*** Trigger Warning ***

Sitting with my thoughts, playing everything over and over in minor detail.

At this point 11 years ago suicide wasn’t even in my thought process but I was really struggling and it seemed no one understood me as I hid that part of my life so well.

Tomorrow is always my hardest day.

People mourn a loss of what loved ones have missed out on.

I mourn a loss whereby I see everything that I have gained, yet the emotional pain of it all, especially that night will always trouble me.

I’m a lot stronger than people often give me credit for.

I have had my problems and some of those still overshadow me at times.

But I face up to each one daily and through my own vulnerability, courage and bravery speak openly about each one and no longer hide.

As hard as each one are to read, be thankful you don’t live it, just as I’m thankful that I’m still around to adjust my course of existence.

Waking up eleven years ago but in reality hardly sleeping at all, I was paranoid, mentally tired, frustrated and angry, more so at myself than anything or anyone.

Why did I feel like this!?!

My mind constantly ticking.

I wanted to be on my own as my mask was starting to slip and I did everything I could to hide it, not only to protect myself but to protect everyone else from the depths of darkness.

The night before being at a family party filled with cousins, brothers and alcohol.

Playing up to the audience whilst slowly dying inside my own mind.

Arriving home my overnight bag was dropped and remained for days on my living room floor.

Heading into the kitchen for beer and returning with not only more cans than I could drink at once, but a bottle of whiskey too.

My mind was spiralling and deep in a blackest of black colour.

Tormented by my own thoughts that I was constantly letting people down and not being good enough for anyone, at least of all myself.

I needed all the pain to stop.

The alcohol was there to block it out.

The whiskey to hopefully help me to pass out.

Your demons can’t get at you whilst you sleep, they just stop you sleeping and torture you whilst you’re awake.

But that wasn’t going to be the case today.

At this same point, suicide wasn’t in my thought plan, but chatter I was having with myself was maybe everyone would be better off if I wasn’t here or didn’t exist.

Having been in Australia the year before, thoughts about not returning home could have been a better solution for me and for everyone else.

Failed relationships and romances, no direction in my life other than going out all the time and spending money, drinking to block everything out.

Being completely misunderstood by everyone and it was easier for everyone to think I was a let-down than it was to open up and admit I was struggling but not knowing why.

Your whys explain your truths but without your why no one understands, not even you.

As the hours wore on I was drinking even more heavily to shut down my mind.

Dark thoughts constantly telling me I held no worth to anyone.

Rewinding back on every failure.

Playing out in my mind in detail.

And then the unknown depression twisting its knife to make it seem worse than it was.

Still suicide wasn’t in my thoughts.

Playing the day back almost in real time it was at this point whereby I was considering ending my life.

The coffee table was scattered with empty cans, the bottle of whiskey close to empty.

Music was blaring from my television to muffle the constant crying and emotional pain that escaped me.

My neighbours probably half wondering what was going on but it was Christmas after all.

My mind going back and forth and me desperately trying to hold on.

By this point my mind albeit dark was clear, all I wanted was the pain that had built up inside of me to stop.

I had made my mind up.

At this point, although in an emotional overload and constantly fighting with myself, I had a presence of mind to say goodbye through text messages, doing it in a way that no one spotted anything untoward.

I didn’t want anyone to always wonder.

Even though they always would.

Each and every reply made me cry even more tears.

Uncontrollable, mind numbing tears.

But my darkened mind had clouded my judgement and there was no going back now.

Just a feeling of numbness of what I was about to carry out.

Still drinking to numb the pain, back and forth I went from my home to my garage, meticulously opening and locking doors as I went.

Hoping not to bump into anyone that may have unsettled my plan.

I went back and forth hundreds of times.

I can’t possibly describe the anguish I felt, I still can’t.

In the days after I hardly moved, I didn’t speak to anyone, replied to an odd message.

Totally numb.

I carried that night for over 5 years without a soul knowing until I had my breakdown 6 years later.

It is a day that will always haunt me, a day I will always remember in the finest of details.

A day that changed my life.

Both for the better and for the worse.

The worst because it would have been an anniversary for many more than just myself.

27th December 2011.

Life might be hard, but trust me, it can get better.

That’s me done!

That’s me done!

I’m no longer going to show off my life, both good and bad just so I can see that people notice me.

