The Space: Mental health and wellbeing - episode two

Welcome to Series 3 of The Space Podcast. The place where we dive into the stories, voices and ideas shaping a more inclusive workplace at Gowling WLG.

Please note that this episode contains sensitive content around suicide and mental health so please do prioritise your wellbeing and consider your own needs before listening. If you or someone you know is struggling, support is available through organisations like The Samaritans who can you call on 116123 or visit Samaritans.org for confidential support.

Emma Dennis: I am your host Emma Dennis and today's episode is all about wellbeing and mental health. This episode is one of courage, vulnerability and hope. I am joined by Caroline Silcock who is bravely sharing her experience of losing her daughter to suicide. This conversation will explore not only the personal impact of such a loss but also how it intersects with life at work, how grief shows up in professional spaces and how workplaces can better support those navigating trauma and bereavement.

Hello Caroline. Thank you so much for being here today to talk to me.

Caroline Silcock: Hello to you. Nice to see you again.

Emma: I wanted to start by just learning a little bit more about you and what you do at the firm. I just wondered if you could share a little bit of your history of the firm and what your current role is?

Caroline: Yeah. My name is Caroline, and I joined Gowling back on the 3^rd September 2018.A while ago and I remember coming along for the interview with Chris Brierley and Navin and the lovely Tracy Lowry as well who came alone and told me all about the senior PA role and that was working for the banking and finance team on the 11^th floor I think if I remember rightly in Birmingham so I started there and really enjoyed it, a great team to work with but then I thought I'd really like to get my teeth into something else so I looked and there were some more roles going with business development and they were looking for an admin assistant so I thought I don't know much about clients and markets and sectors and such like so I thought this may be a good opportunity to move over so I spoke to Charlotte Green and said can you tell me a bit more about the role and wham bam thank you mam in March of 2021 I moved over to clients and markets in the business development team and I have loved it ever since.

Emma: That was going to be my question, do you enjoy it, do you enjoy the work you do now?

Caroline: Absolutely. Well things have changed since I started. I am not so much of an admin now, but I moved into an exec role. I was heavily involved in the B2022 Commonwealth Games. That was absolutely fantastic absolutely loved it, really in depth, got to know quite a few of the partners and all the activities, got to go to some of the events as well which was fantastic and just had a really great time working with the other teams within BD as well so absolutely love it and I work on projects now, more project driven work which is really exciting.

Emma: Fantastic. So, we are here to talk about mental health and wellbeing, and it has been three years since your daughter Charlotte died by suicide. I wondered if you could share a little bit about Charlotte, what she as like, what she loved and how you remember here, yeah?

Caroline: Sure. Charlotte was a fantastic baby, born in 1989 and was perfect from day one really to be honest with you. I remember having to stay in hospital for a week in those days I think that is quite rate now, put her in a basket in the maternity ward and then plugging her into the hospital radio, nobody even knew she was there so it just carried on from we used to take her out for dinner, she used to sit in one of her little seats on the table and nobody even knew she was there. She was so placid, so calm, always smiling, a great child all the way through probably up until she started to go into puberty and then things started to change but to be honest with you, when she grew up she was doing really well at work, had a great career ahead of her, she had taken her law degree and she was doing her trust and company exams and was actually in the process of just finishing off the last module so she was a very switched on young lady, a mother of one, my granddaughter, Amelie. She had a hard life but a life that she enjoyed as well.

Emma: Yeah. You mentioned to me that she had been living with mental health challenges for some time. I wondered if you could share what signs you noticed around that and how that shaped you in supporting her as a parent.

