CONTENT WARNING: suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, overdoses, hallucinations

International list of suicide helplines here.

The following is based on journal entries I wrote over the course of about a year and a half, and it is centred around two suicide attempts. It’s no surprise from the title that the end is a happy one, but I wanted to share all the ugly that came before I found true recovery. I think it’s important.

Please don’t read if you think this will be upsetting or triggering for you.

---

fifteen days before

Caffeine to get through the day, alcohol and sleeping pills at night. I’m either going to be an accomplished scientist or a dead man before 30. Oh well. What even is life anymore.

---

the day

I woke up early as I wanted to do some overtime at work. At some point I decided I wouldn’t go in early, then chose not to go in at all. I didn’t call in sick.

The time between waking up and standing in a public restroom chugging pills down is blurry.

I was in my room, sitting on my bed taking pills out of their blister packs and into a bag. I had no second thoughts as I did this. I was crying, I was angry, crying, angry, crying, angry. Eventually numb.

I was texting a friend. What were we talking about? I was angry, I wanted to be left alone, I had to push her away. I was an asshole, I didn’t want to, but I had to be. Prove I’m not worth saving. This was upsetting to do but my emotions were shut off to the point I didn’t have it in me to care. Only a very distant sense of pain was present. Pain and anger. I was angry at myself. I was angry anyone was trying to stop me from doing the inevitable.

This is not how I wanted to die. I would leave a very detailed note, I would say goodbye to everyone I care about individually. I would sort out most of my belongings, leave my flat clean and tidy.

I would also die, no room for second chances.

None of that happened that day. I rushed a very concise note I folded and attached to my lanyard under a hoodie. I left a mess. I only said goodbye to two people. I gambled whether to live or die.

I didn’t want to die, I just wanted it to stop. I doubted myself. Do I really want to die? Is there no other way out? There isn’t. There really isn’t. But what if I regret it? What if I realise I want to live as I’m dying? Should I not leave some room for failure? Some people attempt suicide and survive and turn their life around…

About two weeks earlier I had gotten hold of a lot of medication. It wasn’t the first time I’d done this, but it was the first time I kept it all.

I went to visit my family for a week. I planned this trip a few weeks beforehand and I figured it would be good timing. See them one last time, come back home, die. Funny how coming back home is never “back home” anymore but here, where I’ve only been for three years. I don’t remember much of my stay there other than not really wanting to be there. Not wanting to be anywhere. Feeling disconnected like that life wasn’t my own.

I got home on a Saturday. The following Thursday I woke up and within a couple hours I was determined that would be the day that I died. No particular reason. I had the means to do it, I had seen my family one last time trying to leave a good impression. I couldn’t think of a reason to leave it for another day. Today was as good a day as any.

Someone had died that Sunday. Not a close friend, not even a friend, just someone you see every day and take for granted. Then they go off sick. They get worse, they get better for a bit. They die. Someone who was actually close to them gives a quick speech, we have a minute of silence. Then we move on while others won’t recover for a long time. It didn’t affect me deeply as it wasn’t someone close to me, I didn’t grieve as such, but something snapped within me. We all die. We all deal with people dying. Sudden, unexpected deaths happen. People can deal with my death. It wouldn’t be easy, it would be all kinds of painful for those close to me… But they can get through it. They have to. If I’ve been miserable for 25 years and I’m miserable today, I might as well end it. Put an end to this suffering even if the cost is the suffering of others. They’d learn to overcome it, whereas I didn’t feel capable of getting through another day, another hour even.

I was unconscious for a few days, kept in critical care. It wasn’t until five days after the overdose that I woke up properly, coherent and not delirious. On day seven I was discharged. I asked if I could go to the mental health hospital but there were no beds available and they didn’t think it was needed. I just tried to kill myself and I’m going home.

They did ask me how I felt going home. I said I was fine with it if that’s what they thought was best. I would do as I was told. I had no plans of going home and attempting this again right away. However, I said, there won’t be a next time in the hospital. If I tried again, I wouldn’t fail. My only regret was not dying.

I wanted to die. Or so I told myself. Did I want to die? I took safety measures in case I had any regrets at any point. I wanted to go through with it, but I didn’t know how I’d feel with a lethal dose of drugs in my stomach. How would I feel as I was losing consciousness? I was terrified I’d regret it when it was already too late. At the same time, I just wanted to go.

