The title of this post is taken from a song by Tonight Alive. It goes some way to articulate how I feel about things.

There is no easy way to quite say this, but for a good several weeks I went as low as I’ve ever been. It hurt to live. There didn’t seem any point in continuing or carrying on to the next day. There were several times where I contemplated a plan on how to bring about my own end – I have relative confidence that I could exact something that was efficient. There was something in taking the notion seriously that was somewhat comforting. Almost like, now that there was a possibility of making it all stop it helped soothe the agitation within me. There was a solution, if trying to find a reason to live didn’t work out.
On the surface whilst this is all happening, I was still getting up every morning, seeing friends, climbing, doing things. You would never know. It’s hard to explain to a level that I’m satisfied with how it felt. It wasn’t feeling low (although that went in hand with it), it felt like there was a thick fog that seeped into every pore which was so void of anything that it drained any positivity or hope that I had unknowingly hidden away. I was convinced that if I could answer the question of what drives me, what my point is in life I could stave off this feeling. But I couldn’t answer it.

I still have no direction, it still hurts to live and I still go out and see friends and climb and do things. I don’t think anything has changed per se. But as I was on a flight last week on my way back from Slovenia (a frantic attempt to give myself some headspace), we had very heavy turbulence. I couldn’t have cared less if the plane went down, as far as I’m concerned it should do the job for me quite effortlessly. In fact, it was amusing to look round and see people clutch their seats in fear as the plane buckled like a bull in a rodeo. What really got to me was, as I imagined my demise, a voice which popped into my head and said “And that would be it. Life would have beaten you.” The word “beaten”. And my first thought which was almost as visceral as my need to breathe was how I hated the idea of that. Some part of me still lies defiant and actually since then, the fog has dissipated a little. I still feel very much empty, trying to muster any deep feelings is futile and feels a bit like pushing on a car accelerator pedal when you’ve run out of petrol. But the defiance feels solid and real. The fire is smouldering dimly but it hasn’t gone out.

I am not the person I was five months ago before this shit-show happened. I feel like a completely different person, but after some grieving I am slowly accepting that.

“I went to hell and back just to be where I am today”