One Last Hope! - Redemption Addict

So that’s it? The plan goes ahead no matter what. Today’s the day. How do you feel?

You’d think I’d be terrified, hoping, praying, fighting for one more day of happiness. Show me I am still worthy. Take away this emptiness, this loneliness, and give me someone who loves me properly, and I can love properly, or allow me to love myself and be successfully single for a while.

I prayed for one last miracle, one last sign from God saying, “Your struggle is over. Here is the person you need. Go and love her; she will help you love yourself.” I prayed that prayer for weeks, although if I was to be more precise then the actual prayer was “Take away this emptiness, let me live fully, do some good and end my struggle, or if you’re done with me Lord then let me die, no casualties, no one else involved, just clean and simple” and yeah, there were things that seemed to me to be so heavily pointed out that a blind man would see them.

So I pursued them, all of them and each and every one turned out to be nothing but a carrot on a stick leaving me feeling more and more empty each time. So I said, “Fuck it, if God is done with me, then I’m done with me as well.”

And in the most dramatic of fashions I cast my cross, my rosary beads, and my anti-suicide necklace (a gift from a friend I have had for years) to the ground and set about making and procuring my “suicide shopping list” No specifics here for obvious reasons but let’s say a fuck ton of non-illegal tablets and a bottle of suicide whiskey (some Tesco cheapest own brand “tear a hole in ye shit” cause man’s skint)

I set an alarm for “The Deed” for 11:30 pm on October 12th. It was supposed to be the 11th of October, my birthday because somehow, I guess it seemed more fitting, although one of those “carrots on a stick” happened on the 11th so the 12th it was. For context, it’s the 31st of October that I am writing this (Happy Halloween, well actually I’m still writing this on the 31st of December, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year) so there’s more to this story;

We are the heroes of our own stories; don’t let the hero in yours die either!

If Today Was Your Last Day

Ok, it’s my last ever day on this earth, and because I am committing a Mortal sin I am condemning myself to an eternity in hell.

Ok, so what do I want to do with it?

Will I go for a drive? I don’t know, I’m not feeling it.

No, to Hell with that, it’s your last ever day and your last ever chance to do it so carpe diem, seize the day! And that’s exactly what I did.

I got up without a plan other than “by 11:30 tonight, it will be done, and by tomorrow, I will either be gone, or after 24 hours, my chances of being saved will be next to non-existent.” I went to the kitchen, made a coffee, sat down rolled a joint and thought about my next moves.

One of which was the aforementioned drive. For those who don’t know, I live on the North Coast of Northern Ireland, and driving the coastal roads of Portrush and Portstewart can still be some of the most awe-inspiring views I have ever seen. And yes, I travelled a lot when I was younger.

I used to drive these roads a lifetime ago when I was 18, just passed my test and felt the very first taste of freedom. When I moved away in times of pain, hope, sadness, and happiness and when I was homesick, these roads always gave me comfort and in truth, it’s one of the main reasons I moved back to my home town.

If Today Was Your Last Day

On this particular day however, I realised very quickly that even though I had driven over 2000 miles in the past month doing circles of this route and looking out at the sea, I hadn’t taken the time to acknowledge the amazing creation that is our glorious world.

Well, I say that, but I did, I know I did because I specifically remember now that I am typing this not only commenting on the beauty of them internally, but I had also pointed it out to others.

Today felt different—far more magnificent than any other time. It was as if seeing it for the last time mirrored the experience of seeing it for the first.

When do we ever take the time to do that, to see things fully, and say “God what an amazing world you have created for us, and thank you for all of the incredible gifts you have given to allow me to experience this moment”

It reminds me of a quote on Brandon lee’s Headstone.

Firstly for those who don’t know of Brandon Lee he’s the son of Bruce Lee and was also an actor in his own right, and starred in the 1994 film “The Crow” an absolute masterpiece of a movie about a couple who are tragically murdered on devil’s night, not only the night before Halloween but the day before their wedding.

