“The pleasure in this world, it has been said, outweighs the pain; or, at any rate, there is an even balance between the two. If the reader wishes to see shortly whether this statement is true, let him compare the respective feelings of two animals, one of which is engaged in eating the other.”
– Arthur Schopenhauer
On January 1, 2023, I began the painful process of quitting Clonazepam, a drug I had taken for eight years to treat debilitating anxiety. I had planned to quit for some time but I had hoped that I would be able to do so in a structured environment after I graduated. Maybe these were excuses but I thought I had time. But then, in January of 2023, having lost my family doctor and desperately in search of a new one I was running out of drugs. I thought with a typical confidence that I could just quit cold turkey and now was the perfect opportunity. It was New Year’s and I was down to my last pills anyway. Within three days I knew something was wrong. I found some extra pills and I tried to wean myself on those but I could tell I was in for a lot of pain. I visited a pharmacist and begged them to help me. I eventually found someone who would supply me with four weeks of pills and I tapered those down so they would last me nearly three months. This period was difficult and full of anxiety but I didn’t suffer excessively.
In late March I took my last fraction of a pill and I started to go through withdrawal in earnest. By early April I was in urgent care convinced I was having a heart attack. I drove to the hospital alone and asked that my partner not come with me because I felt guilty for burdening her. She reluctantly agreed but only because I lied about my fear that I was dying. On the drive over and in the waiting area I realized that I didn’t want to die, which might seem absurd to have to realize, but for someone who has spent most of their life contemplating suicide, it was an incredible moment of self-awareness and new-found fear to realize I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to leave my family, my partner, my dogs. I wanted to fucking live. In my pain and deep mental confusion, I cried thinking about the absurdity of realizing one doesn’t want to die just as they feel they are about to.
It might seem silly to speak about this moment with so much drama. I didn’t die, after all, but I absolutely thought I was going to. That pain in my body and my mind was unimaginable. And it was unique. It wasn’t the type of pain that had kept me up in the middle of the night years past trying to order cyanide online before calling a suicide hotline and crying into the phone. It was a new pain that felt like death itself. It wasn’t that I wanted relief from suffering, it was that I felt the choice was no longer mine. I am immensely grateful for that moment. I won’t pretend I haven’t contemplated suicide since that epiphany. I have. But I have not given it the same serious consideration. It has appeared almost out of old habit and I have reminded myself that I want to live. I want to live because there is beauty in the world. There is beauty in my family, my loved ones, my partner, my dogs, and my friends. And there is beauty in art. There is so much beauty in art. But it isn’t the type of beauty that should make us overlook pain. Beauty in art ought to be a fight to focus on hope. I don’t think it should come as easily as some think it does. It is a reminder of hope, not an ignorance of pain.
I ended up in urgent care and the ER another four times over the coming months. Each time my heart was fine and each time the doctors offered me Clonazepam or an alternative to ease my suffering. But I stubbornly refused. I don’t even know why I refused. By now I couldn’t tell what it was costing me to be on it, other than the fact that I had read and been told that it had long-lasting and damaging effects. But for me, I could see only suffering without it and sweet bliss and release with it. I fantasized about finding stashes of it and taking them. I had abused prescription drugs throughout my life and I knew if I tried hard enough I could find Clonazepam one way or another. But I had begun this process of suffering and I wanted to see what I would be like on the other side. I didn’t want to have to do this all over again and strain my relationship anymore. I spent most of the year bedridden and exhausted from a simple walk with the dogs. I slept all day. I didn’t make much art. My joints and muscles ached. My bones hurt. My skin crawled. I had begun treatment at an addiction centre and they put me on stronger and stronger painkillers until I began to experience complications from those too. I had a reason to live but I didn’t have the strength to do much of it.
In October of 2023, I felt things start to shift slightly. I began to notice that I had more strength. I was still in pain but I could walk and take on tasks around the house without basically becoming drenched in sweat and running out of breath. I began to work on my dissertation again. I began to think about and make art again. My relationship with my partner began to improve. I could see some hope. But it was still a long time before I could take on tasks that used to be easy. I spent nine years in construction and it feeds my soul to work with my hands. But still, any project of any size would leave me panting for air and feeling like I was dying. Finally, in August of 2024, I decided to take on the building of a darkroom in my basement. It took weeks and a huge amount of labour. Each day I expected to wake up the next day unable to continue. I expected to be out of energy, or for my debilitating body pains to return. They never did and I worked long days to complete this project so that I could push through my upcoming grant for my photographic project Nowhere. Every day I worried that I wouldn’t be able to complete the responsibilities of my grant because I was so unwell. I worried that the project wouldn’t happen and I would have to send the money back. It is a terrible thing to lose faith in your body. But each day I found new strength and confidence and I finished the darkroom. This gave me the confidence that I could finish Nowhere too.
While I acknowledge that building a darkroom is not a gargantuan feat I also cannot overemphasize how mental illness and addiction can make taking a shower or getting out of bed feel impossible. When I finished the darkroom I just stared at it and became very emotional. It represented for me hope that I could continue into the future. Hope that I wouldn’t need my cane every day. Hope that I wasn’t going to die just yet. Hope that I had more to give the world. But most importantly, hope that I had something more to give the ones I love.
