It’s a long way back to the light

Spacey Sunday
Jul 10, 2017 · 4 min read
Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

(trigger warning: self harm, suicidal ideation)

How I came to be sitting on a park bench, in the dark, crying, with my shirt sleeves pushed up, and holding a razor blade to my wrist, is a long story.

To start this story from the beginning would be impossible. There is no clear beginning with depression a lot of the time.

The car crash of my recent infidelity and heartbreak are only a catalyst for a troubled mind.

I wrote my suicide note that night, and published it online.

That’s how bad your life can get.

A month or so back, because I had been self harming, my psychologist made me complete a safety plan — things I would do and people I would contact when I needed to be stopped from hurting myself.

I showed it to a close friend who is a psychologist, and he was visibly concerned. When I explained to him the self harm, he tried to discourage me from cutting.

It was dangerous, he told me.

The razors are sharp and clean, I told him, and I only cut places where I can’t accidentally bleed to death. He told me, just the same, the chance of accidents was too high.

I dismissed his worries at the time.

Sitting on a bench overlooking the city far below me, I understood what he meant. Self harm opens a door that makes it easier to conceive of hurting yourself, and want to hurt yourself more finally, and razors are just far too convenient.


That day, after I found that Natasha had blocked me on Messenger, and found no possible way to track down her telephone number, I took a guess at her email address. Firstname-lastname at Gmail was a good guess, I figured. It could be almost anything, the potential combinations of initials, numbers, email providers, but I trusted it to fate.

I asked her to help me. She said I’d saved her life once, and now I needed her to return the favour.

In my head I could almost see her saying you’re all talk, something she accused me of before we’d slept together.

No reply came.

I don’t know if she didn’t care, didn’t get my message, or cared but still couldn’t reply because of promises she’d made.


So there I was. Crying. Holding a single, cold, sharp blade against my wrist. I was alternately willing myself to just do it, and telling myself to just stop, go home where it was warm, drink beer, order fried chicken. I was arguing with myself.

Part of me was saying everything had gone on too long, I was too tired, too sad, and part of me was saying things can get better because we’re not dead yet.

I had been there for an hour or more when I got a text message from Elizabeth. She was out for the evening, I had gone out without telling her, and knew that when she got home there would be worry, but I didn’t expect to have to deal with it.

Her message told me she was already on the bus and on her way home. I knew in that moment I wasn’t going to cut my wrists there and then, so I had to get myself home.


Of course Elizabeth got home before me. From what I can tell, she was home for less than a minute before me and hadn’t yet realised that I was out.

I told her truthfully where I had been, though not why — instead sharing that I’d gone there as I’d needed to clear my head.

Elizabeth was angry and suspicious and we argued for hours, about my behaviour and everything else. I could have just told her when I went out, made up where I was going to throw her off, or I could have lied about where I was that night. I can expect it to all be dragged out when we see our therapist this week.


Where does this leave me? I’m not entirely sure. Elizabeth and I are as dysfunctional as we ever were. Natasha doesn’t care about me, or if she does still has no intention of speaking to me again, even if it is life or death. Or she doesn’t know how I reached out. She broke my heart, I broke Elizabeth’t heart, and I haven’t found my missing will to live, only lack the ability to just let myself go.

In my darkest moments, while I sit crying and willing myself to end it all, my mind conjures up a photo of Natasha I saw recently.

She’s on the beach with her fiancee. Natasha is grinning and acting the fool. Happy.

Spacey Sunday

Written by

What started as a tale of love, loss, infidelity, became about what came next. Either I’m writing something worth reading or I’m doing something worth writing.

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