Book Excerpt – Prologue

This is the prologue to my forthcoming book, And There Was Light: How MDMA Saved My Life

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I raised the barrel of the gun to my forehead, aimed it so that the bullet would damage as much brain matter as possible, and pulled the trigger. Drunk and crying in the dark room I was simultaneously relieved and disappointed when the weapon merely clicked. There was no bullet in the chamber to rip violent holes through my skull but I hoped one night soon there would be. The idea of death was frightening, but less so than the years and decades of agonising life before me. The long, slow march to a natural death was a journey I had no interest in making.

I cycled the action and did it again, and again; a mantra of despair. More whisky, more pain, more clicks.

Sitting alone in the dark I thought about how I would actually do it. I wouldn’t do it here. My roommate didn’t deserve that. I would quietly pack and box my things, leave them in my room for easy removal, with an envelope containing my goodbye and some cash in it for costs. I would end myself somewhere on a quiet country road, in my car, in the middle of the night., preferably with a fair amount of expensive Scotch in me. I would bring plastic and cover everything, hoping to make the inevitable job of cleanup a little more easy on the emergency responders. I knew someone would have to find me so I wanted it to be people trained for it.

I would put cardboard in the windows so casual passersby didn’t get a traumatising look at my body and shattered head. A note taped to the outside would simply say in large letters that there is a dead body inside, please call 911.

I had done the grisly research on how to most effectively kill myself with the least chance of surviving. Perhaps the only thing that scared me more than dying was trying to kill myself, damaging myself, and having to live with both the old and the new pain. The top three most effective ways to kill yourself are a shotgun to the head, cyanide poisoning, and a pistol shot to the head. I read enough to know the dangers of aiming poorly with a shotgun and the high possibility of an instinctive jerk away at the critical moment. The cramped quarters of my car would make aiming a long-barrelled weapon at myself uncertain so I chose not to go with that method.

Cyanide isn’t easy to obtain. Doing so requires reasons and paperwork and can lead to people in uniforms wanting to know why you want it. The last thing I wanted was anyone having the chance to stop me. So cyanide wasn”t a viable option. As odd as it sounds, it was too risky.

So a handgun it was. I live in Washington State with, at the time, very open gun laws that allowed the purchase of a handgun from person to person without any sort of paperwork or registration. I found an ad, the weapon was in good condition, and I handed over the money. The Glock 27, sub-compact, .40 caliber handgun was precisely what I needed. No concerns about the space in the car, powerful enough to do the required damage, and hopefully not quite as messy as a shotgun.

I learned about the angle of the shot. When you see someone in the movies point a weapon into the bottom of their jaw in an upward direction they actually would have a fair chance of surviving in real life. Pointing upward from under the jaw can leave you without much of a face, without some parts of the brain, but might not kill you. You want to do as much damage to as much of the brain as you can and hopefully destroy the brainstem, interrupting all the autonomic functions that keep you alive.

It’s not cowardly or easy, as some might have you believe, to think about ending yourself. Suicide is very often the last, desperate attempt to be free of suffering. There are only two ways out of this room- into the fire or out the window. The result is the same, but one is quicker and cleaner.

I didn’t really want to die deep in my core, I doubt anyone ever does, but at some point it becomes the best option. When the pain lasts for so long, when it is so intense and overwhelming that it is all there is in your life, ending that pain at any cost becomes the priority. I was terrified of the bullet. Sometimes I felt a knot of horror in my gut when I imagined its path through and out the back of my skull too vividly. But I also yearned for the release it would bring.I was more scared of the transition from life to death than I was of oblivion itself.

Every click of the gun was practice, I told myself. I didn’t know it would make it any easier when the moment came but I kept clicking anyway. The only time I didn’t feel completely helpless was when I felt the weight of the gun in my hand and the cool circle of metal against my forehead. That gun was the only way I felt I had any control over my life.One night my roommate heard me talking on the phone to someone I was reaching out to, heard me say I wanted to end my life, and heard the pistol action.

The following evening he told me what he had overheard. I was shocked and embarrassed and more than a little afraid he was going to call someone. Someone might come and remove the last choice I had left.

Had he called the police or had me put into the system he knew that would not help but only make things worse. It’s easy to make a call and have it be someone else’s problem but he took the more difficult and caring tack. He talked to me, let me knew he cared, and offered what help he could. It was a small thing, but it meant everything.

He had spent the day researching some options he knew about, but wanted to be sure they seemed appropriate for me. This is when he mentioned Dr Z and told me about MDMA therapy. I was skeptical. Everything I had been through and felt told me that nothing would work, that this suffering was my fate, that hope was futile. But if there was a chance, I would have to take it and see…even if it meant another disappointment. I wrote down the number and thanked him.

I didn’t know it at the time, but this was the moment my life was saved.