Has your life been shattered by an act of suicide?
A RECENTLY established support group in Nenagh for people bereaved by suicide is reaching out to the community to lend support.
The Nenagh group, which is part of the wider Midlands Living Links network, comprises six people who either directly or indirectly had their lives changed by suicide and are now holding out the hand of support to those who are experiencing a similar fate.
Nenagh Living Links currently holds support meetings on the first Tuesday of every month in the Pastoral Centre on Church Road at 7.30pm.
One of the members of the Nenagh branch is Frances Hynes, from Ballycommon, who lost her 21-year-old son, Oisin, to suicide in 2015.
It was after that life-shattering experience that Frances and her husband Eddie, parents of two other children, became aware of the great work being done by Living Links to help people bereaved by suicide.
“We started going to the support meetings once a month and they helped us hugely,” Frances recalls.
“I wouldn’t be where I am today without the support I got.
“The facilitators were all affected in some way by suicide. Living Links supports anyone affected by suicide loss.
“Talking about it is the best support you can get, sharing with someone who understands what the journey is like. Because only somebody who has been through it can really understand.”
Frances is one of six local people who is trained as a facilitator with Living Links.
The organisation, which is run on a completely voluntary basis, also has an outreach number that people can call for help. The number is 086-160 0641
Among the great supports provided by Living Links is accompanying bereaved families to inquests, where they have to sit through the harrowing evidence of how their loved ones died.
“If anybody needs, us just pick up the phone,” says Frances, who adds that the local branch is reaching out to people not just in Nenagh but throughout Tipperary.
She said: “All our services are completely confidential and there’s no judgement whatsoever. What you are feeling is what you are feeling and that’s it. Nobody judges you and if you want to talk, you can talk. And if you don’t want to talk, you don’t have to. You can just listen and take it all in.”
“Usually after a few meetings we find that people want to talk and tell their story. It’s in the talking that people start to heal.”
ECUMENICAL SERVICE
One upcoming event organised by Living Links is an ecumenical service in Saint Brendan’s Church in Birr on Saturday, September 28, at 10am to remember all those who died by suicide.
As part of the ceremony those in attendance will visit the Tree of Hope, which was planted by Living Links in the Tranquility Garden in the grounds of the church to remember all those who died by suicide.
Refreshments will be served afterwards, but note that the service is confined to those over 18.
The Living Links listening/support service is free of charge and available to any person in the community including emergency personnel, gardaí and clergy etc, who have in any way been affected by suicide.
Living Links was actually founded in Clougjordan in May 2002 when a small group of people came together in direct response to a suicide in the community.
The man behind the voluntary organisation back then and for almost two decades was Michael Egan who lives just outside Nenagh.
It was through interactions with different families that Michael recognised the need for a service to help meet the needs of the suicide bereaved.
The Midlands branch, to which the new support group in Nenagh is now affiliated, was launched in 2008 and since then has reached out to many individual, families friends and colleagues in the community.