#484 CALM: The suicide prevention charity helping people end their misery, not their lives.

What if a simple conversation could save a life?

Suicide prevention is a topic that carries immense weight, yet it’s often shrouded in stigma. In this episode, Agi Keramidas speaks with Michael Jarvis, Digital Partnerships Lead at Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM). They explore the vital work CALM is doing to combat suicide, the warning signs to watch for, and practical ways we can all make a difference.

1. Discover actionable strategies to support someone experiencing suicidal thoughts.
2. Learn how to break the stigma and create safe spaces for open conversations.
3. Find out how simple tools and CALM’s resources can help people navigate life’s toughest moments.

Listen to this life-changing episode and learn how you can be part of the movement to prevent suicide and spread hope.

This episode is our participation in this year's Podcasthon, an incredible charitable event in the podcasting world!

During Podcasthon, multiple podcasts dedicate one episode of their show to a charity, and release them simultaneously in mid-March 2025. The objective of this coordinated effort is to raise awareness for a huge number of charities worldwide.

CALM charity: https://www.thecalmzone.net/

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KEY POINTS AND TIMESTAMPS:

03:07 - Overview of CALM and Michael Jarvis's Involvement

08:55 - Addressing Stigma Around Suicide and Mental Health

11:54 - Understanding the Nature of Suicidal Thoughts

13:00 - Describing the Experience of Suicidal Thoughts

17:49 - Identifying Warning Signs in Others

19:40 - Reaching Out to Support Someone Struggling

24:35 - Encouraging Those with Suicidal Thoughts to Reach Out

29:17 - CALM's Website and How to Support the Charity

34:00 - Final Thoughts and Call to Action

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MEMORABLE QUOTE:

"It’s a very common and almost human experience to go through suicidal thoughts at different points in one’s life."

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VALUABLE RESOURCE:

CALM charity: https://www.thecalmzone.net/

Transcript

Agi Keramidas: 0:00

Did you know that one in five people will experience suicidal thoughts at some point in their lives? Yet stigma keeps many from reaching out. What if simply asking, Are you really okay? Could save a life? I Agi, welcome to Personal Development mastery podcast. I am your host, Agi Keramidas, and this is episode 484 this year we are participating in podcast zone, an incredible charitable event in the podcasting world. Podcast on is an event where multiple podcasts dedicate one episode of their show to a charity and release them simultaneously in mid March 2025 to create a massive international wave of inspiring audio content. The objective of this coordinated effort is to raise awareness for a huge number of charities worldwide. This year, it's over 1500 podcasts participating, and today I am dedicating this episode of personal development mastery to highlight and support a cause that I feel compelled to share with you, campaign against living miserably, C, A, L, M, calm. It is a suicide prevention charity fighting to reduce the devastating impact of suicide in the UK. In the following conversation, we talk about suicide prevention, breaking mental health, stigma and the power of community support, this episode could make a real difference. If you know someone who might be struggling or who wants to learn more about mental health and suicide prevention, please share this conversation with them. You never know the impact it might have. Now, let's get started today. It is my pleasure to speak with Michael Jarvis, Michael, you are the digital partnerships lead at campaign against living miserably, c, a, l, m. Calm CALM is a suicide prevention charity fighting to reduce the devastating impact of suicide in the UK, you are on a mission to help people and their misery, not their lives. Michael, welcome to the show. It's a pleasure and also my duty to highlight calm charity in this year's podcast on event.

Michael Jarvis: 3:04

Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be part of it.

Agi Keramidas: 3:07

As I said, it is a pleasure and a sense of duty at the same time, because it is, you know, COVID mission to prevent suicide is a topic I was telling you just before we started recording, I feel compelled to discuss and share, and there is one statistic I read in your website, which I hadn't read before, and I found unsettling, that one In five people will have suicidal thoughts at some point in their lives, which is a number way. I didn't think that it would be so big. I suppose many people don't. So in this conversation, among other things, I would like to explore suicide prevention and the role of calm before we go there, I would like to ask you to tell us briefly about calm, but also your involvement in calm and how it came about.

