A GREENOCK veteran whose life-saving work has supported hundreds of locals through their mental health struggles has told how he devoted his life to suicide prevention after losing a number of close friends.
Man On Inverclyde’s lead practitioner Sam Magee first joined the mental health charity shortly after its founding in 2020 as a volunteer, having previously worked as a bin truck driver for the council.
The 43-year-old has since gone on to become a full-time employee of the successful charity and now oversees all of its adult services, including its football therapy sessions, its bereavement group and its peer support sessions.
Sam told the Telegraph he had become interested in suicide prevention and mental health after losing pals who he had served with when he was in the armed forces between 2003 and 2010.
He said: “I wanted to understand why so many men were taking their own lives and what the cause behind it was.
“That took me on my own journey of getting educated on suicide prevention and mental health and wellbeing and then when Man On started I got involved with the CEO Chris and it’s all grown from there.
“When I came in here, I took the peer support group, but I also drove bin trucks and did deliveries at night times.
“It was intense but also really rewarding. I never thought this would be what I would be doing. I thought I’d be driving bin trucks until I retired.
“But I felt like I needed to be doing something more and that’s why I started here.”
Sam was based in Germany for some of his time in the forces, but also served on two tours of Iraq before coming home in May 2010.
He believes that his own experiences in the armed forces and the journey he went through when adapting to civilian life afterwards has helped him understand with and relate to the people he now works with.
While Sam’s military career had plenty of highlights, it was also not without its difficulties.
In 2005, just 10 days after the birth of his daughter, Sam had to leave the country for his first tour of Iraq.
He said: “It was very difficult, I never got to process what it felt like to be a dad for the first four years of my daughter’s life.
“Trying to build a relationship with your own child in the two week leave periods I got when I’d missed her first steps and her first words was very difficult.
“The guilt that came with that ate me up for so long.
“One of the big things was how can I be away on operational tours when I’ve got a daughter that needs me.
“I had to make that choice and that’s why I left the army.
“There’s a lot of trauma that comes with that and sometimes you don’t know the toll it’s taken on you until you come out of that environment “
Sam recalls how he was ‘climbing the walls’ for the first four years after leaving the army and says it took him over four years before he finally found a way forward through a job driving council bin lorries.
He added: “You’re continually stuck in fight or flight throughout your career.
“I was so lost going into my 30s, I didn’t know what I needed and being able to come home and regulate myself for me and my daughter helped me find a normality for me.
“That journey is a big part of how I’m able to help people now.
“When you’ve been at the lowest point yourself and you can’t see what tomorrow looks like because you don’t know what tomorrow looks like because you don’t know if there’s going to be a tomorrow, you can understand where the people who walk through our doors are and support them through that.”
The mental health worker is now keen to offer Man On’s services to as many people as possible in the local area and beyond.
He recently teamed up with his cousin, Larkfield councillor James Daisley, to help take Man On’s services on the road and bring them to the area they both grew up in.
He said: “I grew up in Kenilworth until I was about 12 or 13 and then moved to Larkfield
“I think there’s a lot of stigma attached to different parts of communities wherever they are, but definitely in Inverclyde.
“A lot of people think it’s a bit rough in those environments, but you don’t feel that when you’re in it.
“People think there’s no hope in certain communities, but I refuse to believe that, everybody’s mental health and wellbeing is important.
“People were telling me and my cousin James Daisley they couldn’t afford to get into the town because of the bus fares or their money had been stopped.
“It’s such a horrendous way to be living and not having access to support.
“That’s why we took our community outreach place out and started in Larkfield to say that if they can’t come to us then we’ll come to them.
”I want to take that into every ward into Inverclyde to make people feel like they’re heard.”
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