Man close to taking his own life praises Men Matter for saving him

The brave Men Matter Scotland member, known as ‘The Preacher’, praised the Glasgow suicide prevention charity just a week after going through the mental health crisis.

“I can only tell you the truth – it got to the point that I was going to take my own life,” the 58-year-old said.

“If it wasn’t for the staff and the boys, I don’t think I’d be here.

“If I was to win the EuroMillions tomorrow and gave them every penny, I don’t believe it would be enough to give back.

“They’ve saved my life and I believe they’ve saved a lot of people’s lives; I really do.

“When we’re here, we all know that there’s something wrong so we’re all there for each other. It’s an amazing place.”

Volunteers, members and staff at Men Matter Scotland (Image: Newsquest)

If you are struggling, you can contact Men Matter on 0141 944 7900 or the Samaritans 24/7 on 116 123

In May 2021, the number of members had already hit 800 following the opening of the Drumchapel-based hub the year before, but that has since risen to 1700.

“Given our membership is still increasing, which is in one way positive because people are seeking help, it's obviously a concern that there's still that much of a need for our service,” board chair Tom Elvin said.

Tom Elvin (Image: Newsquest)

“Our volunteers are effectively the glue that allows us to continue our operations. But in the last year, we've been very fortunate that we've been able to increase our staff members.

“We have also certainly moved forward in terms of how secure we are. We used to have to look at what we were doing in the next six weeks. We can now look ahead to the next 24 months and we're looking to put further plans in place to develop a strong five-year plan.

“We have changed from being an organisation that was having to go and chap a lot of doors to get people involved and engaged."

Team leader Fraser Devine (Image: Newsquest)

The dedicated team at Men Matter hope to build a self-sustaining and secure model for the charity that can be rolled out elsewhere in Glasgow and across the world.

This would enable similar life-saving hubs to be set up anywhere.

Tom said: “Statistics claim that one in six people are impacted or have been impacted by mental health.

“There were over 700 suicide deaths in Scotland in 2021, and that's before we consider drug-related and alcohol-related deaths, which I am positive, some will have been as a result of mental health.

“We have 1700 members and rather than one in six of us having mental health issues, pretty much every single member has or has experienced mental health issues.

“If you look at the loss of members that we've experienced through suicide, which is admittedly already too high, it is vastly, vastly smaller than what you see in the general population.

“That tells me that we are doing something different. We're providing support, hope, education and awareness.”

READ MORE: Men Matter Mental health charity speak out about suicide and how they can help

Organisations and people from across the world are in touch with the Men Matter team to try and gain experience of how they successfully help those that walk through the doors.

The welcoming hub, on Drumchapel Road, is open every day for anyone who is struggling and needs to speak with staff, volunteers, or members.

There’s also a talking room, games room, music room, meditation room, gym, podcast room, and computer room as well as a kitchen for cooking classes.

This year, there are plans to use an outdoor facility in the north of Scotland.

“We're also looking to try and make sure that we get funding to secure some further staff members to make sure that we can provide more and more support to more people,” Tom added.

“The majority of what we do is reactive, right? So, we don't know who's going to come to the door.

“We don't know what issues we're going to experience every day. So, we need to try and make sure that we are in as sound a position as we can with our planned business-as-usual stuff to actually make sure that we can deal with the reactive stuff.

“Another thing that we're hoping to do is demonstrate through really sound, robust, data how we think our service is demonstrable in helping reduce the suicide statistics.

“We're gaining quite a lot of information of how many people are coming through the doors and how many people are seeing the benefits.

"We're trying to put that sort of data to the politicians and the people who are effectively in charge of the purse strings to let them see that if they invest upfront in prevention and awareness, they'll save everybody a lot of heartache in terms of people killing themselves and also a lot of money supporting and dealing with the fallout of the suicides.”

Tom, who is originally from Springburn but now lives in Bishopton, revealed that lots of people and businesses are interested in helping Men Matter.

The 50-year-old added: “Sadly, a lot of the people that want to help are people who have perhaps already experienced loss, and then they try and raise funds to help prevent that from happening elsewhere.

“But we're also dealing with a lot of big companies now. Vodafone, for example, has been terrific. More local, Partick Thistle has been terrific.

“There are more people becoming aware of what we're trying to do, and thankfully they're trying to provide financial support.

“But what I would also say is, it's not just financial support we need. See if somebody can help us by giving up their time, that's as important for us because that allows us to ensure that our service remains open, consistent, and positive for the people that need it.

“And something that I'm always quite keen to state is we are obviously Men Matter Scotland, of that there's no doubt. But every man has a woman in their life, whether that be their mum, daughter, their niece, and I think that we're helping them understand more about men’s mental health as well.

"So, if you can understand the issues, the triggers, the signs, then we can perhaps deal with it at a much earlier stage.”

The charity is also in touch with local doctor surgeries to try and form part of the services that they provide, as well as working closely with Police Scotland’s suicide prevention team.

Tom Elvin (Image: Newsquest)

Tom added: “We believe that we're trying wherever we can to engage and interact with the people that can help us make a difference.

“What we are doing is tremendously positive. The need for it is obviously not positive. But I think that if you or somebody in your family is struggling and they think that they have nowhere to go, or they think that they have nobody to talk to, tell them that we're here. Tell them that there is help.

“Encourage them to get in touch and we'll try and help as much as we possibly can.”

If you are struggling, you can contact Men Matter on 0141 944 7900 or the Samaritans 24/7 on 116 123