I figured I’d gamble it, give myself a chance of survival. I texted a friend in a way that was not at all subtle, hoping she wouldn’t see it in time to do anything, but knowing she might send someone my way. I wanted to thank her and say sorry, though.

I told myself and I wrote in the note I carried that if I came out alive, I wouldn’t try this again. I would do everything I could to get better, I wouldn’t give up again. I almost believed it.

I suppose I wasn’t so sure I wanted to die, otherwise why gamble it like this? Who cares if I had any regrets after taking the pills. It’s normal to panic when you make a big decision. I’d made life-changing decisions in the past and I always managed to push past the fear and self-doubt. This shouldn’t be any different. If only I had trusted myself and done it properly.

I don’t necessarily want to die, I just want to not be like this. Either constant pain or constant numbness, I don’t know which is worse. Feeling like I was losing my mind. The suffering was so constant that the few days in between weren’t worth it. I didn’t want to die, I wanted this to stop. Has it stopped?

The nothingness that death leads to was the only relief I could hope for at this point. Part of a poem from Andrea Gibson resonating in my mind: “But heaven wasn’t what you were aiming for. You didn’t think the other side would be better, you thought the other side would be nothing at all. Imagine choosing nothing at all. Imagine something hurting that bad.”

---

delirium

I wake up in the dark. A bag of bright yellow fluid connected to one of the IV lines on my arms; I don’t want this going into my veins so I try to remove them. Another bag of yellow fluid on the floor, this one connected to a catheter. “Don’t try to pull that one,” they say, pointing at the catheter. I’m not stupid, I’m not pulling a balloon out of my bladder.

Strangers all around me. Most of them wearing medical uniforms of one kind or another, but I know this isn’t a real hospital and I know they aren’t real nurses and doctors.

Where am I? How did I get here?

They have my bags. I want my bags. They’re telling me I’m not going home. I want to have my bags for when I go home.

I’m in danger. The door is locked. These people around me keep talking amongst themselves. They talk to me and I know they’re lying. I don’t know what they’re saying. They want me to stay here. What will they do to me?

I’m sitting on a chair. There’s a wall and a locked door behind me, but when I look back again it’s a window. I can see the restaurant near my flat… But I’m not near my flat. Nothing stays the same, things change as soon as I look away.

I see a dimly lit garage in front of me. Lots of car parts, aggressive dogs barking and fighting, strangers coming and going.

I’m slowly walking towards an exit. A man who seems to be a security guard walks beside me. Walking is difficult and my vision is very blurry, but I try to make my way to a door. I have a glimmer of hope this man is here to help me. The door is closed, he walks me back. He’s one of them.

A bearded man with glasses smiles smugly. He looks at me, but he doesn’t talk to me. He’s in charge. I can’t stand the way he looks at me.

I manage to get them to hand me my phone. I text a friend, but I can’t understand the letters on the keyboard and I can barely read the replies. I resort to sending a Morse code SOS.

…,,,…

…,,,…

This isn’t working. I call the police, but they can’t know I’m doing that. “I’m supposed to be meeting my family, let me call them.” They tell me I have no family here. “I have some cousins, we were going to meet now, let me tell them I’m not going.”

I end up calling the police twice. “I’m not going to be able to get there, I got held up with something… you might have to come pick me up.” I need them to understand I need help. They ask to talk to the people they can hear around me because they can’t understand me. “No, not them, I’m being held, you need to come here.” They ask for my location. “I can see a restaurant out the window.”

This doesn’t work either. I need to escape. I hit someone with a chair, try to break the window behind me. Or is it a door.

I’m restrained by several people as I scream for help. I keep shouting but no one seems to hear me. I can’t shout any louder. I’ve never been this terrified in my life… I know what they know, and I know what they will do. I scream and scream, completely restrained. I have nothing but an innate survival instinct.

Then everything fades.

---

reality

I wake up in the dark again. Everything is silent this time. A nurse sits outside the room. I can see I’m in a hospital, it seems to be the night shift. There is no danger. I’m calm but I feel scared and ashamed. I’m only just realising what’s happened and I immediately regret not dying.

“Have I hurt anyone?” I ask, vaguely remembering what had happened. “You tried to hit a nurse, she’s been sent home… Do you know where you are?” I can tell them the hospital and the city. She tells me exactly where I am. Things make sense now and I sleep.