To feel like I’m of any value or worth, when deep down I hold no value or self worth towards myself.

This world is ever evolving with some of the brightest and creative minds within any generation, with an ability to connect from far and wide, but with it, lost in translation of being connected through character of who we are as opposed to who we are trying to fakely become.

People look for perfection over personality these days and when that is the normal, what chance do we have to connect, fall in love and grow as people.

Social media often gets the blame but for everything bad about it, there is many more features to be grateful for.

It’s the people who use them that have lost their way and have forgotten about the romance and traditions of yester-year, just as your grandparents or great-grandparents old photographs paint a very different picture.

In a life where everything is controlled from your smartphones, days are well in the past and forgotten about from your younger years of life’s struggles but happiness lived in many homes.

In today’s society, many people are lost, hurting, striving for unrealistic goals because someone they know or someone they follow has achieved what they too perceive to want.

Do we want any of it at all, or do we just want it because everyone else seems to have what we don’t.

Over the last few years I’ve learnt a lot about myself, in all the quiet moments I’ve watched and listened to everything that is happening around me, I understand life very well and that of my own extremely.

I’m troubled and that is no lie, stronger, probably more than many give me credit for.

I live a hard life mentally and there’s no escape from it, I’ve got to keep staring down my troubles and counteracting all of my dark demons.

Loneliness plays a big part within my life, you can be an outgoing person, come alive at an event or a party because it takes the attention away from anyone spotting your struggles.

But when the music stops and the night ends, that’s when the noise starts again inside of your head.

Just relentless noise.

I write to release emotion, it’s how I cope, otherwise its just my thoughts rotating around in my head, with my demons looking to twist everything and play on my own self consciousness and my own self doubt.

But here and now, I’m done.

However, not in life, despite all of my struggles it’s important to show to myself that despite the heavy weights and the deep-rooted depression, I can find inner strength to keep showing up, from one day to it’s next.

But that’s it, as my life is on a continuous, transitional journey, one that I am struggling with to work out where I now fit, as my middle years start to disappear into a void of nothingness, my book is now closed to open eyes.

I won’t be posting anymore, as hard and as difficult to break routines, such as drinking and being social, to posting quotes and photographs of memories created.

Now it stops, I’m done!

Hope

It’s been quite the year for me, maybe the same could be said about the two years before it too.

Before covid and lockdowns I thought I had my life all figured out, but the reality was I just kept putting those temporary plasters in place to stop emotionally bleeding out.

My way of coping was to always stay busy, that way I could forget about all the things I didn’t have and almost convince myself that if I was busy I wouldn’t ever be lonely.

But sadly that isn’t the truth.

I’m stronger than ever but it doesn’t mean that I’m not fighting, I will live a life, from day to day, alert but lost within myself each day with only my demons to keep myself company on each of those lonely nights.

Hold your people close and be grateful for what you have.

I’m trying to figure out where I fit within this life, I have a great family, some loyal friends and I will continue to live a life because the alternative isn’t worth thinking about, but life is hard and unforgiving.

Many people won’t understand but I’m now going to distance myself to protect myself, I’ll go to work, I’ll be visible but many won’t see me or hear from me.

Just one day until its next, until I grow old and I die is how I feel.

And that’s when the pain will stop.

We just have to keep going and cling onto that word of hope.

Rebirth

This year it feels like it’s hit harder.

10 years is a long time, but that day/night has been replayed in my mind on repeat for a decade.

Looking at the above photograph, the picture was taken in Australia, New Years Eve on a boat on Sydney Harbour, only the year before.

One of my most favourite places I’ve ever visited, Australia and in particular Melbourne hold a piece of my heart.

Fast-forward almost 12 months and it just goes to prove so much can change inside a year.

Although, deep down I was suffering a lot longer than this photograph shows, without even knowing or acknowledging it myself.

Today, 27th December, like always, one eye on the clock, I’ll re-live every single detail, played out in my mind like watching a re-run of old video clips.

So vivid in every single moment.

I had every anticipation that I would have written on this night to mark and close this chapter of my life, however despite emotions and feelings coming out, the words didn’t have any structure to place them all together so I could reflect out what was attempting to weigh me down.

10 years ago I was going to take my own life, in the same house where I still live.

