CONTENT WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SPECIFIC REFERENCE TO SUICIDAL THOUGHTS, ATTEMPTS AT SUICIDE AND STATES SEVERE MENTAL HEALTH. IF ANY OF THESE ISSUES CAUSE YOU INTENSE UPSET OR DISTRESS PLEASE DO NOT READ ON. THANK YOU.
It was three years ago today I decided to kill myself. I had taken a lot of different kinds of medication and I had more ready to take. I was in a mess already before taking them but after taking them I was in a lot of pain. I had never been more upset, scared or in so much pain in my entire life. My only thought was that death was literally the only option to make things better.
I was at a stage where I felt I hadn’t achieved much in my life and that every event in my life was just another fail after the previous fail. I had been seeing a mental health counsellor and had been taking my pills, successfully, for well over a month. But I had a lapse and it was really drastic. It felt like everything had been piling up at the same time and just crushed me when I least expected it.
I wanted to die, not because my life was hopeless; not because I couldn’t amount to anything; not because I was going to grow up and die alone and distant from my friends and family. I wanted to die because that’s what I thought was going to happen.
Life is frail and could be over within an instant and I sometimes take that for granted. Never on the same scale, but sometimes I do feel sad and want to distance myself from others. But the way I now concentrate on making myself feel better is to acknowledge how much potential my life has.
Since that moment three years ago I have achieved so much, travelled a lot, and enjoyed so many things in life. I have seen things I would have never been able to see had I followed through with what I started to do that night. In my time since then I have made new friendships, and built stronger bonds with old friends, and those people as well as family are the reason I am happy to be alive today.
Some of the people I now love and am close to I would never have met had it not been for these past three years and that is really scary to me. People that make me happy on a daily basis and are part of the reason I am now happy living my life at the moment wouldn’t know I even existed and vice versa.
Life is unpredictable and uncertain but reflecting I truly believe life is what you make it. I had my wakeup call, even if it came in a fashion that I wish I hadn’t experienced. Looking back there are things that I have done that I wish I could change; people I wish I was still in contact with and opportunities to do things differently if I had the chance to redo them.
The main thing is life doesn’t stop for anybody and no matter how much adversity comes your way, life keeps moving forward. If you want to do something different life isn’t going to wait for you to make that decision; life is a constant stream and it is down to you to alter your path as it moves forward.
I was in the process of killing myself when a knock on the door made me stop. By miracle I hadn’t done irreversible damage to myself by that point. Sometimes it is the small and seemingly insignificant things that alter your life. If someone hadn’t knocked my door I’d have followed through with it and wouldn’t be here now. Although it can be difficult at times, try your best to live the life you love and appreciate what you have, as you never know when everything can just end.
Aspiring sports journalist. Primarily cover football and American Football.