Michael Jarvis: 4:16

Course. Thank you. Yeah, so, like, like you mentioned, so campaign against living miserably, also known as calm. We're a suicide prevention charity. We're here for anyone struggling with life. We do this in lots of ways. We've got plenty of tools and resources to help people get the support they need. That includes a helpline, which is open every day. It's free, it's anonymous, and it gives support to anyone affected by suicide or suicidal thoughts. So that's you might be struggling yourself, but you might be worried about someone else, or you might have been bereaved by suicide. You can call the helpline for support, and I think, like we sort of touched on already, but people who feel. Feel suicidal, they often say they don't want to die. It's more that they kind of want that pain and misery that they're experiencing to stop. And when you're in that position, when you're struggling, it can quite easily become like It's like there's no way out, like you feel like there's no other option but suicide. And we get, we get that feeling at calm. We know we understand where people are coming from. We also know that it never is the only option, and there's always a reason to stay. So that's why, as you mentioned at the beginning, our mission is to help people in their misery and not their lives. And we do this through our services and our tools. We do this through advice on helping other people navigate the challenges that might bring people to the brink. And we'll get onto the different ways that we that we do that, whether it's through our online tools that people can use, or whether it's our guides that people can can read, or it's the helpline. And then finally, we campaign, so it's in the name campaign against every major people, but we campaign to ensure that everyone has the knowledge and skills to unite against suicide, because ultimately, we can't prevent suicide through just one or two people or a couple of charities. Everyone has to play their part, and everyone has a part to play. I guess my personal connection to this is quite close, quite profound. A few years ago, actually, quite a few years ago. Now, about 10 years ago, I lost a very close friend to suicide. His his name was Matt. He was 24 when he when he died. So still quite young. We felt, we felt older at the time. But, you know, looking back, we were all very young, and it was, yeah, like I say, very profound experience to go through bereavement by suicide. Obviously, all bereavement is can be very difficult and emotional. Bereavement by suicide has a particularly unique character and feel to it. There's many, many emotions wrapped up of maybe a bit of anger, maybe a bit of guilt, obviously sadness and regret, and many stages in that of could I have done something more to be there for my friend? With with Matt, his experience when I was grieving made me think, right? I want to do something in his memory. I want to make a difference. So I decided to run the Brighton marathon. Brighton is a city on the south coast of of the UK. It's my hometown as well, and I ran, ran the Brighton marathon in Matt's memory, but for calm. So for the charity, I didn't work, work at calm at that point, but so worked and fundraised. Fundraised for calm. And through that experience, I got exposed to the charity, started talking to some of the team, and then when a job came up a couple of years later, I thought, absolutely, that's exactly what I want to go and do. So now I get to, I get to go to work every day before that can make a big difference. Sometimes I think about Matt and the kind of what he'd think about it, but now it's, it's just a job that I'm very proud to be able to

Agi Keramidas: 8:02

do. Thank you for sharing this story and how it happened, and fundraising from Brighton marathon to becoming actively involved in that charity. It's, it sounds very fascinating as a story, you know, as a series of events, Michael, before I discuss with you, suicide prevention in particular, there is something that I would like to address, and that is the stigma around discussing suicide, mental health in general, but suicide, I think there is even more. So. How can we address this? How can we reduce this?

Michael Jarvis: 8:57

It's an absolutely crucial question, and actually the substance of that, and the substantive impact of that is, we saw some statistics recently from the Office for National Statistics, that's the government body who revealed that actually suicide is at its highest rate in the UK, at least, that it's been since for 25 years, and you know that's that could be all these people behind these massive numbers are real people. It could be a friend, a mother, a colleague, anyone can feel suicidal. And as you said, in fact, one in five of us will experience suicidal thoughts at some point. It's a very common and almost human experience to go through at different different points in one's life, and yet there is this stigma still around it. Some of this stems from historical, historical backgrounds. So for example, until quite recently in the. UK, so a few decades ago, it was a crime. So that's where we get the phrase committed suicide from, because it was a crime to attempt suicide, and you can be prosecuted for it. So that's why, in general, we now tend to not use the word commit suicide, but might say attempted suicide instead. This as a more kind of helpful way to to look at it when, when it comes to stigma, some of the thing that we want to do is to change the conversation around mental health and suicide, because we know that when people bring it out into the open, when people talk about it, so many people have that shared experience, whether it's personally, whether it's someone that's been impacted that they know, and our campaigns and the work that we do try to cut through the noise of a lot of the Mental Health conversation going on and using powerful methods embedded into cultural society and people's lives, so that we're not trying to shout from a Different angle. So for example, we use things like music and comedy and sport and gaming and everything in between to try and weave our messages into the cultural, cultural character, I guess, of people's lives, and encourage people to reach out to help. Reach out for help and talk to others. So that's that's our approach at calm. And there are many other ways of doing and that starts at a smaller level, encouraging people to have open conversations with their friends and realizing that actually the worst thing you can do is not talk about it. It's not really going to be a bad outcome from talking about it. Nothing worse than not talking about it. And then all the way up to those kind of national campaigns, even international campaigns where we're trying to change the culture and change the kind of vocabulary around suicide to break out through that stigma.

