Dear All Whom This Concerns, Which Is Everybody

I am writing this on behalf of my generation and all generations to declare the urgency of the subject Psychology (Types: Mental & Physical Health, Cognitive, Social &Personality, Developmental and Biological) to be implemented into the children of today’s UK school curriculum (Year 5 – Year 13) permanently.

This is not a want – this is a need.

Psychology is the scientific study of how people behave, think and feel. The study of everything about the human experience - from the basic workings of the brain to consciousness, memory, reasoning and language to personality and mental health overall.

We are becoming a society able to communicate on a larger than before, worldwide basis through the ever-growing use of technology. Which allows us to reach and interact with the minds of people we may never meet in our lifetime – I believe this is a great power we have developed, but just like in everything, there is a down side also.

We can learn just about everything and anything online – the good and the bad, the truth and the lies. Whether you want to or not, it’s all there for your eyes to see and your mind to acknowledge.

We have developed the ability to self-educate on a scale and depth like never before in history.

I believe the inability to understand our own personal human mind, is the cause of mass suicides all over the world - The inability to comprehend the experiences that take place in one’s personal life can be extremely detrimental and quite clearly causes one to feel inadequate enough to either attempt suicide or actually commit suicide.

We have lost too many people worldwide to suicide, but not 1 of them has died in vain. They perished trying to navigate some of the darkest areas in one’s personal human mind. Which without a strong support system or true understanding of one’s self, can be extremely difficult to do – so difficult that it can capture and steal even the strongest of people. See... we can all have the exact same experience, but each of our perceptions and overall takeaways from the same experience can vary from one extreme to other depending on one’s mindset and environment.

In order to prevent these mental health issues from growing and eventually resulting in suicide, we NEED to teach those being brought into this society (aka the upcoming generations) how to handle and communicate properly with people who may have extremely different views, or come from a completely different way of life to what we are accustomed to.

My name is Miami Coleman, I’m 22 years old and I’m not an expert in psychology - I didn’t go to SixForm, College or University... but I am a person who has been through my own personal hell. I wrote my first suicide letter at 8 years old in my room at my dad’s house whilst my family were downstairs. I wrote about jumping out of my window. I still remember much of the feelings I felt that came with writing that in my journal... it quite clearly came from a deep belief that ending my life would save me from how I felt about my experiences at that time in my life.

I struggled for 8 years mentally after writing that, only to find myself attempting to overdose at 16 years old in the midst of my GCSE Mock Exams. In March 2015 I locked myself in my room one night with my back facing the door so no one would be able to come in and I started to take a lot of ibuprofen, paracetamols and co-codamol’s altogether. I was an emotional wreck, baggage that I had been carrying my whole life became too much for me to carry and I had come to the conclusion once again that life was simply unbearable, but I had felt compelled to act on it this time. With tears streaming down my face, feeling dizzy and slowly losing consciousness I started to compose text messages to my best friend Elli, explaining my pain and how I was no longer able to cope. I told her I loved her and thanked her for keeping me mentally afloat since we met and became friends in 2010. I let her know I had taken a lot of tablets, and was feeling sleepy. I told her I was sorry it had to end this way.

Elli started to call my phone after seeing the texts, I ignored all phone calls. She then rung my mum who was downstairs in my house at the time, telling her what I had done. My mum soon rushed up to my bedroom door, banging on it and shouting for me to open it. When I did open the door, truthfully… I don’t remember much apart from being shouted at by my mum – Why did you do this? How many have you taken?

My mum brought me downstairs as she rung 999 to get an ambulance to take us to the hospital but they had said they wouldn’t be able to get to us for another few hours - by this time I was already closing my eyes and falling asleep on the living room sofa. My mum decided to drive us to A&E, by this time it was about 12am on a Monday morning. It was quite busy so we were waiting until 2am to be seen – My mum tried her best to keep me awake.

As we were called by the doctors in A&E, I was taken into a room with a bed and put onto a drip to flush the tablets out of my system, I also had my heart monitored. I was asked a lot of questions as to why I done it, and was given a counsellor the next morning to discuss in depth what made me do this to myself but I had never been a person to open up about personal experiences, especially with somebody I’ve never met in my life – no matter how much of an expert they are. Until now of course.

I was discharged and for the following 3-4 weeks I was off school, missing some of the most important exams of my life. I was living at my nans house as I recovered - I had ruined my stomach lining from how many tablets I had taken so for 2-3 weeks afterwards I couldn’t eat or drink without throwing it all up straight after… I had to take more tablets to settle and build my stomach lining back up again. I felt embarrassed and ashamed about what I had gone through… not knowing how many other people had felt the feelings I was experiencing at the time. I also felt the pressure of getting back to school in time for my real GCSES.

After losing my childhood family friend Tommy Crush to suicide in 2018, it made me view suicide from a whole new perspective… that it is truly heartbreaking for every single person who knew them but it is always preventable, ALWAYS. However, we cannot always stop a person from committing suicide just by talking to them or being there for them consistently: its internal, it’s a mindset, its education that they need.

I really wish I had learnt in school how tough it can be to live in your mind sometimes and the ways to manage internal pain and trauma that we all experience throughout our lives. I do believe this would have helped me to understand my purpose and how valuable life is. I consider myself one of the lucky ones, and for that reason it’s my duty to use my testimony to bring change… for the ones before me, and the ones who come after me.

This is why I firmly believe that educating the children of today on Psychology and overcoming mindsets that do not serve us is the direct solution to not only lowering suicide rates but increasing overall human intelligence on a wider scale.

Please make the subject Psychology part of the primary & secondary UK school curriculum permanently as this is just as important as Physical Exercise (P.E) and needs to be recognized before we lose a whole generation to self-medicating, depression & unresolved trauma.

Yours Sincerely, 

Miami Coleman