Cromarty is s a small tight knit, highland community where everyone knows everyone else. Katie Mackay and her elder brother Calum grew up there , Calum was always seen with a beaming smile around the village, he’d speak to anyone, he was proud and protective of his wee sister. But Calum was hard on himself, judging himself against others. His death came as a complete shock to Katie and her family. It rippled hard through the community.

This episode of Speaking of Suicide is Katie’s story of how she has learnt to live with the loss of and grieve for her brother. Katie talks to Dan Holland on the beach in Cromarty about how she has felt the waves of emotion and grief come and go. She describes how she has felt herself move the different recognised stages of grief and opens up about some the tools she uses to help her through these stages of grief.

Calum still plays a big part in Katie’s life and we hear how he is remembered every time she takes her dog for a walk, how Katie has challenged herself to climb munro’s spreading the word that opening up and talking about our mental health with someone is a conversation we should all try to feel comfortable having.

You can support Katie's munro challenge here

If you need someone to talk to, you can text Mikeysline on 07786 20 77 55 or contact via messenger, webchat or twitter.  Sun-Thurs 6pm-10pm & Fri-Sat 6pm-11pm.

Or visit Mikeysline at The Hive, 19 Academy Street, Inverness, Sun-Thurs 6pm-10pm & Fri-Sat 6pm-11pm.

Speaking of Suicide is an Adventurous Audio production made thanks to the support of D&D Paving Ltd.

The music throughout the series is ‘Nana’ by Tom Ireland

This episode is a bit different because it takes the form of a conversation between Shona Macpherson and Professor Rory O’Connor.  Shona is a counsellor and life coach who works with Mikeysline and will be a familiar voice to you if you listen to the podcast regularly.  Rory is one of the world’s leading experts in the field of suicide prevention, he’s Professor of Health Psychology, Director of the Suicidal Behaviour Research Laboratory and head of the Mental Health and Wellbeing group at the University of Glasgow. He’s passionate about trying to understand the root causes of suicide in a bid to work out what we can do to reduce the shocking suicide statistics worldwide.  

His recent book “When it is darkest – Why people die by suicide and what we can do to prevent it” is a searingly honest search through this challenging and often upsetting subject.  It’s a book that’s written with such compassion and humanity we couldn’t resist asking Rory to take part in Speaking of Suicide and, since it was Shona who first brought Rory’s book to our attention and is such a passionate advocate herself of finding ways to stop suicide, we thought it should be Shona who talks with Rory.

Rory O'Connor

If you need someone to talk to, you can text Mikeysline on 07786 20 77 55 or contact via messenger, webchat or twitter.  Sun-Thurs 6pm-10pm & Fri-Sat 6pm-11pm.

Or come and visit at The Hive, 19 Academy Street, Inverness, Sun-Thurs 6pm-10pm & Fri-Sat 6pm-11pm.

Speaking of Suicide is made thanks to the support of D&D Paving Ltd.

The music is by Tom Ireland with special thanks to Dave Martin

Each day across the 12 Days of Christmas Counsellor Shona Macpherson is joining Pennie Stuart, in collaboration with Mikeysline, to share some mental health skills, practical tips you can try which might just help when you’re finding life a struggle. 

Today Shona encourages us to stand back and observe ourselves with more distance, watching our thoughts and emotions coming and going while learning to accept them and live with them, instead of seeing ourselves as defined by them.

Hopefully you’ll find some of these ideas helpful but they’re not a substitute for professional help so if you’re struggling, please seek support. Always remember its ok not to be ok and Mikeysline is available if you or someone you know needs help or advice you can text 07786 20 77 55, or contact them via messenger, webchat or twitter. Sun-Thurs 6pm - 10pm, Fri-Sat 7pm-7am. 

Each day across the 12 Days of Christmas Counsellor Shona Macpherson is joining Pennie Stuart, in collaboration with Mikeysline, to share some mental health skills, practical tips you can try which might just help when you’re finding life a struggle. 

Shona talks us through an intriguing idea of standing in the future so we can look back at ourselves and how we solve today’s problems and struggles.

Hopefully you’ll find some of these ideas helpful but they’re not a substitute for professional help so if you’re struggling, please seek support. Always remember its ok not to be ok and Mikeysline is available if you or someone you know needs help or advice you can text 07786 20 77 55, or contact them via messenger, webchat or twitter. Sun-Thurs 6pm - 10pm, Fri-Sat 7pm-7am. 

Each day across the 12 Days of Christmas Counsellor Shona Macpherson is joining Pennie Stuart, in collaboration with Mikeysline, to share some mental health skills, practical tips you can try which might just help when you’re finding life a struggle. 