I wake up again, this time in the daylight. I don’t remember getting out of bed but I’m sitting on a chair. Two friends come to visit, surprised to see me out of bed and not delirious. I can talk clearly and explain what’s happened. They tell me I didn’t make much sense the days before, and they reassure me I did not actually break a window or hit someone with a chair. I still feel terrible I tried to attack someone and I apologise to staff again.

I have time to think now.

---

discharged

I throw my bag on the bed and sit on the floor. I’m numb.

I always heard these stories about people who survive a suicide attempt. They’re grateful they survived; they say the immediately regretted what they had done. They used this as a turning point towards recovery. I was hoping this would be me if I survived.

The day I gambled whether to live or die I had taken a significant amount of pills in a public bathroom in a hospital. I chugged down handfuls of them; they were so bitter they made me nauseous. I then stood outside A&E in case I had any regrets. I didn’t.

I was starting to feel sleepy. I texted a friend mentioning I was outside A&E and saying “I’m getting a bit sleepy now. Thanks for all the help.” She may or may not see it early enough to send someone my way. I texted another friend to say I was about to do something stupid, but that if I survived, I’d really try my hardest to get better.

I didn’t say goodbye to anyone else. I didn’t leave any meaningful notes, only enough information for emergency services.

“If she doesn’t send someone my way I’m going to die.” I kept repeating this in my head, unsure whether I wanted to be rescued or be left to die. What if there’s a chance for me?

I started feeling sleepier and I didn’t have any intention to walk into A&E. “Five more minutes and I’ll go hide in the car park,” I told myself. I then saw a familiar face walking towards me. She took me by my arm and walked me in.

I kept thinking “no, please go away, I want to die, I wanted to die all along, I shouldn’t have doubted myself, I don’t want to be saved, I’ve made a mistake, I do want to die.” I was too sleepy to put up any resistance. I wanted to run but I could barely walk. I could barely talk.

Those thoughts never left me after I woke up. “This was a mistake, I should’ve died.” The words I wrote in the note I carried around my neck about trying my best to recover if I survived were meaningless. I didn’t believe them when I wrote them, and I didn’t believe them now. I had no hope I could get better.

---

twenty-two days after

My lungs feel heavy and my heartbeat, though slow, resonates through my body and through the bench I’m sitting on. I stare at my feet as the noise of the station I’m in fades in the background. The thought of taking that many pills again, tempting as it is, makes me nauseous. The thought of making it through one day after another is just as daunting, if not more. I feel stuck in this limbo between dying and getting better. Wanting to get better while also knowing I’ve crossed a line I can never uncross.

---

thirty days after

It has been a month since I tried to die.

I’m giving blood in an appointment I made months ago.

“What date did you get back from your trip?”

“October… 12.” I have to count back. Thursday 17, 16, 15, 14, 13… 12. I came back on the 12.

… The conversation goes on.

“What is the new medication for?”

“Depression.”

“What doctor are you waiting to see in the next week?”

… Life goes on.

But my head is still stuck.

I has been a month since I tried to die. I feel neutral about it. I’m not thrilled to be alive. I don’t have this huge sense of gratitude some people seem to have after surviving. I don’t necessarily regret surviving. It is what it is, I did it in a rushed way and these are the consequences. I could’ve done it differently and succeed, but I didn’t. Maybe one day I’ll be glad I didn’t, but I’m not glad today.

I am getting help. I don’t think it’s helping. I’m not happy and I don’t think I can be. I’m aiming to be content. I suppose feeling neutral about being alive is something. I’m getting all the help and support I can and I am trying. I really am trying even though it’s so hard and most days I don’t even think it will be worth it. But I am trying.

---

sixty days after 

It has been two months. It feels like longer.

Depression is an isolating experience. My relationships with others are a measured performance now. In order to maintain healthy relationships, I need to keep a distance with those I care about. I can live with the almost certainty that I will try to kill myself again sooner or later, but I cannot make others live with those thoughts and accept it.

I say I’m doing well, that I’m taking care of myself, following my recovery plan, keeping myself safe. And I am. But I also feel rather miserable, empty, purposeless, walking into the unknown day after day never knowing for sure that today won’t be the day where the ground is taken from under my feet and I fall. Others cannot know this. I have put them through enough already and I do not intend on continuing that.

The other day I wrote a suicide letter that I kept in my wallet. I hadn’t done this since I was a teenager. I’m not actively suicidal despite thinking about death a lot, but at the same time I don’t trust myself not to hurt myself on impulse.