This was Brandon’s last movie because just a few weeks before his own wedding to Eliza Hutton, during filming a piece of shrapnel from a homemade blank pierced his lower left abdomen and he passed away.

Brandon and Eliza used this same quote for their wedding invitations.

“Because We Don’t Know When We Will Die, We Get To Think Of Life As An Inexhaustible Well. Yet Everything Happens A Certain Number Of Times, And A Very Small Number, Really. How Many Times Will You Remember A certain Afternoon Of Your Childhood, Some Afternoon That’s So Deeply A Part Of Your Being That You Can’t Even Conceive Of Your Life Without It? Perhaps Four Of Five Times More. Perhaps Not Even That. How Many More Times Will you Watch The Full Moon Rise? Perhaps Twenty. And Yet It All Seems Limitless.”

Is There Light In This Darkness?

I won’t bore you with all of the details of each choice I made and why I made them, not only because this post is not three days long but also because although the reasons and experiences mattered, I don’t think they are what changed my mind.

Something incredibly bizarre happened or at least something I have never experienced before. I have demons in my head always, my intrusive thoughts, my ego, my pride, and my sins, and they take great pride in reminding me daily of all of my brokenness and lack of self-worth and the lack of emotion etc.

I have to fight them constantly to do anything at all, and they are the same demons that have me accepting death so no more fighting you win. Right?…

Wrong because all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I had mental angels, either that or the demons changed their minds to torment me more, but I honestly think it’s the first one because the demons only really niggle at my mind, but the angels I could feel in my heart.

A Glimmer Of Hope: Embracing Faith Amid Despair

The angels asked me different questions and told me other things, like “Why would you want to die when you can see this glorious world around you? Yes, you are broken but has your faith, hope and the grace and love of God not granted you so much previously and still presently? Has God not saved you from worse than this before, and still you do not trust?”

These thoughts—whether reinforcements or voices of divine origin—sparked a shift within me, igniting a desire to try again, and in some way gave me “suggestions”, I would notice things subtle things out of nowhere. Almost like a burst of inspiration engulfed me and all the things I want to achieve coming flowing in, with new ways to push myself forward.

I know you can look at these as just positive reinforcement but I resisted these feelings with all my strength, as I would my other demons, I wasn’t going to accept one more day of false hope, But this time something felt different.

I am certain that once again God’s love and mercy pulled me out of the darkness. Though I wasn’t completely out of the woods yet, a glimmer of light had pierced the darkness, urging me to take another step forward.

Why Not God?

Don’t worry I completely understand many feel the sentiment of God and Jesus’ saving and some are instantly turned off by even the idea of bringing religion into an article such as this, and for a long time, I was on the side of the latter.

I also don’t believe here is an appropriate place to open up the debate of the existence of God either, so instead I give you a question to ask yourself and my answer to the same one.

Why not God?

Like a lot of us in my younger days I was a tad rebellious shall we say? In those times I didn’t want to hear about Jesus or God, let alone know him or indeed try to live like him, and asking me to read The word of God would have been the equivalent of asking me to perform the miracles of Jesus myself.

So now that I am older and wiser and more willing to see what just some of the things I was rejecting or I guess what I said I refused to live like.

Here are a few of the key teachings from the bible about how God calls us to live just to see how bad they are; I have included a simple explanation for each.

Also please note here I am not speaking of the churches or religion, I am merely talking about the living God as spoken in the bible and of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

1. (Mark 12:30-31) Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbour as yourself. – Meaning: Put God first and treat others with kindness.
2. (Michah 6:8) Seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. – Meaning: Live fairly, show mercy and follow God’s lead.
3. (Luke 6:31) Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. – Meaning: Be kind and fair to everyone.
4. (Ephesians 4:32, Colossians 3:12) Be kind, compassionate, forgiving, and patient. Meaning: Show love and understanding to people.
5. (1 Peter 4:10, Romans 12:6-8) Use your gifts and talents to serve others and glorify God. Meaning: Share your gifts to do good for others and God.
6. (1 John 1:9, Romans 6:12-14) Avoid sin and temptation, and seek forgiveness when you fall short. Meaning: Try to do right and turn to God when you mess up.
7. (1 Thessalonians 5:17, Joshua 1:8, Hebrews 10:25) Pray regularly, read scripture and fellowship with other believers to grow in your faith. Meaning: Stay close to God through prayer, scripture, and community.

