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I retired this blog a little while ago. And, if I had my way, I wouldn't write it again. But I saw something earlier today that really played on my mind and I felt the need to comment on it and share my own experiences of this. As, it's been long enough, and it's something that needs to be discussed i think.
It's a video by the Samaritans in which an announcement is made at a train station that there has been a 'serious incident' on the line and that trains have been delayed. Now, anyone who travels on trains enough will know that a 'serious incident' is when a person jumps onto the line to commit suicide. As this is announced, the faces of the passengers turn into the inevitable "oh for f***s sake, really?" (We've all done it).
But this changes when the announcer reveals that the person who jumped was called 'Sara', who was 28, and was suicidal. You can see the passengers start to feel more sympathetic towards the person once their name and age is released, humanizing the person who has jumped. The announcer then goes on to explain that talking to someone who looks like their about to jump (e.g, small talk) could save somebody's life. (Something which has been demonstrated in the past). I'm not going to spoil the video's ending, I'll share it below, but the general message is that #SmallTalkSavesLives.
I watched this video and cried. I sobbed like a bloody baby because I identified with this. In fact, I've been in a situation where I've been saved by someone. Not by small talk, but by intervening at the right time.
It was 2013. I'd been to Newport for university and it hadn't gone as well as I'd hoped. I'd left the university, I'd been in a shitty job for a couple of weeks and I felt lost and without direction. I then got a job which, for the most part, I enjoyed. But I still had this gaping hole in me. I was feeling really shitty and I wasn't really enjoying things. I didn't really take any notice of it but, actually, I was really struggling with trying to take back control of how I was feeling. But I didn't say anything. Because I felt that I could do it eventually and that, if I said anything, I would be laughed at. Ridiculed and told I'm just being over-dramatic.
And then, there was the straw that broke the camel's back.
I liked someone who lived quite a way away. A young woman who shall remain nameless. A mutual friend and I had been talking, I'd revealed to them how I felt about said young woman and the mutual friend believed that the feelings were reciprocated. I was happy. I finally felt happy that something may well go my way. I finally felt I had something good to hold onto.
So, in agreement with the mutual friend, I wrote the young woman a letter declaring my feelings for her and sent it off.
The day after I'd sent it, the mutual friend messaged me telling me they'd grossly misjudged the situation and that the feelings were, in fact, not reciprocated at all.
I couldn't believe it. After sending the letter as well. I felt upset, angry and embarrassed.
Mainly embarrassed.
A few days later, I got a response to the letter outlining what I already knew. I still have it somewhere as a reminder. But that'll become clearer later.
I felt broken. It was June 2013 by this point and that was it. As far as I was concerned, I was done. Nothing mattered. I was struggling and struggling but I still felt I couldn't tell anybody. Not Mum, not my friends, no one. I felt embarrassed, dead and alone. Not a lot of happiness except momentary happiness. Happy in the moment, but not really happy when looking back.
I often refer to June 2013 as the 'Dark Time'. Because, in my life, it was. I started to become more angry, more hot tempered, I changed so much that my Mum once told my aunty "he's not my son. I don't know where my son's gone but this isn't him". I'd changed that much. Still feeling alone. Broken. Like nothing was worth anything.
Because, if I had that much shit going on and it was getting on top of me, there wasn't going to be an end to it was there?
Then, later in June, that's when it happened.
I was in the house alone. Mum had gone to work and I had a day off. I was home alone, stewing on my problems. Letting them fester like I had done the other days I'd had. Other stuff had happened in June that made me feel worthless, stupid and idiotic and I'd just had enough.
I was doing the wiping up in the kitchen when I picked up a large knife that Mum had. I was wiping it and I was staring at it. I spent a couple of minutes staring at it and thinking. I kept thinking "if I just did something with this, the screaming in my head would stop. The self-loathing would stop, it would all stop. I could finally be happy again".
That's when I decided I was going to end it.
A split second. That's all it took. A moment where it all got too much and the opportunity presented itself. The emotions, the means and the delightful outcome all arrived at the same moment. If I ended it all I could finally be at rest. And the hurt wouldn't hurt anymore.
I took a deep breath and put the knife up to my throat. I'd always thought that dying of suffocation or lack of air was the worst way to die. So, I figured, for the bad I'd done recently and all the upset I'd caused, I deserved to die this way. I took a few more deep breaths and came to terms with what I was about to do. It still felt right to do it. Because, if I did, it'd be quiet.
