Dealing with depression - suicidal thoughts - Join the conversation (including helpline details)

[Alicecow]

@startinghandle which general region are you in? There may be someone on here who can help with your cat and dog.

So sorry to hear what has happened with your farm. Some people are just greedy arsoles.

 

[startinghandle]

@startinghandle which general region are you in? There may be someone on here who can help with your cat and dog.

So sorry to hear what has happened with your farm. Some people are just greedy arsoles.

thanks Alicecow for your reply.. I live in Mid Wales midway between Newtown and Llanidloes and you are correct with your description of our neighbour

 

[Kevtherev]

thanks Alicecow for your reply.. I live in Mid Wales midway between Newtown and Llanidloes and you are correct with your description of our neighbour

I’m not far away near Welshpool if you need a chat
@startinghandle

 

[Lili]

Sorry to hear of your situation @startinghandle. You will get plenty of support and good advice on here.

 

[Alicecow]

thanks Alicecow for your reply.. I live in Mid Wales midway between Newtown and Llanidloes and you are correct with your description of our neighbour

They get everywhere, and jealousy is a terrible thing. Some are even like that even when their hated neighbour is the owner rather than a tenant.

 

[jade35]

From an email sent by Farmers Guardian today
https://www.fginsight.com/news/top-stories/mental-health-hub-its-ok-not-to-be-ok-fgmentalhealth-



Mental health hub: It's OK not to be OK #FGMentalHealth
Top Stories 10 Oct 2017 Emily Ashworth
This is Farmers Guardian’s hub on mental health - helplines, people and how to deal with mental health.


Share This

The Farmers Guardian's mental health hub. Here to help #FGMentalHealth
It affects so many yet talking about it is the hardest part about mental health.


Here at Farmers Guardian, we are passionate about helping the rural community deal with everything connected to mental health, which is why we have created this dedicated hub.


Full of helplines, stories from families and individuals who have suffered themselves and guides on how to deal with mental health, this hub will provide anybody who doesn’t know where to go with a place to seek advice.


Please never hesitate to contact any of the below for help. Your call will remain confidential:

• RABI: www.rabi.org.uk or 0808 2819490
• RSABI: www.rsabi.org.uk or 0300 111 4166
• Addington Fund: www.addingtonfund.org.uk or 01926 620135
• Samaritans: www.samaritans.org or 08457 90 90 90
• YANA (You Are Not Alone): www.yanahelp.org or 0300 323 0400
• The Farming Community Network: www.fcn.org.uk or 03000 111999
• Mind: www.mind.org.uk or 020 8519 2122

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Rural issues: Dealing with depression
Farmers must ask for help before it's too late, says rural charities
'Are ewe Okay?' - SAYFC launch mental health campaign
How New Zealand is taking on mental health
Struggling farmers urged to reach out and seek help
Mental health: The effect on young farmers and how help is on hand
Mental health: Rural+ and the help available

 

[Weasel]

yes me and my brother are about to be evicted from our council holding but most of the land has already gone, our next door neighbour reported us for being understocked and not keeping the fences up to standard and now he has had our 4 bottom fields about 30 acres and that is the reason he did it and another 30 acres has been let to someone about 20 miles away we have been here nearly 55 years my late parents were here first. I have had depression over it and the police have taken my gun away there is a council bungalow available in the village one mile away but no animals are allowed so our 12 year old cat and my dog will have to be put down
there is a fence put around the house and buildings as the council will sell it off with 6 acres
I am feeling suicidal over it but I have just finished my first book

Jesus Christ. Feel for you! That's hellish

 

[Alicecow]

How are you today @startinghandle ?
Is it worth trying to appeal the councils decision? Claim force majeure or something?

 

[startinghandle]

hi Alicecow thanks to you and to everyone for messages of support , I am feeling a lot better as I am starting to put my second book together, my first book is a wartime novel and this book is about a magic tractor, as yet I have not contacted any helpline numbers, we have looked into an appeal with the council but we would probably lose and it would cost us a lot of money

 

[Alicecow]

hi Alicecow thanks to you and to everyone for messages of support , I am feeling a lot better as I am starting to put my second book together, my first book is a wartime novel and this book is about a magic tractor, as yet I have not contacted any helpline numbers, we have looked into an appeal with the council but we would probably lose and it would cost us a lot of money

Glad you are feeling a bit better, was worried about you. It's better to rant it out that do something drastic.
Even if an appeal is out of the question it could be worth a letter of complaint to the council, grievance procedure if they have one (they should have).

