What If I’d Jumped?

In 2011, at around three o’clock in the morning, I found myself standing at the top of a sheer drop, it was raining, I’d been drinking and taking drugs and I was looking down at the waves crashing onto the rocks below.

The life I’d known since I was 17 felt like it was over. The future I’d imagined, planned for and worked towards had disappeared, and at that moment I couldn’t see what came next. I didn’t know what to do, I couldn’t cope.

Standing there, I remember wondering what it would feel like to fall, for those few seconds, I wondered whether I could finally be free of everything I was feeling.

Then I slipped, I panicked and I thought about the people I loved and realised that although I desperately wanted the pain I was experiencing to stop, I didn’t want to transfer that pain to them.

Eventually, I opened up and I went to therapy. It took a long time, but slowly, I started to smile again.

I’ve shared that story before. But there’s a part of it I think about much more now.

What if I had jumped?

Not because I want to revisit that night or imagine a different ending, but because I sometimes think about everything I couldn’t see from where I was standing.

THE FUTURE I COULDN’T SEE

When you’re in a moment like that, the world can become incredibly small. There was no fifteen years from now, there wasn’t even necessarily next year or next month. There was just that night, that pain and the overwhelming feeling that the life I thought I was going to have had disappeared.

But my life hadn’t disappeared. I just couldn’t see it yet.

There were people I hadn’t met, places I hadn’t been and conversations I hadn’t had. There were moments that would make me laugh until my face hurt and others that would test me all over again. There were ordinary mornings, holidays, school runs, birthdays and countless completely unremarkable days that I now understand are anything but unremarkable.

There was a family I couldn’t see from the edge of that drop. There were versions of me that didn’t exist yet and eventually, there was MAAD.

None of that was visible to me that night. How could it have been?

I DIDN’T SUDDENLY BECOME OKAY

I didn’t walk away that night and suddenly realise how wonderful life was, there wasn’t a dramatic breakthrough where everything made sense, and recovery didn’t happen in a straight line.

I opened up, I accepted help, I went to therapy and slowly things began to change. There were good days and difficult ones, things I had to understand about myself and things I had to learn to manage differently, It took time.

That’s one of the reasons I’m uncomfortable with phrases like “everything gets better.” Sometimes it does, sometimes life gets difficult again and sometimes the thing you thought you’d overcome comes back in another form.

But difficult chapters can end, circumstances can change, new people can enter your life and a future that feels completely impossible to imagine today can eventually become your normal.

FIFTEEN YEARS LATER

I sometimes wonder what the version of me standing there in 2011 would think if he could see my life now.

I wonder if he’d believe me if I told him that he would be married with a beautiful family and that I’d take one of the darkest experiences of his life and use it to help start conversations about mental health. That I’d create MAAD, that strangers would stop me because of something I was wearing and tell me about their own experiences. That people would send messages saying something we’d shared had made them feel understood.

Or that businesses, counsellors, gyms, athletes and community organisations would eventually stand alongside us, helping conversations born partly from things I’d once struggled to talk about reach people I may never even meet.

He couldn’t see any of that and that’s really why I’m telling this story. Not because my story is special, but because when you’re in that place, your mind can convince you there is nothing beyond it.

I couldn’t see what came next either.

YOUR LIFE IS BIGGER THAN THIS MOMENT

I would never tell somebody experiencing suicidal thoughts that they should simply think positively or remember how much they have to live for, I’ve been close enough to that place to know it isn’t that simple.

When you’re overwhelmed by pain, seeing beyond it can feel impossible, so maybe you don’t need to see the whole future. Maybe you just need to leave enough space for the possibility that there is one.

A conversation you haven’t had yet, someone you haven’t met, a place you haven’t been, a version of yourself you haven’t become or just an ordinary Tuesday years from now that currently means nothing to you, but one day might mean everything.

You don’t have to know what the next fifteen years look like, I certainly didn’t.

Today, I can look back at that night from a completely different place, I can see a man standing in the rain who thought the future he’d planned was gone.

He was right, that particular future was gone, he just didn’t know there was another one waiting for him.

And perhaps that’s the thing I wish I could tell him most, not that everything was going to be easy, not that he’d never struggle again, not even that everything was going to be okay.

Just this: Don’t make a permanent decision based on a future you cannot see yet.

Because there is so much about my life today that I couldn’t have imagined from where I was standing that night and if you’re reading this from your own dark place, I can’t tell you exactly what your future looks like either.

But neither can the part of your mind that’s telling you there isn’t one.

If you’re still here, there’s still more of your story to be written. ;

If you’re struggling with suicidal thoughts or feel you may be in immediate danger, please don’t face it alone. Reach out to someone you trust or contact a crisis support service.

Samaritans — call 116 123, free, 24 hours a day.
If you’re in immediate danger, call 999 or go to A&E.

YOU ARE NOT ALONE