top of page
Search

My Suicide Notes

Updated: Jan 28

Trigger warning of sensitive topics. This is not an easy read. It was not easy to write.

 

Who am I writing these notes to? I am a suicide survivor. I am also a doctor, an academic, and a Deep Coach. I want to speak on behalf of those who did not survive their suicide attempt to those people who are considering suicide and also to the families who have lost loved ones through suicide. I also wanted to speak to the doctors who are struggling with suicidal thoughts. And we are legion...


Suicide is the fourth leading cause of death among 15-29-year-olds. The risk of suicide is highest among people aged between 45 and 54 in the UK. Males are almost three times more likely to die than women. There were over 5,200 suicides in England last year, more than 300 more than the year before. Suicide is the biggest cause of death in men under the age of 50 and around three quarters of deaths from suicides each year are men. On top of this, according to data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the highest rates of suicide in men have been in mixed and white ethnic groups. The Samaritans answer a call for help every 10 seconds, and tragically, around every 90 minutes someone dies from suicide in the UK alone.


For every suicide there are many more people who attempt suicide. And many more who are debilitated by their lack of mental health support. A prior suicide attempt is an important risk factor for suicide in the general population. Every suicide is a tragedy that affects families, communities and entire countries and has life-long repercussions on the people left behind, sometimes affecting several generations. 


While the link between suicide and mental illness (in particular depression, but also severe anxiety) and a previous suicide attempt is well established in high-income countries, many suicides happen impulsively in moments of crisis with a breakdown in the ability to deal with life stresses, such as financial problems, relationship break-up or chronic pain and illness.


Stigma, particularly surrounding mental illness and suicide, means many people thinking of taking their own life or who have attempted suicide are not seeking help and are therefore not getting the help they need. The prevention of suicide has not been adequately addressed due to a lack of awareness of suicide as a major public health problem and the taboo in many societies to openly discuss it. To date, only a few countries have included suicide prevention among their health priorities and only 38 countries report having a national suicide prevention strategy at all.



Why am I writing these notes? I pray that I can bring some comfort to those who have lost loved ones by speaking to their unfathomable grief. I can only speak from my own experience. I want to try to explain the state of mind that leads us to suicide. I want to do this in service, with love, to those who are hurting. I hear you...


My suicide notes

 

My suicide attempts

For my whole Truth click here. I have had three suicide attempts over my lifetime – once as a child, and twice approximately four years ago. On all occasions I intended for my attempts to be fatal.


My first attempt was shortly after my mother, who was mentally ill, had made my brother and me watch as she tried twice to end her life through violent means in front of us: Once with a kitchen knife in our kitchen, and once by trying to jump out of a moving car on the motorway in the fast lane. On both occasions my brother and I were sobbing and pleading for her not to. We tried to take the knife off her and tried to hold her in the car from the rear seats. I was seven years old, and my brother was only eight years old.


Our father had been made to leave the family home when I was two years old. There was no-one to protect us. Shortly after my mother's suicide attempts, I threw my self into an outdoor swimming pool at the deep end, knowing that I couldn't swim and I thought that no-one was looking so that I wouldn't be saved. My mother had taught me that the way out of pain was to kill your Self. I was swept out of the pool by a stranger who happened to be passing by. I remember him lifting me to Heaven with his big hands. Were these the hands of God? I remember thinking - only strangers will save me. It was also the first time that I sensed a power greater than my self at work. I went to six different schools, following my mother's frequent moves so that she could conduct her various affairs to satisfy her craving for imitation love and external validation. I was bullied at school repeatedly for always getting the top grades. This bullying continued into my professional life where other doctors tried to trip up my career and block me, as I excelled at everything I did and my reconstructive patients loved my work. Professional rivalry was particularly acute in reconstructive plastic surgery, which I tried my best to ignore, but jealousy is a terrible thing. It is tragic that surgeons are not always known for their benevolence and compassion, or at least their self-assurance.


Me at age seven

 

My two suicide attempts four years ago were the result of a nervous breakdown, with overwhelming anxiety, depression, and panic attacks, due to a lifetime of unprocessed buried emotion from growing up in a severely dysfunctional family and being the victim of childhood trauma, with high performing complex post traumatic stress disorder as a result. No-one knew that I was carrying all of this, least of all me.

 

When my emotions were so overwhelming that I felt stuck to the ceiling like glue with the pressure of the degree of anxiety and depression that I was feeling, I became totally disassociated: It was like I had left my body and I was totally numb all over. Like I was watching from above, looking down at my lifeless body. Matt Haig wrote "It is very hard to explain to people who have never known serious depression or anxiety the sheer continuous intensity of it. There is no off switch."Mental disassociation allows one to plan suicide without any regard for ourselves or others.


