MHAW 2024

 So it’s that time of year again, mental health awareness week. I had been planning on writing a blog anyway this week, however, events today have left things so raw and I wanted to write about it before I dilute it and dismiss it in a self-deprecating way like usual. 

I attended a mental health first aider refresher course, a great way to keep fresh and be able to help others, and also a great way to be off proper work for a day!!! So, I sat down ready to learn and engage. The first couple of hours went well, how to help other etc, and then we talked about suicide.

Suddenly all the thoughts and feelings from November / December came rushing back. How I couldn’t cope. How I tried to hide my thoughts and feelings, how I came to within a whisker of not being here anymore. 

I suffer from pretty bad suicidal ideation at the “best” of times, but I think while she sleeps sung it best when saying “when it’s good it’s so good, when it’s bad I wanna die”. When you get in to that low place you really can’t see a way out. I had no reason to be here, nobody needed me, I was replaceable. I couldn’t face looking back at that today. It was physically draining. 

I’ll laugh it off now. “I can’t have sharp things” etc, but telling your wife to change the code to the lockbox we use for medications, so I wouldn’t overdose, is heartbreaking to me now. The video showing how alone a man was, just replicating what I’d been through, I somehow held it together. 

It wasn’t a quick fix, but I had wonderful support, and relatively speaking the recovery was amazingly fast, just 3 months, but the memories will remain with me for years. It is twice now that I’ve been close to the unthinkable, and it’s something I have to think about because I can’t just pretend it never happened. BUT, as much as I needed the support during crisis, I have the support to help process these bad days. 

However, I can look forward, I’m still here, and I don’t know why that is but I am thankful. So, if you’re reading this and you’ve been there or you think may be going to that place, it happens, I wouldn’t say embrace it, but accept we all go through bad episodes. I am there for you. 

Peace 💚

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