Last weekend I had an anxiety attack. Holy fucking shit. It was the worst thing that I have experienced, ever. Like EVER. Everything sucked. Everything was bad. Everything felt like shit. All the blood drained from my body and submerged my feet in a pool on the floor. My heart stopped beating and I fell to the ground, lifeless. My stomach burst open spilling bile and acid all over my new and now blood-soaked Air Force Ones. And my head was overcome with so much pressure that it literally fell off. Well, not literally, but all that other shit happened, honest. It was a visceral, all encompassing attack on every single one of my senses. I couldn’t eat, I was struggling to breath, I couldn’t sleep. All I could do was try and ride it out. It really was one of the worst days of my life. I’m a pretty resilient & strong person who doesn’t get rattled easily but last week I felt like a 4-year-old child that got separated from his mum for the first time in his life at Pak n Save. I was desperately running around the aisles trying to find her and I couldn’t. She was nowhere to be seen and I WASN’T coping. All I wanted was for it to be over. For her to pop her head around from the confectionery aisle with a Whittaker’s peanut slab and reassure me that it was O.K. That I was going to be fine and that she loved me. That didn’t happen. I was all alone in a supermarket with no mum and no sense of hope. True and utter abandonment.
FUCK ALL THAT In steps the wife. Thank god she was there. She found that 4-year-old boy with tear tracks down his face and urine-soaked trousers and sat him down and consoled him as any loving mother would a small, lost child. She goes on to explain to that small defenseless child that she feels like this at least two or three times a week. FUCK ALL THAT I apologised to her. Actually, I’d like to apologise to ANYONE that suffers from anxiety – I am so sorry. Sorry for having feelings of doubt about your illness. Sorry for thinking that it was ‘not as serious’ as people make it out to be and I’m sorry for admitting those feelings to you now. Also – You’re my HEROES! How you manage to keep on getting out of bed every day and carrying on baffles me. You’re the real MVP’s because nothing can be worse than fighting with your own mind (and often losing) every single day. You’re one bad ass motherfucker! I had an idea for a T-shirt the other day, too. A slogan, if you will “Anxiety’s a bitch – Slap it” And no, not in a ‘domestic violence is O.K’ way. Or a ‘sexist’ way or in chauvinistic-anti ‘ma vagina’ feminist way. As in, I would love to have bitch-slapped the shit out of my anxiety attack that day. Bitch – slapped that prick so hard that it would never come back! That attack was a turning point in my life. At the ripe old age of 32, the confident, loud, boisterous, fun loving, enthusiastic, handsome Lee that you all know was reduced to a crumpled heap on the floor and couldn’t seem to find his feet. An absolute wreck. West Auckland lost another young male to suicide the other week. While I didn’t know him well (or at all, really) I had met him a few times in our younger years at parties and around in West Auckland circles and he was a top bloke. A real GC. I know his group of friends and his lovely lady extremely well and to see their devastation and grief pouring out on social media the past week and a bit, has been agonising. I was working the night show on The Rock last week and I reached out to see if there was something I could do, even if it was to just get a request on for his partner and send a little shout out/tribute to him. She messaged me back and said that she’d love that and when I asked her what she wanted me to say, her reply blew me away. She wanted me to say to everyone listening that it’s O.K to not be O.K and to talk to someone if you’re having a shit time. No heartfelt ‘I love you’ or ‘I miss you’, In her saddest moment on this earth she wanted to put the message out there that males need to TALK about this kind of shit. She was concerned for other people’s well-being and mental health. Top gal. GB! Now I love attention just as much as the next bloke. ADHD massive! And the only thing that appeals to me (well not appeals, but you know. Read on) The only thing that I would like about committing suicide is the attention that I’d get after I had done it. BUT – Hear me out…. I wouldn’t be around to get any of that attention, so I would never do it. Here is where I’d like to throw the whole NZ suicide rates statistics at you, but we already know them. What I will do is once again reiterate the importance of TALKING about these issues. Don’t just sweep it under the couch until someone else you know takes their own life – Bring it up with people. Keep the conversation around suicide going. Reach out to your friends to check on ‘em. Because I am sick and tired of telling people how good it is to see them at funerals. IT’S NOT GOOD TO SEE YOU. I don’t want to see any of my friends at funerals. I’d rather see them at the pub or in my back yard enjoying some food and fellowship. A few months ago, I was asked by a friend’s family (and a GREAT family) if I would be the funeral celebrant for a friend that left us behind and it was one of the hardest things that I have ever done. To be in that room full of people I knew and loved and to see all their faces welling up with tears was like my own personal hell. I was also incredibly humbled and honoured to have even been asked to take on such an important role. I am a professional talker. That’s what I do, that’s my vocation. I talk on the radio, I talk in front of large crowds of people week in week out and yet I was tits scared to be doing this. Mainly because I knew that I was going to see my friends sad and crying and a little lost and helpless, like a 4-year-old child that got separated from his mum for the first time in his life at Pak n Save. I don’t want to see my friends cry. I don’t want to be saying things that make people cry. I love my friends and family and I don’t say that lightly. If you’re a friend of mine you’re a good friend of mine and there is nothing I won’t do for you (except lend you money) Friends shouldn’t lend friends money. Suicide rips a hole in the lives of the ones that are left behind that will never fully heal no matter what you try and fill it with. A hole that will always be there, niggling at you and prodding you with a sharp stick. So once again – YOU ARE NOT A BURDEN AND IT’S NEVER A CHORE! Talk again, soon.
1 Comment
Alistair Lloyd
11/26/2018 07:56:13 pm
Maaaaate!
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorLee Weir - Radio Announcer, Marriage Celebrant and Guinness World Record Holder. Archives
January 2024
Categories |