Chapter 33 - Chapter 32

"I watched a documentary a while back," Dr Dhlomo says, unhurried, as if we have the whole morning. "About a bridge. About the people who go there when they've decided, and about how few of them survive the jumps."

"Oh, my God." I clasp my hands tightly in my lap and hold her stare.

She knows the truth of how I grappled with my darkest thoughts. Though I never tried to end my life, the thought became something the untried, pretragic version of myself never imagined it could be: tempting.

"They spoke to a survivor, and do you know what he said?" She pauses, waiting for me to shake my head, breath bated. "As soon as he jumped, he changed his mind."

Yoh.

I blink at her owlishly. The weight of that sinking through my bones and flesh and digging into my heart.

"That," she says, "is an irreversible outcome. Divorce may or may not be. Broken relationships may or may not be. You may never repair those completely, but you're still here to try. Do you recognise what an amazing gift that is? To still be here to try?"

I blink back hot tears and nod.

"You're right. I'm grateful to still be here," I say. "I look back and read my journals from when I first started therapy, and now I can see how warped my thinking was, how I swallowed the lies depression fed me. They became so much a part of me until they felt like truth. I don't know that person. It feels like someone else was in charge of my life. Like someone else made those decisions and now I'm back and have to live with the consequences."