Agi Keramidas: 11:54

Thank you. There is one thing that you said, I underlined it in my notes, that you said that not only is common suicidal thoughts, I mean, but it's part of human experience. I had never thought of it before, but when, when I think of it is like a like a conscious experience. I suppose it's normal in a way, to at some point question when that experience would end, but that's a very something interesting that I got. But let's talk about suicide awareness in particular, and direct the conversation there. And I would like to ask you, I will ask the question as it is, and feel free to answer in as little or much detail as you want. My question is, what are suicidal thoughts? But more important than that, how do they feel? Because I think there is a certain weight, shall we say, in them, compared to other negative thoughts, absolutely,

Michael Jarvis: 13:02

absolutely. And it's essential that we understand that at calm, because that's what guides all of our products, all of our tools, all of our services. And I think just quickly coming back to the it's a human experience type thing, and how common it is. There's an estimate that in the UK there are around 200,000 suicides attempts per year, and about 125 people die per week. So many more, many fewer deaths than attempts. But really, you know, if someone's getting into a position where they feel like they need to attempt at that point, that's an awful situation that shouldn't have got to that that far, and coming on to then what suicidal thoughts are. I mean, at their base, it's, it's about not wanting to live, as you say, it's, it's about wanting to try and end that pain that they're going through, and then actively planning how to how to end it, and these thoughts talking about why they're so human, they can come from so many emotions or different life events, and anyone can experience them. This isn't just reserved for people with mental health issues. This isn't reserved for people that have gone through huge traumas. In fact, in many cases, it can be the combination of a few different life events that just happened all at the same time. And that said, you know, there are quite a few factors which might trigger these thoughts or have a contributive kind of impact, so things like major loss or trauma or setback, like losing a loved one or or a job or having kind of financial difficulties, things like trauma and post traumatic stress syndrome coming from difficult life events. Mental health is a is a big one. So if you have got depression or. Anxiety, then that is quite a key indicator of higher risk of suicidal thoughts. But then, as I said, things like loneliness or experiencing bullying or having maybe thoughts around one's identity, all of these things can contribute into a kind of underlying sense of I haven't got much self worth. I feel very entrapped. It's like I don't I don't see another way out. And I feel very lonely. I feel like I can't connect with people or talk to people about this and those three things, a lack of self worth, a lack of feeling like there's anything else I can do to that kind of entrapment, and then the isolation, that loneliness, when those three things come together, that's when someone is at real risk of suicidal thoughts. And I guess how they feel is going to be different to different people, but quite often they'll emerge during times of distress or sadness, some of these will be fleeting feelings. So it might be an extended period of sadness, throughout which you get fleeting moments of suicidality. And for most people, they are temporary. However, when these thoughts persist and they come back and again and again, they can spiral and they can become overwhelming, and if you're struggling with persistent suicidal thoughts, it's essential you talk to someone, because that's how we break that cycle. We break the spiral. We stop it from becoming overwhelming. And actually quite a lot of the advice that we give is super practical and super pragmatic. It's about if you're struggling, or if you feel like you're going down that path. What can you change? Is there anything you can change that's really triggering that? And actually just give yourself some time to stay and decide not to do anything, because there's a really good chance that those feelings will be gone even within an hour, you know that moment will pass, and that's then when you can get advice and support and put in place things that will prevent you from getting there again in the future. So yeah, it's, I think quite often, people will think of suicidal thoughts as quite fundamental, concrete things that you know a person is suicidal, that is them, when actually that is not the case. It's someone who might be going through a really tough time, and for an hour they feel suicidal, and then they decide to act on it. And that's, that's how it happens quite, quite often. Sometimes it will be persistent, as we say, and people will have suicidal thoughts over a long time. But that's not always the case, and it comes in all different shapes and forms.

