Stephanie Craig remembers being 12 years old, an age when girls tend to be excitedly preparing for high school, in the grip of a first crush and dreaming of their futures.

Yet for her, twelve was when she first tried to take her own life.

She followed it a year later with another attempt and at 14 she asked her GP for anti-depressants, even though she wasn’t sure exactly what they were or if she even had depression.

What she did know, is that she didn’t want to live.

“From the age of 14 to 18, I had in the region of 20 suicide attempts, one after the other,” she says. “I felt that the whole world was against me, I couldn’t handle it anymore. I was constantly feeling suicidal.

“When your brain is telling you to kill yourself – there’s no hope.”

Now 21 and a student at Glasgow Caledonian University, Stephanie’s experiences are helping to mould a range of actions aimed at reversing a worrying upward swing in Scotland’s suicide rates among young people.

As a member of the Lived Experiences Panel working with the National Suicide Prevention Action Group (NSPLG), her real-life knowledge is shaping improved services, training and suicide support – expected to be in even higher demand as a result of the pandemic.

According to the recent report from the Scottish Covid-19 Mental Health Tracker young adults, women, people with a mental or physical health condition and in a lower socio-economic group all reported higher rates of mental health problems during the pandemic’s third wave.

In the Tracker, which coincided with increased restrictions at the beginning of October, one tenth of respondents said they had experienced suicidal thoughts, with young adults aged between 18 to 29 reporting the highest rate.

It comes against a background of rising concern over suicide figures: there were 833 probable suicides registered in Scotland in 2019 – 6% more than in 2018 and the highest annual total since 2011.

While almost two thirds of cases involved men, the rate among young people aged 15 to 24 increased for the second consecutive year.

Amid concerns over suicide rates among young people, the NSPLG is now set to launch a new Children and Young People Panel. The first of its kind in Scotland, it will give young people affected by suicide, the chance to help alter the way key services are delivered and highlight gaps in care.

Their input will also feed into discussions surrounding the future of young people’s mental health support service, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS).

The service has come under fire for long waiting lists: recent Public Health Scotland figures showed the number of children waiting more than 12 months for treatment has almost trebled in a year.

Only 72.5 per cent of young people treated by CAMHS were seen within 18 weeks, despite a Scottish Government target of 90%, while between January and March this year 1793 referrals – the equivalent of 22.1% - were rejected.

Stephanie, who suffered years of childhood physical and sexual abuse, believes the pandemic’s impact could make the next series of suicide statistics even more shocking reading.

She also highlighted a desperate need for faster and more effective mental health and support services and pinpointed a gap in the way young women are treated.

“We are in a massive crisis, and I am worried the next suicide figures for Scotland will be shocking,” she says.

“I was lucky to be fine for the first 10 months of the pandemic because I was kept busy. But after that I was not okay.

“I have support but there are people out there with no-one. There are kids losing their strength, they’re not allowed to do the things they are used to doing – that has an effect on how they feel.”

She wants suicide training to become commonplace, so people can better understand suicide and how to talk to people in crisis.

“I found people were too quick to say I was over-reacting,” she adds. “I remember one guy saying to me that it was ‘not the Stephanie show’.

“A paramedic said I shouldn’t be depressed, and that he’d been in a war and he wasn’t depressed.

“I sat at lots of train stations and cried like you’ve never seen someone crying. But police would come and ‘say think about your family’. They were dismissive about how I felt.”

After one suicide attempt left her requiring care in A&E, she was told there were more deserving people requiring treatment than her.

“Girls are very quickly dismissed as over-reacting, but girls suffer a lot more than they let on, they project things very differently,” she adds.

“The Lived Experiences Panel is a gamechanger. We’re using our experience to make a difference.

“There’s no point preaching to someone about what to do because they’ve read a textbook, you have to learn from people who have been there.”

Launched in 2018, the National Suicide Leadership Prevention Group has a ten-point action plan which includes a bereavement pilot project which will support grieving loved ones.

Another pilot schemes being launched in two areas will ensure every probable death by suicide is fully reviewed.

While a new high profile United to Prevent Suicide awareness campaign aimed at men will be launched in the wake of the Euros, followed by one specifically targeting young people.

Rose Fitzpatrick, chair of NSPLG, says the latest mental health tracker and suicide figures are cause for concern, particularly for young people.

“There’s a sense for many of uncertainty, confusion about what is happening, the rhythm of their day is disrupted. Their sense of stability and control of what is happening to them has changed,” she says.

“Being able to talk about their feelings, be believed, have their feelings acknowledged and have people in their lives they can trust is important.

“We need to recognise for children where they need specific mental health support or treatment, they get it promptly.

“The waiting lists are very long and we have to do better.

“As we come out of this, it’s not about getting back to where we were we have to improve where we are.”

Professor Rory O’Connor of the Suicidal Behaviour Research Laboratory at Glasgow University, said that although there is no clear data of increased suicides due to the pandemic, there is a need to “be vigilant”.

“We know that people’s mental health and wellbeing, especially that of young people, has been adversely affected by the pandemic,” he says.

“It’s important that we continue to be vigilant.”

For more details go to https://unitedtopreventsuicide.org.uk/