Dodging Suicide: A Lifetime's Preoccupation

By Kit Johnson

Kit Johnson suffers from a form of Bipolar and Hyperthymesia, and has endured a life where suicidal thoughts, and attempts, have punctuated much of his existence. He has been diagnosed incorrectly at least 10 times by so called experts, many of whom seemed to have less insight than he did.
In this alternative 'self help' story, he takes a semi autobiographical and affectionate look at his condition, which is leavened with much humour. Commendably short in length, reflecting the short attention span that characterises the condition, it is raw at times, excoriating in its honesty, and takes the reader on a journey of pain, joy and possible redemption
Kit Johnson spent much of his life in Human Resources Management where he enjoyed a reputation for exceptional insight into careers and the art of managing people. He spent several years working overseas, and has counselled many senior executives on maximising their potential, and equipping them with the skills to survive in business politics.
He has one daughter and currently lives in London

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kit Johnson
• Release date: Oct 25, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301089529

Kit Johnson

Kit Johnson suffers from a form of Bipolar and Hyperthymesia, and has endured a life where suicidal thoughts, and attempts, have punctuated much of his existence. He has been diagnosed incorrectly at least 10 times by so called experts, many of whom seemed to have less insight than he did. In this alternative 'self help' story, he takes a semi autobiographical and affectionate look at his condition, which is leavened with much humour. Commendably short in length, reflecting the short attention span that characterises the condition, it is raw at times, excoriating in its honesty, and takes the reader on a journey of pain, joy and possible redemption Kit Johnson spent much of his life in Human Resources Management where he enjoyed a reputation for exceptional insight into careers and the art of managing people. He spent several years working overseas, and has counselled many senior executives on maximising their potential, and equipping them with the skills to survive in business politics. He has one daughter and currently lives in London

Book preview

Dodging Suicide

A Lifetime’s Preoccupation

By Kit Johnson

Smashwords Edition

Copyright© 2011 Kit Johnson

All rights reserved. No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner

First published 2012

This edition published 2012

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental

Dedicated to my lovely, adorable daughter who is the one constant in my life, and whom I love so much. And to the special lady whom I love still, but who abandoned me, you should have had more faith and thanks for the inspiration. I turned extreme mental anguish into motivation and it’s a message of hope for everyone who suffers from Bipolar. God gave me Bipolar – but he also made me funny!

To The Samaritans, a marvellous institution which I managed to avoid calling for reasons of pride and embarrassment. It’s pure luck that I am still here to type these words, and I was wrong. If this book stops anyone from committing suicide, which is, as Camus said, the ‘ultimate irrevocable’, then put embarrassment to one side and call them.

I am pleased and proud to state that a % of the profits from this book will be donated to The Samaritans.

Table of Contents

To You The Reader

Foreword

Dodging Suicide

Postscript

About The Author

To you the reader

If you find the book has helped you in some way I am profoundly pleased. Whilst my primary aim was catharsis and self-healing, I am dedicated to assisting others who feel they have no voice, or hope, or understanding. You are not a lunatic, or a bad person or anything else, you simply have a brain that doesn’t quite wire up as it should. Your affliction is no worse than any other birth defect, or acquired condition, and no less socially unacceptable.

Of course, I hope this book is also read by people who are fortunate to not have my condition or anything similar, and that it amuses you and touches you in some small way, and helps you better understand what a trial Bipolar and it ‘siblings’ can be.

You can reach me or follow me on

Twitter @dodgingsuicide

Or

www.kit-johnson.com

Foreword

This book is not for the faint hearted or the easily offended. It was not written with any forethought in that respect, and in no way is there any intention to offend.

But I make no apologies for the content. I determined to say it just as it is, to use an old cliché, and when editing, I avoided the temptation to clean up my act. Bipolar burdens the holder with a compulsion to shock, and a need to be dramatic. Thus there are few attempts to be elegant, overwhelmed as one is towards self indulgence. The euphoric phase often brings risky behaviour, a high sex drive, and a ‘the hell I will’ approach to everything. My humour follows suit.