I planned my suicide at my mother’s house in her spare room, out of suppressed anger for my childhood trauma. My childhood trauma was not her fault. She was spiritually and mentally ill as a result of her own upbringing, and so on with her parents, ad infinitum. We live in a sick society and being spiritually sick is the only way to cope and survive.


I calmly planned my suicide from this vantage point on the ceiling. I was not me or in me any more. I had already left my body. At this point I was so utterly overwhelmed with emotion and so disassociated that I sat down and calmly wrote goodbye letters. They were one whole page of A4 each, written by hand at my kitchen table, to all my loved ones. They said that I was sorry to leave them behind and I apologised for my suicide, adding that it was nothing to do with them.


My first attempt was with sleeping tablets, taking double the lethal dose. I woke up the next day and had to crawl like a caterpillar to the bathroom as I could not stand up or use my legs or arms. I remember my mother standing in the doorway to her spare room screaming at me “Get up you lazy boy. Why don’t you get up?!” I was 47 years old. I could barely move. I did not tell her what I had done or call the emegency services. I still wanted to die.


The next attempt was a couple of days later. I took my mother’s sharpest kitchen knife to bed with me. I drew the anatomical location of the radial artery on my forearm to make sure that I would not miss it (I am a surgeon you see so I knew where it was – ironically I had repaired hundreds of divided radial arteries when I was working in hand trauma surgery). Just as I held the knife hovering over my wrist my wife telephoned me by chance (or was it?) and I abandoned the act, in order to phone the emergency services.


I cannot imagine doing this to my loved ones now. I was out of my mind, quite literally, as well as out of my body. My heart was in such a thick concrete bunker that it could not yell “Stop!” or be heard at all.


My mother died the day before my birthday a few weeks ago. She was buried in France, her country of origin. My father had died 5 years previously. My brother put some items in my mother's coffin to symbolise her life – one of which was a kitchen knife as she loved to cook and even taught others to. Little known to him was that it was the very knife with which I had attempted suicide four years ago. The woman who smothered me with neglect as a child, taking the blade with her for eternity to protect me from further harm, sealed inside her coffin.


So, you see, it was nothing to do with you. And I am truly sorry. That degree of hurt. To be so lost, so afraid, so deeply in emotional pain, such a profound degree of inner turmoil, but still with my last thought apologising for the actions I was about to take. It was not a selfish act. It was not done out of spite. The intensity of the emotion had caused my brain to disassociate. Suicide was the only option that I thought I had to cope with the total overwhelm and collapse of my entire dysregulated nervous system. I did not cry for help as my soul’s voice was still fast asleep. My ego (my petrified inner child) had finally managed to destroy me. He had driven my train off the track. My soul wanted to be reborn for another purpose: My true purpose is to serve you. God showed his hand, saving me from drowning, what was a lethal overdose and again just before I stabbed my wrist, so that I could fulfil this purpose.


I have shredded the suicide notes. I will not be using them again.


"It needn't be this way - there is another way out" Olly

 

Worldwide, there are one million suicides per year: That is one every 40 seconds.


1 in 5 people in England (approximately 11 million adults) have suicidal thoughts. Suicide kills 18 people every day in the UK. There is an alarming increase in suicidal intentions amongst women.


Surgeons have a six times higher suicide rate than the general population despite our resilience. 36 percent of UK surgeons have trauma symptoms, and 12 percent of UK surgeons have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. We are putting you under the knife and yet no one is looking after us. 75 percent of superachievers suffer in silence from childhood trauma, until it's too late. We simply get struck off, after having been treated like dogs, when we become ill. Many doctors don’t want to be doctors any more. Despite my efforts to demonstrate insight and remediation the regulatory body demonstrated its outdated archaic ignorance of mental health. I had had three months of intensive psychotherapy with over 200 hours of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT), a full course of Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) treatment for childhood trauma (8 sessions), 100 hours of coaching, a mentor, 6 months training in personal transformation, weekly psychodynamic therapy (a modern form of psychoanalysis) for 18 months, read over 250 books on psychology, mental health, wellbeing, and personal transformation, joined, formed, and run recovery groups with hundreds of members, started regular meditation and yoga, took up long distance running again, got my life into balance, have set up a men's vulnerability group, and have had an awakening of my true Self: I don’t believe that anyone has ever done more to recover.


I have a glowing 40 page CV. I worked in the NHS for 20 years, having performed 14,000 operations for trauma, cancer, and reconstruction without any complaints and having glowing annual appraisals throughout my career. But somehow the regulatory body thought it was best to exclude me when I became mentally ill, despite there being a national waiting list of over seven million patients. It’s really no wonder at all that the NHS is in crisis and meltdown. It is fuc*ed, and deservedly so.