Living in a home that I would have committed suicide in, I’ve since found calmness within it, but with it, it’s almost like I hold that reminder to punish myself daily by doing so.

How life would have changed for you all.

From the people who knew me then to the people who know me now.

Sometimes it’s easier to exist than live.

To go through the motions of life without even taking a sharp inward of breath and feel alive in your moments.

It’s easier to head in the direction that everyone takes, flowing with the current of how life revolves.

With it getting caught up and lost with how life is perceived to be lived.

We are born.

We learn.

We grow.

We love.

We reproduce.

And then we die.

Replay and repeat.

This is the journey of life that is instilled inside of us all.

Yes we are each unique as the people we are and the passions that we develop and our own core beliefs set each of us apart, but evolution of life is the same.

However it isn’t the same for everyone, but our mindsets continually guide us back to this setting when things aren’t going for us.

We look at the missed opportunities that never present themselves whilst forgetting about the ones that did.

The ones that have.

We are all different, we all look at each others lives with envy, with opinionated thoughts on what you would do differently, or aspire to become.

To wish that you were the one meeting the love of your life, or to becoming a parent, for the congratulations that come with gaining a new job or promotion, or anything and everything that life tells you, you should be achieving.

We need to stop feeling the need to warrant our own lives.

To prove ourselves to anyone, most importantly to yourself.

Always do what is right for you.

Do what makes you happiest.

Make no apologies, hold no regrets.

It’s your own life.

In my own life I often stay busy, most times too busy.

I do it for many reasons, to be so caught up in myself that I no longer have to think, to constantly distract myself from my own failings.

But they aren’t failings, they are part of who I am, each element of my life, good, bad or indifferent, they are what makes me, me.

My own unique and individual character.

How we are seen inwardly is all the rough, outwardly is slightly shaped and sanded off in the work we undertake in private.

I often stay busy to validate myself, to constantly push myself way beyond my own boundaries to feel alive, to feel like I offer something, to feel wanted, to feel needed.

Your mind tricks you into thinking that’s what you deserve.

For good and bad, don’t see yourself struggle because that’s what you think you are worth.

I can tell you now, that we are each worth so much more than we ever take credit for.

No more holding back because its easier.

Don’t pigeon hole yourself just to fit in.

Existing isn’t living a life you aspire to become.

Stop being scared to live the life that you want.

I don’t have to prove anything to myself anymore, just be this person I am and start seeing parts that everyone else sees daily.

Breathe and live.

My life has felt a constant struggle mentally but what happens if your trauma remains to teach you?

Is your mind and body screaming at you to become better.

To grow, to not hold back and stop playing safe with your life, as it knows just how important it is to be the best and most happiest version that you could ever wish to be.

It’s about finding comfort in who you are.

Embracing the person you are.

We often fail to acknowledge ourselves as looking past the reflection of our own features and deep into our souls takes you to the depths of your own darkness.

What if your trauma remains to help you.

To remind you.

To comfort you.

It feels your pain, it hears your emotion, it heals your scars.

What if what weighs us down is giving us an anchor to steady us, a solid foundation in which to rebuild from.

It’s time to breathe, to feel comfortable whilst still, it’s time to acknowledge who I am and to live my life, face forward.

Continue to grow and challenge myself.

To learn and embrace who I am, to accept the darkness and carry it back into its light.

To be brave enough to step away from anything that no longer lights me up from my inside out.

To go after everything that does, to shine brightly and guide the way.

And find peace within all of my broken pieces, as my broken pieces are my most important pieces of all, they represent who I am in all of my vulnerability and are mine.

Counselling

There’s a big reason why counselling doesn’t work for everybody.

You have to talk.

There’s no quick fix whereby you just walk in and within a session you feel more at ease and calmer within yourself, with a more clearer understanding of all of your problems.

You still have to talk!

There lies the biggest problem of all.

For me, do I think I need more counselling, probably.

However, I also know that I’m not ready to open up on old wounds to a brand new stranger and go over old ground once again.

Support groups are the same, you get out of them what you are prepared to put in.

You have to really open up and be honest, not necessarily to your counsellor, but to yourself.

Talking about yourself and your own difficulties are a lot harder said than done.

My own therapy is to write and construct my thoughts to release my emotions and that is often a challenge all in itself.