 

[Farmer Roy]

I posted this elsewhere on this forum, but this thread may be more appropriate



Depression can be completely debilitating & crippling

I have lost months, maybe years, out of my productive working life ( & also personal relationships ) due to that ba stard black dog on my back.
Financially, has probably lost me more money on the farm than any drought, flood or low prices have.
The mental paralysis, lack of interest & sheer apathy to everything is terrible

Beer & rum help in the short term, but not really sustainable . . .
Medication ? Meh, I gave up on it when I'd spent nearly a week doing nothing but sitting under a tree crying to myself, I realised the drugs weren't much help either. So went cold turkey a couple of years ago.

Group exercise ( social aspect as well ), yoga ( especially yoga ) & just staying physically active, are the best drugs there are

 

[lazy farmer]

I posted this elsewhere on this forum, but this thread may be more appropriate



Depression can be completely debilitating & crippling

I have lost months, maybe years, out of my productive working life ( & also personal relationships ) due to that ba stard black dog on my back.
Financially, has probably lost me more money on the farm than any drought, flood or low prices have.
The mental paralysis, lack of interest & sheer apathy to everything is terrible

Beer & rum help in the short term, but not really sustainable . . .
Medication ? Meh, I gave up on it when I'd spent nearly a week doing nothing but sitting under a tree crying to myself, I realised the drugs weren't much help either. So went cold turkey a couple of years ago.

Group exercise ( social aspect as well ), yoga ( especially yoga ) & just staying physically active, are the best drugs there are

Massive like for the Yoga especially in a group setting. Not only has it kept me physically fit despite the repetitive nature of part of my job but in class we have yoga Nidra at the end of lesson which is the most refreshing 15 mins of sleep I get each week! then there is the social aspect of it and the simple act of getting off the farm gives you a different perspective on things.
can't recommend it enough
there are times when I do find it hard to summon the strength to go but nearly always find away to get out the door. there isn't much else that that does that.

 

[Christoph1945]

Regardless of religion, one day's rest in seven is a good concept; it refreshes the body, mind, and soul.

For centuries the Jews have practiced keeping the day of rest and during the Battle of Britain Hugh Dowding ensured that all his pilots had rest periods. A Church of England vicar that I once knew also insisted that all his staff had one day off a week.

We ignore the need for rest and recuperation, at our peril!

As an aside..................

whilst browsing youtube early this morning I came across a video about love and forgiveness by "of all people" Dolph Lundgren. I found it very enlightening.

Chris

 

[Chae1]

But have you seen the weather forecast for tomorrow ?

 

[Texel Tup]

Regardless of religion, one day's rest in seven is a good concept; it refreshes the body, mind, and soul. ……..

Chris

I agree with you Chris, I really do, but the day off is often seen as a luxury which the self employed can't afford. I was once lambing 600 ewes out and I was burning the candle at both ends. I was running on an empty tank and I was seriously run down, the DG insisted that I see the doctor, I did, he said take a couple of days off.

I suppose that he meant well!

As a footnote, I was 20 years younger then, and just as with most things, I got through it!

 

[Alicecow]

@Texel Tup
Even if you can't take a full day off at a time like that, it is important to try to take a couple of hours off, it can make all the difference.

 

[Texel Tup]

@Texel Tup
Even if you can't take a full day off at a time like that, it is important to try to take a couple of hours off, it can make all the difference.

