TW: Not Meant to Be

I’ll preface this by giving a trigger warning, I talk extensive about my suicide, unaliving, attempts. I will refer them as suicide attempts.

Over the years I’ve had multiple attempts at suicide. Thankfully none of them were successful. And all but one of them happened before I was in recovery. All the ones before I was in recovery were when I wasn’t properly managing my mental health diagnosis. They ranged from pill to self-harm to using a shot gun. The times with pills were sleeping pills and then a prescription I was given for them mental health. The self-harm was with a razor blade. But the one that affected me the most was the attempt with a gun. That was the time I realized I need help.

It was probably the scariest moment of my entire life, even above all the other things I saw while in active addiction. I’ve had guns pointed at me by fun from a dealer and someone flashed a gun while I was driving from a road rage incident, and someone flashed a gun at me while I was at work one night. I think it was because I was in control of the gun that made that moment so scary. That I could do that to myself.

It was the culmination of three years of a toxic relationship and a lot of using. I was during the time I was at peak addiction. I weighed 95 pounds, had next to zero hygiene and care for myself, and was adding as much toxicity to that relationship as the other person. I admit it was convenient too because I had nowhere else to go because I wasn’t working, and really had no desire to improve myself. It was a mutually abusive physically and psychologically relationship.

At the end of those three years, I was withered and beaten down as a person. I was drinking all day and night. I would have a bottle of vodka on the nightstand because it would be the first thing I did when I got up, and the last thing a night. If I woke up in the middle of the night, that was my go-to before I fell back to sleep. He was drinking about the same. Fuel contempt, anger, and resentment with a half-gallon of vodka a day. I knew where this was headed. Several of the pill attempts were when I was living in that hell hole of a house.

I’ll keep it short since I don’t want to dredge up too much about it, for my own mental health and safety, but I’ll get to the main points. I moved in with this guy when I was just leaving another relationship that had just reached its end. I had a job, a car, a dog, and all the essentials one would have. I had stopped doing cocaine right before I move in. This is when my alcoholism really kicked up. It started with a small bottle of vodka. It rapidly progressed to drinking every single day. I didn’t know at the time that I was coping through drinking. Throughout the years it ended being almost a gallon of vodka a day. My tolerance was insane at that point.

We were running a dog rescue at the time and we had way to many dogs in that house than was safe or healthy. He took advantage of the fact that I worked with dogs and would routinely leave me to take care of them while he left for days at a time. He never asked nor was he concerned with me working with them on my own. There came a point where he had done it enough times that I had totally reached my limit.

One of the times he left I was so burnt out, so depressed and unmedicated, and feeling like I lost all hope that I made the attempt on my life with a shot gun. He didn’t tell me he was leaving again. After a couple of days I had enough alcohol in my system and no concern for my life. I went upstairs to his bedroom because I knew he had the shot gun in his closet. I had the bottle of vodka in my hand and had the loaded gun in my hand. I was sweaty from the fear of what I was doing. I called him 3 times in a row before he answered. When he did finally answer he seemed bothered by the call. I was trying to figure out when he would be back. My codependency with him thought that if he were there, I wouldn’t be doing what I was.

We began arguing about how he never wanted to help and left everything to me. He didn’t care, he didn’t even respond to that. I still had the loaded gun in my hand and the bottle on the floor beside me as I held the phone desperately thinking he would care, and I could finally set it down. That’s when the gun went off. I was in shock, my ears ringing, and this incredible pain all over my body. I sat there for I don’t even know how long. I lost track of time. The gun missed me and went into the ceiling of the closet. Everything was eerily quiet after that. Once I realized what I had done I checked the phone.

He had hung up the phone.

When I got my bearings back, I called him back and the first and only thing he said was, “I thought you were dead.”

I would like to say this was my turning point, but it wasn’t. My drinking went into overdrive to again cope with situations I had caused. He finally came home the next day and all he was concerned with was his gun and any damage I made. He didn’t ask of I was ok or how the dogs were. He only cared about him and how things affected him. I realized the situation I had gotten into shortly after.