I would like nothing more to just get everything out, to let all of my emotions just pour out once and for all, however there has to be some sort of process to it all.

To understand your why’s.

Counselling for me worked 5 years ago, so I’m definitely not against it, but at the same time I fear it.

I made a conscious decision on my very first session to be completely open and honest, otherwise there was absolutely no reason why I was attending.

My counsellor was the first person I told about suicide, she was the first person I genuinely and vulnerably opened up to about lots of things.

I felt reassured as she was a professional figure, yet was there to listen, sometimes guide and support me.

Counselling isn’t what you expect, it wasn’t what I was expecting.

The fear, the heightened anxiety that builds and continues to build until you feel that you can no longer breath.

Wondering how much you should say or how much you should hold back on.

What if they don’t understand.

What if they don’t believe you.

What if they think you are a danger to yourself.

It wasn’t the case at all.

Just a professional person who sat in a room with you each week and listened.

Each session after, I would sleep for hours, the first session until the following day.

Each time trying to make sense of all my jumbled up thoughts; thoughts I was frustrated at myself that I couldn’t make sense of them.

With depression you feel as though you lose your mind and you do.

Everything that you once knew, temporarily gone.

Like a jigsaw puzzle, but no idea what the picture is supposed to look like.

Piece by piece you have to attempt to put yourself back together once again.

Patience is really the key and alongside it being patient and understanding with yourself.

It’s hard, unmeasurably hard.

From the outside nothing changes, maybe you appear more distant and a little lost, but nothing against the unnoticeable eye.

You withdraw and go in on yourself, as that is a coping mechanism to ward off noticeable action.

By doing what people perceive as nothing is sometimes better than doing what people perceive as something.

Support groups can help an individual but at the same time can aid your setbacks.

Listening to others either reminds you of where you’ve been, what may still face you or troubles you can sometimes get lost in.

You can’t be a support network for others whilst you yourself are struggling.

The only person who can get you out of your darkness is the same person who was dragged into it.

Yourself.

Everyone wants to help but not everyone can understand.

Not until it happens to you.

It takes more than listening.

Mental Health; no one wants to see you suffer, some people in your life are just too close to really open up and divulge your thoughts, emotions and deep down your raw and vulnerable state.

Some offer to listen but you know many won’t be able to handle your darkness.

It’s incredibly difficult to explain your thoughts when at many times you don’t understand them for yourself.

To feel the way you feel, constantly.

To see that look.

That look of it sounds awful but it can’t really be that bad.

That look or dropped silence in their voice of I can’t help you if you don’t help yourself.

Sometimes it’s just easier to say nothing at all.

Counselling may help me again in the future, but I have to want to be open, truly open and I’m not ready for that.

I don’t want to explore old ground for what it might bring up a second time around.

I’ve been looking at and researching cognitive behaviour therapy, looking at the thoughts and behaviours of my life and how depression and mental health play an active and at times a controlling part in that.

CBT is my likely next new direction, to not visit the rawness of my past but focus on how it effects my current day to days and work on my whys to further understand them and learn to accept how my life has become.

Counselling only works if the person who is suffering finds the courage within them to share their own truths.

I won’t stop sharing my own.

When it’s time

When my time comes I want people to remember the person that I am.

I want people to remember my own wishes and act accordingly.

I want tradition of suits, sharp and crisp shirts and clean, yet polished shoes.

The only colours I wish to know were the colours that shine through your personalities on the remembrance of my own.

I don’t want hymns at my service, I want creativity, personal poems and shared stories, that help to bring humour through every shed tear.

The song I choose to be played as my coffin is carried and my body is laid to rest for that final time is one that has served me well in times of struggle, yet also holds such meaning of joy.

The song I choose is: Comforting Sounds by Birdy.

I don’t want to be buried.

I don’t want people to feel they have to attend my graveside.

I want to be cremated.

I want people to live their lives and when needed they can look upwards, towards the sky and know I’m right with them at every opportunity, whenever they need my guidance and share in my wisdom.

I don’t want people to attend because they feel they have to.

People who you have met within your lifetime through association.

From school, colleges, workplaces, or friends of friends on nights out.

Appreciate the people who matter now, not when it’s too late.

When it’s time;

My time to go.

