I’ve never liked October 4. Since 1989, that day per year has often been terrible. But 1989 wasn’t a shade on 2003—the day I learned that my recently estranged wife was in a relationship with another man. The moment I found out took me tenfold deeper into a mental and emotional spiral than I’d been in the past 13 days since she said she wanted a trial separation.
The pain of separation was devastating. There were so many times I woke up from sleeping just wanted to be unconscious again. But the very second I discovered that another man had taken my place in my wife’s heart, that another man was to become the step father to my daughters (aged 5, 8, 11 at the time), that I’d been replaced (it felt that way), it broke something inside of me, and the following four days was an overwhelming whirlwind of anguish.
I came so very close to ending my life the night of October 4, 2003.
I was twenty metres and ten minutes away from it. I’d parked my car a few hundred metres away and had quietly entered the property, and, knowing what needed to be done, I was nearly there.
All thought of the trauma my brother endured in finding his best friend deceased when they were 18, all thought of a pact that we’d never do it, all that thought in this tenuous moment, vanished. I was blinded from anything else than what I was there to do.
Suddenly a compellingly obvious vision entered my field of thought. My daughters.
It was like God was reminding me that if there was one reason that made suicide impossible as an option it was that I couldn’t leave them, that they needed me. I wasn’t looking for excuses. I wanted to go through with it, the pain was so incredible.
Immediately I acknowledged that I just couldn’t do what I had come to do, I retreated, walked back to my vehicle, and drove to my parents. I didn’t sleep for the following two nights. And by October 8, a Wednesday, I was on a runaway train heading for a mental breakdown. And it occurred.
On that day, I was fine about 11am and I could remember thinking, “I’m going okay here.” Almost as soon as I had that realisation, the floor fell out of my composure.
Within the hour I regressed and by 12pm I was bordering on a sobbing catatonia. It was pure sorrow and my mind had gone. It was like a panic attack without the cognition, which was the scariest thing. It must have been terrible for both my parents and children to witness.
I put the above event down to the prolonged exposure to life-changing trauma, the inability to sleep, and being absolutely beside myself with how to reconcile my life that had catastrophically imploded.
As I look back now, nearly 18 years later, Sarah and I having just had our 14th wedding anniversary, living a completely different life now, all my daughters grown, I recognise I got through those times when not wanting to be alive was so strong. I got through and for the life I have now, it’s a hundred thousand times worth it.
Life never prepares us for the hellish moment that swoops down and smothers us in the toxin of despair. All I know is there are compelling reasons to live, support gets us through the crisis, and, because crises are always in the mind, thinking is helped when we talk about things with those who will listen and care.
We do get through, we do recover, one day at a time.
If you’re in a hellish moment, look for reasons that make dire actions impossible options.
When you’re in that hellish moment, perhaps it’s a Judas Iscariot moment, believe for the miracle of recovery, for God is desperate for you to remain alive, and you will reap a harvest of healing if you keep going.
No comments:
Post a Comment