It is one year today since I tried to kill myself.
On a Friday night I went home from work and decided that I wanted to die. A few hours later I was propped against the wall as my friend talked to me and told me to stay awake, that it was going to be ok and help would be there soon. That image, of the two boys and the fear and worry that was on their faces is one of the things I will never be able to purge from my memory. The other image is of my Dad standing over me in the emergency room looking like a broken old man and apologising to me.
I don’t know that I will ever get over the guilt I feel for putting the people I love through that.
It has been a very long year since that night.
I foolishly only took three days off work as I was too scared to deal with the questions of being away longer. I returned to the office only six days after attempting suicide and five days after surgery. I spent those first couple of months not relieved I was still here, just not being dead.
I wasn’t glad I had survived.
There were a couple of people who dragged me through those months, they listened to me, didn’t judge and helped me to feel whole. I started taking anti-depressants and seeing a psychologist. I tried to work out how I could go from being ‘me’ to deciding to kill myself as non-chalantly as I would choose what I was going to have for dinner.
I have been through all the emotional extremes possible in the last year. I have been back to that place of nothing, devoid of hope, only once, and made it back to the good days again.
I’ve spent so many hours thinking about why I’m doing something or what my thoughts mean that I’ve become exhausted and begged for the day when I can just be myself again. I have had to learn to accept that this has happened and bad days are something I will have to continue to manage.
Along the way I have had days or moments where I have been happy, grateful and glad I am here. A few months ago I was able to say ‘I am glad I am not dead’. To want to be here and in my life is an achievement, but sometimes still a challenge.
I have written about it all over the past few months because I don’t think it is something I should have to be ashamed of or secretive about. I have enough doubts, insecurities and issues without adding to the pile.
This is now the day that I didn’t die. It is the day that life was given back to me.
Now, I have to decide what I want to do with it.