There is no compassion for mentally ill doctors. Especially from the medical profession, it's supposed 'recovery groups', which are not actually 12-step recovery groups, and the institutions that 'govern' doctors. My experience of them all has been absolutely horrific. Doctors are patients too: We are all human beings the last time I checked. We are sick patients trying to get well, not bad doctors trying to become good. It is well recognised that compassion is essential to healing, recovery and wellbeing.


The medical institutions are broken, they have been told so by their own leaders, and they know it, but they don't know how to become compassionate leaders, or don't want to do anything about it through fear of their own demise: Doctors are voting with their feet, and leaving the profession as quickly as they can. Dame Clare Marx said that she "Emphasises the need for organisations to have leaders that act compassionately and promote wellbeing." Yet they press on, destroying lives. They speak of diversity and inclusion, yet completely forget to include those with mental illness and neurodiversity. This is very convenient for them as it would involve caring for the vast majority of us. Their words are hollow and just a nod to wellbeing, without any substance. Since 2005, 33 doctors have committed suicide whilst under professional investigation: 33 families that have been detonated for generations. Medicine has become institutionalised and those institutions are making doctors sick. All attacks are based on fear: Fear of not surviving. Why do these institutions want to survive, when they are not fit for purpose? These attacks are made unwittingly and yet they are insidious.



My experience 

My two suicide attempts almost four years ago were thankfully unsuccessful. Why was I brought to my knees by mental illness, and so close to death? As Albert Einstein wrote "God doesn't play dice." I believe that I was brought to my knees so that I would pray. I was brought close to death so that I could go through a psychological and 'spiritual rebirth'. Confronting the fear of death, our deepest fear, is an integral part of any spiritual journey. It is as important now for spiritual seekers meditating in their living rooms, as it was thousands of years ago when initiates prayed in the temples of their favourite deities. The most powerful coaching, even for top executives, is 'Deep Coaching' or Transformative Life Coaching (TLC): Without such a shift in perception from the ego to our true Self or soul we end up living small and safe, making decisions with our ego minds rather than our souls. This limits our possibility for life, being held back by primal fear and false beliefs.


To live the spiritual life (I don't mean religion, which is very different to spirituality), we must learn how to 'die and be reborn'. The 'Dark Night of the Soul' is when we take the deep plunge and come to terms with the buried aspects of us that crave death, both from our current life, our childhood trauma, and the past. It is only in coming to terms with these dark parts of ourselves that we can be free of the shadow of death, and truly live the lives our soul's desire. In John 3 "Jesus answered, "I tell you the Truth, no one can enter the Kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to Spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, `You must be born again.'" Buddha said “Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, men cannot live without a spiritual life.” It is this new life that puts the fire inside you to fuel your dreams.


I had a greater purpose than being a plastic surgeon: My 'psychological death', and my freedom from the chains of expectation of such a dysfunctional, Dystopian society, have allowed me to embrace the purpose that I was born for: To be a peaceful defender of men, who turns pain into peace and shame into Self-love by hearing your Truth and your intuition that comes from the highest version of you, when you are able to be vulnerable, open and express your emotions through your heart. A calling rather than being driven. When you are driven, you are not in control. We need an Enlightened Witness to guide us.


Joseph Campbell, who described the 'Hero's Journey', wrote “We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.” It is not until you shut and lock the door behind you that the open door ahead of you becomes apparent.


My given names Olly Alexander literally mean: 'Peaceful defender of men'. This is why I have become a Transformative Life Coach (TLC) for men who are in pain, fear, and shame. I have been where you are, I have felt your despair, I have suffered your pain, and I know the way forwards. The way out is through. The way in is the key to everything you ever dreamed of. Martin Luther King, Jr, wrote “Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.” Let me be your guide. Find the power of your VOICE. I am here to serve you.


I find Psalm 23 so beautiful and powerful and I read it whenever I am in fear or in darkness:


Psalm 23:1–6

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.


Your guide

In addition to the above, I would say that when one has a nervous breakdown, there is no ‘guide’ as to what to do next, when one has no hope at all. I was very fortunate that my family contacted my General Practitioner, a psychologist, and a psychiatrist. This led me to having a host of treatments and therapies, as well as coaching, mentoring, and discovering the transformative path to mental health recovery. Psychiatry numbed my pain enough to get through each day. Psychology unravelled me and made my subconscious childhood trauma conscious. Coaching saved my life, or rather I saved my life through Transformative Life Coaching (TLC). To me, it was essential. All these modalities were essential to my healing and recovery. Having a guide was indispensable.