Personally looking at these I find it hard to have a counterargument to any,. In fact, I believe that everyone has them engrained in them (like it is written in our hearts.) I would say all, although I am aware of, and the reason for the disclosure at the top, of those who say they live like these and instead who blatantly go against them, and some mess up for want of trying, as a whole however, if we all lived like this I don’t think the world would be a bad place.

Yes, bad stuff would still happen because Jesus never promised there would be no suffering, Man was nailed to a cross because humans sinned, and says I will suffer with you, and walk with you through it and the majority of his apostles were executed for believing he rose again, because they along with 500 others physically witnessed it, so either they were telling the truth or they were amazingly dedicated to a lie, but I don’t think back then I would have been crucified instead of just being like “nah, man was crazy” if I wasn’t completely sure I saw him risen.

Not trying to convert anyone here or anything but I like to think most would agree with the concept presented here.

Ok, so why is this relevant to my story and the “angels” in my head? One word, Acceptance.

God Is Not A Quick Fix Switch

Allow me to jump ahead a little to give you the start and the end then fill in the middle and explain my point.

I rode the high of the “God does love me and I want to be better” train, which was the determination to “want to” and “want to”, etc., and with sheer will and determination, I achieved nothing.

It was just a brief spurt of “contentment,” which lasted until the 17th of October (full disclosure: that was the actual date this post was started. It was updated on the 31st, and today is now the 2nd of November, so we will see if it gets posted tonight. Edit from the future: It’s now the 23rd of November. This will be posted one day, I promise. As stated earlier in the post It’s the 31st of December and 4 minutes away from being the 1st of January 2025, I want to end this year and start the new year achieving something) Then, it was straight back to the empty and the lonely.

I don’t feel anything other than empty and that deep awareness of feeling like I need either a partner, fix myself or achieve something.

I seem strong but I get scared, I get anxious, I get that deep sense of feeling like I just don’t fit in anywhere, or I don’t belong or I am not smart enough etc.

All of these, though, can be combatted mentally. We know this; it’s just the right tools, coping mechanisms, and support, right?

Yeah, but when you feel it and you are physically in the moment and that day you are not mentally strong enough to break it, you feel guilty about the fact that you weren’t strong enough, breaking you more and thus the cycle continues.

And yes this comes from being able to let things go and Acceptance.

On what was meant to be my final day I accepted everything exactly as it was and took the time to look at the world outside of what we think and feel and see it as it was. This took me back to when I first found my faith and when Jesus found me.

Back then I prayed and meditated on every sin I had ever committed, and I asked Jesus for forgiveness and whether or not you believed in the forgiveness of sins, It gave me acceptance.

Jesus knows everything I have ever done and knows how much I want to be better and can see that I am trying, Jesus loves me now as I am and believes in the man I want to be and will help me to become that.

I still have zero drive, motivation, push, or emotion, but I never stop wanting, dreaming, and envisioning all the things I could do if I were disciplined, all the things this site could do and become if I could or would do something.

Anhedonia: A Condition Of No Pleasure

There’s a symptom called Anhedonia, (From Greek “An” meaning without and “hedonia” meaning joy or pleasure) which is a condition where a person struggles to feel pleasure or joy from activities or experiences they used to enjoy, such as hobbies, relationships, or sensory experiences like eating. It is a common symptom of depression and other mental health conditions and can make life feel dull or emotionally numb.

and I am not saying It’s diagnosed or anything in me and if you suspect it could be in you, it’s generally heavily linked to depression, trauma and other mental health conditions so it is always worth seeking a professional opinion and consulting those equipped to help you, but for me it makes sense and even if it’s not the solution is good to look at regardless.

