Liam Michael Jones born 23 May 1986 sadly taken Monday 13^th April 2020. 

As we all know now more than ever, life is no easy feat. It’s full of peaks and troughs but sometimes those downs become just too much for people, with one of those people being my son, Liam. He was an awesome young man, with sensitivity and kindness beyond his years. I for one, will remember him with a very keen sense of humour which he showered on his cousins, his beautiful partner and adorable son and daughter. 

Sadly as I sit writing this, I know that he could not cope with the pressures of life. Some may say “get up and dust yourself off”, but when you are in the middle of a crisis that makes no difference. To me, Liam will not become another mere statistic, and I’ll aim to spread his story and raise awareness for people who might be struggling. The truth is, some don’t outwardly display their feelings, and unfortunately still in present society those people tend to be men. 

For Liam, for a long time, this couldn’t be more true. He bottled up his feelings and left himself become vulnerable to alcohol and I truly believe that his mental health issues were the beginning of his addiction and not the other way round. Alcohol became all-consuming, and his demons grew, he began to push people away, but of course a parent’s love cannot be broken that easily. After many admissions to hospital, missed opportunities on his apparent cries for help were not picked up. Luckily his father found the resources to place him into rehab. As he was just engaging in recovery, his body began cry out for him leading to another hospital admission. He was found a placement into a halfway house where staff were checking in on him, yet he was found, cold, on his bed on Monday 13^th April 2020. We are sure that Liam is in a much happier place now, and he is now free of all his demons to find the peace that he always needed. By peace I mean inner peace that we all have and we all must find to be able to live in this crazy world. And in a time of such grief, please help us to spread the warmth he had, and provide people who may be in his position with the nudge in the right direction they need.  Spread the story. Have a conversation. 

So together we can combat this and support CALM, which is the Campaign Against Living Miserably which does the most amazing work with people at crisis point, using frontline services, community schemes and campaigns to spread the message that mental health issues are not indefinite and don’t have to be a way of life. With the support of my family, I know I can get through anything because we are together. If you don’t have that support system around you, CALM can help provide you with that in getting the help you require. Join the movement with me, and Campaign Against Living Miserably.