Trigger warning.

Trigger warning:Suicide.
I read a book today. Started after lunch and finished by bed time. This book is so special. So honest. So raw, and funny and tragic and truly inspiring. 
A few years ago I taught Ben - the boy, well man now although he’s still only 22 - who wrote the book and I taught his brother Sam, who features heavily in the book as without him there’d have been no reason for Ben to write it. 
Both boys were lovely. Simply really nice. I taught them art till they were 13 when they moved schools. At age 15 Sam took his own life and Ben, aged 17 did all he could to save him. This book is about mental health and the need to change the lack of provision there is for suffers. It’s also about Ben and Sam and their family. 
I’ve read a lot of books, many self help, trauma, relationship based books and this one without a shadow of a doubt is one of the best, if not THE best I’ve ever read. 
I am so immensely proud of Ben and cannot truly get my head round what he has been through and how remarkable he is. He is changing lives as he swore to Sam he would. I really cannot put into words the effect this book has had on me. 


From one of Ben’s instagram posts. “When I was 17 I lost my younger brother to suicide. Without a doubt that was the most traumatic, horrific thing I will ever experience. I’ve tried my best over the years since to help stop this same thing from happening to another family.

The sad truth is though, Sam died in 2018 and since then over 20,000 other families in the UK have lost a loved one to suicide. There’s only so much I can write in an Instagram caption, so I wrote a book about what needs to change and how we can all look after ourselves and each other a bit better.” 
https://www.instagram.com/iambenwest/