I went to a tall building with that note in my pocket. I climbed the stairs all the way up to the top, I looked at the view before looking down. It wasn’t tall enough. My heart was beating so fast it felt like it might explode. This could be it, but it’s not tall enough. I don’t want to survive, and this is not tall enough. I walked back down thinking maybe one day I’ll be glad I didn’t jump. I’m a coward.

I still feel like suicide is inevitable. I don’t take my days for granted. I know I won’t wake up one day and be fixed from depression, but I do know I might very well wake up in the middle of that darkness again. There is no quick fix but there is quick relapse. I’d say it’s a concern, but I don’t fear that day. I don’t know how long this relative wellness will last.

I keep thinking about getting a lethal amount of drugs again. I can do it right this time. Every professional I talk to knows I have these thoughts, but apparently I’m doing well because I haven’t done it yet. I don’t know how to take that.

At two months it’s still difficult to come to terms with the fact that I’m going back to normal life as if nothing had happened. Or rather, something happened, and everyone sees that as a turning point. I hit rock bottom and the only way is up. Me, on the other hand, I don’t see that. I hit rock bottom, I survived the fall and I am now left walking in circles trying to find a way out of there when I can’t even see the light. Maybe this dark place is my home, not a rock bottom to climb out of but a place to accept and live in. It’s not so much of a turning point as it is hitting a wall.

Common sense tells me to try and recover, but I crossed a line and I can never erase that. I can always cross it again. I will always live with the knowledge that I tried to die and my only regret was surviving.

Ultimately, I cannot share these thoughts with those around me. I need them to believe I am getting better, which I suppose I am to some extent. I don’t want them to be constantly worried about my wellbeing and safety. And so I feel so lonely and alone in this experience, knowing I only have myself to pull me out of this, knowing professional help is scarce and limited and can only do so much.

I’m alone, by myself, carrying this illness on my own. Someone told me that friends can carry my hope for me while I don’t have it myself. You can only go so far with others having the hope you lack. You eventually realise there is no hope to begin with, whatever it is they think is hope for you is nothing but wishful thinking.

I keep a necessary distance with those around me, while also keeping them close enough not to isolate myself. I try to put up a good performance. It’s a delicate balance and a lonely existence.

---

the high

Is this happiness? I can focus, I’m so productive, I want to do so many things, I can do anything.

… I will crash, won’t I?

---

reality?

I don’t think I’m awake. None of this is real. Maybe this is a very long dream. Maybe I never woke up and I’m in a coma. Maybe I died. Is this hell? I don’t believe in any life after death but… none of this is real.

---

mixed episode

I am losing my mind. I am losing my mind. I am losing my mind. I am going insane.

Racing thoughts, so fast I can’t even hear them. Irritable, I can’t stop moving, I can’t stop thinking. I talk and talk and talk and talk. Would you not shut up for a minute you stupid waste of space. I’m a clown. I keep talking. I keep doing stupid things. I’m so angry. I’m so angry. I can do anything, anything. I’m miserable. I have so much rage. Why is everything so slow, why is everyone so slow. Why is this wrong, why is this wrong, how can you not see this is wrong. I’m punching walls. I’m shouting. I’m so angry. I have no control. I am not in control. I am miserable. I drink. I cry. I drink, I drink, I drink. I cry. I shout. I punch pillows, I punch walls, I punch mirrors. I don’t care. I really don’t care. I need to end this but I’m such a coward. Why can’t I end this. I’ll just ruin my life and wait for death to find me. I’m so numb but I’m feeling so much. I’m miserable. I can’t stop thinking. I can’t stop thinking. I can’t stop thinking. I can’t stop thinking. I’m losing my mind. I have no control. I have no control.

I’m losing my mind.

---

two days before

I honestly feel like there’s only one possible ending for me and I’m just delaying the inevitable. I keep trying to convince myself that the right thing is to stay alive even if I’m miserable at this point in time. I’m not always convinced.

---

this time it will not fail

I tried to end my life for a second time. I thought this would be the one. It would be too late by the time anyone thinks to send someone my way. It didn’t cross my mind that someone could send help my way from a different continent.

I had a bad day. I’d been feeling suicidal all day. The weeks leading up to this day I stocked up on pills. I had a plan, I booked days off to do things properly, but I couldn’t survive another week.

The days leading up to this are blurry. An honest conversation, some sort of intervention, the wishing I could believe them, the lack of control, the self-hate, the despair.

