine about this; I wasn't aware that anyone I knew met these criteria, and didn't really hope for a response.

When I checked in the next day, though, I was overwhelmed. The response was staggering! The sheer number of my friends who had lived through a suicide attempt astounded me. Others had had psychiatric illnesses and been hospitalised. The other thing that overwhelmed me was the utter generosity of these people in sharing their experience. A great deal of the conversations took place in the comments on my post, a lot of people didn't even take advantage of my offer of privacy. I was humbled at the sheer generosity of my friends in willingly reliving those dreadful times to help my work. It was almost as if people had been relieved at the opportunity finally to talk about it to someone. 

The thing that stays with me, though, apart from gratitude of course, is my horror at the sheer number of my friends, people I thought I knew well, who had been through this stuff in their pasts. There is still such a stigma around mental illness, such an incentive to hide it. Or injury; many psychiatric problems, I think could be classified as injury, when they stem from a traumatic event. PTSD springs to mind, and many instances of depression or anxiety disorders. They are common. They are everywhere, and largely invisible. Someone you know is probably struggling right now. And psychiatric illness is just as debilitating, just as detrimental to quality of life, and just as potentially fatal, as a bodily illness.

So let's all remember this. Don't wait for some social-media-inspired Day. RUOK is a principle to live by, every day. It's a habit we all should have, to look for signs that a friend may be in trouble, and to make the opportunity for a conversation. You just could save a life.