Here Come The Lonely Night I Can’t Escape My Mind

Light at the End of the Tunnel

I put my headset on and called through to my manager on Teams.

“You know,” I said to her, “sometimes you need to have a difficult conversation with someone……..”

Eight hours prior to this conversation I was sitting on the edge of my bed, wide awake and alert. There was only one thing on my mind at that point.

I wanted to kill myself.

Suicidal thoughts and urges come in many ways. I’ve suffered in the past from a few different types. When I was almost nineteen I was very depressed, broken and alone. I survived a serious attempt on my own life. I had deliberately decided to try and kill myself then in an attempt to be free from what I was going through at the time.

For many years after that I suffered more with sporadic episodes of wanting to be dead. These were never pre-meditated, they always came into my head randomly and it would be up to me to rationalise the feelings. I knew that they weren’t natural and that I wouldn’t act on them. Instead I would try to use logic and the tools I’ve gathered over the years to work through them and box them away somewhere in my head.

This time though, it was different.

I don’t remember waking up. In fact, I don’t even remember being asleep at all. All I knew was that I was sitting on the edge of my bed. My partner Emma was asleep behind me with Trigger, one of our two cats, fast asleep behind her legs, something that’s quite normal for him. The dull glow of lights from the home over from us spilt through the cracks in the curtains. There was absolute silence in the house; no sound of traffic or life. The only thing that seemed to be stirring were the thoughts in my brain.

To try and describe suicidal thoughts is hard. It’s not something concrete and definite. The words “kill yourself” don’t gain form in a tangible way. It feels more like an understanding between yourself and these thoughts, something primal that transcends words as such. It’s like knowing that you’re hungry or too warm or that you need to scratch at an itch. It’s a secretly agreed covenant that doesn’t need to be expanded upon.

That base instinct is there. You can’t describe it and it’s hard to even articulate it. I knew what it was telling me to do. I knew even what it was wanting me to do, how and where. I was to go downstairs and use the belts of dressing gowns to hang myself from one of the doors. There was nothing else but this pitch black instinct. When something is like that, it’s hard to try and break whatever hold it has on you but you keep on trying.

So I sat in the dark, wordlessly and silently trying to deal with it head on. For about an hour I stared it down. Yeah, it sounds a bit overly dramatic, but, you know what, fuck it. It was. Try to talk to people who’ve had to deal with this and they’ll probably tell you exactly the same as me. It comes down to a choice; submit or don’t.

How do you deal with these thoughts? It’s different for everyone. Some use their relationships as an anchor, some use the knowledge of the grief that’s left behind as a reason to keep living, for others it can the something as simple as using logic to face it. It could be a combination of all of this, it could be none of it at all. You have to reach deeply into yourself and draw on some spark.

I sat and cried silently. I focused on riding this storm out, pulling from any resource that I had. I felt alone but yet surrounded by my life and the people who orbit me. And, after some time, I felt the feelings dissipate enough to feel that I was making my way through it somehow. I don’t know how but I was getting past it. I went downstairs, pausing to stroke the cats who’d decided to curl up together on the landing (Trigger had moved from the bed by this point and had decided to snuggle into his older brother Narla, our other cat). I stood under the shower feeling the water trying it’s best to wash away the night.

The morning left me with some choices to make. Should I tell people? I talked to Emma about what had happened, tears filling my eyes still. I couldn’t keep something like this from her. And I’d have to speak to manager to let them know what was going on too.

This came from out of nowhere. I haven’t been feeling depressed. My life is actually pretty good all things considered. I have no major worries or stresses. Yes, my anxiety peaks itself higher that it should every now and again but considering the past two years and what we are going through at the moment I think that’s acceptable, don’t you?

I felt like I was shock most of the morning. I couldn’t (and still can’t) wrap my head around why this suddenly intruded on my life. Trying to understand the “why” of it seems to be beyond my grasp right now. Do I try and accept it as being whatever it is or do I try and peel back the layers to try and get some understanding of it all? Sometimes, things are best undisturbed. Sometimes, we just need to accept the situation and prey that it won’t repeat itself, that these moments are fleeting and are gone on the next breeze.

You’re probably asking why I’m writing about this? Why am I sharing this sliver?

You don’t need to be depressed to feel suicidal. You don’t need to feel the weight of the world baring down on you to feel suicidal. You don’t need to feel that the only solution is to erase yourself from the world to feel suicidal.

These thoughts and feelings can sometimes reveal themselves without provocation. These are the ones that sting and bite and hurt. These are the thieves that will steal you away and hide you from plain sight.

I have spent the time since then being thankful for the breath I draw into my lungs, for each second that passes that takes me further from those thoughts and feelings. The darkness may be ever a part of me but I will not let my light be taken.

“The Lonely Night” – Moby featuring Mark Lanegan and Kris Kristofferson

Post Script: I just wanted to put your mind to rest too. It’s now several days after the incident. My head is clear and I’m in good spirits. This just proves how these thoughts can visit, disrupt your life and then leave. Suicidal thoughts sometimes aren’t the result of things building up. They can enter your head so fast you may not have chance to fight them and those, my friends, are the hardest ones to deal with.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. If you’d like to chat to me further you can email me at theorderofthedog@gmail.com and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

I’ve created a closed support group on Facebook also called The Order Of The Dog. It’s there for people who struggle with mental health issues as well as people who want to support and get a better understanding. It’s a closed group which means only members get to see and interact with what’s posted there. Finally, please feel free to share this blog with anyone and anywhere you think it might help.