‘I wanted to fix whatever was bothering my Josh’: Mum’s agony after son’s suicide

LAURA NOLAN will never forget the day police officers came to her beauty salon.

The men in their bulky black uniforms seemed physically too big for the small shop, their appearance too sombre for a glamorous space where nails were filed, make-up applied, frothy gossip shared.

“It was like something from a horror film,” recalls Laura. “It didn’t seem real, I didn’t feel like it was happening. Even now I find it so hard to take in, it’s been so horrendous.”

The officers arrived at her Edinburgh salon to break the terrible news that her only son, Josh, had been found dead in his Newington flat.

“I had been anxious for weeks before,” Laura says.

“He had become worse. He’d missed a session with his counsellor who’d called me to find out how he was.

“I would constantly have the same conversation with him about what was wrong, and how could I fix it?

Joshua was “an absolute joy of a child”.

“That’s what I wanted to do, to fix whatever it was that was bothering him, it’s how any parent would feel.

“They’re your child, you love them and would do anything for them.

“It’s heartbreaking to watch your child be unable to get on with their life.

“I would see him nearly every day but felt incapable of helping and he seemed incapable of telling me what the problem was.

“But even then I didn’t really think he’d take his life. It’s impossible to describe the effect all I can say is being told he was dead was like being hit by a train at 500 miles an hour.”

Josh was 22 when he died in August two years ago, a victim Laura says, of a national scandal which sees hundreds of men take their own lives every year after struggling with depression and mental illness.

The statistics make stark reading.Across the UK suicide is the biggest killer of men aged between 20 and 44. Scottish men are three times more likely to take their lives than women More young men, aged between 16 and 24, die through suicide than in road accidents. Suicide remains the most common cause of death in young men under 35.Laura believes that Josh’s death, and all suicides, are preventable.

So, in the midst of her grieving, she launched the Joshua Nolan Foundation (JNF) with the aim of reducing the number of suicides by helping young people with mental health issues get the support they need.

“Looking back, I’d say Josh had been struggling since he was about 14,” Laura says.

“Until he was around 13 he was an absolute joy of a child.

“He was a really good little boy but things changed when he started becoming an adolescent.

“He was three months premature when I had him, and I know now that can cause global developmental delay, and he was dyslexic, but none of that had seemed to affect him before.

“Suddenly it was like he didn’t want to grow up, but at the same time wanted to keep up with his peers but felt he couldn’t.

“He was very frustrated within himself.”

She adds: “At the time, being a single mum, I thought a lot of his behaviour changes were just normal teenage rebellion and angst, but gradually he got worse.

“I did try to get him help and we were back and forth to the GP.

“It was by the time he was 16 that he was diagnosed as being depressed and by then I had no say over anything as he was classed as an adult.

“He was offered anti-depressants, which I wasn’t happy about, and put on a waiting list for counselling a waiting list of 18 months.”

That’s an issue the JNF is tackling, directing people towards good counselling, many of whom they then support financially through it.

“It’s been unbelievable the number of people who’ve come forward needing help, but we can only help the very worst at the moment, those who are right on the edge, to get counselling,” Laura goes on.

“The first boy we helped was just 11.”

The Foundation is going one step further this month with the launch of workshops aimed at parents, teachers and third year pupils at James Gillespie’s High School in Edinburgh, Josh’s old school.

Laura, 38, says: “The fact that I didn’t know what was happening to Josh has made me want to get into schools to tackle this issue, to alert parents and teachers to the signs of mental health problems, and to make sure kids who feel the way Josh did have somewhere to go and people to speak to.

“Some of the workshops look at the way their brains work because they’re not fully formed until the early 20s and depression rates rise by 40% between the ages of 15 and 22.

“And that’s when drink and drugs can also come into play as well as self-harming and eating disorders.”

So far 525 people have signed up to the 10 hours of workshops at the school.

“We also have counselling support which we pay for including a 24-hour helpline for after the workshops,” says Laura.

“We have an agreement with the council to roll them out through Edinburgh but that means a lot of fundraising. I do think this kind of thing should be in the curriculum, provided by schools.

“We teach kids how to look after their bodies, why not their minds?

“I’ve had a meeting with Nicola Sturgeon about what the Government could do in terms of mental health spending millions are spent on campaigns to get people to wash their hands, why not on people’s mental health? This can happen to anyone.”

Laura herself knows the benefits of counselling. Since Josh’s death she’s been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder which has left her unable to run her business.

“The shock of your child dying, can make you very ill and a lot of people don’t understand grief,” she explains.

“Losing a child in this way . . . let’s say it’s like losing them in the supermarket when they’re wee that immediate panic and fear but a hundred times worse and it never goes away.

“You hope they didn’t suffer.”

The Joshua Nolan Foundation can be contacted at joshuanolanfoundation.org