Green Smoke

Now that I’ve got your attention with the title, I’m here to write about mental health and as it’s World Suicide Prevention Day there’s no better moment. It starts with a Londoner, Mark who’s a Jags fan…

Years ago something unexpected happened in his life and, combined with a lengthy buildup of self-perceived failures beforehand, it turned his life upside down. As he headed into a downward spiral of emotion, he found himself in a place where he was about to end his own life. He sat upright on a bed with a stash of Phenobarbital that he’d bought online (he’d heard something about some cult in the USA who used it to deadly effect) and had closed the bedroom curtains. He’d dusted and cleaned the room, items were straightened up and positioned well. He placed a letter next to the bed, he’d washed and shaved as he didn’t want to be found looking like a vagrant.

He’d felt heavily depressed for months, if not years. He felt worthless, as if he was taking up space on planet Earth and just ‘wanted to leave’. A sizeable amount of pills in one hand and a bottle of Southern Comfort in the other, he raised the drugs to his mouth when suddenly the phone rang.

Now, I think I’ve painted a good picture of what happened and you’re possibly imagining Mark there sitting upright on that bed about to take his own life. You might feel empathy, sadness or you may even be glad it’s not you or somebody you know. But what if I told you there’s a small or even an excellent chance that you do know this person? You see, there was no Mark the Jags fan at all. All that you read there was about me, Nic. I am a Jets fan from London and this was exactly how it all happened. I was once extremely close to ending my life.

I recently told some colleagues at work about it all and whilst one was certain that God was on my side that afternoon, another was in utter disbelief. “I can’t believe you were in that situation…I know you, you’re not the kind of person that would do that!” And that’s the crux of the issue, mental health is something we don’t often see and if we do, it can be too late. When something terrible occurs related to someone with mental health challenges, we can feel it’s our fault that we didn’t do anything and the truth is we want to help but don’t even know there’s an issue. Therein lies the problem, if you’re having a ‘brain fog’ or feel life just isn’t worth it then speak to somebody, anybody! There will be people out there who can help you get over to the other side and hopefully like me, you’ll look back and wonder how the hell you got there in the first place.

I’m not even sure I should be writing this, I’m actually really embarrassed and wasn’t sure I wanted anyone to know about it. But that’s the point of jotting it all down, isn’t it? I’m hoping that somebody reading this might be inspired to speak up about their own headspace challenges. My inspiration came in the form of that phone call, but on the way to that (and almost committing suicide) there were events.

I had phoned my GP for help but it seemed to take ages for me to get counselling and in the months that I waited, I thought about ways to ‘leave’ and didn’t realise at the time that I was essentially planning my demise. I read that if I had ‘triggers’ and was in a moment where I wanted to instantly end my life that I should close my eyes and listen to my breathing and this helped me, but I still felt very much alone and really just wanted to lock myself away all the time. I was still working full time and very, very often would move into an automated mode and looking back, I should’ve talked to someone. A friend, a relative, a workmate; I really should’ve talked to anybody…but I didn’t and the ‘brain fog’ just got worse. I’d lie there on my own some evenings crying and thinking life was pointless and I wouldn’t be missed.

I wanted to find reasons for living but couldn’t. Every relative success was met with an involuntary negative reaction. I felt worthless and that nobody cared for me; it was time to leave. My doctor prescribed anti-depressants named Sertraline and eventually the counselling started, 12 weeks of it but, to this day, I just can’t remember what I did or what was said to me. I just know that I look back with a sort of sense of disbelief that I was in that mindset as I feel so strong and confident now. I say to myself that it was crazy which really isn’t a good word to use but I can’t think of a better nor more appropriate one.

Sitting there on that bed, tears running down my cheeks I was telling myself that nobody gave a shit about me and I wouldn’t be missed, only to get a phone call out of the blue. It was a family member and in that automated mode I answered the call. “Hey!” she said, “how are you doing? I was just thinking of you and wondered how you are as we’ve not spoken in a while.”

We spoke about things around that period, about family matters, about TV & films and of course about sports (the Jets and Chelsea FC mostly) and after a time I’d forgotten about why I was in that room. The call ended and I just stared down at the letter, the pills and the booze. Truth is, they might’ve done nothing more than made me violently sick and pass out, but I put the note in a draw with the pills and then the bottle back in a kitchen cupboard… and cried. Down onto the floor I went and cried, cursing myself for not being ‘a man’, for not being brave enough to even do that and reminding myself how useless I was. ‘A man’, now there’s a stigma that we could do without. “Be a man!” Pfff.

It was some days later that I think I got correspondence about starting the 12 week course of therapy and it was shortly after it finished that I disposed of the tablets (safely, of course). It was a few months later that I burnt the letter. I wanted to read it but didn’t as I now felt I had the tools to cope with how I was feeling and was more confident in telling a select few about my mental health struggles. Speaking to my therapist gave me the courage to talk to others and I guess that started me on the road to fixing my head. I wish I’d said something to someone sooner.

Nowadays I look to possibly inspire and help others, I have my hobbies and likes and following the Jets is one of them. Yeah, it’s Gang Green and it’s often painful viewing but it’s my escapism. The NYJ community here in the UK in more recent times has been a big help and so have some within the larger NFL UK community too.

As you can imagine, this hasn’t been an easy blog for me to write and thank you for getting this far (if you have). But if you have, can I please ask a favour – take this on board and if someone speaks to you about their challenges, don’t be nervous or afraid of what to say. You might give them direction or even some tools to help them cope until they can seek professional help. You never know how much a little can help a lot.