This is how I discovered music was my best therapy. I started to intentionally listen to positive music and began to connect to the lyrics that talked about how great life could be after really bad situations. Songs that were affirm my thoughts of needing to get my life together. A few months later I decided to put down the bottle, and a few months after that I decided ending my life wasn’t meant to be. Somehow that gun missed me. I ended up staying clean white knuckling it for 5 years before I relapsed and started the relapse rehab game.

Looking back on that today I am so grateful for that moment in my life. It woke me up to what life could really be. I felt I had a purpose and was motivated to make the most of it. I took that dark moment and turned it into something worthwhile, I started blogging and making a point to listen to music that could bring me out of future moments of despair. No matter what you are going through, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. One that is full of gifts, surprises, and all-around positivity.

I’m not saying there won’t be challenges or dark times, just that we can use our life experiences to make our lives better. For me it looks like more ups than downs. If I can do it, so can you.

Music has been a big part of my recovery. Three of my trips to rehab were to a music therapy-based treatment program. I use music as therapy to pull me out of a funk or just match the mood to settle myself down. Here is a playlist I put together, and am constantly adding to, that inspires me everyday, good times and bad.

A song that got me through a lot is by Angle Haze called Angels & Airwaves. These lyrics resonated with me and I used it multiple times to pull me out of that darkness that precedes a suicide attempt. There are lots of songs, but this one in particular stuck around.

If you’re contemplating suicide, this is for you
See this is for the moments when ya alone and with emotion
So fucking bored leaves you mentally frozen
When ya cold and alone heart open and broken
When that loves outta sight and your hearts into focus
When ya floating in oceans hopeless soaking in misery
Headphones on you link yourself with the synergy
When you watch your mind and ya lost in a song, be strong
You are not alone, I just want you to know you are not alone

There’s angels in the airwaves tonight
And I’ve been running all of my life
And I need you to stay, I need you to stay
Angels in the airwaves tonight

This for all the moments when your weakness is your cloak
And people you love most just beat you to a pulp
When you cut open your wrist looking for loving and slits
But find nothing but self hate cause nothing exists
See this for all the moments when they don’t understand
And they ain’t where you stand
And they can’t comprehend
They just staring from the outside
And then they judging your in, when they
Kick you and beat you and hurt you then leave you
Laying on the ground like you half and they equal
Gladly defeat you then laugh to your face
When you feel all alone, when ya so outta place
They can’t relate to this pain
They don’t feel how I feel

So don’t get lost tonight
Never let the ignorance cost ya life
You can make it, keep ya fingers crossed tonight
Put your headphones on and turn off the lights

When the girl that you love won’t look in your direction
When the guy you like adds you to his fucking collection
When you all dressed in black
And they whisper and snicker
When they make you feel wrong for being so different
This for everybody who knows what it is
To feel like nothing but a memory that won’t be relived
That this the fucking shit that everyone forgets
The words on the tip of tongues that gets swallowed with the spit
See I know how it feels
I’ve been there before
I had head in my hands and my heart on the floor
I’ve been worthless and shattered
I’ve been nothing to people
I know what it is to have to force them to see you

I’ve been running now
I’m outta here today
I’ve been running now
Questioning my faith [x2]
There’s angels in the…

So when you feel so invisible you’re not even sure you exist
So you cut yourself open just to see if you real
You numb yourself with drugs just to hide what you feel
You drink the washed up pain in hopes of rejecting it afterwards
You live everyday wishing you could rewind your life backwards
Because you wanna figure out where the fuck you went wrong
Cause everything in your world ain’t been right for so long
I know how it feels
So this is for you
If you’re thinking it now
If you’re wanting to die
If you’re thinking it out
You are so much more than you are in this moment
You never know how great you can be
Don’t give up on you
I didn’t give up on me