There is something immortal and infinite inside us which cannot die. Nothing compares to the recognition of the Truth of who we are. Who is it that is afraid? You will see that it is the mind not the heart. Healing and recovery is a narrow path with an infinite horizon.


I wanted to write this article and an article series that I wish I had read at that time, when I was suicidal. Please feel free to share this article with anyone who needs it. Jesus said "All things are possible to him that believes” (Mark 9:23).


It’s very brave to say “I won’t live under the tyranny of the mind and its delusion” as almost all BEings in the world do. It’s like saying to your mind “Try your best punch”. The constant negative thinking comes from childhood trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder and is not real.


We are cooperating with the fearful mind and handing it our power. It is the supreme tyrant. It divides and rules. It does not like oneness. It thrives in separation.


Just rest as awareness, not in awareness: As you are the awareness. Realise that all you need is already yours. You just need to be patient. All is well, and all shall be well. This too shall pass. You just need to surrender.


Mooji said “Dying to your own attachments is a beautiful death. Because this death releases you into real life. You have to die as a seed to live as a tree.”


If you are stressed, you are probably making things more important than they really are. You can transmute fear into healthy, assertive anger and excitement.

You are the light of the world. In John 8:12 "Once again, Jesus spoke to the people and said, 'I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life.'" You will radiate effulgence.


You will find inner peace and joy. The only Zen you will find on the top of mountains is the Zen you bring there. Peace is not a mystical experience that is exclusive to a select few, or for those who spend years of meditation to seek it, it is available to all. Peace is yours to find in your Self when you choose to show authentic kindness in all you think, say, and do, especially to your Self. Good things are not brought into your life by others: They come through your own goodness within spreading outwardly.


Carl Jung wrote “As a child I felt myself to be alone, and I am still, because I know things and must hint at things which others apparently know nothing of, and for the most part do not want to know.” You may resonate with this. Trust me, you are not alone.


Zara Bas wrote "If you have to sacrifice your voice 'to keep the peace' it's no longer peaceful. You're internalising the chaos instead. Learn to love the power of your authentic, vulnerable VOICE.


I see you and hear you. You are tired, but you are not giving up. Keep going. You didn't come this far just to come this far...

 

There is another way out. Suicide is never the answer. Have hope. For this, I needed an Enlightened Witness to guide me. Someone who had walked my path and recovered. I pray that yours will appear in perfect timing. I am here to ignite your superpowers, should you so wish.

 

 


Speak in such a way that others love to listen to you: Listen in such a way that others love to speak to you.


George Bernard Shaw wrote that “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” Are you ready to change your mind?


Namaste.


Sending you love, light, and blessings brothers.


Olly



Email me: 





Hello,

I am delighted and enchanted to meet you. I coach men with 'Deep Coaching', 'Supercoaching', and Transformative Life Coaching (TLC). Thank you for reading this far. I very much look forward to connecting with the highest version of you, to seeing your highest possibility, and to our conversations. Please do contact me via my email for a free connection call and a free experience of coaching on Zoom or in person. 


“Transformative life coaching uniquely creates and holds the space for you to see your self afresh, with clarity, and step into new ways of BEing, which will transform how you perceive and intuitively create your world. My work is to guide you to raise your own conscious awareness to the level that you want to achieve.”







Click here for the books that I know will help you along your journey of recovering your Self:









I have a Bachelor's degree in Natural Sciences from Trinity College, Cambridge; a Master's Degree in Philosophy from Trinity College, Cambridge; a PhD Doctorate in Scientific Research from University College London (UCL); a Medical Degree (MD/MBBS) from The Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, London and have been a doctor and reconstructive trauma and cancer surgeon in London for 20 years. I have a number of other higher qualifications in science and surgery. I have published over 50 peer reviewed PubMed cited scientific journal articles, have been an associate editor and frequent scientific faculty member, and am the author of several scientific books. I have been awarded my Diploma in Transformative Life Coaching in London, which has International Coaching Federation (ICF) Accreditation, as well as the UK Association for Coaching (AC), and the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC). I have been on my own transformative journey full time for over five years and I am ready to be your guide to you finding out who you really are and how the world works.




Please let me know if you would like to join our 'VOICE for men' VIP community: 'Vulnerability & Openness Is a Choice Ensemble', 'Visibility Is Power', where men can find their strength, courage, and authenticity, by dropping their egocentric fears and instead communicate openly with vulnerability. We are co-creating this space. It will change your life. It will empower you. This community is a safe space for men to connect and discuss philosophy, spirituality, positive psychology, awakening to Self-realisation, wisdom and timeless Truths, to share our experience, strength and hope, and to find solutions to our pain and fears. Our meeting is free to join. There is no script, just sharing.

 
 
 

Comments

bottom of page