On a Dark Wave, Floundering

On the 4th of February 2017, I survived suicide, and it changed my life forever.

Because, as I soon learned, surviving once isn’t enough; you have to survive every single day after that as well.

Medication and therapy were the foundation of the journey I embarked on when I decided I didn’t actually want to kill myself. But in order to truly recover, I had to look inside and confront the most painful parts of myself. On A Dark Wave, Floundering is what grew out of that process. Because even when I was at my worst, I was still a writer.

On A Dark Wave, Floundering dives deep into my mental state at the time, as I struggled to climb out of the dark place I’d found myself in. Published on the first anniversary of my survival, every single piece in this book was written in the first year of my recovery from that precipice. Every single piece in this book has been part of that recovery.

On A Dark Wave, Floundering explores the darkness of deep, chronic depression, of living with suicide ideation and struggling with self harm. It is my most intensely personal work to date, and while it deals with the serious and often taboo subject of mental illness, it also ends on a note of hope.

Because hope is what I desperately needed on 4th February 2017.

I really, truly believe in living as transparently and openly as possible, especially as a writer, and when the subject is mental illness, it feels even more important. If being open and honest about my own pain can reduce the stigma surrounding mental health even slightly, then I feel it’s my duty to do so. And if a single person sees themself in my account, if I can help even a single person with my story, then it will have been well worth putting these words out into the world.

If you’re reading this because you’re where I was that night, I want you to know that this doesn’t have to be the end.

There is still hope.

It can get better.

I’m not a medical professional. I’m not a counsellor or a psychologist or a psychiatrist.

But I am a writer.

So I wrote about my experiences, how it felt to be in that situation, how it felt as I began my recovery. And now I’m sharing it with you, in the hope it might help when you need it most.