Following on from yesterday’s episode, today Shona and Pennie explore the senses of touch and sound as a way of being in the moment and unhooking ourselves from unhelpful thoughts.

Hopefully you’ll find some of these ideas helpful but they’re not a substitute for professional help so if you’re struggling, please seek support. Always remember its ok not to be ok and Mikeysline is available if you or someone you know needs help or advice you can text 07786 20 77 55, or contact them via messenger, webchat or twitter. Sun-Thurs 6pm - 10pm, Fri-Sat 7pm-7am. 

Each day across the 12 Days of Christmas Counsellor Shona Macpherson is joining Pennie Stuart, in collaboration with Mikeysline, to share some mental health skills, practical tips you can try which might just help when you’re finding life a struggle. 

When we’re in distress its really easy to be hooked by unhelpful thoughts, we’re often advised to be “in the present” but how do we do that in practice?  Today Shona talks Pennie through how to use her senses of sight to be in the moment.

Hopefully you’ll find some of these ideas helpful but they’re not a substitute for professional help so if you’re struggling, please seek support. Always remember its ok not to be ok and Mikeysline is available if you or someone you know needs help or advice you can text 07786 20 77 55, or contact them via messenger, webchat or twitter. Sun-Thurs 6pm - 10pm, Fri-Sat 7pm-7am. 

Each day across the 12 Days of Christmas Counsellor Shona Macpherson is joining Pennie Stuart, in collaboration with Mikeysline, to share some mental health skills, practical tips you can try which might just help when you’re finding life a struggle. 

Having encouraged us to recall a difficult situation in the previous episode and acknowledge that it hurts, in this episode Shona talks us through how to think about being kinder to ourselves in response to emotional pain and practice the art of self-compassion.  She offers up some great tips on how to remember that we’re not alone in feeling emotional pain and then find a way to sooth ourselves.

Hopefully you’ll find some of these ideas helpful but they’re not a substitute for professional help so if you’re struggling, please seek support. Always remember its ok not to be ok and Mikeysline is available if you or someone you know needs help or advice you can text 07786 20 77 55, or contact them via messenger, webchat or twitter. Sun-Thurs 6pm - 10pm, Fri-Sat 7pm-7am. 

Each day across the 12 Days of Christmas Counsellor Shona Macpherson is joining Pennie Stuart, in collaboration with Mikeysline, to share some mental health skills, practical tips you can try which might just help when you’re finding life a struggle. 

Today Shona talks us through the importance of self-compassion.  It’s not always easy to feel compassionate to ourselves so Shona shows us some ways to explore painful or difficult emotions and realise that we’re not alone in suffering them.  In this first part the aim is simply to recall a difficult situation and acknowledge that it hurts. Don’t forget to come back for part 2 in the next episode.

Hopefully you’ll find some of these ideas helpful but they’re not a substitute for professional help so if you’re struggling, please seek support. Always remember its ok not to be ok and Mikeysline is available if you or someone you know needs help or advice you can text 07786 20 77 55, or contact them via messenger, webchat or twitter. Sun-Thurs 6pm - 10pm, Fri-Sat 7pm-7am. 

Each day across the 12 Days of Christmas Counsellor Shona Macpherson is joining Pennie Stuart, in collaboration with Mikeysline, to share some mental health skills, practical tips you can try which might just help when you’re finding life a struggle. 

Today Shona encourages Pennie to explore an emotion and takes her through an exercise which helps her to think about how a particular emotion feels in the body.

Hopefully you’ll find some of these ideas helpful but they’re not a substitute for professional help so if you’re struggling, please seek support. Always remember its ok not to be ok and Mikeysline is available if you or someone you know needs help or advice you can text 07786 20 77 55, or contact them via messenger, webchat or twitter. Sun-Thurs 6pm - 10pm, Fri-Sat 7pm-7am. 

Each day across the 12 Days of Christmas Counsellor Shona Macpherson is joining Pennie Stuart, in collaboration with Mikeysline, to share some mental health skills, practical tips you can try which might just help when you’re finding life a struggle. 

Today Shona talks about our emotions, what they are, what their  purpose is and how we respond to them across our whole body.  She explains how emotions are calls to action but that we don’t always have to act on them.  She encourages us not to think about emotions as the bad guy and suggests we can change our relationship with them. 

Hopefully you’ll find some of these ideas helpful but they’re not a substitute for professional help so if you’re struggling, please seek support. Always remember its ok not to be ok and Mikeysline is available if you or someone you know needs help or advice you can text 07786 20 77 55, or contact them via messenger, webchat or twitter. Sun-Thurs 6pm - 10pm, Fri-Sat 7pm-7am.