Ending it all

    The other night, I very nearly shot myself. Before you become too concerned, it was one helluva weird dream. The usual one about going to the GIC and coming away with a prescription instead of the words I'll be given in reality, except with the weird twist that the prescription gave me hallucinations: that I could reach through solid objects as though they were jelly. Yes, you don't want to venture between my ears, it gets pretty odd in there.
    Anyway, the final plotline involved my taking a handgun and being about to shoot myself in the head, at which point the hardware interrupt triggered by what passes for self-preservation subroutines in a human brain kicked in and I was dragged abruptly into wakefulness, the dark and quiet of a very early morning, my wife slumbering peacefully beside me. Probably the only reason I can so vividly remember the events of my dream; when I wake up at normal pace any recollections are hazy.
    Other people might shrug off such an experience as just a bad dream. Forget it, turn over and go back to sleep. But this one stuck with me because I've been there, I know I have that capability within me and having banished that particular demon I am particularly keen not to grant it re-admission.
    I never went as far as choosing my preferred exit route, back when I was deep in the closet. It certainly wouldn't have been a handgun, leaving aside the British legal framework which makes them almost impossible to own legally I wouldn't have the first idea how to use one. I'm guessing most Americans know more about cricket than I know about handheld firearms. Television drama has taught me that handguns have about a thousand rounds in their magazines and never need reloading though, and that every shot from a police handgun is a lucky one with pinpoint accuracy being preserved no matter the distance, visibility or wind.
    Instead, I found myself planning. How would I leave my affairs in order, how I might ensure my wife had a solid financial foundation. This became a constant refrain alongside the thoughts of suicide, which made things worse in a way, the last thing you need when you are suicidally depressed are money worries especially when you are on a sound financial footing.
    Having left all that behind it all seems rather stupid, looking back. But the experience never completely goes away, there is always that worry somewhere not far below the surface that it might return. My wife and I agree that if I fall down that particular hole again then saying the right things to the folks at the GIC and embarking on the road to transition would be my only option, but risking one's life in that way to get there does not seem like a sensible path.
    Gosh, what a morbid post! My apologies. It's been something of a brain-dump. I'm not going back there so no worries, but when your unconscious mind confronts you with these things you have to work them through.