Not My Time To Die . . . But I Didn't Know! (eBook)

Jeff Hardwell (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
204 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3178-0930-0 (ISBN)

Infos

'Not My Time to Die... But I Didn't Know!' covers a very difficult time in Jeff Hardwell's life, events that took place between 2009 and 2014. He struggled through depression, bipolar disorder, misdiagnosis, correct diagnosis and suicide attempts to recovery and eventually happiness. Through his words, he wishes to prove that there can be light at the end of your tunnel, no matter how long and dark it may seem. He also demonstrates the power of the human mind and how truly incredible it can be. With his book, he hopes he can save a life, or several - hundreds or even thousands. The more, the better!

'Not My Time to Die... But I Didn't Know!' is Jeff Hardwell's first book, which took him over seven years to write. Jeff has two grown children, who continually make him a very proud dad. Currently, he lives in Nailsea, UK, and has a girlfriend whom he met during his tap-dancing days.

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"e;Not My Time to Die... But I Didn't Know!"e; covers a very difficult time in Jeff Hardwell's life, events that took place between 2009 and 2014. He struggled through depression, bipolar disorder, misdiagnosis, correct diagnosis and suicide attempts to recovery and eventually happiness. Through his words, he wishes to prove that there can be light at the end of your tunnel, no matter how long and dark it may seem. He also demonstrates the power of the human mind and how truly incredible it can be. With his book, he hopes he can save a life, or several - hundreds or even thousands. The more, the better!In addition, Jeff hopes this book will help: People suffering from anxiety, depression, or suicidal thoughts. Family, friends, or colleagues of those suffering with mental health issues. Anyone working in the mental health industry, or are planning to do so. You, should you ever in the future fit into one of the above categories. Please be warned that certain chapters of this book may be very distressing for some readers due to sensitive subjects, level of detail, and descriptions used.

Textauszug

1. Wednesday 19th August 2009

[Warning! May trigger a negative mental health reaction.]

I screamed out a loud devilish laugh like a madman. Ha ha ha haaa! And, yes, I guess at this moment I was truly a ‘mad’ man.

This was it. It was finally happening. The moment was coming where I would soon be at peace and no longer in pain. My wish was coming true. I WAS GOING TO DIE!

My joy was at a peak because blood was squirting out of my left wrist, spraying the inside of the load area of my van, in my hair, on my face.

I did nothing to attempt to stop it. Why would I? I wanted to die. This was it. I was going to be free of suffering.

I don’t know how long it lasted before the fountain of blood slowed down. Why did it slow? There must have been plenty more in me. It didn’t matter; I’d just lie here and wait; wouldn’t be long, I was sure.

Earlier in the day, sometime before noon, I had driven out into the countryside, not sure where I was going but looking for a place I could park and not be disturbed. I had settled for a layby on a country road near the lakes. I had climbed into the back of my van knowing this was it. The time, the opportunity was here. Now, today. I couldn’t go on anymore, being crucified by these thoughts in my head.

I tell you now, this chapter alone will leave you in no doubt as to how powerful the mind can be. Never underestimate the power of the mind – your mind.

The knife, a rather large kitchen knife I had taken from my mum’s kitchen drawer, was already in the back of the van, hidden between the small mattress and the green carpet offcut used to stop boxes sliding around the panelled wooden floor of the load area.

I was only wearing a polo shirt on my top half. Yesterday I had been in Majorca, and today in England it was still warm. I grabbed the knife; the intention was to plunge it through my heart and for it all to be over quickly.

My life snuffed out by my mind, using my body to carry out its fatal instructions. No-one else involved in the execution. My golden rule: no-one else gets hurt in the act, no-one sees the act. I was beyond thinking about the hurt that would be caused by my death. You lose all sense of reality. That’s obvious, right? I mean, come on, how could you be in the back of a van with a very sharp knife about to top yourself and still have a sense of reality? You can’t, plain and simple.

You don’t think about the police turning up at your parent’s house (where you live) and the house where your two children live (with their mother) and your girlfriend’s house. Turning up to deliver devastating news that would break all their hearts and leave them all wondering, “Why?” If the mind allowed you to think about that, then there would be no suicides, I’m sure.

I’ve been called a coward, but that’s by people who are clueless. Taking your own life and leaving your children behind isn’t cowardly. No parent in their right mind would do such a thing. Christ, my dad was in hospital, and my mum was home on her own. You may think ‘of’ them more than ‘about’ them. They may register in your thoughts, but their value and importance to you sadly doesn’t, as the mind blocks it out because it doesn’t want you to stop. It isn’t going to change. So, you carry on regardless. You don’t attempt suicide thinking rationally. You are not in your right mind. A cowardly act is committed by a rational mind. The mind, your mind, evil as it can be, takes you beyond all rationale. It’s convinced you that this world isn’t for you and, more importantly, that you are not for this world. And you believe it! Believe me, the mind, your mind, can take you to a level – I’m talking ‘sub-zero-down-in-the-depths’ level, not superhuman level. That is something a normal person simply cannot, and most will not, even contemplate. You’ll never fully understand it unless you’ve been there!