Agi Keramidas: 17:49

Thank you for this answer, and you also answered a couple of more things that I wanted to clarify. So thank you for doing it already, but I wanted to ask. One was why people have suicidal thoughts? And you described, you said, I remember a phrase. You said that this is not reserved for people who have mental health. It is. It can happen to anyone. So also, of course, the life's events or factors like this. And the other thing was about warning signs, shall we say, because there are different. You know, it's different. If you have a fleeting thought that lasts a few seconds. It's different, different when you are you use the phrase that I think is a very key in in all this, and I will highlight this was spiral, spiral down. It is when you know the it goes way more than one initially thought that this thought would turn into so there is one other you know, regarding suicide awareness, one other angle that I would like to see this from, and that is from the angle of identifying some signs on a different on another person. I suppose that is something very important and useful. So I would like to hear your thoughts on that and anything you would like to add on what I said.

Michael Jarvis: 19:40

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, um, because we said at the top, preventing suicide is something we can all play a part in, and we've all got a part to play. And actually, just by learning a few fairly simple, fairly basic things to pick up and bring about, bring around with you in your your daily life. If you can make quite a quite a big impact and be much more aware to the people around you and asking someone how they there's a, there's, you know, asking someone how they really feel. Like asking, how are you doing, and then asking, actually, how are you doing? Again, that's, that's a, that's a bit of a trope nowadays, but it's actually something really believe in. And some, you know, that kind of brief, oh, I'm good. Don't worry about it. I'm fine. Can often, quite can quite often hide the real kind of emotion and turmoil going on. And we like to say, you know, we're not experts in this. And actually, you'll know your friends, and you'll know the people around you better than better than most. So if you feel like there's something up with someone, then that is always a good moment to do it. So you know, regardless of if you have something specific, you can point out, like a specific sign, if you feel like there's something up, there's a good chance there might be. And the worst case scenario of asking if someone's if how someone's really doing is they go, Yeah, I'm completely fine. Why are you asking about it? Whereas the worst case scenario of not asking is obviously much more, much more impactful and kind of catastrophic. So that said, thinking there are some warning signs that someone might be struggling to cope. And actually, we've got, I'm gonna list a few of you, three of these for you, but they're on our website. There's, there's plenty more for people to look at. So things like drastic mood swings or irritability. And again, this is all relevant to the person or relative to the person, I should say. So if someone's quite calm, usually maybe quite quiet, and suddenly they become a bit manic and loud, then that's an indication that something, something might be going on similarly, the other way, withdrawing from social activities, maybe a lack of energy or motivation, even physical things like neglecting personal hygiene or appearance. Maybe if there's someone who takes a lot of care in their appearance, and then slowly seems to be, yeah, losing that, losing that care that also might be linking into kind of risk taking or reckless behavior if they if they weren't before, quite a big one maybe towards the a good sign that someone has really made plans to to attempt suicide, is that they start giving away possessions. So that's something that we'll you'll see. They won't necessarily say why, but they'll start giving away possessions to people around them, and then, of course, saying goodbye to others, saying goodbye as if they're not going to see you again. And you might pick up on these things and be like, Oh, that's that feels slightly odd. That's, that's out of place. And our advice here is, if you're concerned, it's better to ask, don't be afraid and openly use the word suicide. So it's, it's a it's a sticky word to use. We still got that stigma around it. You know, I've been working in it for three years or so, and I still sometimes find myself going suicide, you know, to try and get it, get it out there, but actually talking openly about suicide and asking, Are you thinking about suicide? If you think someone's struggling, will never increase the risk, and it's always going to help someone make make them feel less isolated. The advice after that is that if they were, if they respond and say yes, acknowledge their feelings, make sure you're actively listening which which, I can tell you're great at repeating back things to people and showing that you've really listened to them, and offering reassurance and then being certain that it's not your job, it's not your responsibility to make sure that they are safe going forward, or at least, it's not your responsibility alone and that actually there are services like calm, there are services like Samaritans. There are other friends and family that they can talk to. You can talk to their GP. That's where you need to start bringing in the network of options. And again, there's lots of advice on our website about the different things that you might take someone towards, but just in that moment, having the bravery to talk about suicide openly with someone can make all the difference. And all it takes, as I mentioned before, is getting them through that next hour, maybe two hours, maybe saying right, get through today and later on, I'll help you call the GP, or I'll help you call your parents. That can make a massive difference, and that can be all you need to do sometimes.