I want you to remember me for how I make you feel.

Did we share a friendship that was unrivalled.

Did I inspire you to be you.

To go after your dreams, encourage you to start and remind you that everyone is capable of everything that you put your mind too and work hard for.

Was I that person that instilled confidence and belief by living a life throughout troublesome times, but never giving up and fighting the good fight.

Did I speak the words you wished to speak, to write, to create, to leave every single drop out on it’s page, time and time again.

When it’s time.

I want to look back on my own life and reflect on a life that has been lived.

From light into darkness and back into the light once more.

I want to see myself for everything that I am, just one time, to know wholeheartedly that I have overly achieved and be proud of the person I’ve already become.

Only when it’s time.

What’s up?

The reason why I write and release so many honest thoughts is it helps, me that is.

It isn’t for you to understand, maybe relate for some, others to be thankful it’s not you.

Depression effects me daily, I have to live with it for the rest of my life.

I think that’s the part that many don’t understand.

Imagine an alcoholic, would you say to them go on just have one drink you’ll be fine and then they disappear back into their turbulent cycle and you wonder how that happened.

With depression, for most in society, you are either really bad or your better.

It simply isn’t the case.

For me, at the moment, emotionally I’m not great but I am starting to come out of the other side and gain some strength back.

I don’t want to be around people.

I don’t want to have to face them when my emotions aren’t in check and uncontrollably cry in front of them.

Resulting in a question of what’s up or are you alright and have nothing within my answer to reply with.

I don’t want to talk to them.

Because where do I start and what do I say?

It’s great that people ask if I want to talk about it, equally it must frustrate them when I choose not too.

Now answer me one question, how do you talk about something that you can’t explain?

I don’t want people to ask questions with smirks on their faces like what I’m feeling and suffering isn’t something to be concerned about.

It’s a concern for me, but I’ve been here before and I will be again and again.

December is a tough time for me, but I have to learn to try and find some peace with events that took place.

Sometimes I’m okay, not good, just not bad.

In the years that have gone by I tend to do one of three things on that anniversary.

Soul-search or hide away.

Tee off with the drink.

Or work on my passions.

My passions have taken an abrupt stop and although I love each one, I don’t know when I’ll return to any of them.

Alcohol, I don’t drink like I used to anymore, I used to drink to numb the pain, but now I rarely drink if I’m not feeling level.

But on the more special occasions maybe I just need to say to myself, not tonight and ignore the judgements.

As for soul-searching and staying in my safe haven, I feel calm here, maybe too calm at times and I have to relearn to live my life, with new anniversaries and better memories.

I don’t expect anyone to understand because you won’t, parts of it I don’t understand, the hidden traumas that I still must block out.

One day I hope I’ll have the courage to be able to talk it all out in person, but I don’t know if I ever will.

It’s a debilitating illness, one I don’t stereotype myself under as an illness of such but it is.

I was reminded maybe a year ago that I’m in a constant battle with my own mind and the inner strength I must have to deal with that on a daily basis is something to be proud of and not be ashamed of.

Depression is a part of my life, just as that one suicide episode was, it haunts me because it was too close and as my life evolves it reminds me of what I would have missed out on, as much as the pain before those moments almost drove me to end it all.

27th December 2011 – I have to finally put you to bed and move on with my life, a painful memory it might be, a day, a night I’ll never forget, but I need to find my way of finding peace with it all.

Thank you for your concern and your thoughts, I know people care and ask about me.

I don’t push people away or ignore them intentionally, I do it because it’s how I best cope, just as the writing allows me to structure it all down and get an emotional release out.

All you need to know is I’m going to be alright.

Depression, it never goes away!

Once again I’m sat in total darkness apart from the light from my phone shining brightly as I write.

It’s my safe haven, time and time again.

Somewhere that I can block the world out and feel safe and calm in my own personal space.

Last night started fine, some hidden anxieties that no one will have noticed, ended by dark thoughts creeping back in.

A night out that brought out some emotion, from dancing widely and entertaining a room full of friends and strangers.

To sharing in personal conversations that brought out tears and heart aching regrets.

No one will have noticed a single thing, maybe the tears, the outpour of emotion, but then again maybe most didn’t notice a single thing.

Everything can change in the blink of an eye.

