Still Here

by Iain Lowson

I suppose the first time I realised I was in trouble was 'coming to' under a table in the kitchen of the hotel I lived and worked in.

There. Not a bad introduction. Punchy, dramatic, and all the better for being perfectly true. A bit noir-ish even.

OK, so it does sound a bit like I'm about to tell a tragic tale of alcohol addiction. Sorry, but no. That's one of the things I never got around to. Besides, I get a hangover after half a pint, still can't drink lager (for reasons I'll cover later), and swore off spirits after an unfortunate 21st birthday event - my own.

What this is is a personal story, put out here for folks to read because it might help someone out there. Me telling it in person has done so in the past, so here it is.

Anyway, yes, back to the story. It needs to be said that the table thing was not the first sign that I was in trouble. It was just the first one that genuinely scared me. The first sign was a bout of stress-induced hyper acidity. That wasn't fun. It hurt so badly I could barely walk to the doctor. Each step sloshed the stomach acid around, causing excruciating pain. Each swallow brought reflux that burned like, well, like concentrated acid rushing up my pipes. Ever since then, I can’t drink lager (screaming stomach cramps) or excessively spicy food.

That first bout of hyper acidity went away with the correct medication, and went away quickly. This allowed me to ignore the reasons why and just soldier on in blissful, self-inflicted ignorance. Ignorance of what, you may ask. Gosh. Where to begin on that. I was about 20 years old, living and working with my girlfriend's family in their hotel. My girlfriend was fab, her folks were fab, it was all fab.

Well, it was all fab save for the fact that I was giving up any sense of who I was so I could better fit in with my situation. No-one's fault. Yes, I/we should've had the guts to finish a relationship that had run its course, but there was nothing wrong with the relationship. It was just in a living dead state; going on and on because neither party wanted to face the realities of the relationship not being there.

Yeah, I know; wah, wah, wah. Look, it's context, right? Likely you, or someone you know, has been through similar. Maybe it didn't break their heads the way the situation broke mine. Maybe it did. Whatever; it was one of the reasons for me. The others were variations on a theme that amounted to the simple fact that I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and I'd spent too long accepting the (often contradictory) opinions and instructions of others on the subject, all the time ignoring the part of me that was screaming in the background that THIS WAS ALL WRONG!

Right. The table thing.

I had no idea what had happened. I was on my own that day. I was feeling... weird. Tense. My heart was thundering. That scared me. What to do? Cuppa? Yeah, that. Oh, look! I'm curled up under the kitchen table. How did I get here? What am I crying about? Oh, look! An hour or so has passed! What the fuck?

My first panic attack, ladies and gentlemen, and it was a stormer.

In case you’re wondering, a panic attack is an uncontrolled, unasked for surge of adrenaline. That whole fight or flight thing, only without anything being there to either beat with a stick or run away from. They can start slow, building up over hours or even days, or they can explode in an instant. The adrenaline stops you from being able to think properly. Time becomes fuzzy. Everything around you is painfully clear and often utterly meaningless. Everything is too loud and too bright. It scares you, so more adrenaline floods your bloodstream. It does feel like you’re having a heart attack, I’m told. It hurts physically and mentally. Eventually, the fear of having a panic attack can be enough to trigger a panic attack. A lovely little vicious cycle, that. One of my favourites.

Panic attacks became a pretty regular part of my life after that. I should probably mention this was around 1990, I think. The memories are all a bit fuzzy. I'll touch on that later too. As well as the anxiety bombs, I also started to get periods of minor mania and deep depression. I was not bi-polar, not in the true sense. My judgement calls became increasingly random. The majority of the time, I coasted, unable to summon much enthusiasm for anything.

Perfect time to be at University, really.

Uni added extra pressures. I was suddenly faced with more options than I could handle. It was proper child in a sweet shop stuff. It made me realise more and more that the relationship I was in was not a working one. Thing is, I figure my girlfriend felt the same, but she didn't know what to do either. So, we went on. And on. Both of us had very minor dalliances, I even fell in love, but neither of us took the step to end the relationship. Instead, we got engaged. We did that because we were told it would make everything better. Four months later, it was over, and it was messy.

Meanwhile, my own mental health was disintegrating under the pressures. My Uni 'career' was dead in the water despite the frankly amazing results I'd got in the first year. Second year I scraped through, but had to retake the year in one subject. My third year, the break-up year (I think; fuzzy memory), it all went to hell.

My anxiety transferred. This is something that happens to depressed and anxious folks, I'm told. It’s an unconcious avoidance tactic. My brain knew what it couldn't deal with, so it transferred the anxiety on to something else. In my case, I was taking a language so I could get my degree. My brain decided it was that language course that was the problem. The anxiety got so bad I couldn't physically walk past the opening to the street where the faculty building was without shaking badly and getting very tearful and scared.

Things weren't all bad. I'd started a relationship that would, after various ups and downs, lead to me getting married for the first time. I had fabulous, wonderful, understanding, patient, brilliant friends. We had some amazing times together. Sadly, I don't remember many of those good times. I can't begin to tell you how much that hurts.

I can remember the night I broke off my engagement. I can remember that with painful clarity. I can remember all sorts of bad things like that. I can't remember evenings sitting around playing Pass The Pigs and chatting. I'm told they happened. I can't remember pretty much any of my Uni classes, save as vague recollections and fleeting images.