I cried a little bit as I finally started building up the resolve to do it. I started to pull my right arm across when, suddenly, the doorbell rang. The knife nicked me ever so slightly as it did. But when the doorbell rang, I paused. And that's when I snapped out of it. I stared into space for a moment before looking at what I was doing. I dropped the knife and gasped for air. The reality of what I was about to do hit me like a train. I started to cry.
I ran to the door and opened it. It was Tom. One of my best friends.
"Alright?"
He commented on my crying, but I told him that I'd seen something sad on TV. Still believing I couldn't tell anyone I was struggling, let alone what I'd just tried to do.
"I've got the afternoon off work and was thinking of going to Southampton. Wondered if you'd like to come with?"
I don't think I've said yes quicker to anything in all my life. As he came in and shut the door, I ran back into the kitchen, quickly washed the knife again and put it back so it didn't look out of place.
I tried to act normal. I brushed my teeth, got in the car, and went to Southampton with Tom.
Now, this is why I think this new Samaritans campaign is important.
I was lucky. Tom knows what happened, I told him a couple of years after it had occurred. Tom literally saved my life. If he hadn't have come round at that exact moment, I may have died. By my own hand. It's not necessarily small talk, but it's still an intervention.
My reasoning for wanting to end it is petty. I know that now. I look back on it and I hate myself for ever thinking that these little triggers were worth dying over. But that's the nature of the beast. Little things, no matter how big or how small, build up. And that's when the little voices in your head start to niggle away at you. Telling you that you're worthless, no one loves you, no one will miss you.
And, with some people, the idea of taking their own lives can come to them weeks in advance and they meticulously plan it. But, for some, like me, it could be a moment. A moment of weakness when you're at your lowest point and you can't see a way out. It's that easy and can happen that suddenly.
Personally, I'm at peace with this now. Tom knows what happened, I recently told Mum about what happened (don't worry, she's not going to find out through this!) and I'm ok to talk about what it was like and how it felt to be in that moment.
Not because I'm trying to draw attention to myself or because I want to seem more important than anyone else, that isn't it at all, but because it's important to talk about this.
In the UK, 76% of all suicides are male suicides because men just don't feel that they can't come forward or show signs of struggling. I've been through that, I know what that's like. To feel like, as a man, you can't show signs of weakness or anything. Because, you're a bloke, you're meant to be the strong one apparently.
Many people I know have tried to kill themselves or have self harmed and it's a shame that this sort of thing still isn't taken as seriously as it could be.
I know some people who know me will be shocked, maybe even saddened, by what I've written here today. But I'm lucky. I found a way back from it. And, this may surprise you to know, it's largely down to a song I wrote called 'Molly's Lullaby'.
I wrote it after a dream I had about a future daughter of mine, called Molly would you believe, who refused to go to sleep until I sang that song. When I woke up, I wrote it and performed it at a gig I REALLY didn't want to do in Sturminster Newton. But the song went down well. Grown men cried. I put it up on YouTube and people really liked it. To this day, I still think it's the best song I've ever written because it's saved my ass on so many occasions. Someone even once commented to me that they liked it because you could hear the emotion and passion in my voice as I sing it.
Want to know why there's emotion and passion?
Because it was born from a dream at a time where I was at my worst and lowest. And to have a dream where I have a daughter, have a future that I can visualize? At that point in my life? I think of it as my victory song.
But not everyone can find a way back that easily. I've felt like ending things since in the moment, but nothing to this extent. And it's largely over things that are fixable. Reactionary, if you will.
But for others, it's a daily struggle. They can't just have a dream, write a song and slowly get back to a better place. It takes years of drugs, of therapy, of God knows what else to get them back to a point where they can feel confident that they have a future of some kind.
But interventions, small talk, anything like Tom did, all helps. It doesn't cure the problem but it cures the moment. It could save someone's life.
I'm forever indebted to Tom for saving my life. And he didn't even know it at the time. (And, when I told him, he was dumbstruck).
But, please, regardless of what gender you identify as, if you're struggling, please tell someone.
Tell someone you trust. Or call the Samaritans on: 116 123
And just help yourself. Or, if you're not in a situation like this and you're a friend or a family member, just be there. Listen, don't judge and help them.
You never know.
It could save a life.
