TW: S.I., S.A.
It would take almost losing my life to realize how much I wanted to live! The irony does not escape me.
I was harboring a dangerous secret. Thoughts of suicide haunted my young mind and with alarming frequency. I did not intend to see my eighteenth birthday. Providence would not allow me to have my way. I needed only one night in Hell to sway my course. After several hours of pleading for my life and mercy from the unmerciful, I realized how precious my life is. The ensuing P.T.S.D. would be another mountain to hurdle. Echoes of this soul-level trauma sting even now, decades past. Yet, it is with a grateful heart I recall this living nightmare. In hindsight, I can see the moment I thought the gods had forsaken me, was anything but… As I pen these words, I smile and the irony does not escape me.
Terror. They say, “Blind Terror”. I remember endless darkness. I had been momentarily rendered blind by primal fear. Next, fight or flight kicked in… (Ah, yes. Down to basics.) Live or die? Run, run, run! Each stamp of my bare, bloody feet screamed of my determination to live. Darkness gave way to tunnel vision. This was an improvement. My only thought was to survive.
A pinpoint of light. Run towards it! Death behind you, Darkness chasing! My chest seared with the pain of exertion. Everything hurt. That awful sound. Run, run, run! Wait…I’m naked? Impossibly, from all…