Agi Keramidas: 24:35

Thank you, and I like that. You are ahead of me. You are answering my next question before I access so I think this, there is a nice flow to this conversation. My next question will be dealing with, you know, suicidal thoughts and you you have discussed. Already, you mentioned some things. I would like to ask you also, if we look at it from because you mentioned from the perspective of someone who is concerned about their friend and asking them, are you thinking about suicide? And I would like to ask the reversal. If one finds themselves in the position of thinking about and want to reach out to someone does the same thing applied. Do you go straight at it and say, you know, I'm thinking, or I'm of suicide, or I have suicidal thoughts.

Michael Jarvis: 25:43

So from the out perspective, so at calm we talk quite a lot about there's been a lot. There's been a big push on encouraging people to reach out, which is really important, and that's, I'll come back to that in a second. It's vitally important as well, that others are taught how to reach in and so that there is, there is that meeting in the middle, and that's, that's where, when we talk about using the word suicide, you're you're creating an environment for that person where they know you're comfortable and safe talking about the word suicide, so they don't have to hide it behind different words or different vocabulary, or they don't have to hide their true feelings because they know you don't feel stigmatic towards towards it. The other way round, I guess, is slightly more sensitive, because it's always going to be down to that person and their their sense of their own safety and what they feel they can communicate. So, yes, our advice, you know, in a our advice would be, if you are feeling suicidal, reach out and directly talk to someone and say, I am feeling suicidal. We know that can be incredibly hard to do. So in fact, just just a case of reaching out to someone and saying, I'm struggling right now can be an easier way to open up that conversation. It's whatever works for that person in that moment. We wouldn't want the word suicide to be a blocker to reaching out in in some way we quite find so our helpline, our suicide prevention helpline, completely anonymous, as you mentioned, paid professionals. So all of our helpline staff are usually therapists or counselors or some kind of support worker with a background in in this. And they're all trained, which I think is this is a brilliant part of our helpline. They're all trained in specific issues that might be trending, or trending is the wrong word, but there might be a common experience at that time. So for example, during the cost of living crisis, all of our helpline staff got training on financial issues so that they'd have really pragmatic, practical advice on what to give to people who are struggling with money, but the anonymous side of it is actually really helpful. You know, it can be great talking to a friend or family member. Sometimes it's way easier to talk to a stranger or someone that you know, someone you haven't met, someone that can offer an objective but compassionate perspective on it, and then give you advice on what to do next. So that's what we'd encourage to do, is just reach out in whatever way you feel is possible at that point, if you're feeling suicidal, then the helpline is there for you. The remit is for suicidal people. If you're worried about someone who's suicidal, or if you're bereaved by suicide, if you're not quite as far as that at that point, then we've still got lots of tools and services on our website, and there's lots of other mental health support out there. But yeah, sometimes talking to a professional stranger can make a big difference and make it easier.

Agi Keramidas: 28:58

Talking about the helpline, the tools on the website and so on. I would like to ask you to share with us the website and where people can find that even more importantly, how can listeners support calm?

