For those of you washed in the blood of the lamb, this is not my witness. It is darker, more painful.
If you are in crisis, if you struggle with depression and despair, please, I beg of you, get help.
Please.
In Canada, or in the USA, help is available 24/7 by calling or texting 9-8-8.
You are not alone.
Call. Text. 9-8-8.
This is the hardest post I have ever written. I’ve told this story before, but every time I revisit it I go deeper, rekindling the feelings, reliving the moment.
I struggle.
It hurts.
Birth
Children come into this world crying. Being born hurts, but at least we forget our births.
The reborn aren’t so lucky, and I remember my rebirth as if it were yesterday.
It was a beautiful, warm, sunny, late winter day. Friday February 12, 2021 around 12:15 I stood in my kitchen preparing lunch, with Insomnium’s “Heart Like a Grave” playing on YouTube.
“Heart Like a Grave” is a beautiful song Powerful, bleak, depressing, filled with images of despair and suicide.
In that moment, I gave up.
A single tear began to trickle down my right cheek in that moment when I decided it was time to die. I began to rummage through the cutlery drawer, in search of a particular ceramic knife, the sharpest blade in the house, while I planned my final hours.
- Where were my financial records?
- How would I document my passwords so wifey could close out my affairs?
- Should I write a brief will?
- What would I say in my final note?
- How would I let my family know I that loved them, that they were not to blame, that I just could not carry on?
There was much to do, and little time to do it. In only a couple of hours my first boy would get home from school.
To find me.
To be alone in the house with my, with his father’s, corpse.
To be devastated. Destroyed. Scarred for life.
“SCREEEEEEEE.”
Some days I swear I actually heard the record scratch.
I couldn’t do it to him. I couldn’t do it to his brothers, who would get home shortly after. Three sweet, innocent, happy, wonderful boys. Three boys already tormented by a country, a culture, a world gone mad, and taking out its fears on its children.
I had no right to do this; a man protects his children, he does not harm them. He does not pile hurt on top of hurt.
I had been pushed into a black hole of despair. I was beyond the event horizon, past the point of escape, but I had no right to be there. I had to get out, but I didn’t want out.
I wanted to die. In my mind, I was already dead.
Crawling out of that black hole was the hardest battle of my life. I had to fight both the gravity well of despair, and my own desire to be there.
I clung to a single image. A vision of pure, unconditional love from the happiest moment of my life.
A vision of holding my first son, in the moments after his birth. Peering into those beautiful black eyes, promising him I would always be there for him. Shelter him, protect him, raise him.
Love him.
That promise had to mean something. Was I going to make breaking that promise, that sacred oath, my final act? Was I that big a piece of shit?
HELL NO.
And Rebirth
With his help, I pulled to get out of that black hole, but the black hole pulled back. When I was finally out, pieces of me were left behind. Gone. Torn away by the gravity well of that black hole.
It hurt.
I’m not the man I was pre-COVID. I reach for things I was, but they aren’t there. Pieces of me are gone, and the pain is still there.
It still hurts.
Being reborn sucks.
But having a reason, having three reasons, to be reborn is wonderful.
.
.
.
If you have come this far, please understand that I am okay. After I hit bottom that February afternoon, I got help. I have developed tools to keep the demon at bay and I will not let it win.
On the day they were born, I made the same promise to each of my boys, that I will always be there for them.
Though I struggle with depression, I no longer struggle with suicidal thoughts.
I will not die by my own hand.
I will be here for them.
