As the number of suicides in Canterbury rises against a trend of falling rates across the country, an ex-police detective who once wanted to end his own life has pleaded with anyone struggling to ask for help...

Mark Kilbey is bipolar and for 10 years struggled with manic mood swings and severe depression.

The former Met Police detective, who now lives in Wingham, says his issues began as a child but reached their height when he lost his job and started to become isolated.

After spending almost two years in and out of a mental health hospital - the longest period lasting five months - things changed when the 55-year-old began opening up to other patients.

He is now director of Take Off, a Canterbury-based charity run entirely by people who have experienced mental illness.

His plea to those struggling comes as new figures show the district’s suicide rate has risen over the last three years, against a trend of lower rates across the country as a whole.

“You have got to talk about it,” he said. “I know that’s an enormous cliché. But you have got to get it out there.

“You have also got to get yourself out. When I decided to make the effort to go out, I never came home feeling worse than when I left. It’s incredibly important to get active.

“Taking on any mental illness is a long-term, difficult thing. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

“But it’s very, very worthwhile when you do make that decision.

“The relief I feel about being alive is amazing. But 10 to 15 years ago, I never would have thought that.”

Between 2012 and 2014 there were 33 suicides in Canterbury - a rate of 10.9 per 100,000 people - compared to 50 in the following three years, a rate of 11.7.

Nationally, the rate fell from 10.0 to 9.6 over the same period.

Male suicides rates are at their lowest on record, but of the 5,821 suicides in the UK last year, 75% were still men.

For Mark, who is bipolar one - the most severe form of the disorder - had for years been misdiagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and severe personality disorder, but a turning point came when he was hospitalised in a secure unit in 2005.

“It was quite a long time, and I found myself really beginning to analyse why I kept ending up destroying my life,” he continued.

“I’d always kept myself to myself until I was discharged. But on this occasion, because it was so long, I started to engage a lot with the other people around me.

“I discovered that actually, a lot of them were wonderful people who knew a huge amount about mental illness.

“There were other bipolar people who started to help me. So I decided that rather than completely blank the fact that I had a mental illness, I was going to embrace the fact that I had bipolar disorder and accept it.”

Three years ago, Mark launched Take Off, which offers peer support ‘crisis groups’ funded by the Canterbury and Coastal CCG and facilitated by people with experience of mental illnesses.

“Bipolar is an incredibly difficult illness for you, and it’s harder for the people around you. You’re either really down in the dumps or as high as a kite,” Mark continued.

“I lost a relationship, a marriage, and my finances were in a mess. To come back from that takes years" - Mark Kilbey

“You don’t care what you do with money, you don’t care what you do with anything.

“I lost a relationship, a marriage, and my finances were in a mess. To come back from that takes years.

“But you can do it and it’s worth doing. My life has actually never been better.”

To find out more about Take Off, visit takeoff.works. The Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123.