Michael Jarvis: 29:17

Yeah, absolutely. So our website is the calm zone.net so it's the calm zone.net will on there. You'll find a mixture of support and tools and services, things about our existing campaigns that are going on that you can get involved in. But our tools there'll be connections to the helpline. So you can find the helpline there. There's also all of our guides and our How to articles. So that's practical advice, real tips on how to get through whatever you're going to be, whether that's exam stress, whether that's job issues, whether that's loneliness. There's about 50 different articles on different topics there with connections to different. Support Services as well, and there's a bunch of online tools as well which you can use. There's a good sometimes to take a pause and reset. There's one that I've used before called offload your thoughts, which is literally just a box on our website. You can type in whatever you're feeling, whatever you're struggling with, press Enter and it disappears when we're not collecting any data. Don't worry. It just disappears into the into the digital ether, never to be seen again. And actually, the research and the statistics on that is that it makes a substantive difference on alleviating your worries. And it can be as simple as that, you just write it down, send it away. So I use that not often, but I've definitely used it a few times, and it's and it's worked for me. So you don't even have to be, you know, feeling in that suicidal point. You might just have a worry or an issue, write it down, send it away, and suddenly it feels better somehow, which is an interesting one for human psychology, isn't it? And then, how can people get involved? We'd love as many people as possible to get involved, because we're a UK based charity, but our tools and services are available internationally. It doesn't suicide prevention doesn't start with one or two people that there's a there's a part for all of us to play, and that means you can get involved and make a difference. So you know, the simplest way is, is donating, where we're in a position where demand for our services is up and donations are being squeezed, and the costs of our services are also going up. So we're in quite a dangerous position, as are many charities in the sector where we're getting squeezed, and because of that, in a way as well, our demand is our demand is going up. So by donating, by making a regular gift, every pound you donate is going to help us make sure that we can continue being there for people who need us. For every pound you donate 80 3p so 83% of that will go to our programs and our campaigns and our services, and then the remaining 17% will be spent on administration and fundraising so that we can raise more money to make sure that our services still going to be there. So it's a good chunk so and then another way you could do it, which I absolutely love, and obviously this is how I got involved in calm, is by fundraising. So whether that's organizing your own event, we've seen people do bake sales and gigs and comedy shows ice bucket challenges, or whether it's running running a marathon or doing a fundraising stream online, it's such, particularly if you've got personal experience of it, it's such an amazing feeling to raise some money for an incredible organization, I would say, and you get brilliant support, and you get to join the kind of calm fundraiser community, which is amazing. And then it doesn't have to be just about fundraising like I said, I would really encourage people to go to our website and read some of our how to guides so that you can learn how to spot the signs of if someone's struggling to cope, what to do if you're feeling like you need some support, just learning some simple skills and signposting that you can that you can go to, And if you're not up for that right now, the really simple thing you can do is just sign up to our newsletter, because then you'll get, every month, you'll get a four or five curated points saying, here are two or three skills you could learn. Here's a new campaign that we're working on, here's a fundraising event, which we'd love you to join, and then you can just have a choice, because it's not going to be all year round, necessarily for people, but sometime or sometime in the year, they might want to, you might want to get involved. So yeah, there's fundraising, donating, learning, just going on a website and looking at the content we have, and then that newsletter will bring everything together once a month into your inbox.

Agi Keramidas: 34:00

Thank you so much. I would encourage our listeners, the mastery seeker, to follow through and go to the website. Michael, there was before I wrap up, I just remembered something you were saying about that tool that you write your type your thoughts, and they go away. You send them away. The word that came to my mind was cathartic. It sounds like really so absolutely I want to thank you very much for this conversation today, I believe we shared the very important message that deserves and must be heard much more than it is right now, because also of its sublor The we talked about it earlier, the stigma around it. So I'm very happy. That we shared this formation and these resources, really, I want to wish you from my heart the very best with carrying on with your mission as charity, with suicide prevention and changing the way people talk about it and deal with it, as you were saying, I will leave it to you for your final part in words,

Michael Jarvis: 35:32

thank you. No, it's been a real pleasure to be to be on here. And like I said, the really important bit of work that we try to do is breaking down stigma and getting the word out, and that means partnering with comedy, music, sports and podcasts. Hopefully, we're going to do more and more of that because, because people like you and podcasts like this have a real positive influence and a role to play in people's lives. So the more that we can partner with people like you and get into, get into these right spaces. That's that's the kind of thing we want to be doing. So yeah, thank you again for the opportunity.

Agi Keramidas: 36:13

If this conversation resonated with you, take action. Visit thecalmzone.net to access life saving resources or consider donating to help calm continue their vital work. Together, we can break the stigma and support those in need. Until next time, stand out, don't fit in.