That Moment I Decided to Die

TW: Spiked drinks, vomiting, deathly ideation, terminal illness

Sometimes writers find themselves talking about dark stuff. I had one of these conversations this morning. We were joking around about how sometimes characters get too “feely” in tense situations, and how the whole “life flashed before my eyes” concept is… often… taken a bit too literally. What I said next shocked my friend.

The Experience Bank

Everything I experience goes in the bank. I think of myself as an “experience harvester”. I have a vault-load of information and sensations and smells and survival responses stored away and I access these when writing. Frankly speaking, it’s the one benefit I can consistently take from shitty situations. It allows me to reflect. It allows me to understand. It’s a starting point* when I’m approaching a traumatic scene. And because I view these situations like this… like ingredients I can reach for in my writing pantry… I sometimes forget how disturbing they are. How significant. I forget, when telling people about them, that they might affect that person. Shock them. Disturb them. I forget that I’ve already banked the emotional response. 

It’s just a thing that happened. No big deal.

Except it is. Or it was.

The Question

So the question was:

“have you almost died before?”

And honestly that’s a very personal question at the best of times, but I know my friend really well at this point so not a big deal to be talking about it over tea on a Tuesday morning. Cue me referring to my experience bank and saying…

“Well, not really… but I did make the decision to die once.”

Of course, this raised the next question…

What Happened?

Someone spiked my drink. I was 18, in a pub on a Friday afternoon. I was going through a break-up, hanging out with a friend and watching the Six Nations. We were drinking quite a bit and having fun. Perfect target really. They always look for women who are drinking so they can say “well, she’s wasted, not drugged.”

So, at one point, I stopped feeling drunk and started feeling something else. I excused myself and went to the bathroom. I remember it quite clearly. The room tilted as I went and I staggered into a table. I made it to the bathroom before I started throwing up. The room was spinning, my body was shaking… I was clearly having a very bad reaction to whatever went into that drink…

And this is a warning to any guy thinking of doing this - and I know it’s possible that someone reading this post, potentially multiple people, will have had the means if not done it before - you never know what medication your target is already on. You never know if your opportunism is going to end in their death. What might seem like power play might end in murder. You don’t know. You are out of your depth, you’re just too stupid to see it. You might get away with rape. Let’s face it, you probably will, it’s a shitty society. But will you get away with killing someone? That is FAR more difficult. You can’t tell a shit ton of DNA evidence, or a corpse, not to press charges. It’s unlikely a jury will decide that a dead person asked for it. If you’re reading this and it’s applying to you, you’re already selfish to the point of criminal behaviour, so be selfish and don’t risk it.

Anyway…

The Point of Decision

There was a moment when I decided that I would stop fighting to stay conscious. My body was a burning fever, I was shaking from head to foot, vomiting, and I could barely hold myself up. The world was spinning, and I mean I felt like I was in a vortex. Kansas had gone bye bye. And in the midst of all this, I thought…

I could just… die. If that’s what this is… I could just… not try. Anymore. That would be easier. Probably better, in fact. I could just… do that. 

And I let myself go. I made that choice. It wasn’t even a hard choice to make because I felt that awful. The world had gone from rugby and fun times to a swirling feverish hell and my resolve was reduced to zero. Recently, I came across a line in the original Dex book:

Dignity is a privilege well beyond the province of survival.

And that hit hard. A mood brought forth directly from the emotional pantry.

What Happened Next?

About three hours later I came-to and was completely lucid. I regained consciousness at home. I was lucky. The friend I was out drinking with found me on the floor of the bathroom and called my parents. We had family friends staying with us at the time. They were both psychiatric nurses with a lot of experience dealing with drug overdoses, and they were in no doubt as to what had happened. If they weren’t there my parents might have just put it down to me drinking too much. They probably would’ve been angry with me for being irresponsible... I guess I was lucky they were there. The blame did not land on my shoulders.

It wasn’t over. Half an hour later I started throwing up again and kept throwing up every half hour for the next five hours.

I will say at this point that being spiked is a weird feeling. It’s not the same as being drunk. If someone you know is acting like they’re wasted - and has been drinking - but is saying “this is something else”, believe them. Anyone who’s been drunk before knows what it feels like, and will probably admit it. If your friend has gone from tipsy to falling over and unable to move, and is literally telling you it’s more than alcohol, be the person you would want to have supporting you in that moment. Help them.

The Follow-up Question

The next question my friend asked was… 

“Were you scared that you made that decision?”

And the answer is no. No, I wasn’t scared, I had simply unlocked a level of understanding I previously lacked. I now know that there’s a point where someone can feel so dreadful, so sick, so very far from physically stable, that death becomes a viable option. 

I’ve seen people die naturally, and it took hours for their body to stop fighting. I’ve seen people suffer, knowing that it could only end one way. Do I judge those who consider Dignitas? Hell no. Do I judge those who judge people for considering Dignitas? Yes. I judge them as ignorant at best, cruel at worst.

Do I judge myself for opting out?

Interesting question. 

We all like to think that we would battle on to the end… that we would fight and fight to stay alive against all odds. But I wonder how many of those narratives come from people who have never faced the choice. And I don’t mean facing adversity while lucid… I don’t mean dealing with pain… I mean being so sick in the body that your biology is malfunctioning.

No, I don’t judge myself.

Perhaps if I faced the same choice again, I would choose differently? Who knows? Spoiler alert - you can never know.

Did My Life Flash Before My Eyes?

Absolutely not. I was so occupied with the task of staying conscious and processing sensations while I tried to make sense of what was happening, I did not have time to reflect on my relationship with my mother… or notice how the toilet seat was a bit damp (it might have been, I wouldn’t know)... or apply a metaphor to my predicament (the Wizard of Oz comparison came later). What I do know is that in those horrible moments my responses were paired back to immediate needs. Balance, something to cling onto, holding my head up… or failing to, hoping that it would stop…

Conclusion

Think twice before you get poetic in the moments when your character’s life is on the line. I haven’t had many near-death experiences, but I’ve talked to people who have and none of them noticed anything that wasn’t immediately related to what was happening. Some say they remember a weird extraneous detail, but it’s never accompanied by a load of metaphorical analysis. That comes later. The emotional significance comes later. I know it’s tempting to draw-out the moment for the sake of drama… but maybe draw it out by describing the physical sensations or utter numb absence of thought. And in the meantime, maybe ask a good friend the question. You’ll be amazed by what you might learn.

* I do not write about everything I’ve ever experienced, and not everything I write comes from the personal emotional pantry. It’s a starting point. Thank Christ, because if you know The Dex Legacy, you’ll know that’s a LOT of shit.