One minute appearing fine, the next minute going in on yourself, dwelling, and completely uncontrollable.

Depression, it never goes away!

Last night I found myself going in on myself very quickly, fighting with my thoughts and emotions.

In a taxi coming home but not wanting to be there, in and around people, I wanted out, I wanted to be on my own.

I didn’t want to create a scene whereby I am asked the hardest question to answer, of why?

I don’t know, I still don’t really know why right now.

In these moments you feel really subdued, quite numb, reliving everything over and over, trying to piece yourself back together knowing that tomorrow you have to face people and put on that charade that everything is fine in your life.

Laughing off anything and everything so you aren’t questioned about your whys, because quite frankly that isn’t a question you are ready to answer nor is it something you can.

Christmas for many is one of the most favourite times of the year.

For me, I’d happily bypass it straight into January.

Every year I have to put on a show as that is what everyone expects, to play up to my audience.

I go through the motions within December, when all I really want to do is close the door to the world and ride it out until the new year.

I have a troubled mind, I can’t escape it and it progressively gets worse within this month, I can’t move passed it, because I’m racked with guilt for existing.

Christmas is a time of enjoyment, for celebrations and excitement for children and parents alike.

Behind every closed door represents your life, year after year, there’s nothing to show.

Hopes and dreams, failures, mistakes and let downs.

Some people wish they can start all over, at times I wish it would just all end.

The pain, the suffering, just a constant feeling of someone everyone knows but not of any worth.

Everywhere you look there’s love and I can’t escape it and when you want it so badly but it’s never reciprocated, it’s hard, really, really hard to keep picking yourself up and being treated as though your life is so much easier because of this reason or that.

I go through the motions of life a lot, transitions aplenty in the form of discovering passions and working tirelessly to help to block everything else out.

Those passions will always be there but I don’t have any desire or energy to revisit any of them.

Just coasting through life until my time ends, realistically; looking back and wondering how I even got this far.

In a few weeks I have a painful anniversary, one that I carried for 5 years without a single soul knowing.

The first person I shared it with was my counsellor.

Fast-forward 5 further years I can’t get passed it, it haunts me and it will haunt me forever.

My life is anything but what you see, it’s hard to just keep going, to know that it is likely to be just me in it.

Constantly grieving for a life you didn’t have.

Love is Everywhere

I’m very open and honest when it comes to my own mental health, however I am quite guarded when it comes to my relationships.

How can you distance yourself from something that hurts you the most, when love is everywhere you look.

There is no big secret for my desire to become more than one.

However, that is just how my life has unfolded.

Not through choice, not even bad luck.

It has just happened and played out that way.

There are sayings I absolutely hate and despise such as, ‘they weren’t the right one’, I find that saying extremely patronising.

Those that say it, say it with heartfelt tenancies trying to protect and encourage you, but patronising it definitely is all the same.

Another saying is ‘it’s alright for you’.

I hate that one even more than “it’s okay not to be okay”, bullshit!

From my then unknown experiences with depression to now I was always told how it was alright for me, something I hear on a weekly basis for all manner of subjects whereby those who say it think my life is easier than theirs.

My life isn’t easy, it never has been.

Throughout all of my writings I’ve found courage to write about my emotions, including suicide and although this isn’t anything as bad as that, this one is extremely raw.

Raw and something I thought I wouldn’t need to address.

A few weeks ago I woke up and without a second thought just upped and left and spent a few days in Edinburgh, it did me the world of good.

Showing myself that despite any anxieties that I have, I’m just as capable to put them to one side and say ‘fuck it’ and do it anyway.

I was asked prior to going and coming home who I was with and when I replied I was by myself, the replies which came sincerely as bravery resulted in my own mind of alone.

If I didn’t go alone, I wouldn’t ever go anywhere.

Holidays abroad, weekends away, day trips or restaurant meals for one.

I always fear that I’ll spend my life on my own, but the reality is my darkness will always sit by my side as company ready to pull me down into the depths of dispair.

I shared a quote in the last few days that really resonated with me, regarding how ‘depression in part, is grief for your own life not turning out as it should have done’.

My life was never supposed to be like this.

Granted I have achieved, more than I ever could wish to achieve personally.

I have a good relationship with myself in the main, that I realise who I am, in my heart, my soul and within my troubled mind.