Of course you're right Alice, and if only …….. we've come home at 07:00 in the dark, we have a slice of toast and a cup of tea, we decide that a couple of hours on the sofa should sort things but we don't wake up until 11:00, we go back to the ewes and find a shearling which we missed earlier in a bad way with a lamb with a leg back, we catch her and get the now dead lamb out and find that there's another behind it who simply couldn't hang on any longer, we make the ewe comfortable and take away her dead lambs. We take it on the chin, but actually we don't. So it's a couple of dead lambs and a cull ewe. How many more will there be? If we consider failure to be neglect, then we only have ourselves to blame.
Eventually we get home again and the bank manager 'phones. We feel compelled to be courteous but it isn't easy. In about 2004 I had 132 dead lambs in 3 days because of enzootic abortion, and I'll admit that I cried.
Do we remember that guy Ted Moult? I think that he was on What's-my-line from many years ago. I remember the news in the 70s that he'd shot himself. It shook me beyond words and I didn't understand why. I've no idea what the poor man's problems were, but he farmed and struggled with life and i now understand.
I'm not having a dig at you Alicecow and I do understand but there are those who are sometimes under the cosh, the break for a day or even half of that would of course be exactly what's needed, but walking away from the mistress of self employed, for many, is difficult.

I do hope that you won't misunderstand my words. xx

 

[Alicecow]

Of course you're right Alice, and if only …….. we've come home at 07:00 in the dark, we have a slice of toast and a cup of tea, we decide that a couple of hours on the sofa should sort things but we don't wake up until 11:00, we go back to the ewes and find a shearling which we missed earlier in a bad way with a lamb with a leg back, we catch her and get the now dead lamb out and find that there's another behind it who simply couldn't hang on any longer, we make the ewe comfortable and take away her dead lambs. We take it on the chin, but actually we don't. So it's a couple of dead lambs and a cull ewe. How many more will there be? If we consider failure to be neglect, then we only have ourselves to blame.
Eventually we get home again and the bank manager 'phones. We feel compelled to be courteous but it isn't easy. In about 2004 I had 132 dead lambs in 3 days because of enzootic abortion, and I'll admit that I cried.
Do we remember that guy Ted Moult? I think that he was on What's-my-line from many years ago. I remember the news in the 70s that he'd shot himself. It shook me beyond words and I didn't understand why. I've no idea what the poor man's problems were, but he farmed and struggled with life and i now understand.
I'm not having a dig at you Alicecow and I do understand but there are those who are sometimes under the cosh, the break for a day or even half of that would of course be exactly what's needed, but walking away from the mistress of self employed, for many, is difficult.

I do hope that you won't misunderstand my words. xx

No, I understand. It's hard. I've done similar but only once or twice for myself, never had sheep. Have done 32 hour shifts for an employer (not in farming), but it's not sustainable for anything more that short periods, and even then there's times you want to rip people's heads from their shoulders - but don't have enough energy. Could you take turns at points during the day so each one could get a sit down Off Call instead of permanently On Call?

Sorry if i'm talking rubbish.

 

[Christoph1945]

Tup,

firstly may I thank you for so courteously accepting me, an outsider townie looking in, and also may I say that I do comprehend the stress of the self employed; who can't just knock off at the set time on the clock.

The concept of the great value in getting rest and relaxation comes up in here time and again and farmers of all disciplines are confronted with similar problems in obtaining those golden hours that are so valuable to keeping you folks in good health.

Contemplating your description of frenetic lambing and shepherding stresses, I suppose that is how it has always been. So what has changed, that multiplies the stress and pushes some farmers over the edge? Larger flocks? Heartless banks? Greedy supermarket share holders? I do remember Ted Moult but for some reason didn't know about his suicide!

I also suppose that most sheep (silly townie question) lamb at roughly the same time of season? So if your neighbour is a sheep farmer, he also is going to be up to his armpits in lambing problems and can't very easily offer a helping hand?

Some more silly townie questions coming up..............who, or what dictates the time of lambing? Could lambing be split into two periods? If there were two sheep farms next to each other could there be a month between their lambing times and then both farmers could muck in on each other's lambing period?

It has taken me a little while but I am slowly realising that very few farmers ever retire and as they get older and older things do tend to weigh more heavily upon them.

With all those farming pressures; when depression/anxiety comes to call, it is all the more important to talk things through with an understanding friend or individual. I imagine that lambing also puts more pressure on family relationships and many a sharp (unintended) word gets spoken?

Chris

 

[Christoph1945]

PS................call me silly if you like; I don't mind!