'Pain is always there': Mom who lost son, 18, to suicide reaches out to others

A St. John's woman whose son hanged himself in a family bathroom nearly 21 years ago says it's important to talk about suicide, which is why she is reaching out to others.

Tina Davies lost her son Richard to suicide during Christmas 1995. She and her younger son, James, foundhimwhen they opened the door.

"It was absolutely the most devastating thing that will ever happen to me, ever," said Davies in an interview to focus attention on Suicide Awareness Day, Sept. 10.

"I know that I've come through that. And I know now that there's nothing I can't getthough."

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Richard Davies was 18 when he killed himself. He had problems with alcohol and drugs and had tried to commit suicide before.

"To be honest, the first five years after he died I can't remember huge chunks of my life. Very dark," said Tina Davies, who added that she also thought of killing herself. Her son James tried, twice.

Shame and stigma

"The guilt is a very big one, very very large. It's a hard thing to get over. Of course, the shame and the stigma. People are people and if your child dies by suicide you know they're saying 'what kind of a family is that?'"

Davies credits her survival toa supportive husband,counselling, and time.

"When a tragedy like this happens, that's when people will stop and think I don't know who I am anymore, and you start to look around, do a lot of reading, talk to people, get some help," she said.

"That's the only way that you're going to heal. When you try to hide that fact that my loved one died by suicide, then you're not going to heal."

Channeling her grief into helping others helped her too.She set up a support group, Richard's Legacy Foundation for Survivors of Suicide Loss, and became an Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Trainer to help people recognize the signs that someone is considering suicide.

She said it's important for others dealing with suicide to talk to someone who has been through it.

"Iundertstandhow it feels," she said. "I remember that pain. That pain is always there, ... [but] I'm still here. They will see maybe they can get through this too."

Awareness Day Saturday

Davies said groups like the Community Coalitionfor Mental Health are helping to reduce the stigma around suicide, and she said personal stories like the one told by entertainer Andy Jones and his wife Mary-Lynn Bernard about their son's suicide also raise awareness.

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But she acknowledged that the issue still makes some feel uncomfortable.

"People still don't talk to you, won't come around ... they're really uncomfortable talking about death," she said. "They say 'we don't want to upset you.' We've already had the worse thing happen to us that's going to happen,so they'renot going to upset us anymore. In fact it's going to help us."

Mother who lost 18-year-old son to suicide is speaking out

8 years ago

Duration 4:05

Tina Davies lost her son Richard to suicide during Christmas 1995. He says it's important to talk about suicide, which is why she is reaching out to others.

On Saturday, a series of concerts will be held across the country as part of Suicide Awareness Day and Davies will attend the 6:30 a.m. kickoff at the D.F. Cook Recital Hall at Memorial University in St. John's.

The series, called Mysterious Barricades, continues until sunset in Victoria, B.C. and is the brainchild of Elizabeth Turnbull, an Edmonton woman whose husband of 27 years died by suicide in 2015.

"Say that word," said Davies. "The more we talk about it, the more we can do something about it."