Caroline: Sure, it started really to do with Charlotte's ill-health. When she reached puberty, she had hormone difficulties so she put on from being a size 8 to a size 16 and being a teenager, dealing with that was just horrendous but whilst you are dealing and it is easy to get channelled so you deal with the immediate thing that is in front of you, you do not see the wider part of it maybe at that time you think maybe she should have got some counselling at that stage to help her and things progressed and we were fortunate enough that she was able to have an operation that actually cured that but it was a gastric bypass actually, but unfortunately with that, there was additional health issues that came on top which were not discussed at the time and they caused her additional health complications later on, years later on of which she eventually being overdosed with iron because when you have a gastric bypass you do not absorb iron as you should so they give you iron infusions but unfortunately they overdosed her horrendously causing issues with some of her organs. So that was an added stress. Again, whilst that was being dealt with medically, mentally there was not the support there behind it and then I think in regard to dealing with a young child of her own, my granddaughter bringing her up, the financial commitments and work commitments and such like they all started to pile up so there is an awful lot of different things. It is not just one thing, and I think it is important to point out that whilst you can concentrate and very easily get sidelined in regard to thinking it is just one particular thing.

Emma: Yeah.

Caroline: You have to look at a bigger picture and do get extra help.

Emma: Yeah. Looking back now can you see signs that were leading up to her taking her own life?

Caroline: Yeah, I think certainly when she was still at secondary school, she had taken some tablets, a couple of paracetamols but they had been, I think those were the ones that now they have changed them, make you sick from actually having too many of them so you can't actually kill yourself from taking that kind of medication and I think that maybe was a call out for attention. It is difficult again to know whether at that age they are actually doing it because of the hormonal changes or whether it is something else, bullying maybe but without them actually opening up, it is difficult to know. It is very difficult to know.

Emma: I wonder if we could go back to those early days after Charlotte died, what did grief look like for you then and how did you even begin to find your way through that?

Caroline: Well, her father who actually came back to Charlotte's apartment the next morning after everything had happened the previous night when she was upset to find her there, he still hasn't recovered from that and I don't think you ever will as a parent, it is easy for me to say that because I wasn't the one that found her, but it was just pure shock and I think you run on adrenalin, certainly for me because I wasn't living in Jersey, I don't live in Jersey anywhere where Charlotte Lived, I was almost at a distance but then I felt like I had to do things and just went into overdrive and thought right we have got to get things sorted, got to speak to the funeral directors, got to try and sort out a church, got to speak to the coroners, there is an awful lot of things that go through your head whilst dealing with a loss and I think also I think for me at the start when Charlotte's friends found out, they were just distraught as they would be. Charlotte was in her very early 30s so they had all started their lives at different levels and so coping with talking to them was hard and I have to say sometimes I felt angry, I felt angry that they were coming to me and thought do you not think I am upset and I found that hard but I couldn't be horrible obviously, I say obviously but I couldn't be horrible and I found that family, certainly Charlotte's grandmother, my mother and my step-father really did hold it together and they were very, very strong for me. My ex-husband, Charlotte's father, really struggled as I say because he was the one that found her so but the feelings, I think it is difficult to know. I had feelings of anger towards him as well for not being stronger and coping with that on top of everything else as well was hard. People will go through all sorts of emotions depends on ow they are made up. For me, I tried to be supportive and loving to as many people as I could and maybe at my own detriment at the start.

Emma: Grief changes over time..

Caroline: People often say don't they that there are different stages of grief, I felt I fluctuated through all of them quite quickly because I am uber-organised, I like to make sure that everything is done. I felt like that kept me going. That was my focus, and I couldn't think of anything else so I had to do that so I had to do that so in regards to thinking about work the I am afraid that really didn't feature at the time but I have to say work have been absolutely brilliant about it and I think if you are worried about taking time out from work from your day job to manage, handle or however you want to express it bereavement, then speak to your manager, talk quite openly about how you are feeling, speak to your doctor, get signed off and if you still don't feel that it is right for you because some people might say isn't it time you went back? Yeah, you will only know yourself when it is the right time to go back.

Emma: Yeah.

Caroline: And I would definitely say that sometimes I felt I'm ready to go back and other times I thought to myself actually do you when it was coming close to the time I'm really not, because I just can't concentrate on anything else other than what was going on inside my head.

Emma: Yeah. What was that like coming back to work for the first time?

