‘Suicide isn’t killing yourself. It is killing everybody who loves you’.
What I didn’t disclose last week was the person I lost. The person I love most in this world was my boyfriend. He’s been at the brunt of my many attempts on taking my own life. He’s also fighting his own demons that often place me back in the pathway of inebriation. I put all my energy into trying to fix him. That I had become oblivious to the fact that I, myself also needed fixing. He had become my main support network. My main reason, I thought, for life. All I was living for was the promises of our future and not for myself. I was lost in the future, the moving in, maybe one day marriage, escaping the present, just so focused on perhaps one day being his wife. So I didn’t listen to my gut. I went out and met him. I should of listened. There was a crowd of people. This is a trigger. I got anxious. I sunk myself into glasses of anything. We had a fight. I went home and tried to hang myself as he watched on. It all got too much again. I guess. And now he’s gone. All I know is ‘Goodbye’ ‘Don’t contact’. ‘Good luck on your own journey to resolve’. And thats through the words of another. Not even his own.
I got really sick and signed off work. I was fortunate enough for my mother to be visiting that week. To take me to work on days I felt well enough. Then I got even sicker and she took me back to my sleepy safe haven. Back to my dog. Back to my support network. I couldn’t eat for a week. Not for the sake of trying. I was genuinely sick. So I took to my bed to recover. Then came Saturday night. I tried to call he had blocked my number. So I tried on another number and when he answered ‘Bonsoir!’. ‘Hello..’ He heard my voice. Hung up. I heard the dial tone. And that was it. He’s cemented he wants out. Out of my life.
I am lying in the dark now listening to my fridge purring. Im staring at empty racks and at my phone again. Still nothing. It’s been nothing for 9 days now. Is this it? Nothing eternally. Never knowing? I can’t even cry. I feel totally and utterly numb. Not weak. Just numb. I am carrying hope in these meetings. Today’s was tough. Someone had died.
Then the phone rang. I must of fell asleep. ‘Where is he? Is he hurt? What’s happening’. My father was pacing. My mother was shaking. My brother had been found collapsed in the street and we were helpless and miles away. We had to wait until the morning to make sure he was okay. Sleep deprived and scared, he finally made noise. To be on the receiving end of the impacts of alcohol awoke me to a side I had never seen before. Cementing the fact the choice I am making will be my choice forever more.
Whatever happened on Friday. Why ever he’s left. Was for a reason. I had to hit rock bottom to reach recovery. He didn’t want to take this journey with me. So I guess it is one I have to take on my own. It is the right path, the one I am taking. So far. For 13 years. Nothing else has worked. AA Is giving me a real, definite sense of hope. I went to two meetings in my home town. I am scared and I am lonely. I wish, I wish, he would unblock me and phone me.
What I didn’t disclose last week was the person I lost. The person I love most in this world was my boyfriend. He’s been at the brunt of my many attempts on taking my own life. He’s also fighting his own demons that often place me back in the pathway of inebriation. I put all my energy into trying to fix him. That I had become oblivious to the fact that I, myself also needed fixing. He had become my main support network. My main reason, I thought, for life. All I was living for was the promises of our future and not for myself. I was lost in the future, the moving in, maybe one day marriage, escaping the present, just so focused on perhaps one day being his wife. So I didn’t listen to my gut. I went out and met him. I should of listened. There was a crowd of people. This is a trigger. I got anxious. I sunk myself into glasses of anything. We had a fight. I went home and tried to hang myself as he watched on. It all got too much again. I guess. And now he’s gone. All I know is ‘Goodbye’ ‘Don’t contact’. ‘Good luck on your own journey to resolve’. And thats through the words of another. Not even his own.
I got really sick and signed off work. I was fortunate enough for my mother to be visiting that week. To take me to work on days I felt well enough. Then I got even sicker and she took me back to my sleepy safe haven. Back to my dog. Back to my support network. I couldn’t eat for a week. Not for the sake of trying. I was genuinely sick. So I took to my bed to recover. Then came Saturday night. I tried to call he had blocked my number. So I tried on another number and when he answered ‘Bonsoir!’. ‘Hello..’ He heard my voice. Hung up. I heard the dial tone. And that was it. He’s cemented he wants out. Out of my life.
