A few years ago, I found myself really struggling. I had been living out of a suitcase and working 80-100 hour weeks for at least a decade. I had a very senior role which came with a lot of pressure. Having been away all week, I would get home at the weekends and need to squeeze family time into two days, alongside managing what seemed like a million and one other things to do. It felt like a constant treadmill of trying to please everyone else and living up to expectations of what I was supposed to be doing. I felt tired, burnt out and broken. It was from here that things started to go wrong.
Although this wasn’t the reality, I started to feel like I was the root cause of every problem and if I removed myself, then that would fix everything. I tried to access support from my GP and found it near impossible. I was met with the response that everyone gets stressed and not to worry about it, even though I had never said I was stressed.
It seemed to the GPs that because I was managing to go into work every day, I had a nice house, kids, I wasn’t divorced – there was nothing to worry about. To them I was just a bit tired, I wasn’t dying.
One evening, when I was away on a work trip, I decided I was going to end my life. That day had actually been really nice as I felt everything was sorted – I had a plan to make things better. I didn’t hate my life, but I felt like I was the problem and now I had a way to rectify it. I headed out and was crossing the road unobservantly when a taxi stopped me. I suspect the driver initially thought it was some idiot not paying attention, but he must’ve recognised that something wasn’t right. He got out and started to chat to me, just asking if I was ok and what was going on. I don’t remember much more than that, but he went back into his taxi and got a business card with the number for Samaritans. He said something like, “you need to talk to someone so talk to Samaritans.” I wandered around for about an hour and a half, as I didn’t know what I was going to say if I called. I felt like I needed to have a story prepared.
Contacting Samaritans
I don’t remember much about that first call, which is quite weird because I'm not saying I’ve got a photographic memory, but there's not a lot I forget. I couldn't say if the first call was a man or woman I spoke to, but they helped me get through the night. It helped me go to bed and try again the next day.
It’s all very subtle and Samaritans don’t really tell you anything, but they listen and enable you to offload – they’re a safety net. Sometimes, I think that’s all people need. At that point I felt like I had nowhere else to go. It's very hard to say to your wife, we've got this wonderful life, but I'm utterly depressed, because it feels like an insult.
Calling Samaritans shouldn't help really, because there's no solutions, but something just works and you can't really explain it. I would always encourage someone to pick up the phone and talk, or even, call and say nothing. It's just that human connection.
If I hadn’t called that night, I might’ve just wandered around feeling slightly distracted by my interaction with the taxi driver, but I would’ve been back in that same place a few days later, about to do something drastic. It seems a bit dramatic to say I wouldn't be here if it wasn’t for that conversation, but that is the reality.