Caroline: I think because I did take quite some time off with Charlotte passing away in December, the funeral didn't take place until January, so it was February time by the time I came back so I had quite a chunk of time off. Coming back was almost a release getting back to some schedule, some routine, seeing people. What I found difficult was almost like the levels of sympathy, I didn't want I wanted people to be just their normal self and I think it is difficult thought to be able to say that to others because they think they have got to do and you want to comfort somebody who is in pain ort has been in pain but that is not necessarily always what is needed and they just need normality, let's go for lunch, let's have a coffee, let's talk about this particular project not something else that is related to Charlotte passing or whatever.

Emma: Yeah. I get it because that is you are coming into to that that normality and almost switch that bit off for a few hours whilst you are here. How did the firm support you either managers or colleagues during the time you were off through to coming back.

Caroline: I had a lot of support from my manager and also from the head of the department as well and HR and they were very, very good in regards to making sure I was OK and not to rush back always saying don't rush back, take your time, feel comfortable and that is what I did. I just kept them up to date as and when I felt like I could, but I did want to come back. I had had enough now. I was ready and you do know when you are ready to come back. I can't explain it to you when you will know but you just get a sense that you are ready to come back.

Emma: Were there any challenges that you face when you did come back to work? It is a linear thing, but it happens it ends it can go up and down and over time, once you were back in work, were there any challenges that came up?

Caroline: I suppose listening to other people talking about their family life, holidays and such like. I mean it is a normal thing. It is a thing that you do and that kind of hit a nerve for a while but then overtime I kind of drifted past it, ignored it maybe to a degree but then embraced it because that it what happens, life goes on so it was nice to hear and then I would start to say oy yes Charlotte and I used to do that or Charlotte and I did this or we had plans to do that and so it does get better and I would always say and I would say now is the fact that the more you talk about things the better it is and no matter how painful it might be at the start it does get better.

Emma: Was it difficult to talk about Charlotte afterwards for a while?

Caroline: I think to a degree it was but then as time goes on your become more used to her not being around and I took comfort. She had sent me a couple of videos which I kept so I can listen to her voice but at the beginning they made me cry but after listening to them a number of times actually it was quite soothing and now if I want to cheer myself up or just remember, I know Facebook are really good at sending loads of memories through of her at parties and stuff like that so I take great pleasure in looking at those and if I want to hear her voice, I will play one of the videos so I think it is hard sometimes but it is also a way of grieving I think as well, celebrating the person that you have lost but also grieving at the same time but then it gets less and less although upsetting for me today to talk to you still but I think that is good because it means that she is still in my head and my heart and she always will be anyway.

Emma: You talked a little bit about the firm being supportive when you came back to work. I just wondered whether there were any types of supportive, whether it is formal policies or just small human moments that really helped you feel seen and supported?

Caroline: In regard to one to one's it was very much more my manager that was making sure I was OK.I had support of all the team obviously they rallied around lovely but no official support. However, I can't remember who it was exactly whether it was HR or a link or one of the managers turned round and said don't forget you can use our health cover and actually get some therapy. So, I had actually gone on to Doctor Care Anywhere and spoken to one of the doctors there and they said the kind of therapies that you can go for, you can go for bereavement counselling or you can go and maybe CBT cognitive behaviour therapy and they turned round and said at this moment in time, I think you would be better for CBT and I couldn't agree with them more. I had ten sessions and the lady that I had I was very fortunate the therapist was fantastic, absolutely fantastic and it was spaced over ten weeks, got little projects to work on which actually changed I don't know whether anybody knows anything about CBT but it actually changes your mindset so when you think everything is all negative actually you change it round and you realise that actually it is not somethings are true and other things are not and it is just opinions and things that you are listening to and your mind tells you so that really helped me and I felt in such a better place I can't tell you so that is an option. What helped me personally after having that and it was something I did off my own back and it is something that I have carried on was I reached out on a spiritual level just purely same up. I didn't believe in coincidence because it doesn't exist. It was meant to happen, and I met a lovely lady. I went to speak to her, and I told her exactly what had happened. Now this was in mid-February after Charlotte had gone and I explained the situation and she was a reiki master. We chatted and she performed some reiki on me and I felt instantly better, and I went to see her for quite a few different sessions and for me that worked. It was something not conventional. It was something that I took great release from, and it is something that I continued and now I am a qualified reiki practitioner myself so I am a strong believer in it, and I do believe that that really does or can help individuals as well. I am not saying that is for everybody but that certainly helped.

