from london to living
**Trigger Warning: Suicide Ideation**
It was late September of 2018. I had just returned from a three week trip galavanting across Europe when I hit rock bottom. Probably one of the best vacations I’ve ever taken. While I was there partly for a work trip in London, spending time in Covent Garden was incredible. Taking in a play in the West End to celebrate finally obtaining my CPA license. Seeing Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Eating all of the incredible cuisine the city has to offer. Happening across the movie set of Hobbs and Shaw. After completing the work portion of the trip, I was joined by a dear friend where we spent the next five days taking in all of the beauty that the Irish countryside had to offer. Trust me when I tell you that five days is nowhere near long enough. We rounded off the trip in Munich for the infamous Oktoberfest, where I drank far too much Hoffbrau while belting out American pop music being played by a live polka band donning my new dirndl. Sounds nothing short of magical, right?
I should also explain that while instead of getting the much needed rest and relaxation, my mind was playing host to the age-old war that never ceased to rage on in my head. See, the timing of this trip could not have come at a better moment. Earlier that year, I had endured one of the most trying times of my life. Having lived my life with little to no boundaries with my narcissistic sister, the years of manipulation and gaslighting had taken a severe toll on my mental and emotional health. The small passing comments she’d made throughout the years eroded on my soul and made me feel as if I was nothing and incapable of and unworthy of being loved. So when the opportunity arose to go halfway across the world and to add physical distance as a reinforcement to the new boundaries I was setting, I jumped on it, thinking I could leave all of it stateside and use the time to clear my head and gain some footing. Instead, I learned that the airlines allow emotional baggage to fly free, and it became an unwanted stowaway.
I arrived back in the States, jet lagged and desperately wishing I was still in the Ring of Kerry, an area in the south of Ireland where time seems to stand still and contains so much beauty that it hurts. The weight of everything felt heavier on me than ever before. The voice inside my head, my sister’s voice, kept reminding me of the burden I was and that I was unloveable. Crushed under the weight of it all, I felt nothing and so desperately desired to feel something. Anything. Even if it were pain. In that moment, I felt steps away from the ultimate release. The thought of ending my life felt deafening, albeit tempting. Yet something stopped me. What it was exactly, I’m uncertain. I like to think that my inner child, ever repressed by layers of childhood trauma, decided that this was the time for her to make a rare appearance. To remind me that I really did want to live. That ending my life would end the game my sister concocted and that I would have handed her the winning trophy. That, by living, I could take back some control. I’ve held on to that moment every day since then. Yet, three years and hours of therapy later, I’m beginning to grasp the notion that there’s a major difference between deciding to live and actually living. While I no longer struggle with the former, the latter is a different matter and something I still work on learning on a daily basis. And maybe the hardest work there is, no matter how crippling it feels.
