Suicide and Me.

“We were travelling in speeds excess of 120MPH, and I remember thinking how peaceful it would be if the car crashed and I died.”

Welcome to my first post. A very personal subject, one I rarely talk about, most people around me know, but they don’t know. You see, I live in a very small seaside town, I mean small, like if you see someone you don’t recognize, they’re either new here or not from around here. So most people know most people. I have spoken about my depression publically, briefly, I gained some support and other people started mailing me on Facebook to talk to me about their problems, but soon enough everyone moves on and forgets. I’m not writing this in order to gain any sympathy, in fact that’s the last thing I want, it makes me feel even more ****.

What I would like to do however is reach to those with mental health problems. I see more and more people with mental health issues coming forward and raising concern and awareness for people at a constant battle with their own mind, I think that’s a good thing, unfortunately not many people understand that the world we live in now is not the same as the world was 20, 30 years ago. I’m always hearing phrases such as ‘well back in my day’ and ‘we had to walk 500 trillion miles to mars just to get water one afternoon but we were still happy’, unfortunately this generation of teenagers and young adults are forever under increasing pressure to get high grades, to meet deadlines, to fund their university, to fund a basic living, to make a positive change to this world with knowledge from school which I now see as something which was a complete waste of my time.

Here's a little about me. I left school at 16 with pretty basic grades, nothing outstanding, although I knew then that these grades were nothing but a piece of paper, I was wicked with computers, gaming, social media, website development, phone development, excel, word, you name it, I wasn’t great, I know that now, but I knew more than most, and that has always seemed to get me by. I had no major issues in my life, I was a brat of a child, screamed the place down, threw things, walked out all the time, I always felt alone, like the whole world was against me, I really should have taken a seat and realized that my mother was not to blame for my father not having a place in my life, that if she couldn’t afford to buy me something, she really couldn’t afford it, but nevertheless, I ended up having whatever it was I wanted.

Anyway, fast forward a few years I’m 18 and I go through a pretty rough break up, which eventually led to me leaving my job, college and smashing my phone to dust, drinking quite excessively which I managed to hide quite well, so that was pretty much my low point, I didn’t want to live, not because of a woman that was no longer in my life, but the fact that up until this point, I’d worked my ass off on an apprenticeship that sucked, Id decided 3 months into this job that I hated working in silence and sitting down for 10 hours at a computer developing websites, really wasn’t my thing. So there it was, I was smashed off my bonce most of the time, eventually leading to my ultimate destruction of spending days partying on alcohol and drugs, which probably lasted for a good couple of years before I found myself sitting on the side of a bridge talking to the Samaritans (I don’t know why, it’s not in my character to ask for help, but the lady I spoke to that day just sat on the phone to me while I talked.) Which eventually led to me being taken to the hospital and spending a little time in a mental health hospital. Unfortunately for me, by the time I’d been in there a few days I couldn’t wait to get out and told them I felt fine so they let me go.

I’ll skip the boring parts, 21 was when depression really hit me, I was working 100 hours a week some weeks whilst my friends were out enjoying the sun and having barbeques and drinking Jack down the beach. So I started hitting the gym again, late at night, just me and the bar. I knew by this point that this couldn’t be cured, I was an emotional wreck most of the time, no one knew, but in my head I woke up every morning with the intention that I was going to die that same evening, I started writing down quotes, finding things to focus my energy on to distract me from the dark cloud in my mind. My GP tried me on a few medications, citalopram, mirtazapine and zopiclone, before deciding that there was a chemical imbalance in my brain. Fast forward again and I’m sitting here today at 22 years of age (I’ll be 23 next month) I took it upon myself to talk about a few issues, my mother whom struggled to understand why I couldn’t be happy was a good support network for me, I opened up, I started talking about my problems, pretty openly actually and I feel much better. I personally believe that the sector for mental health is not educated enough yet to understand how each individuals mind works. Please don’t take that as a criticism as I have seen many organizations such as MIND and Suffolks Wellbeing service do some excellent work and are clearly moving in the right direction, however group sessions and a telephone appointment asking me how I feel on a scale of 1 – 10 does not help me at all. I feel mental health issues are best approached personally and individually and the best support tends to come from someone who loves you unconditionally. So open up, talk, sing, scream, dance, do what you have to do, I got kicked out of my house yesterday for reasons beyond my control and I’m still taking it on the chin with a smile on my face and in my head, some things are just meant  to happen, I’m sitting broke with no home when really by now I could have been in an excellent financial situation if things had gone differently, it’s perfectly fine, because one day I’ll be on top, I know I’m worth so much more than the dark chapters in my life. Just remember, I have to smile and laugh because if I don’t, I’ll probably cry (and being a 5’10, 95kg weight lifting bloke, crying doesn’t look great on me). Make this week good, even if it’s been terrible.

Useful Info:

Samaritans Helpline - 116 123 (UK)www.samaritans.org

http://www.mind.org.uk/

https://www.readytochange.org.uk/

 

 

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