My Suicide Attempt: The First Step
I have only lived twenty short years on this earth, but throughout my life, death has followed me. My uncle Lee passed away in 2006 to suicide. My great grandmother Eileen passed away to cancer in 2009. A close friend of mine passed away in 2019, I choose not to mention this name in public as the details of our relationship were unknown to our friends, and I was unable to attend his funeral as a result. And in July 2020, death knocked at my door.
I spent seven days inside of the Acute Medical Unit at a hospital called Southmead. I had taken an overdose of 96 tablets of paracetamol and a full bottle of vodka. Our ‘tale of the tape’ begins on July 19th, 2020.
The day before I attempted to end my life, I had woken up at 2am that morning. Nightmares of trauma and emotions that I couldn’t control made me decide that today was the day I would take my life, and I knew exactly how I wanted to do it.
I had arranged a catch-up with some old school friends of mine. I didn’t particularly like these people because they conspired with a group against me to isolate me, give me silent treatment and ignore me until I broke down and cried. My friends would send me pictures of their self harm and expect me to have the answers. This was because I was the boy with the purple wrists.
Let me take you back to 2019 quickly. A popular girl from my year group complimented my neck once, it was a derogatory comment because it looked like I had hickeys on my neck, this was back when I was being sexually molested. I was choked unconscious and I really wanted somebody to stand up and take notice. Instead it was put down to girlfriends.
It was 9.30am and I left the house for what I thought was the last time, I took a two hour bus to where I used to go to school, a quiet town just out of Bristol. And spent the day with my friends. The day began with a trip to Home Bargains. My friends didn’t notice me stuff two packs of paracetamol in my jacket pocket. In England, you are only allowed to buy two packets of paracetamol in shops, so I picked up an extra two, an aloe Vera drink, and I paid at the counter. “£2.19 just to end my life” I kept on thinking.
The day was a pretty boring day, but I fell back in to the trap from my childhood, thinking I had friends again. My friends played old songs we used to sing when we were best friends and it felt like I was a young child again. I was so happy that I went home and slept like a baby.
But the nightmares didn’t stop, the night before repeated itself, man after man after man using my body. The pain inside and outside, the sweat dripping down my skin. Heavy breathing in my ear as Mr Unknown whispers “moan for me, my little girl”. Mr Unknown holds me in his arms, he places his thumb in my mouth and begins to undress me, it’s happening again. Take me, Sir.
I’ve wet the bed. My eyes are stinging and a putrid smell fills my bedroom . I stare down at my naked body, brown vomit is spewed all over my bed and flesh. In a state of despair I roll back over, I will deal with it in the morning. 4am, a lay-in for me. and I am scrubbing my bed and floor, scurrying around like a good little housewife, making no sound as I clean up the mess that was all my fault. That’s it, you can’t even sleep without being a pathetic waste of a girl. Kill the man inside you, and do it today.
I spent the whole day in my room sat on my bed. Time went by but I did absolutely nothing. I was waiting for 4pm, the sun shines directly over the leisure centre in Filton, “perfect” said my head. I knew what I needed to do, I had a bottle of vodka stored in a crack under my bed for a rainy day. The rain wasn’t outside. Today, it is raining acid in my lungs, the man dies now.
I kissed my mother goodbye for the last time. Pills were swallowed like tic-tacs and vodka was entering my system like a water fountain. The sun was particularly warm. I had picked 4pm because it was the hottest point of the day and the vodka would enter my system quicker. I laid in the field for around 90 minutes before everything changed.
The voices stopped and I could hear again. But I couldn’t breathe, I was coughing up blood and bile from deep in my lungs, I had poisoned my liver and lungs and there was no turning back. “I want to live, God, if you are real, if you are out there, I want to live”. I called my mental health team and was put straight through to a crisis worker. I told her “I don’t want to die” and she called an ambulance for me. She saved me that day.
For people who are unaware, if you take a paracetamol overdose and you do not receive treatment within eight hours, there is next to nothing that can be done. The lady on the other end of the phone saved my life that day, and I am forever greatful.
The next seven days that pursued were incredibly up and down, both of my parents came to see me but neither were happy with me. They couldn’t understand why I would want to take my own life. “Fuck you” I would scream inside of my head whenever my mother spoke to me. My mental state was deteriorating and I was ready to jump off the hospital roof. I was given free rein to leave AMU for cigarette breaks after day 3. Little did they realise that the reason I hadn’t escaped yet was because I had been on a drip and couldn’t move without support. When I was put on a smaller bag, I was able to cart it around on a trolley. On one particular smoke break. I sat on the concrete floor and screamed at the concrete, the concrete was talking back to me, “look up!” Exclaimed the concrete. I could see the hospital roof.
As I walked up the stairs to the rooftop area of Southmead, two men in bright orange high-vis shirts tackled me to the floor of the stairs. They placed my wrists up towards my shoulders and aggressively pushed me down the stairs back in the direction of AMU. By this point I was defeated, I wanted to die there and then. When I made it back to my bed, I tampered with my drip, turning it up to maximum until the beeps started coming, I was on the verge of bursting my veins in my wrist, “keep going!” My mind screamed.
I was stabbed in the back of my bottom that night. They never told my family, never told my parents, and never even told me when I woke up again. I had to ask the nurse in charge why I had a plaster on my bottom. It was at this point the nurse in charge told me that I tried to climb the stairs to the roof of the hospital. Two mental health nurses in blue overalls came in, both male, and suggested that I admit myself to a psychiatric hospital for a twenty eight day evaluation. My ex-partner (current at the time) had previously spent time in a psychiatric unit on Section. They didn’t tell anybody where she was for three months. I didn’t want my family not to see me for three months so I decided to admit myself, the thought of going voluntarily and not on a section was more pleasing to my mind. When I heard about the roof incident I chose to admit myself and take action. People didn’t agree with me but that wasn’t my place to make people agree. I took the first important step to recovery.
I would like to thank you so much for reading, all of my support has been overwhelming. I’m growing at a really fast pace and it has brought immense joy seeing people feel like they have a safe space. Have an amazing rest of your day!