The reason I say this makes sense to me is because I am very indifferent to more or less everything, even the things that should make me happy or make me feel something don’t happen at all. And although I have loads of things that I want to do I freeze.

a way I have heard this explained is that all the processes that happened of our feelings and emotions and even physical pains etc, these all happen internally and while can be affected by outside factors don’t exist outside of that.

So for example you cut your finger which is a physical thing so you bleed, but the pain isn’t the cut it’s the nervous system sending a signal to the pain receptors in your brain which then tells the body to feel the pain (I’m not a neurologist so this is heavily simplified from the perspective of a layman)

Using this simple example if something in this process isn’t working properly then we get “malfunctions” such as if one of these receptors are damaged it can cause us to feel unimaginable amounts of pain for seemingly no reason at all, or on the flip side feel nothing when we should.

Linking this back to Anhedonia its not a physical illness or something that is an illness in itself so it can be caused by physical or mental illness, but what it does it can make our effort/reward perceptions out of whack.

When we decide to do anything we run an Effort/reward equation in our minds, meaning if the effort required to get a huge reward is low, we are more likely to do it, and if we have to put in massive effort to get little or no reward then we generally don’t do the thing.

When we experience anhedonia though, we focus on the effort because its massive and since we feel the physical of doing the thing, but we are numb emotionally or to joy and pleasure so the reward is little to none, thus making it easier to freeze and just do nothing.

The good news is this isn’t permanent, the bad news is we don’t know when or what will break us out of it fully, making the solution never stop trying and ill explain this and give you my closing thoughts in the next section.

The Point And Final Thoughts: Never Stop Trying

The reason I am writing this post still after months of doing nothing, and truthfully multiple thoughts of just scraping it, I’ll write another one eventually etc.

Is it simply because I am trying, do I see any prospect or reward of feeling good about having finished it? No.

However, do I know why I want to post it? Yes, and that’s to connect with others but not only that, in time it will be a documentation of where I’ve been and when I am and what I’ve learned.

So even when I wasn’t doing the work I was constantly telling myself I want, I want, I want. Reinforcing all the things I am going to do and become and achieve.

Whilst also trying to rebuke the wrongdoings, essentially like “You have been lazy today, you didn’t clean the house or leave the house, or bed all day, that’s a bad Jamie” Ensuring I always add a prayer to Jesus saying “Lord thank you for getting me through another day without my world falling apart and for the people in my life and all the possessions I have and for creating me so I can appreciate them, to ask him to keep being by my side, keep working in my life, and to forgive me my sins, and I promise I will try to do better tomorrow.”

Meanwhile, I acknowledge that I have no self-discipline and try to think of ways to counter that, my latest idea and the push to finally finish this was buying a new microphone and now using AI, like chat GPT and coda to help me with productivity and accountability. I will talk about these more in a separate article when I learn how to use them effectively.

I have also made a point of keeping these articles open on my pc and have banned myself from gaming for a while, so it became easier to just sit and read what I have written, even get some “editor feedback” from chat GPT about structure, not for the writing though because I like to be authentic and an AI doing my writing doesn’t sit well with me.

Oh, and I bought some cables for my guitar to get me back into using my electric through my pc and headphones so I can play without annoying neighbours.

My point is if you feel like this and are where I was at the start of this post.

Don’t Give Up! You’ve got this, I suggest heavily trying to read the bible (which I suck at, but I’m trying slowly but surely, praying (which I do daily and often time multiple times daily), and even If you don’t do these, find your why and remember them, think about the what’s that will get you there, and day it day by day, yea you’ll fail because humans suck, but everyone who is good at anything once sucked at it but they kept learning and trying until they got good at it, and anything worth doing is hard, and the harder something is, good it means less people will be doing it, so if its meaningful , and brings you pleasure then pursue it.

Thank you for reading this post. Remember, I believe in you, and Jesus loves you and sees your struggle. Through times of struggle, we learn the most, so take your time, learn, and grow, and you will get there!

And I am going to keep trying as well and hopefully, these articles will be more frequent and less far between

(Philippians 4:13) I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
— Thomas Edison