Knife through the heart, all over within minutes. That was the plan. But there was a problem. I pressed the sharp end of the knife into my chest, around the left breast area and pulled inwards. I couldn’t pierce the skin. I couldn’t do it. It’s probably a lot easier to plunge a knife into another person than it is to plunge it into yourself. You can hardly ‘run onto’ a knife you’re holding yourself. I tried again, but no, I couldn’t do it. What now? Abort? But if I abort, how can I continue? It must be done today. Here. Now. My mind was going even crazier, becoming angry, even. This wasn’t in the Plan. There was no Plan B.

Then my mind turned to thinking about other suicide methods, most not possible here. I could jump out of the van into traffic, but the road wasn’t that busy, and I couldn’t exactly jump out unexpectedly into a car’s path from here.

Most suicides you see on TV and in films are the ‘slitting of the wrist’ variety. That was possible here. I had a sharp knife. Being right-handed, I would obviously have to ‘attack’ my left wrist. Yes, I had a Plan B.

[Readers, please appreciate that this next bit was extremely difficult to write; the memory isn’t one I would wish on anyone. And I live with a daily reminder of my Plan B, as you will soon discover.]

I held the knife over my left wrist and made the first cut. I drew blood. Surprisingly, it didn’t hurt. How deep would I need to go? I wondered. No idea, quarter way through, maybe halfway through. A typical human being probably has never given much thought to what is in their arm under the skin. Obviously, an artery and other veins and muscle. In your wrist there are several tendons connecting muscles in your arm to bones in your hand, and then there are the nerves, those messenger vehicles that allow you to touch and feel with your hand, four fingers, and a thumb. Messages that are carried to the brain and translated into hot, cold, wet, dry, soft, hard, and so on – feelings and sensations I would never experience again in the majority of my left hand. Well, I can assure you I wasn’t thinking about any of that. Even if I had, I would have concluded that none of that mattered because I was about to die. I cut deeper; it still didn’t hurt. I continued cutting deeper. There was blood. There were lots of ‘things’ in my wrist. Some thick, some thin. I didn’t know they were tendons. I didn’t know they were nerves. Wouldn’t have cared if I did. I just cut through them. It was like cabling running through my arm to my hand. It was in the way, so I just cut through most of the ‘wires’. It didn’t matter if they were important. I didn’t know what these things were, only that they were in the way. I didn’t know when to stop; I just kept going. It still didn’t hurt! Then the fountain of Merlot erupted. Then I stopped.

I lay down in the back of the van for hours. I did sleep in spells. Other times I just lay there, waiting. I didn’t feel drowsy or weak. Confused. I wasn’t dying. Why wasn’t I dying? Then it hit me. I’m not going to die. Not here. Not today! It was not my time to die.

I was still alive! Look at my arm! Oh, fecking hell, what had I done to my wrist? The wound was gaping, and I could see lots of debris inside of what used to be my left wrist.

Zippy, I thought. [Zippy was a character in a 1970s children’s TV programme called Rainbow.] My left wrist looked like Zippy with his mouth open as wide as it would go, my hand stretching beyond his top lip but falling away limp, hardly anything but skin to keep it attached, and my arm extending below from his bottom lip. Get the picture? Pretty horrendous, eh? At that point I wished I could just close Zippy’s mouth, but there was no zip, just a bloody mess!

Quite how far I was from dying, I guess I’ll never know. I was told at a later date that there was “a hell of a lot of blood in the back of your van!”

I needed to get to a hospital. From where I was, Weston General would be closest, if I could get there. I opened the back door of the van and scrambled out, holding my wrist against my body. It was not yet dark but nearing dusk. I had no real idea how I would look to any passing traffic, but I don’t recall any as I made my way around the outside of the van, opened the driver’s door, and clambered in.

I started the engine, then I instinctively attempted to put it in first gear. And that’s where the problem started – I couldn’t use the gears. My left hand was useless. Because it was virtually detached from my wrist, I couldn’t control it with my arm, it was like trying to change gear with a plate of jelly! No resistance; just disconnection. If my wrist was Zippy, then my hand was Floppy!

I considered changing gear with my right hand, but that is difficult when you’re mobile, and of course there would be no hand on the wheel. “What’s the worst that could happen?” you might say. “You might crash and die. Well, isn’t that what you want?” But you forget the rule: no-one else should get hurt. I didn’t want to kill anyone else, just me.

I wasn’t going anywhere. At least, I wasn’t driving anywhere, and I wasn’t about to walk either.

I had to call 999. There were no family or friends I could ring. To be honest, I don’t think I even considered it. Wouldn’t want them to see me like this. I know now that...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 6.10.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3178-0930-0 / 9798317809300