Emma: Amazing. What do you think organisations could do better to support people that are grieving or have gone through something traumatic?

Caroline: I think allowing them to keep the lines of communication open and actually listen to what they have got to say rather than trying to pre-empt what they are going to say because everyone is going to be different and sometimes it is very difficult for people who are going through bereavement because they do not really know how they are feeling. They think they do but they don't necessarily know so it is almost sometimes it can be an impossible thing to be able to judge but having that door open, having different channels that you can actually go down because everybody is different, some people like to speak face to face, other people like Teams calls. I even went on a suicidal webinar and met other people not just within Gowling but all over and I found a buddy there and am still in contact with them and we just support one another. It is a bit like I guess like a member of the AA but you get mentors don't you that look after you.

Emma: I guess somebody who understands.

Caroline: Yeah and maybe if somebody within a team or somebody within HR has gone through that themselves an I am hoping that this podcast will also help with people as well in regards to them that have gone through it and I am more than happy to talk to anybody who wants to talk about it because I think it is important to do it and as I say try not to be too judgmental in regards to how you think that person should be feeling because everybody is totally different. Everybody has got different feelings.

Emma: Yeah. Is there anything if you were thinking about managers or HR teams that were supportive somebody after losing someone from suicide that they should really avoid doing? Is there anything?

Caroline: Don't exclude them from things thinking that that is what they need to do in a feel inclusive at all times. I suppose language is a tough one as well the way that we say things somethings, try not to be too there, there or it will be OK, too over-comforting, too marshmallowy, you need just somebody who is just going to be normal just talking to you normally. I suppose giving lots of options that you can go down but not thrusting them on the person just saying this is the way we can talk to you about this, we can talk to you about that but giving the person a little bit of space that they need but not excluding them from stuff as well. It is very difficult to give a structure because everybody is going to be different.

Emma: Yeah, it hard to generalise on yeah do this, don't do this because it will be people's preferences on what works for them.

Is there any message you would like to share with others who may be grieving or supporting somebody else that is?

Caroline: It does get better and if you can't talk to your family and your fiends because I know sometimes that is difficult because they are too close. The Samaritans are great, pick up the phone. They are trained to be able to answer the phone. You have got Mind. You have got so many different societies out there that can help you. They are trained in all of this. They will not say anything incorrectly. If you can't get bereavement counselling through your doctor which I know is quite difficult in certain areas. I certainly struggled and in fact it wasn't until about a year later than they turned around and said they had an opening and to me that was too late.

Emma: Yeah.

Caroline: But don't lose heart, always loads of other societies around.

Emma: One other thing I wanted to talk to you about, we had had a conversation that you weren't very well at the beginning of this year, I wonder if you could explain a bit about what was going on with you and then we talk a little bit about the support that you got here as well.

Caroline: Sure. Yeah, unfortunately I came down with Pneumonia. That was just around Christmastime and then went off to the doctors as you do and was told it was a chest infection. Went through the usual rigmarole of loads and loads of anti-biotics and that carried on for a couple of weeks and unfortunately didn't get any better. Then the doctor I personally think quite flippantly said oh it might be Pneumonia, you will probably have to go to hospital. I thought of thank you for that. I ended up going to into hospital probably I think it was just before 12 or 13 February just before Valentines and didn't come out until 3 March.

Emma: Wow.