A couple friends tried to get me to call a crisis number or go to A&E. I bluntly told them you have to want help to be helped, and I didn’t want help, I just needed this to end. Help would mean someone taking all the pills away and I didn’t want that. “I feel better having the option and I feel safe enough that I won’t take them, but I don’t feel stable enough to deal with anyone trying to help me because they might just tip me over the edge and then I’ll do it. I’m safe right now.” I nearly even believed it myself. “I’m just going with it, if I last a year, if I last a week, however long I last I’ll take it. There’s no hope for me.”

Leading up to this I had been acting so erratic. Drinking, saying things I didn’t mean, oversharing, acting stupid. I felt like I was completely losing my mind. I had no control at all. I hated myself and I hated how I was behaving.

I had no professional help, I was being told I wasn’t trying hard enough, I had to just get on with it because what I had couldn’t be medicated, I was doing well because if I was unwell I would’ve killed myself already. I just wanted this to stop.

That day I went home from work and I figured I could take all the pills out of their blister packs into a bag so that they would be ready for when I planned to use them. By the time they were all in the bag I decided today was the day. I couldn’t take this anymore. Why not now, why the wait. This wasn’t gambling it, I could do it properly even if I didn’t wait for the day I planned.

I wrote some letters, sent a goodbye message to a friend, put my phone on silence with no notifications in case I was tempted to hear from anyone one last time. I left it unlocked and charging in case whoever found me needed contact details for my family.

I sat on the edge of my bed. Gattaca’s “The Departure” played in the background. I started swallowing handfuls of disgustingly bitter pills. I vomited some water twice, but I managed to keep all the pills down. I didn’t finish all of them, I had a small handful left when I decided to stop before I threw it all up. I knew I had taken enough to do the job. I added this to my note, “I didn’t take them all because I didn’t want to risk vomiting again.” I didn’t want anyone to mistake leftover pills for regret.

A strange mix of anxiety and peace. I wasn’t anxious about dying… I was anxious about surviving. But this was it, there was no coming back this time.

I felt a terrible guilt and I kept crying while trying to stay calm so as to not vomit, thinking of the people I was hurting, the people I had hurt already. “I should have done this years ago,” I kept thinking.

I hated myself for doing this, but I’d be fooling myself if I thought I could sustain this way of living.

Pain is temporary. But pain felt unending and unbearable that day. So much so that I couldn’t even stand the thought of surviving another couple weeks to do it how I planned. I couldn’t even take another hour.

About half an hour passed between taking the first handful and starting to feel drowsy. “I’m getting sleepy now and I’m ready to go, I’ll be at peace now…” I wrote on my note. At that point, I got under my weighted blanket with a teddy I made myself some months ago. I wasn’t doing this for me. I wanted to be found in a way that portrayed as much peacefulness and comfort as possible. Something more reminiscent of a child innocently falling asleep after a long day and less of an adult forever ending his unbearable pain. Something that would say “he went peacefully and without pain, he just fell asleep, he is finally resting now.”

I had all these thoughts about leaving people behind rushing through my mind as I cried, feeling increasingly sleepy.

Then calm. I had never felt as calm and relieved as when I was drifting off knowing for sure at that point that it would be the end of it all.

Then sleep.

“He just fell asleep, it didn’t hurt” is what they told me about my father’s suicide. It was my time to fade away now.

“He just fell asleep, it didn’t hurt.”

---

unexpected survival

And then I wake up. I am confused, I cannot open my eyes, I can only hear two women talking near me, unable to understand them. I say something and then shout but they don’t hear me. I start hitting my leg to grab their attention. “I don’t know why he’s hitting himself,” one of them says. I start hitting the Morse code SOS pattern; that seems to be what I resort to in these situations. I fall asleep again.

Once again, I wake up. This time I can open my eyes, it’s dark and quiet. “Fuck, I’m alive, how is that even possible? Oh no, my friend abroad, does he know? does he think I’m dead?” I’m not conscious and coherent enough to think any further, I just feel confusion and despair.

I can’t speak and I realise I’m intubated. I feel like I’m choking. I try to cough but nothing happens. Eventually someone comes to deflate the tracheal cuff for a bit and allow me to cough and aspirate some mucus. It provides some relief, but as soon as they inflate it back I feel like I’m choking again despite being on a respirator. This continues throughout the night. I don’t get much sleep and I don’t understand why they are doing this. Let me die, or if you are going to keep me alive, at least don’t make me feel like I’m constantly choking. But maybe I deserve this.

