Who I Am

My name is James. I am a 19 year old Canadian guy with too much time on my hands. I struggle with a few different things. I have a type of colorblindness called Protanopia. It is a red/green colorblindness and I can't see the color red. Because I don't see red, either because I don't have red photoreceptors, or they were underdeveloped, I also don't see pink, purple, or orange as they are offshoots of red.

I struggle with depression and anxiety. This is mainly due to my past, which I'll go into further detail about later on.

I also struggle with something called Low Latent Inhibition. It is very difficult to explain what LLI is and how it affects me and my day to day life. I will write an article later on explaining what Low Latent Inhibition is.

I've always wanted to get my story out there, but I've always been too afraid, or just didn't know how. So, here is how I wasted over three years of my life.

It all started as I was coming out of my third bad relationship in a row. In every single relationship, I either got cheated on, left for someone else, or both. When it happened the third time, I decided that I was done getting hurt and gave up on women for a time.

I was only 15 at the time, and yes, it happens when you're a teenager. But when you're a teenager that loves too deep, too completely, too fast, it changes you. I still struggle with trust because of what happened then.

About a week after the third bad relationship, I met a guy named, we'll call him John. John said he was part of a group that liked to go out and party. He said it would help me get past everything that happened, and that it would be a great opportunity to meet new people.

This really appealed to me, being a huge extrovert. So I asked him a ton of questions about it. We talked for close to 4 hours. Near the end of that conversation, I was completely sold, except one thing: I was only 15 and the legal drinking age where I live is 18. He said it wasn't a problem because he knew a guy who could get me a fake ID.

About three weeks after our conversation, I got a call from John saying that my fake ID was ready. That night was the first time I'd ever gotten drunk, and high on cocaine. I'd tried weed was I was 14, and it was definitely something that pushed me there.

After that night, my very first party, I didn't have a moment of "I've got to be careful with this." Before I knew it, I was out with the guys every weekend that there was a chance to get high, or drunk, or both.

Four months into this, I lost my first friend to drunk driving. Two months after that, another friend to a bad batch of drugs. Then another friend to an overdose. Then another friend, and another, and another.

I was in that lifestyle for three years. In those three years, I lost 11 friends to drugs, alcohol, and suicide. Shortly after my second year, I had my first suicide attempt.

I asked one of my buddies if he could hook me up with enough LSD for two or three people, with the intention of taking it all myself. He said yes and that he would pitch in as well.

When he delivered, I told him my plan. In a few days, I was going to take all of it, and end everything. I didn't hear from him until the day came. A few hours before I was going to do it, I got a call from him.

I thought he was going to try to talk me out of it, but he start off by telling me that he was struggling too. He'd lost his job, his long term girlfriend left him, he was burning through his savings. He didn't see any other way. He said that he wanted to do the same. He said he wanted out.

When the time came, we met up away from everyone else, split all the LSD we had, and we took all of it. I don't remember much of the next few days. Here's what I do remember though. I woke up on a hospital bed, in a hospital gown, hooked up to all kinds of machines, and with an IV in my arm.

According to the doctor, I took enough to mess myself up real bad, but not enough to kill myself. My friend hadn't been so lucky. He had slipped into coma because he had been on other drugs as well. I was allowed to sit with him for a few minutes. In those few minutes, he stopped breathing. About 10 minutes afterwards, he got his wish. According to his doctor, his respiratory system had completely shut down.

A few nights later, I met back up with the group, and we did what we always did when we lost someone. We all ordered a drink, and raised it to the person who had died. We had an unspoken rule: if someone ever died, we'd raise a drink for them — but, you never talked about them again.

I know now that it was because they didn't want to deal with reality; that, maybe, they weren't as invincible as they thought.

My second suicide attempt was about two months after the first. It is almost identical to the first. Get someone to hook me up with enough drugs to kill myself, they want to do the same.

Only this time, it was much more traumatic. This time, I didn't wake up in the hospital, I walked there, and watched my friend have convulsions on the table. It is a sight I will never forget as long as I live.

Again, we raised a drink to our lost brother, and moved on like nothing ever happened.

About a week after that, I went to the doctor to find out why I had survived. I made up some story about accidentally being exposed to drugs. He ran some tests and a little while later, I found out that I had a hyperactive metabolism. That's why I had survived.

Over the years, I had other close calls with alcohol more than a few times, and this explained how I was still breathing. About two months shy of three years is when I decided to try and get out.

I told everyone in the group, what was left of it, that I was "getting out of the game." That was our code for someone who was into drugs. Every single person turned their back on me from that day forward.

It was a long and difficult road, and I had to try multiple times. But eventually, I did it. I went clean from drugs March 3rd, 2015.

But after I was off drugs for a bit, I started struggling with depression. When you go from, high every weekend, to, never high, you hit a very deep low. I really struggled for about a year.

One weekend, the lowest I've ever felt, I started planning my third suicide attempt. I don't know if it was fate, or luck, or God. But a few days before I was going to try again, I met my now long term girlfriend.

She had just gotten into hospital and was there for a few months. Over those months, we talked. At first over Facebook, of all things, then over the phone. We started dating August 1st, 2016, and she was still in hospital for another month when we started dating.

That's where my sob story ends. Over the course of 3 years, I lost 11 friends, had 6 close calls myself, and 2 suicide attempts, with one more planned.

The reason I am sharing this is to help someone, anyone that might be going through what I did, or something similar.

You are not alone. Reach out. Get help.

Get out of the game.