Your Life

I feel in an incredibly good and an incredibly bad place all at the same time. Is that possible?

I could never have imagined when lying upon those stiff hospital sheets in the acute medical unit - struggling to breathe or even move besides being sporadically overwhelmed by waves of intense nausea after my fourth and worst overdose - that I would be sitting in a bar in a campsite in France on a family holiday, as emotionally settled as I have been in recent weeks. 

I may well have suffered a gut full of despair over the latter weeks but I have certainly been enlightened with some pearls of wisdom and my God it has left me with good vibes. I don't know how long they can last and of course there are often moments of distress but it truly feels like I am finally on the cusp of something new; I have discovered a state which is quite refreshing, quite inexplicable - euphoric.

I suppose that in a sense it is interesting, given that the majority of people preach that recovery equals true happiness. Perhaps the existence that I'm experiencing now is purely delusional, but it's surely an improvement from the utter despair that I knew previously. It would be hard to define particularly what has changed since then, besides the fact that I have allowed quite completely for my impulsivity and mania to take over when they have arisen and not given much regard for the consequences - unwise, perhaps: but exciting, most definitely. It feels like in meeting the new people that I have that I have gained insights that they have renewed me both physically and psychologically. 

Perhaps my present elation is a counterpart to my physical decline which I cannot deny has its downsides too - losing feeling in my limbs and face as well as uncontrollable bouts of shaking can be embarrassing at the best of times - but then there is that twisted gratification rendered by the effects of emaciation. 

It's hard to believe that it was only a couple of weeks ago that I was close to death. I wouldn't say I feel higher than ever now, but then that would be a precarious position for me to be in for heights of mania only lead to crushing falls. Contentedness is truly quite blissful. The calm after a tempestuous storm. 

For once I am proud of myself too. I can take every day as a victory. I made it through the toughest heart break I have ever suffered, one that I could never have contemplated surviving. Nothing is easy, of course not: I'm still hurting to this day and I still suffer but it feels like I'm in a new process of learning that dwelling on the very many things I have to be miserable about won't change them and certainly will not help them - so the best way, not the easiest way it goes without saying, to go about dealing with them is to try to move on from them. Taking the positive from the negative may sound trite but it honestly is a practice worth preaching.  

Watching life flash before my eyes primarily as I was being transported into the ambulance before being impaled by various sharp objects amidst a cacophony of screaming sirens and then secondly, far more temperately, when accompanying my friends - purely as a means of moral support - whilst they received their A level results to determine their university choices. It was a surreal and largely unpleasant experience on both counts; feeling an immense sense of waste and purposelessness, lack of power to resolve my fate. I was told however by somebody I later became, quite suddenly, very close to, something that though of course I had heard many a time before really struck a chord with the circumstances which I have just recounted: that life goes on. No matter how much it feels like you have frittered away your years, there are many more to come. You can use them precisely in the way you choose, whether that would mean wasting them some more, or fulfilling them with joy and love and accomplishment. 

Taking life too seriously is a dangerous business, and living a little on the wild side has certainly paid off for me in recent times. Despite a horribly difficult day I plucked up the courage to join my friends to Brighton on the 15th August, and I didn't regret a minute of it. From dancing our hearts out in the grimey clubs on the seafront in defiance of the fact that half the time low potassium dictated that I couldn't feel my hands or feet, to meeting strangers, to getting high on the beach, and finally meeting a lovely guy and ending up staying the night at his, which happened to be something that I will remember for the rest of my life. He was a psychologist, much older than me, but seemed greatly intrigued by me -   to which I cautiously asked whether I was a case study but of course the answer was a definite no - and we talked in depth I've rarely ventured with any soul on this earth for most of the night. Not only was it the best therapy I can say I've ever received but to feel loved for once was a wholeheartedly nourishing experience. In my frenzy however I left my camera at his flat which was stupid meaning I had to take a spontaneous trip back to Brighton the next day in the hope that I would somehow be able to find this obscure little flat, get inside and that he wouldn't be lecturing at university at that point in time. As it happened he wasn't there, but luck, or fate, or God knows what had it that when I somehow managed to find it that another resident popped outside and asked to borrow my lighter and kindly let me in after I explained the situation. After knocking on a few doors I eventually acquired the guy's number, though after it failed to save on my phone for a second time I managed to google how to transfer hidden numbers from the sim to the phone and voila, a message was sent and received. I proceeded, at a certain loss as of what next to do exactly to head to the Lanes where I knew I would feel safe, had a delicious black Earl Grey with three calorie-free sweeteners of course accompanied by an American Spirit rollie outside Costa and begun to feel quite alone. I'd been watching someone opposite who I had assumed to be homeless, bearing a hand-written sign reading: CHANGE IS INEVITABLE for quite some time and decided to follow my impulsive trait which had brought me such joy over the past twenty-four hours and go and talk to him. We did for perhaps an hour, which was lovely - he was a squatter who had travelled all over the world; he wasn't looking for money, only to spread some positivity as it were. It was truly inspiring. He said he hoped that I would get better. I said that I hoped that I would too.

Thankfully everything resolved itself. Shortly afterwards I was reunited by my somewhat worse-for-wear (on my part) camera and headed home. Now after days of attempting to write and complete this overly elaborate tale I can finally say that I am concluding it on a brighter note than tradition would allow. There have been many ups and downs over the course of this holiday so far and the one thing you can rely on family dynamics for is to be taught: but I know that there is no point ruminating on misery, or absorbing others' suffering. It manifests itself in me, I'm quite aware of that, but if a lesson can be learnt from any of this, it should be to give yourself a fucking break once in a while.