Whatever was going on in my mind couldn't deal with the good stuff, couldn’t accept that I deserved to be happy, so it just dumped huge chunks of it. It could accept the bad stuff. So it held on to those memories. Like I said, that hurts. It's not fair. Still, fuck it. Life goes on.

I eventually got taken to the Uni counsellor. I knew I needed to go, and I knew there was no way I'd make it on my own. I got taken to the door. I was watched as I went in. I got help, and the recovery began.

I only had three sessions with the counsellor. She gave me coping strategies. She gave me permission to look at the things I wasn't dealing with. There was no miracle cure, obviously. I still had panic attacks, depression, manic days. I still made inexplicable decisions that, when I'm in the mood to beat myself up about something, I can go back to and replay in my head to get properly grumpy and sad. I was still looking to others to define who I was and what I should be doing.

Uni was long gone by now. I dropped out, went and found work. Eventually, I moved cities. Things got worse for a while. My coping strategies fell away, forgotten because I was better now. Yeah. Uh-huh... I stupidly dumped my would-still-be-eventually wife to launch into a dreadful, one-sided, pseudo-relationship. I quit a job because of the stress it was causing (thanks to an abusive boss who, years later, ended up in prison for fraud). With no money, my bank accounts frozen, obsessed by a non-relationship, about to lose my home, no idea what I wanted to do still with my life...

You can see where this is going, right?  Hell, it's melodramatic enough, yeah?

I was existing in a state of grey. I have no idea what I did all day, really. I'm not sure I even got out of bed very often. I played a lot of video games, but not because I cared. I didn't care about anything. Couldn't summon the energy. There was no passion in my life. Absolutely no spark.

Folks think that suicide is an emotional decision. Folks think it's all dramatic and Goth-y. For a few poor bastards it is. I knew someone like that with the emphasis, very sadly, on the past tense. For the majority, I'm told, it is much more like what I went through. It was simple, hard, solid, inescapable logic. I remember the moment it hit me. It was a quiet moment. Still. Peaceful. Not cold. Not even scary. It was a warm moment. Where nothing had made any sense before, suddenly it all did. I can't stress enough how much that mattered to me. I had been completely lost. I'd been scared, confused, and felt cast aside, attacked, ignored, forgotten. Suddenly, here was purpose. Here was focus. Here was absolute certainty. I probably smiled.

In the end, I was saved from all those lies by my flatmate. He was the most irritating, wonderful, aggravating individual you could ever hope to meet. Walking in without knocking, he stopped me without even knowing he had done. He probably will never know.  We played Speedball 2. He won. He gloated, trash-talked, wound me up. I got furious. Incandescent with rage. He thought this was very funny. He kept at me.

My then utter, furious rage and hatred for this impossible American did something, lit something in me. It was passion. I couldn't find it, but he accidentally pushed the right wrong buttons and lit that fire in me again. I cared enough to hate someone. I'm sure that's the path to the dark side or something, but it bloody worked. (Also, I don't hate the guy. Not one bit.)

That was the darkest moment passed. It's been a twenty five year journey, maybe more, and it's still going on. It's been nearly twenty years since that darkest moment. There was no immediate recovery. I had one more brush with that moment since then, but that was more than fifteen years ago and it wasn't full-on.

My last panic attack was a few years ago now. I've even made it through other crappy bosses and work situations that challenged my sanity, but I got through them and even produced some damn fine work while doing it. The coping strategies I learned decades ago, applied properly, gave me strength and skills to survive and to, mostly, tackle life's problems head on.

Key to all of it are the wonderful and supportive people I share my life with. Some I knew before the journey even started. Most I did not. Many of the folks I met along the way have gone out of my life. Sometimes that's a good, healthy thing. Sometimes it's a sadness. It's always just how life is.

You never stop. It never stops. It stays with you, forever. I still have days of depression, but they pass more quickly and I function well during them. I still get the bursts of adrenaline at weird times and, while they can cause bouts of insomnia, they don't turn into panic attacks. I can guide the uncontrolled negative thinking now, wresting control back quite quickly. I've even been known to talk to my wife about what's bothering me, but she'll tell you I never do it soon enough. That's true. Some things never change.

I'm glad, really. I've gone through some amazing things. I've lived through stuff that shows the strength I have. I take a great deal of strength from that fact. Weirdly, I feel kind of fortunate to have gone through it all (and to be still going through it). Obviously, I'm glad to be here and writing this. The alternative is that I'm writing this from beyond the grave, which would be a little bit too Weird Tales. I truly believe that getting through all that stuff gave me the strength to cope when I very nearly lost my wife and daughter to pregnancy complications nine years ago now. All of that gives you a unique perspective on life, though it does make it occasionally hard to take unimportant things as seriously as some folks would like.

So. There we are. There I am. Here I am! I have no idea if any of that will help you. I hope so. Really. If you're going through stuff similar to all of the above, welcome to a very special club. You can and will get through it all. Some day, you will be able to look back on it and, while not exactly laughing about it, you will perhaps smile wryly and put fingers to keyboard to tell someone about it.

And if all you came here for was to laugh at the freak, well, I genuinely feel sorry for you. See, I’m tougher in the head than you. So are all my many friends, and we are everywhere.