Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains images and names of people who have died.
It has been 24 years since Glenys Benning's son, Thomas, took his own life.
"When he was a baby he had this hair that stuck up straight, like a porcupine," Glenys says.
"He was a lovely boy."
Thomas grew up tall and strong, and excelled at basketball.
Then, when he was 24, he killed himself.
Glenys has wrestled with the grief and shock for more than two decades, but her throat still aches with the pain of her loss when she tries to speak about it.
"I try to be strong. But it's like it happened yesterday," she says quietly.
"In the early hours of the morning, when they woke me up with the news, I thought I was dreaming.
"I just went into shock … I didn't want to leave my room because I didn't want it to be real."
Terrified of history repeating
Now, almost a quarter of a century later, Glenys has been struck by a sickening sense of deja vu in her hometown of Derby, in Western Australia's Kimberley region.
A few months ago, her 31-year-old grandson — Thomas's son — started threatening self-harm and expressing a desire to die.
"He'd broken up with his partner, and he turned up here in Derby," Glenys says.
"Just the look on his face … I caught the tears in his eyes, and knew he was close to breaking point.
"He said, 'Nan can you take me to hospital?', so that's what we did."
Glenys said her grandson was assessed at the local hospital's emergency department, but was deemed not to be at immediate risk and was sent home.
She is disappointed and angry about the treatment they received, saying both she and her grandson wanted hospital staff to admit him for his own safety.
"What does it take to get help, when someone's saying they want to kill themselves?" she asks.
"Does my grandson need to be rolling around on the ED floor, or screaming or get handcuffed by the police to be admitted?"
In a statement, the WA Country Health Service's Kimberley executive director, Rex O'Rourke, said he was sorry to hear of the family's concerns.
"We have reviewed their presentation and can confirm there is no evidence to suggest shortcomings in the care, or follow-up care, provided by our staff," Mr O'Rourke said.
"I also want to be clear that we would not release someone from our care who was assessed as being at immediate risk to themselves.
"It's very important to us that they feel heard, and we would welcome the opportunity to meet with them to discuss their experience."
The family ended up caring for Glenys's grandson at home, and organised for him to be admitted to a drug rehabilitation program in the Northern Territory.
'I'm so proud of you'
When the ABC visits Glenys at her home in Derby, her grandson is halfway through the three-month rehab program.
He was only eight when his father suicided, and the program provides an opportunity for him to work through past traumas and understand why he's been abusing drugs and alcohol.
Sitting in her sunny yard, Glenys makes her daily phone call to check that he's doing OK.
"I'm so proud of you for getting help," she tells him. "Every time we speak you sound better and better, and that makes me so happy. How are you doing today?"
Her grandson's voice is upbeat.
"I'm good Nan," he says. "I'm talking to the counsellors, and I feel much better."
After the call, Glenys is visibly relieved. Her grandson is safe for now.
"I've tried to educate myself about suicide, but there's still so much stigma attached to it," she says.
"I'm always thinking, how can we make this stop?"
With the rate of suicide deaths on the rise again in the wake of the COVID pandemic, Glenys is not alone in that thought.
'Perfect storm' of suicide risk factors
Every year, an average of about 3,000 Australians take their own lives, with men and Indigenous people at significantly higher risk.
Worryingly, recent data shows suicide rates are increasing, according to Suicide Prevention Australia chief executive officer Nieves Murray.
"We have seen in the last 12 months an increase [in deaths] of 9 per cent in Victoria and 5 per cent in New South Wales," she says.
"And if you extrapolate that out across the country, we are looking at a fairly significant increase in suicide deaths in this coming year.
"We have, at the moment, a perfect storm – we're two years after the pandemic, we've had a number of natural disasters, and we are seeing the effects of financial pressures on our community, due to interest rate hikes."
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, which details long-term trends on its suicide monitoring dashboard online, shows rates were relatively stable in the years prior to the pandemic, and there was no discernible increase in suicide deaths during the two years of rolling lockdowns.
Ms Murray says the latest increase reflects the cumulative stress of recent years taking a toll on people's lives, and the rise matches historical trends.
"History has shown us repeatedly that it's two to three years after a major event [such as the pandemic] that we see an increase in suicide rates," she says.
"So we need to implement frontline support immediately.
"We also need to ensure that we're investing now in a systemic reform to ensure that we keep our community safe over the next few years."
But the slow turnaround of national data will hamper quick responses.
Victoria and New South Wales are the only states that release up-to-date monthly data on suicides.
The other states and territories feed their numbers into a national database, which lags about 18 months behind in publishing updates.
Suicide prevention groups have been urging other states and territories to release data more promptly, with Western Australia the latest to develop a monitoring system.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare's data shows that although suicide rates are on the rise, they are actually lower now than they were almost 100 years ago during the Great Depression and during the 1960s when people had easy access to barbiturates.
So what have we been doing right?
Suicide prevention groups say there has been significant progress made in understanding suicide in the past decade.
And they're optimistic about new approaches being trialled and evaluated.
These include:
- The establishment of Safe Havens and Safe Spaces at locations across the country, which offer an alternative to hospital emergency departments. Governments are funding the drop-in centres at dozens of locations including Sydney, Lismore, Melbourne, Perth and Kununurra.
- Aboriginal organisations rolling out suicide prevention campaigns and training as part of holistic social and emotional wellbeing programs.
- Federally funded suicide prevention trials at 12 sites, which funded localised, community-led programs.
- Promising results from the Black Dog Institute's Lifespan trials, which form Australia's largest scientific suicide prevention research trial.
However, proving that programs are reducing the number of deaths is difficult, due to the complex mix of variables involved.
For example, the University of Melbourne's final evaluation of the $60 million suicide prevention trials concluded that there was no difference in the rates of suicide deaths or hospitalisations for self-harm over the four years the trials ran.
But the report added that "this finding does not mean the trial has not had an impact on reducing suicides".
"Rather it reflects that outcomes of suicide prevention initiatives are difficult to measure … and are unlikely to be detectable for some years," the report noted.
Ms Murray says communities need to do more to support vulnerable people.
"We all have a role to play in the prevention of suicide," she says.
"It's not just a task for GPS, it's not a task for psychologists, it's not a task for hospitals, and it's not something governments can solve alone.
"I would urge the community to ask people how they are doing, and if they're thinking about taking their life.
"It might be the most critical conversation you can have."
A fresh start
Back in Derby, there's been good news for Glenys and her family.
Her grandson has finished the three-month rehabilitation course and is feeling good.
He's about to begin a new job working in the mines, he tells the ABC, and is looking forward to a fresh start.
For Glenys, it is a huge relief.
The grief she feels over the loss of her son Thomas remains intense, but she has tried to focus her energy on supporting the younger generations in her family.
"Suicide shouldn't be such a taboo," she says.
"I think sometimes the mums and the grannies, we keep our feelings locked away because we just have to keep things going.
"It took 10 years after Thomas died for me to be able to talk about it — now I'm glad that I do."
