"I Hated Myself for What I'd Done" | Ben West, on Losing His Brother
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What happened the night Sam took his own life and how did Ben react?
Before we start, this conversation includes deep, deep discussions of suicide. Please listen with care. And if it's not the right time for you, that's okay too. This one will be here when you're ready. If you need support, you can call Samaritans free anytime and we put more links in the show notes, so please check them out.
My mum started screaming, ran upstairs. My little brother Sam took his own life, died that evening, sat at the table, pushed his food around the plate, didn't look up from his plate. As he left the kitchen, we had a bit of an argument and I just shouted after him, F off. That would become the last thing I ever say to him. I hated myself for what I'd done.
Ladies and gentlemen, it's Ben West. Ben, welcome. Thank you so much for coming on. For those of people out there who don't know about what you do, would you be able to just tell us a little bit about what you do?
I would describe myself as a mental health and suicide prevention campaigner. I run a project and a website called Reasons to Stay. Um and it's a space online where anyone in the world can write a letter to someone thinking about suicide, giving them a reason to stay. We've sent four point four million letters to people in every ever I think it's every single country in the world now. Um I try as much as I can to get people to talk about mental health and where where possible prevent suicide.
I I resonated so strongly with you because you're you put yourself out there. You know, like you're not and and I think this is what I find so intriguing, right? Is I think um I resonate with a human story, right? I resonate with someone with some kind of lived experience and that's what recovery is to me. Like when I think about relating it to kind of um drink and drugs for me, I needed someone who had something that I didn't but had been where I was, you know, or some or something something that I could get an element of hope from. Um and I think that's what I just see with your stuff. It's this kind of like this feeling of hope. And I think that's so massively important. Yeah. Um
It's it's the most important thing, I think, in life for everything.
Whether it's like go why would you go out and work? If you didn't have hope of improving, why would you have gone and recorded albums without the hope of it doing well? Like hope is absolutely everything. It's the reason any of us get out of bed. And for some people It's the reason to Stay. And um and so I'm with you. And I also think, you know, hearing from other people is so important because as much as getting treatment and clinical treatment to people is important, the only person in the world that's qualified to tell someone that's suicidal, that things get better is someone that's been there and has got through it and is now happy to be alive. That's the only person in the world that can tell that person with any
Authority that things get better. And I've always been really interested in how you can introduce that person that's gone for it with the person that's still in it. And if you can create that connection, you've given someone evidence that things get better. And that that's what leads to hope. And that's what can give someone hope that actually staying might be worth it, even though it's really, really, really difficult. This person's told me they were in exactly the same position. And they're having a great time and they're happy to be alive. And it's that small little interruption. And that small little bit of hope that something's possible that is the antidote to to that suicidal impulse that so many people face.
So I'm so glad I'm sitting opposite you because every time I listen to this podcast, I'm like, yes, Matt, that's I love I love everything you you're on about is so much of what reasons say in my work encapsulates human stories, it's giving people hope and it's talking about important things.
Mate, thanks so much, man. Um and and thank you for what you do. Like obviously you mentioned at the beginning you didn't ever see yourself doing this, right?
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What happened the night Sam took his own life and how did Ben react?
0:00–9:31
2
How did Ben’s guilt and denial shape his early months after the tragedy?
9:31–17:21
3
What role did honesty and vulnerability play in Ben’s conversations about grief?
17:21–25:04
4
How did Ben turn his personal loss into the Reasons to Stay campaign?
25:04–32:00
5
What impact did the viral video and letters have on people in crisis?
32:00–40:10
6
How did policy work and teacher training reforms emerge from Ben’s experience?
40:10–48:35
7
What lessons does Ben share about supporting someone who is struggling?
48:35–55:55
8
How can listeners get involved with Reasons to Stay and help prevent suicide?
55:55–1:00:50
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from On The Mend
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