December 2011

I haven’t enjoyed a week so much in I don’t know how long. Although enjoy is not encompassing enough for the emotions I have run through in the last 7 days. I have laughed and cried and laughed some more and I have felt grateful and humbled and blessed yet there where moments I was sad also.

But over all it has been a week that has made me very reflective, its only 14 months since I checked myself into a respite centre for the suicidal. At a time when I thought I had nothing to live for, I couldn’t see a future of any sort. Even upon check in at www.maytree.org.uk I felt I was delaying the inevitable, I was convinced I wouldn’t see another birthday or Christmas and I couldn’t even feel sad about that. I actually felt a sense of relief that I was going to get out of this cycle of loneliness I had been in for so long.

The only thing that both stayed my hand and gave me the motivation to seek help was my mother. And the guilt I was feeling about what my death would do to her immobilised me.

Yet I sit here now on Friday December 2nd and I can say that I am wholeheartedly happy to be alive.

I started the week by restoring my integrity with my mother and told her about my blog and let her read my posts. It was something I had for some reason not felt comfortable with until now, my mother is a very private person and I was concerned that she would not approve of me sharing so much about myself and my battle with depression and my journey with HIV. But as ever I was wrong when it comes to that woman. She loves what I have been writing and is as accepting and supportive as she has always been.

I was asked to do an interview for The Independent; the topic was mental health and suicide, the journalist had contacted The Maytree to see if they knew of any former guests who would be willing to discuss their stay with them and the events that had led to them staying there in the first place. They, knowing about my blog and indeed having asked me previously to do a talk at the National Samaritans Conference on their behalf, thought of me and put me in contact.

The interview took place on Tuesday and will run in the paper one day next week.

Over the last few weeks I have been interviewing a number of people who inspire me, in particular with regard to their work within the HIV community. For a series of articles I wrote for www.positivelite.com one of the subjects, Garry Brough, while answering a question I had put to him about what drove him to do the work he does so, fearlessly told me that when you face death (as he had when he was first diagnosed 23 years ago) then nothing seemed to much to overcome.

While being on the other side and being interviewed myself and talking to Ben Riley Smith from The Independent, he had asked me to explain to him how my life was now compared to those days leading up to October 2010 and the immediate time afterwards, as I recounted all that I have done in the last 12 months even I was amazed at how far I have come.

Ben asked me what I thought was the key to such enormous change, and after momentarily pausing to consider what my answer would be, it dawned on me that like Garry I had faced death albeit in a wholly different fashion. And ultimately having faced it and denied it my only option was to choose to live, I don’t just mean to keep on going in the same way as before, but to actually choose to live my life in a way that made me happy.

Having had this epiphany at the start of the week it has just made me mindful of all the ways my lot has improved. From spending quality time with one of my closest friends, and bantering with acquaintances in a bar while having a drink. To fully participating in the plethora of events that took place this week for World AIDS day. And looking forward to a great night out tomorrow to celebrate the birthdays of two great people who are now in my life that weren’t just a few short months ago.

Even just being on Twitter and engaging with others and watching the things people were doing to highlight WAD, I actually felt part of a community for the first time in years.

I felt overemotional for much if not all of yesterday, and rounded the day up having drinks with friends, as always it was great to spend time with people I know and love, all but one of them I didn’t know a year ago. But getting to know them, and getting to know many of you who I know will read this caused me to take a moment. And in that moment I reached a defining state of awareness.

I LOVE MY LIFE.

So I am sat here this cold December. And I am thankful for so much, but mostly I am thankful that I lived to see this day.

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