Caroline: So, it was a double Pneumonia, both lung but two types of Pneumonia. One was quite rare, and one was the normal bacterial Pneumonia that people get so whilst I was off, self-certified myself at the start from the doctors and then the doctors wrote sick notes. I did try and come back in between that time before I actually was admitted into hospital. I have to say that Charlotte, my boss was brilliant, but I did keep her up to date. I think that is very important and I would say that is what you need to do don't keep people in the dark about what is happening and don't be afraid to either. If you are ill, you're ill and then coming back either coming back after that it took a long time. After being hospitalised for such a long time you become institutionalised and then they don't realise how much your brain switches off and so coming back, I thought I'll be alright, I'm on a load of pills but that's fine I can still function but when I sat back at my PC thinking oh yes this will be good, I just could not function properly and I thought I am going to have to say to Charlotte I can't do it and then she was saying that via HR phase return to work and I had never heard of it before through the occupational therapist so I had a meeting with the occupational therapist who was lovely, a qualified doctor went through all the things that I had been through and explained that whilst I thought I will come back within a few days that wasn't going to be the case and you need to be able to come back in a good position to be able to do your job properly because you are only going to be doing more harm to yourself and not do your job properly and it is better that you come back functioning properly than it would be to be coming back half cocked and really worried about the fact that you are not doing your job right so phased return fantastic, very comfortable about it because I just couldn't have coped with coming back and I think that is important to anybody that is seriously not well not to rush back and to get the help and maybe speak to the occupational therapist and just say this is what is going on. Be open, be honest and talk about your symptoms and you can get help.

Emma: I think that's important because people often have a fear of taking too much time off work, whether that be fear of missing out on opportunities, being overlooked or feeling some type of stigma. What was it that made you feel really comfortable about being open about what was going on with your manager?

Caroline: I had come across people before not necessarily within Gowling but with other firms that I have worked for when I was working in the banking industry. People felt pressured that they needed to come back because they were scared of either losing their job or if they were fee earners then they are not pulling in the money and maybe they even had pressure when they weren't supposed to so be open about how you are actually feeling and not covering it up is key for your own mental health and your own wellbeing to be able to do that and then your managers know and so if you have an issue with your manager then speak to HR. There are different ways about getting around what is going on so just feel more comfortable and when you feel like you are ready to come back or you feel that you re not ready to come back and you need help to be able to come back at a date then you ask for the help that you need.

Emma: I think ask for help is a message for everything…across today.

I want to finally ask you about whether you have found ways to honour Charlotte's memory that bring you comfort? What do you do?

Caroline: Yeah, well we have done quite a few already. The bank that Charlotte worked for, they set up, they have got a trophy for her. The Charlotte McCann Trophy and they all fight for it not literally, but in a sporty activity wise so they all try and go in different locations around the world so they fight for the trophy so that was lovely and they sent me a video of the first year that they did that so and there is a plant in the office in Jersey where she worked as well and then where she used to walk her dogs in the park, we set up a plaque on a bench where she used to sit with her name on. On the year that Charlotte was still around we actually attempted to do the Island walk together. I finished it but she had to give up because she wasn't well so I was planning on doing the walk next year but I don't think I am quite fit enough yet to be able to do it so that is something that is in the pipeline and she was instrumental in setting up the Jersey Heart Foundation Trust. She was working for the British Heart Foundation Trust in regards to obtaining funds for them but then realised that Jersey don't get any of the benefits so she helped set up the Jersey Heart foundation so I would like to give the proceeds of any kind of money that was raised to go to that charity and one other thing that again I can't do at the moment because I am still in recovery is climb up Machu Picchu. It is something that she wanted to do and that is something I fully intend to do so that is probably going to be 27 probably by the time I get round to doing that but anyway I am hoping, and I will spread some of her ashes up there so she will get to go up there eventually.

Emma: Amazing.

My final questions, what is the best thing that ahs happened to you this week?

Caroline: I would say coming here today and actually being able to talk reasonably well without bursting into too many tears about Charlotte, her life and that while she is not here anymore then she won't be forgotten.

Emma: Thank you so much Caroline.

Caroline: Thank you.

Emma: Thank you.

Massive thank you Caroline for sharing such a deeply personal and powerful story.

If anybody listening has someone you know is struggling, support is available though organisations like The Samaritans. You can call The Samaritans on 116 123 or visit Samaritans.org for confidential support.We will be back with a new episode to get to know more talented people here at Gowling WLG. Thank you everyone for listening and have a wonderful week.