Are you ok?

Teresa Corbett, student

One night last month I was walking along the river in Galway, coming home from dinner with a friend. I was completely hypnotised by the gushing water and something about it got me thinking about what it would be like to fall in, how cold it must be, and how quickly you’d be swept into the sea and washed away. Morbid, I know, and maybe it was the wine I had with dinner, but there’s something about the Corrib that transfixes me like that.

I rounded the corner at Jury’s Inn and as I walk along the bridge, a young girl came towards me. At first she just looked tipsy but as I walked towards her I noticed that she also looked quite distressed. We made eye-contact, I kept walking. She walked past. Two complete strangers just walking over the bridge. But something in me was jarred by the look she gave me and I stopped and looked back. She had stopped. She looked at me again and in my embarrassment at having being caught looking, I turned and walked again. But then I wondered, why had she stopped?

What's left behind

Laura, staff member

Trigger warning - suicide

I can honestly say I had a good life; I grew up in a secure bubble and never experienced hardship or adversity. I remember one occasion a few years ago, talking to my closest childhood friends about how lucky we all were to have had such a happy childhood, getting through those teenage years unscathed, loved being a student and university life, finding careers which we enjoyed, getting married and ultimately settling down. However despite the fact that my life sounded like something from a chick lit novel, I wasn’t naive to the fact that one day my bubble may burst. The big bang occurred on May 22nd 2012. It was an ordinary Tuesday morning when I received a phone call from my father telling me that my brother Conor had died. That was the moment which changed my life beyond recognition.