Eventually I wake up in the daylight, still very uncomfortably intubated, but able to think. I make assumptions about what happened. They must have sent help after missing work without calling, I must have underestimated how long it would take me to be completely gone. But this wasn’t the case. As it turns out, the friend I messaged managed to get me help despite living in a different country and not even knowing my exact address. I only learned this days later when my landlady, who let the police into my flat and room, told me everything that happened.

Then I see medical staff walk in with masks and aprons on. “Shit, we’re in the middle of covid and here I am using a respirator, taking up a bed, all because I tried to kill myself and failed like the fuck up I am… Just let me die, please just let me die.” Because I’m still intubated, I can’t say any of this.

I gesture until they understand I am asking for pen and paper. I try to write but it takes a lot of energy and focus, and I don’t make much sense. I insist on telling them the person that I had as my emergency contact is not my emergency contact or next of kin. I try to tell them if anyone calls, to tell them that I’m fine.

I just want to die. I’m somewhat glad I’m not putting my close ones through a death… but I so wish I had died. I don’t know what to do, I need to die.

I have very subtle hallucinations for the first couple of days. I hear indistinct voices, the clock on the wall seems to be slowly moving, I can see scenes playing if I stare at the blank wall. I can’t always tell if I’m awake or dreaming. I can’t tell if the interactions I’m having are real.

Someone from the mental health crisis team sees me, as they do. I ask to be sent home. They tell me my only option is to go to the psychiatric hospital. I agree, I don’t have the energy to put up any resistance and I know if I refuse they will take me there under section regardless.

---

the hospital

I’m isolated for two weeks due to covid prevention measures. For the first week I barely speak when staff talk to me. I sleep most of the day and I refuse to eat. I just want to die.

The days go by and I start to think maybe this time I have a chance. I mean, I’m in a psychiatric hospital, this is more help than I’ve ever gotten, surely this could work? Then again, none of the help I received so far had worked.

I first see a psychiatrist three weeks after my admission. She asks me lots of questions and I can tell she’s trying to ascertain a bipolar disorder diagnosis. This is something I’d suspected before but stopped thinking about since no professional I saw ever thought that was a possibility. She tells me I have bipolar disorder, asks me if it makes sense to me, starts me on a treatment. I walk out of that ward round with a sense of relief and the slightest bit of hope. A weight lifted off my shoulders. I had something treatable, despite what I’d previously been told.

I start going out of my room a bit more. I let staff help me, I am proactive, I ask to be helped. I start talking to patients, participating in activities. I have more casual chats with staff I get along with as well. At times, I even feel a sense of normality despite being in a hospital.

Weeks later, I have the realisation that… I want to be alive. I want to live. I want to enjoy life and there is a chance I can get there. I feel a genuine excitement I had not felt in ages, if I ever felt it at all. With this comes the fear that I will mess up, that I will be unwell again, that I will try to die again. That I will want to die again.

I am hopeful, I am terrified, but I am well enough to go home.

The first few days at home I feel unsteady, I am full of fear, I have panic attacks. Eventually I start to get more comfortable within myself, and more secure in my ability to keep myself safe should my brain start to fail me again.

---

today

I have a difficult illness to manage and I have had to make changes in my life to make that possible.

I am stable. I feel normal. I am happy.

I am grateful I survived.

Do I regret attempting to die? Perhaps I can’t, given that without nearly dying that day I would not have had the diagnosis that ultimately allowed me to get treatment and recover. I couldn’t have sustained the life I had much longer. In fact, I couldn’t have pushed through another day of madness overtaking me in the way it was.

I do regret the pain I caused not just with my suicide attempts but with my behaviour when I was unwell.

As was the case after my first attempt, I continue to live with the knowledge that I had no regrets at the time. I live knowing that it was peaceful, comforting, relieving. I welcomed the endless sleep, and I had never felt so calm in my life. However, unlike after my first attempt where I had the certainty those were feelings I would end up chasing through the same means eventually, what I am now left with is the determination to never be there again. To never get to a point where ending my life is preferable to living with my brain. Peace and calm and comfort are things within my reach. I no longer feel the need to escape my mind.

To this day I still think my suicide attempt was inevitable that evening. I don’t think anything else could have happened in those circumstances at that point in time. It just so happened that I survived it.

And I am happy to be alive.