Humour intersperses the content like mortar in a brick wall, and like mortar, it’s what has held me together at times: so I make no apologies for the frequent interruptions in flow to tell a joke that for me reinforces the narrative, and the absurdities of the condition. And that inherent need to shock means the jokes are invariably bawdy.

You have been warned!

Dodging Suicide

Last week I tried to commit suicide, not a pathetic crie-de-coeur, but a full on attempt. I’ve always been partial to the Lake District and I drove to the far end of a little visited gem of a lake called Haweswater. It fulfilled my needs on a number of levels; one cannot drive further – it’s a dead end – which seemed poetic; it’s not an area that emits mobile signals, and finally, it’s eerily beautiful. The latter point is heightened by its provenance. Ten metres or so below the surface sits the village of Mardale, forever submerged by reservoir flooding in 1935. In times of severe drought, like 1975, the village walls and foundations rise up from the waters like a ghostly apparition. So it seemed right. I gathered the tools of my imminent extinction, namely 30 pills or so and a bottle of Scotch, and headed off around the lake to the remotest spot I could find. There I sat, not a sound to be heard, and nothing moving but a Hawk drifting high above the surrounding peaks. My only thought was that I’d better not die on my back, as the bird might well peck my eyes out long before I was discovered. As if that mattered, but the daftest notions wash through your head when it’s spinning. It’s akin the one’s mother calling out to her six year old in the street, have you got clean underwear on? To which the reply is why? and she replies in case you get run over Bizarre, but true, and one shared by many.

As I once introduced myself at an After Dinner speaking engagement,

I am what my Mother made me – an over anxious, over achieving neurotic with clean underwear

I crammed the pills into my mouth and swigged ferociously at the Malt Whisky. I guessed this was the least painful solution – and it’s not something you practice is it? Dependent upon your point of view, my inexperience lead to a miracle of sorts, if surviving could be classed as that. I was not a whisky drinker by habit, so the combination of 30 odd pills lubricated by strong liquor was way more than my stomach could take, and without warning, I projectile vomited the contents over my lap. Yuk. I’d checked the internet on how many pills would do it, but the search proved inconclusive, other than to suggest it was not as easy as one might imagine. Too many and you will vomit and too few you won’t die, but you will possibly wreck your kidneys and liver. My poor wife thought I was going to do something unspeakably dumb and had called the police. And so on my way back home, already feeling I’d failed in life and at suicide, I get arrested. As you will see, my relationship with my wife deteriorated as time progressed from that fateful day in March 2007, so having me arrested was a mixed blessing at best.

At the time it felt like the final insult- not even able to get this right. As the days passed, I decided to put pen to paper. Not from some ‘he wrote it so that others may live’ altruism, but as an effort to understand myself. But as others will see, if other people end up reading this, a seriously cyclothymic personality can be eye balls out committed one day, and slothful to the point of rigor mortis the next. Staying power is not one of the conditions plus points. It gives you the creativity and dramatic mindset to deliver an excellent of piece of work, but with metronomic frequency you will likely as not have ripped it up before you ever finished it: and carelessness too, as with typos – which no doubt may make the odd jarring appearance. I was adjudged careless that way as long ago as being a five year old.

Sitting next to a ‘sniffer’ on a plane this week ( the reader should set aside what week as I am writing this in real time and no doubt it will take some years to finish – if ever ) made me even more determined to try and earth all this angst. Though hard for me to imagine, I doubt if anyone else was paying any attention to this at all, but all I could focus on was counting the seconds before he slurped another slug of snot up his nasal passages. After getting to around 200 sniffs over 3 hours, I finally blew a gasket and threw him my napkin and exhorted him to ‘please do the whole plane a favour and blow your f****** nose!’

If you haven’t already come across the term, tmesis, you will be aware of it now. I use it a lot. It describes the linguistic action when one splits a word with another, often for emphasis. Allow me to be more prosaic, take abso–f******-lutely. Now do you get it? There are no experts (lots of charlatans though ) in cyclothymia, and you have to become you own shrink. For me it’s like being on the cusp of Tourette’s Syndrome – the compulsion and obsessiveness being very similar. So we like expletives and filth!