“I want to fucking outwork them! I want to get in another fucking battle for the fucking fella beside me, boys! Ye want to fucking do it, because I fucking know ye do. I’ll go all day for ye boys” 

I’m not a mental health advocate.

I actually hate the term. The idea of it. What even is a mental health advocate, anyway? For me, it’s come to mean someone standing in front of their mobile phone camera talking about how you should “talk to people, guys” with the next video being an #ad.

Talk to people? Sometimes, that’s the last thing you want to do when you’re thinking about killing yourself. That’s the dance we play during November, after all. We’re “raising awareness for Men’s Mental Health” with Movember, but really, what we’re actually talking about is the number of men who commit suicide in Ireland every single year, and how we want you — you — to not be one of them.

Talking to people is exactly what you should do when you have thoughts that you might want to kill yourself, because they will almost always be willing to do whatever they can to help you fight that battle and win. The only thing is, when you feel like killing yourself, you’re not on your side, so you don’t want help. You don’t want to burden people. You don’t want to encroach on their peace with your meaningless — or so you think — whinging and moaning. You are your worst and final enemy in those moments.

From my experience, the urge to kill yourself comes from the desire to move from the now, where you can’t handle whatever’s happening at an existential level, to a place of nothing. Nothingness is a weird thing to grasp. It is the opposite of existence. It’s an end. A blank space. A vacuum.

When you decide to kill yourself, you are trading everything good in the world — a nice Big Mac when you’re just hungry enough to want it, a cold November morning where you can see the bird song in the air, the feeling of your bills paid, food in the fridge, diesel in the car and a few bob in your pocket that doesn’t have a name on it — in exchange for that nothingness. The bad that is currently making all those good things feel impossible is too much to handle, so those nebulous Good Things might as well be happening on the moon for how achievable they feel to you in that moment.

The peace of nothing is alluring.

We’re hardwired to think that we — the collection of neurons and brain matter looking at these words through our eyeballs — are the most rational person in the room. From my own personal experience, one of the most rational moments of my life was when I decided that I was going to walk from Harold’s Cross to this spot on the River Liffey in November 2015 at 3 in the morning to throw myself into the water and drown myself.

It made complete sense to me at that point. It was the pragmatic option. I remember it was raining that night. That cold, squally kind that whirls up at you from underneath as well as from the top. I remember being euphoric at the idea. The relief. I’d found a permanent answer to the problems that I was facing that were too big for me to deal with. I’d actually called the Samaritans a few days prior and sat talking to a lovely older woman on the phone in the upstairs section of the Swan Shopping Centre in Rathmines. It didn’t help, though, but I knew it wouldn’t. At the same time, thinking back, I was bullshitting her about the suicidal thoughts. I didn’t want to tell her, a stranger, in case someone overheard me walking past and thought, what the fuck is wrong with that guy? 

I was embarrassed by the idea, but fully intent on executing it at the same time. It was my little secret. And, when I was sure that I was actually going to do it, that feeling of relief, the dopamine hit at the first bit of real control I felt over my own life in years, was thrilling. How could something that felt that good in my head be irrational?

When I got to the wall, it was wet. Slightly slimy. The walk was nice and quiet. The water looked pretty black and choppy. I’d left a note that could be given to my parents after the fact back in the hostel, apologising for my existence, really, and for the hassle I would cause, but I hoped they’d never read it. I really just hoped I’d disappear and they’d eventually stop thinking about me at all.

I wanted to be forgotten, instantly. That the nothing I wanted would almost retroactively wipe me from existence completely. I know now that it would have been impossible for my parents to just forget me, like you’d forget a dropped euro coin, but Mr Rational at the time thought differently.

There was no magic moment that stopped me from doing it. No moment of beauty. No good Samaritan.

I think it was fear.

The gate I wanted to walk through from something to nothing had an indeterminate amount of time in between where I would hit the water, feel that water rushing into my lungs, and then have to fight the lizard part of my brain that probably wasn’t going to play along.

What if I change my mind when it’s too late to stop it? 

It’s all fine thinking about it. Planning it. But those moments after the point of no return — they were the problem. So was I sure? Or did I just like the idea of being sure?

I gripped the wall.

No.

I turned around and walked back. Quicker than I walked on the way over. I got back to the hostel, walked past a row of religious statues, got into my room — a former nun’s cell — and got under the covers. I was cold. The warmth was nice. On the walk home, I stumbled on something powerful. If I can decide to go ahead with the fundamentally embarrassing thought of killing myself with relish, why couldn’t I also decide to try and unravel the problems that were consuming me?

You’re telling me you can write a suicide note, pack your clothes into a bag, walk for 45 minutes to the river at 3 in the morning to jump headfirst into the water, but fixing everything else is beyond you?

No.

It wasn’t. I had to fight for myself. I had to fight to change. What if there was a gate from something to something else that I could walk through? I started by being honest with myself. I started by realising that I can change everything, permanently, with the same determination I had to drown in the Liffey.

If you’re reading this and that sounds like you, I want you to fight for yourself.

When I decided I was going to do that, it was like a tourniquet. A crutch. I still needed help — I would get it a few years later — but deciding to fight for myself, every day, kept me moving. When I eventually talked to people, it was like the relief you get when you start to feel a migraine lifting.

I know what it’s like to be in a dark place. I know what it’s like when you don’t want to leave that dark place, too. I know what it’s like to feel like nothing can ever change, but you can be that change. The peace you seek is in small actions every day to get better. I promise it is.

Life might not always get easier. It might not always get better. Sometimes life gets better, then it gets worse, then it gets slightly better again, then worse. That’s life.

If you decide to fight for yourself, really fight, every day, you’ll find that way more people than you ever thought possible are ready to get into the battle alongside you.

But they need you to start that fight.

Nobody can promise that it’ll be something better, but it can be something new.

And, even better, you can control every moment from now until then until you start to win that fight. Something new can be something great. You just have to keep fighting for it.