I am lying in the dark now listening to my fridge purring. Im staring at empty racks and at my phone again. Still nothing. It’s been nothing for 9 days now. Is this it? Nothing eternally. Never knowing? I can’t even cry. I feel totally and utterly numb. Not weak. Just numb. I am carrying hope in these meetings. Today’s was tough. Someone had died.
Then the phone rang. I must of fell asleep. ‘Where is he? Is he hurt? What’s happening’. My father was pacing. My mother was shaking. My brother had been found collapsed in the street and we were helpless and miles away. We had to wait until the morning to make sure he was okay. Sleep deprived and scared, he finally made noise. To be on the receiving end of the impacts of alcohol awoke me to a side I had never seen before. Cementing the fact the choice I am making will be my choice forever more.
Whatever happened on Friday. Why ever he’s left. Was for a reason. I had to hit rock bottom to reach recovery. He didn’t want to take this journey with me. So I guess it is one I have to take on my own. It is the right path, the one I am taking. So far. For 13 years. Nothing else has worked. AA Is giving me a real, definite sense of hope. I went to two meetings in my home town. I am scared and I am lonely. I wish, I wish, he would unblock me and phone me.
For the first time in my life I am aware of the impact my attempts have had on those that surround me. I brush it off in the morning, thinking ‘at least I am still alive’. Whilst others tread on eggshells. Pick up the pieces. I get angry they can’t bounce back and treat me normally. It isn’t me it, it is just the drink. But these are people who have witnessed it time and time again, the noosing, the cutting, bared witness to it with their very eyes. It is scary. I have been selfish. Why should they pick up the pieces? Weekend after weekend. So I am addressing it and for all those reading this, if this has ever impacted you… I can only deeply, sincerely, apologise.
I am open about my journey to resolve. I don’t shy from telling people I am at the beginning of AA. Though most are supportive, I have faced criticism from some of my very closest. ‘Your not that bad’ they say. Then I highlight some of the many times they have sat with me in A+E. Or sobbing uncontrollably until the early hours of the morning. The problem is when I feel down or stressed I turn to drinking and after that one glass it is game over. I felt like a total fraud going to my first meeting, how on earth was I to stand up and share … ‘Hi I’m Jodie and I am an alcoholic’. When I didn’t truly believe I was. I don’t have the shakes, I don’t wake up and need a drink. I don’t drink every night. I can abstain from drinking from periods at a time. It wasn’t until someone else considerably older than me spoke and it resonated. It wasn’t until I left the meeting I realised I suffer with extreme alcoholism because I have an extremely bad relationship with alcohol. This isn’t me having a bad weekend or a bad break up and saying ‘Maybe I should cut back’. This is me realising the common denominator in my problems is ALWAYS drinking. It brings me to a place where I cannot control myself, where I hate myself and everyone around me. A place of pure destruct.
This week I realised how lucky I am to have my mother, how much I love her and how through every shitty thing I have done she has always supported me. She lay in bed with me most of last week because I was afraid to be alone. She was so tired by it all she was drinking cups of tea with socks in, yet she never complained. She came to meetings with me, laughed and cried with me. She’s been my inspiration to keep going. Her unconditional love and support keeps me going. She won’t leave my side. Unlike you when you left me and told me you loved me. I realise now you lied.
This week I realised how lucky I am to have my mother, how much I love her and how through every shitty thing I have done she has always supported me. She lay in bed with me most of last week because I was afraid to be alone. She was so tired by it all she was drinking cups of tea with socks in, yet she never complained. She came to meetings with me, laughed and cried with me. She’s been my inspiration to keep going. Her unconditional love and support keeps me going. She won’t leave my side. Unlike you when you left me and told me you loved me. I realise now you lied.