But still my life was never meant to be like this.

Rewind back to the days of your teenage lives whereby your weekends were fun and nothing more.

Focusing towards your future and what may come, your career, your friendships, your goals.

Finding someone to settle down with and starting a family, but it didn’t come.

Not until a few years ago, I met someone online initially, she was older than I was by 6 years.

She was a beautiful girl and instantly I was attracted to her, immediately wanting to get to know her, hoping she could see something in my profile and my words to allow us to strike up a conversation.

She did and I was hooked, speaking daily, building up a strengthing relationship.

She was guarded at times, divorced, no children, never wanted to re-marry and definitely didn’t want children.

Despite my desire to one day become a father it was more of a bonus than a necessity.

I wanted to find someone who I could fall in love with and be loved back.

And she did, maybe it wasn’t part of her plan to connect to someone like me, as through our conversations she warmed to the possibility of marriage and told me of dreams she had of us having a daughter.

In the year that I had met her I had aspirations of going to Australia for Christmas and New Year, it was something I had been planning before I even met her.

We spoke openly about it, despite what would have been our first Christmas as a couple, she knew how much I wanted to go and encouraged me to go when I was ready to shelve it.

Australia particularly Melbourne holds a special place for me now, but when I returned, the girl wasn’t.

I won’t mention her name, because for a long, long time I couldn’t bear to hear it.

For 11 years, I’ve never heard from her again, no silenced calls or knocks on the door.

She took her chance to walk away, for whatever reason(s) they were, I got no closure, none at all.

Maybe it was never supposed to happen like this, maybe she was married, maybe she met someone else, maybe she just needed to walk away.

It ripped my heart out, so much so, it would play it’s part in my deteriorating health and eventual suicide episode at the end of that year.

It’s alright for you though they always say.

It’s never been alright for me.

I don’t want sympathy, I don’t want to ever talk about it either, just some understanding.

My life is far from crystal clear to base your personal judgements on.

The 27th December marks 10 years since I came too close to taking my own life, the date is constantly on my mind this year, more so in the last few weeks.

How can you distance yourself from something that hurts you the most, when love is everywhere you look.

It’s hard, there’s no denying it.

Just one day at a time.

Patience

I wouldn’t consider myself to be a patient person, however I’ve had to learn that quality in the most frustrating and painful way possible.

Towards the end of this month it’s 5 years since I was diagnosed with depression.

What depression does to you is strip away everything that you once knew about yourself.

I’ve often compared it to a mind wipe where you have to patiently put all the pieces back together, but have no knowledge on just how to do it.

You have to trust yourself and remain patient that the person you once felt like you were, you will rediscover and be once again.

In December this year marks my 10th anniversary with a suicide episode.

I carried that secret for almost 5 years without a sole knowing.

It was a secret I thought I would carry to my last breath and I would have done had I been mentally stronger.

Yes you have read that right.

Had I been stronger, no one would have ever known about that one night.

I would have continued to live my life throughout the torment and daily struggles, just to keep everything under wraps.

The hardest thing anyone can do in life is ask for help and admit mainly to yourself that you aren’t coping.

It’s not hard to see and recognise just how much my life has changed inside 5 years.

I often say I’ve achieved more in those last 5 years than I have across the 37 years before it.

I’ve learnt so much about who I am, who I could be, the potential I have and how I inspire others just by being myself.

Despite everything that I have learnt, the mental toughness I’ve rediscovered to the new passions I’m discovering, the ability to know who I actually am, found right in the depths of my core being.

I’d swap it, I’d swap it all.

I’ve said my suicide episode haunts me and so it should.

It’s something I would never do again, I shouldn’t be alive and I nearly wasn’t.

I’d swap it all to go back to the days whereby the pain didn’t exist, to not have the painful, dark memories that are constant reminders on how close it all could have become.

As the 27th December is fast approaching, it does mark a landmark year, but also a landmark year that doesn’t mean anything.

It’s a day I’ll never ever forget, but 10 years or 10 days it doesn’t mean anything, because it doesn’t change anything.

It’s a moment in time, within my own time, whereby fine margins have the ability to draw on life or death, like a coin settling itself on one side or the next.

The 27th December will always be a date remembered as vividly as my own birthday would be.

It’s the day my life changed forever!