Social Affairs

Helpline email ‘pulled me out of trance’, says Dublin woman in ‘deep despair’ after injury

Social care worker who turned to Samaritans in time of need speaks of value of service, which has received more than 5 million calls in a decade

Nicola Clare, who was a Samaritans caller, and Barry, a Samaritans volunteer, praise the freephone service that has taken more than five million calls in the 10 years it has been in operation. Photograph: Gráinne Ní Aodha/PA Wire

Sarah Burns
Thu May 16 2024 - 20:06

Nicola Clare (46) was training for the Dublin marathon in 2009 when she sustained a serious back injury and her mental health began to suffer.

The woman, from north Co Dublin, was working in social care in Oberstown at the time and said “almost immediately my whole world just stopped”.

“Work, sport, travel, socialisation; everything was just gone. I was heavily medicated, even sitting and standing were total agony and my mood began to drop,” she said.

“That quickly escalated into a deep despair and I found myself caught in this spiral of self-harm and suicidal thoughts. It was just terrifying. Everything felt so out of control, I lost all sense of myself and then the shame that went with that was horrendous.”

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Ms Clare was speaking at an event in Dublin on Thursday which heard that more than five million calls had been made to Samaritans in the decade since its freephone was launched.

Ms Clare said she got in touch initially with Samaritans via email and the response she received was “warm and accepting”.

She said she was out walking one day and “the thoughts of ending my life were particularly strong, to a point that when I left my house I didn’t know that I was ever coming back”.

“I was just sort of gone in this trance of despair,” she said.

Ms Clare said her phone went off with a notification while out on the walk and it was an email from Samaritans that “pulled me out of that trance for a second and really pulled me back from the edge in that moment”.

She said although she hasn’t needed to get in touch with Samaritans for a number of years now, “I know they’re always there if I do need to”.

Samaritans executive director Sarah O’Toole said although there was a “spike” in calls to Samaritans during the Covid-19 pandemic, “calls have dropped slightly since, but not that much”.

“I think now, because people are working at home a lot, they may be not engaging as much or even travelling to an office where they might engage with people along the way, it can get a bit claustrophobic for people working from home,” she said.

Ms O’Toole said the Irish Prison Service launched a scheme in prisons in recent years whereby prisoners can call Samaritans from their cell at any time of the day.

“Before that, prisoners would have to go to the landing to call us, so it provided that privacy and confidentiality for them to get in touch ... Those first 24 hours, three or four days [in prison] can be really damaging to someone’s emotional distress levels, the realisation of what’s happened comes through to them,” she added.

There is also a listener scheme within prisons, whereby prisoners are trained to become listeners and provide peer-to-peer support to their fellow inmates.

The scheme has been running for 20 years. Last year there were more than 2,600 points of engagement among prisoners.

More than 400,000 calls were made to Samaritans last year, with 20,000 of those from prisoners.

Samaritans have about 2,000 volunteers working in 24 locations across the country.

* To contact Samaritans email jo@samaritans.ie or call 116 123

Sarah Burns

Sarah Burns

Sarah Burns is a reporter for The Irish Times

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