Checking Out by Anonymous

I took a last drag from the spliff I'd been smoking, took a big sip from the glass of Bailey’s on the floor next to my bed. I pressed play on my CD Walkman - "Protection" by Massive Attack started playing. I turned off the lamp, rolled over and pulled the duvet cover up to my chin. For the first time in months my mind was clear, at peace. My body more completely relaxed than I could ever remember feeling as an adult. Sinking into the warmth, I drifted off into a deep sleep.

I had just swallowed the contents of three packs of Paracetamol tablets.

I was checking out of the hotel of life.

I was 22.

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This piece isn't about the perfect storm of circumstances that led to my suicide attempt, but I'll sketch them out, to put things in context.

A few months beforehand, my fiancée- the first and only guy I'd ever been with- got back together with his ex and ended our relationship. We'd been together just shy of 3 years. We were living together, and the breakup shattered me mentally and emotionally. I was a student nurse at the time, so I got a part time job in a night club, and got sucked into the world of recreational drugs.

A few weeks later, my dad died suddenly. My parents were divorced, my dad left no will, and with the support of my mom and stepfather, we had to go through a complex legal process of winding up Dad's affairs and arranging his funeral. It required so much time that I had to take a break from college. The structure and routine of my life fell apart, my sense of identity and self- belief were crushed and warped. Recreational drugs became more than recreational. Harder drugs crept into the picture. I took stupid risks, I made bad decisions, I did wrong things. I didn't know me, and I sure as hell didn't like me anymore.

I tried to cope by mentally uncoupling from life, not dwelling on consequences, numbing myself to feelings and emotions. But the more I tried to disengage from life, to let go, the more life seemed to happen to me. To throw up situations and events that I just couldn't deal with. The less responsibility I took for my actions, the more I suffered from the consequences. Panic and anxiety punctuated my days and turned my nights into things I feared to enter. I was tired, overwhelmed, exhausted. I just wanted to sleep. Forever. To let go. I was done.

********

It started as fleeting thoughts - "I cause problems for people...I get everything wrong...people don't really like me...there isn't much to hang around for...when is this going to be over?" Thoughts and events spun faster than I could process them. "I can't control this...I want it to stop...I want everything to stop." The need to quiet the noise, to regain control, became pivotal.

And one day, almost by accident, the idea of just not waking up at all popped into my head. I wasn’t frightened by it. It made me feel calm, almost hopeful in an ironic kind of way. The idea popped back again, and again, and again. I began to play around with it my mind - how, where, when - so many possibilities. I didn't want pain, or blood, or mess. Just that feeling of slipping away quietly into a forever sleep. Tablets, my bedroom, the nighttime. It had to be the nighttime. I don't know why - maybe it was because nights had been the hardest time, but when I played the scene out in my head, it was always dark.

I stockpiled Paracetamol tablets, they were in a cupboard in my room. I used to take them out and look at them. Just the sight of them calmed me, but also excited me, gave me a sense of anticipation. I had a how and a where. I was making decisions, I was back in control.

What I didn't have was a when. For a couple of weeks, just knowing the other details was enough to keep me going, to make me hold myself together, my insurance plan. In the end, what tipped me over the edge was something as stupid as an argument with my housemate, a throwaway comment about how much I'd changed- a disapproving word. That was all it took. The gates broke, the thoughts came, the last shreds of my self- worth leaked out onto my cheeks. Empty.

I went upstairs. I sobbed for about 5 minutes, then I went numb, and I knew it was time. I didn't matter, nothing mattered anymore. I was free.

****

It didn't work, obviously. I'm not writing this from beyond the grave.

The pills, the Baileys, the music...

I slipped into my deep sleep, and I stayed that way until late the following morning.

I came round gently, sun in my eyes. I actually felt rested for the first time in forever.

Then I remembered the pills. Had I just dreamed that? The Bailey’s glass, empty, lay on my bed. Pill packets sprinkled in the sink in the corner.

It wasn't a dream.

Shit.

What had I done?

I dragged myself out of bed, I started to feel ill, I called my housemate who drove me to the hospital. I was triaged, admitted, treated with IV medication to clear my system of the liver destroying Paracetamol. I vomited repeatedly.

Physically, I felt dreadful.

Mentally? Something had changed. Like I'd re-booted myself. The problems and fears that had plagued me still didn't matter, but now I realized that was because they were never that important to begin with. My faults? They were still legion, as were my mistakes. But they weren't all that I was. I could see past them, and maybe others could too. Maybe they already did.

Others, other people. Friends and family. I hadn't even stopped to think how my actions would affect them. My mom, my brother. Still dealing with their own loss from Dad’s death. Did I really nearly do that to them again? What was I thinking?

I was embarrassed, my God I was embarrassed. Hooked up to a drip, in hospital bed on the main ward, giving my life story to a counsellor who worked for the same employer I was training with. The nurses who gave me a fair few "what the fuck" looks when I told them what had happened. The one who said "What do you think you're playing at? Cocaine? Crack? Sort it out". It might sound callous, but they weren't judging me. Or at least not in the way I had judged myself. They were giving me a different perspective - you have got so much to live for. So much to offer. Why the fuck are you pissing it away like this?

It wasn't the end of the bad times, the hard times. It wasn't the end of bad decisions and mistakes. But waking up the morning after that overdose was the start of my healing.

I went back through the entrance of the hotel. There were corridors, stairs and lifts leading to places, to possibilities.

I stepped up to the desk and checked back into life.

And it was the best decision I ever made.

#lifestyle