MP Elliot Colburn Opens Up About His Experience with Suicide

Conservative MP Elliot Coban stunned the House of Commons last week when he stood up and gave an honest account of his experience with suicide. It’s the biggest cause of death in men under the age of 50.

Elliott said he wanted to send a message to those considering taking their own life that help is out there. Elliot says receiving a death threat fed into his ‘negative thought cycle’.

Broadcast on 14/02/24

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The conservative MP Elliot Colin stunned the commons last week when he stood up and gave an honest a seemingly honest account of his experience with suicide biggest cause of death in men under the age of 50 Elliot said he wanted to send a message to those considering taking

Their own life that help is out there here’s what he bravely told his fellow MPS in recent years something like 6 and a half thousand people die in the UK each year due to suicide and in 2021 I was nearly one of them in that moment I felt alone and

Scared and like there was no way out and that the world would be better off without me in it but I don’t recognize that man anymore I know and Elliot is is here with us now um I can just uh imagine how hard it

Must have been for you to to think am I going to put myself out there in such a in such a personal way in such a a place tri’s questions and share something so personal did you did you anguish about this for um for a long time yeah it took

Me quite some time to make the decision that I was going to do it uh I’ve been blessed with a great recovery since 2021 and I was something that I was thinking about doing for for some time at the end of last year the beginning of

This one but it wasn’t until I woke up that morning um and knew that pmqs was coming up that I made the decision that I was going to do it if I was lucky enough to get called I mean it’s so brave of you to do that because I

Imagine it’s a it’s a huge leap of faith in a sense isn’t it because once you’ve spoken about it you can’t take it back it is it is revealing something very personal isn’t it what why did you feel it was important you thought I know I

Need to talk about this it was something that I was feeling at that time so at the back end of 2021 and the leadup to the attempt I meant what I said in the comments I did feel incredibly isolated and lonely and actually one of the the

Things that I wish I had heard at the time or I wish that someone had said to me is that you know what what you’re feeling is not something unusual there are other people that feel this way as well but not only that there are ways to

Get past it and there are there is help out there and I meet a lot of people whether it be through my constituency surgeries or just through this line of work and i’ noticed that mental health is coming up a lot more post pandemic it’s something that is mentioned all the

Time and I thought maybe if if I share my experiences someone else listening might feel as if actually I don’t have to do something so silly and so drastic I might reach out I might speak to someone and see if there’s help out there for me and it’s one of those

Things where um the truth is the fact that you are a member of parliament is on one level irrelevant to this the important point was that you were a young man in your early 30s who was struggling and felt alone and you’re saying to what we know know are very

Many other young men and women who in their 30s you aren’t alone because what you’ve got is not something which is about kind of it’s not your fault it’s not something you’ve done it’s about something which you can be helped for which you can kind of can be um you know

If you ask for it and as it happens you’re also a member of parliament which gives you that platform but the platform is to say to all those people I’m just like you and this is how I did it absolutely and I that’s what I was

Hoping for really I know that people can times be a bit skeptical if MPS want to talk about personal experiences but pmqs and being an MP does give you a bit of a platform and I sincerely hope that by starting a conversation in this way that

We are able to talk about what more we can do because as was mentioned in the introduction it is still a massive cause of death in this country it’s the largest cause of death for men of a certain age and I just don’t think that it’s right that suicide taking your own

Life should ever be a leading cause of death I absolutely think that’s wrong what sort of reaction did you get I mean we saw the support there in the House of Commons didn’t we and I know that you know Mishi sunak had spoke about it Sak

Starma came over to you didn’t he how did it feel then the support that you got from everybody it was completely overwhelming I’ve got to be honest and uh from all sides of the Chamber from every political persuasion from my constituents and just from members of the public it’s been humbling to have

People come up to me or get in contact and share their own experiences and talk about experiences of their own mental health or speak about family or loved ones who have either thought about suicide or even sadly a many cases gone through with it themselves and for

People to share that with me is is very very humbling indeed but it was almost like a sense of relief I think after getting it off my chest and I was very very nervous doing it I think it was the most nervous I’ve been even more so than

When I gave my first speech in the common so um but everyone was incredibly kind and yeah both the Prime Minister and sakir starm were’re both very kind immediately afterwards as well I don’t know how um how you know how you think about this in terms

Of your your experience but um part of what you spoke about was social media we’ve had in the last um week and a half the mother of Brianna gr talking about the danger of social media uh and we um J sorry um Brianna Dr and um we know

That um I mean I think of my kids um coming home from school away from the playground and social media is still part of their their lives and um and that’s true for members of parliament as well and sometimes um that can be aggressive and nasty and challenging for

For children for adults for members of parliament how much of of um of your challenge was that social media it definitely fed into it there was a lot going on at the time both in terms of my professional life and my private life as

Well so I can’t say that it was any one thing that led up to it uh however that year there were a number of threats and intimidation against me that was coming through and that certainly didn’t help the the negative State of Mind you had a

Death threat as well didn’t you I did I had the death threat earlier that year and I think whilst you talked about publicly yes I did um which I felt was important um I totally understand and appreciate in this line of work we absolutely have to be held to account

People must be able to challenge us on the decisions we make on things we do things we don’t do but there is a point where that crosses a line and where it crosses a line into threats and intimidation that’s where I feel as if that’s not acceptable we are still human

Beings at the end of the day and that just fed into the negative thought cycle I’ve developed mechanisms now where it’s very easy to say well that’s just one person that’s obviously not what most people think but in that moment when my mental health was in such a bad state it

Fed into this negative thought saying well this is what everyone thinks everyone’s thinking this and this is just one manifestation of it but that’s part of the challenge for you speaking out last week because presumably you know by drawing attention to yourself and this hugely important issue um but

There are people we know on social media who who thrive on um being able to get kind of profile for for abusing people has it been a tough week on that front not as much as it would have been 3 years ago um it’s become much easier now

Four years into the role to ignore those trolls and just not let them into my mind whatsoever because overwhelmingly the amount of people I meet on a day-to-day basis or I interact with are incredibly positive whether they agree with me politically or not most people are just genuinely kind and

Understanding and you can have a reasonable conversation and the trolls are tragic nothings aren’t they exactly exactly so they’re very easy to ignore if you had a message for anyone watching this morning who’s having a tough time what would you say them talk talk it’s so straightforward and I’m not saying

It’s going to solve everything but by starting a conversation it was so shocking to me how quickly I was able to make sense of what was going on just by speaking it aloud now yes my journey included medication it included counseling and talking therapies and it

Will for many people and for some people that recovery time might be a lot longer it might be shorter but by starting that conversation you’ll be amazed at how quickly you start to make sense of what is going on and how you can get help so talk to someone it could be anyone

Family friends love ones professionals doesn’t matter but start talking to someone and what’s next for you in your campaigning and in your politics in your life what’s next uh I think well we’re going into an election year so that’s Forefront of my mind uh I’m very lucky

To represent a constituency which is the constituency that I was born in went to school in and lived in my whole life and I I love car shorton and Wallington and and so deeply and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the experience this role is so rewarding you get to meet amazing people

So I’m determined to go into this election swinging I’m hoping I can come out the other end of it because I love representing my friends and my neighbors and my family uh and I sincerely hope I get the chance to carry on we look forward to seeing you swinging in the

Coming months thanks so much for that Elliot thank you for joining us and for speaking out so bravely thank you it now if you’ve been affected by any of the issues we’ve been discussing you can find advice and support at id.com helplines