The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
I rang in 2015 with a glass of Jack Daniels to my left and a stack of half-finished exam papers to my right. My parents and sister had gone off to a party with their friends and left me to my work. This was to be my third New Year’s Eve in a row spent working on college work. This time though, my finals were to start in three days time and I still had a handful of topics to cover. As people all over the world were jubilant about the dawn of a new year, I was studying a fuzzy-control-system for Lilliput. I was feeling quite positive though. This was going to be the last set of exams I would have to take in university and once they were over I would be able to begin work on my thesis. Once I had my thesis finished I would then be free to plan my future as a computer scientist graduate. This moment of bliss wasn’t to last for long though.
Later the following day I descended into another depressive episode. This wasn’t the first time that this had happened. Fourteen months earlier I had tried to commit suicide while in a similar state. This time was different though. My previous attempt had been totally spontaneous but this time I began to plan how I would do it. I had written letters to my family and closest friends trying to explain why I did what I did and to try beg for their forgiveness. I had also planned out different scenarios in my head and settled on one which would cause the least hurt for everyone.
When I first read Harry Potter as a child I don’t think I truly understood J.K. Rowling’s description of Dementors and how they related to her experience with clinical depression. Dementors are described as creatures which suck all happiness and positive emotions from a person. That is exactly how I felt in the first few days of the year. It felt like a tap had been turned on and all good feelings had been drained from me. What I felt was nothingness and it was unbearable. Each second lasted an eternity and simple things like eating, sleeping and talking seemed like insurmountable tasks. I tried to reach out to people but my attempts were sabotaged by my own melancholia. It was at this point I realised I had to do something about this. I couldn’t continue living like this, I had to get help.
I finished my finals on Wednesday 10th January and the first thing I did afterwards was make the journey across campus to the counselling service. Each step of the way I struggled to come up with excuses to put off what I was doing but I had promised myself I would get help and this thought guided me forward. I arrived at the counselling service building and made the mistake of getting into one of the faulty lifts that plague the building. After an insufferable wait, the doors finally closed and then proceeded to slowly make its way up the building (while incorrectly announcing it’s imminent arrival between floors). I then arrived in the couselling service reception and was presented with an ultimatum: go back in any day at 1pm for an emergency session (which could be already filled once you got there) or wait two weeks for an appointment. I chose the latter because I knew I would not be able make the journey back there unless I was already booked in. I left feeling a little bit better because I knew I had finally accepted something was wrong and was going to get help. This good feeling wasn’t to last for long…
I had planned to spend that following weekend in Dublin and begin work on the project work for my thesis. For some reason, which still don’t quite understand I suddenly changed my mind and decided to head back to my parents’ home. My parents were obviously happy that I had decided to come home to visit and I was even greeted by my mother at the front door when I arrived. Little did I know this would be the last time I would see her as I remember her.
For most of my teenage and adult life my mother was always sick. She was initally diagnosed with an autoimmune disease while I was still in primary school and then later a rare type of cancer. She would often be rushed to hospitial and there had been a few close calls over the years but she always made it through. I thought this would be just like one of the previous scares we had had before. I was wrong, very wrong.
It is a little know fact that over half of Irish and British chicken contain a poisonous bacteria called Campylobacter. We don’t know exactly what happened but it seems that on the Wednesday I finished my finals, my mother opened a packet of chicken breasts and then proceded to throw them away because they smelt off. She didn’t eat or touch the chicken directly, she only touched the packaging. Yet that was enough to seal her faith. When she greeted me at the door that Friday she had started to feel unwell. None of us would even have comprehended that she was going into kidney and liver failure.
The following evening she was rushed to hospital and then put into a medically induced coma that was to last two weeks. Meanwhile my father, sister and myself found ourselves sitting in front of my mother’s consultant as he told us that it wasn’t likely she was going to make it. He presented us with two scenarios that could happen: one where she stayed in a similar state but would suddenly deteriorate or one where she would very slowly recover and after many months be able for a liver transplant. Being told that felt like a slap to the face. After so many previous scares over the years, was this really it? I spent the following few days in a sort of daze but sometime around this point I finally broke free from my depressive episode. I don’t know if it would have happened naturally or if the news shocked me out of it.
Two weeks later my mother woke up from her coma and it seemed like she was improving. She began to sit up in her bed and even started to speak again (even jokingly referring to me as a pompous ass). We started to get on with our lives again. It seemed like everything was going to be ok and this would just be like the previous scares. Meanwhile I had started my counselling sessions and started to feel normal again. I would spend my days doing research for my thesis and then code until about 3–4am. I even started reading books for a pleasure again, something which I had stopped doing two years previously.
Another thing happened during this time. After being a know to only a handful of people I became more open about my Asexuality. It had never been a secret but neither had it ever really been brought up before. Though nothing changed as a result of me being more open about being asexual, it also felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I no longer felt like I was hiding something, I could finally be myself without worrying what people thought of me.
All good things must end however. In mid-April I was told that a company were going to make me an offer for my dream-job and it seemed like everything was going to end perfectly for me. This was when my mothers condition finally deteriorated. After almost three months of gradual recovery and loads of minor setbacks she caught an infection which brought her back to square one. My father, sister and myself found ourselves in front of my mother’s doctor yet again but this time his two options weren’t quite as positive. We had a choice: go down a pallative care route or to continue with an aggressive course of antibiotics which wasn’t working and would only prolong her suffering. We didn’t really get to choose in the end. Two days later my mother had continued to deteriorate at which point the only option was palliative care.
The following few days were a whirlwind. I had to finish writing the majority of my thesis, while also coping with the chaos of a funeral. I somehow managed to make it through it all and was able to submit my thesis with my classmates the following week. The offer for my dream job then came through and it seemed I had left one long dark path and stumbled upon another new and brighter one. The obvious decision would have been to accept the job offer and potentially lived happily ever after. I turned down the offer though. I had spent a lot of the previous week thinking about what I would do when the offer finally came through. I realised what I actually wanted to do was to pursue a career in a different area and then in a year or two see if I want to travel or start a PhD. I am a proponent of lifelong learning and while my dream job would have been a fantastic learning experience, I feel it may have had too a narrow focus for me currently.
We are now reaching the end of May and almost half-way through the year. It seems likely that 2015 may be another annus horribilis for me but I am staying positive. I have been interviewing with companies every day for the past week and it seems that the coming week is going to be just as hectic. Late last week we as a country voted Yes to same-sex marriage and showed the world that we are not a small minded and conservative backwater. I watched the coverage of the results with tears in my eyes because the hard work done by so many people over the past few decades has finally come to fruition. I felt this was the first time in my life where I felt proud of my country, proud to be Irish. This year I have also learned how to cope with my depression, which had felt like an impossibility only four months ago. The road ahead is still long but at least it now feels like I have some control over how I traverse it.
