The burden I had become

I first met Lachy about 3 years ago. I was introduced to Lachy’s story by his partner Katie who is a friend and work colleague. Katie shared a blog that Lachy had written about his story and attempt on his own life.

Lachy’s story was beautifully written, authentic, raw and compelling and I knew from that moment I had to meet this bloke and learn more.
 
Lachy and I have since become great friends, absorbing and fuelling each others energy while we journey along our paths to create a cultural shift in society to break down the wall of stigma that has been built over many years.
 
Lachy never ceases to amaze me, 20 years younger than me but shows a maturity beyond his years, I certainly wish I had his insight on life at that age.
 
Lachy’s story or part of it is shared in this guest blog, but there are so many more layers to this great human. Not only has he risen from ashes of adversity he’s since created an amazing weekly podcast which he hosts. I can tell you it’s not one to miss.
 
Lachy strives to continuously educate himself about all things mental health, with that knowledge and his own lived experience he has developed an amazing empathetic interview style that makes it easy for his guests to Open Up, which incidently is the name of the podcast.
 
I was honoured to be one of his guests; he’s now well on his way to his 30 episode engaging real people and real stories.
 
Personally I can’t wait to see where Lachy is going to go with his passion and purpose, I have a feeling before long he will become internationally recognised for his amazing work.
 
Thanks again for reading.
 
Before continuing to read Lachy’s powerful and raw story 'PLEASE CONSIDER THE CONTENT', if it causes you to feel uncomfortable in anyway, please talk to your loves and/or seek professional medical help.

Lachy and his lovely partner Katie

Hi, I’m Lachlan Samuel, host of the Open Up Podcast and I tried to hang myself.

My story starts while working FIFO in Western Australia. I was working a 4:1 roster, spending 4 weeks away at a high-risk construction site with every 5th week being at home with my partner. My god the money was good, but as you can imagine, the time away left a hole in whatever relationships I had and had distorted my perception of normality in relation to them. 

As a result of this time away, accompanied with my wandering eyes and selfishness, our relationship completely broke down, becoming so toxic and argumentative that we eventually ended it. With my week at home now over and these problems now following me away to work for another 4 weeks of isolation, my work ethic became non-existent and I ultimately compounded my troubles by being told to resign before I was fired. OUCH!

Two months later, while travelling NZ with a beautiful Canadian girl I'd met on instagram, I get a call from my ex-partner letting me know she was pregnant with my baby, which I’d selfishly deny for the next 6 months. Upon returning home from NZ, now unemployed and expecting a baby, I finally act like the responsible grown up I am, and use my savings to buy an old pop-top campervan, like something off of old McDonalds' farm and travel, travel, travel… AKA me running away from my problems, burying my head in the sand of WA’s most iconic beaches. Throughout this travel though I’d come to realise that I wanted more from my life than good money at the expense of relationships and normality, but I also recognised that my skills or qualifications at that point wouldn’t allow me to become anything more. DAMN!

This realisation lead me to make the delusional decision to start my own business, in a field I had absolutely no expertise in. So I hustled and I pitched, meeting some of Perth’s most influential businessmen, receiving handshake offers and words upon words of encouragement, for it all to come crashing down, taking my pride, some friendships, and my entire savings with it. After this my life spiralled out of control. I lost my identity as the FIFO worker making a shit load of money. I lost my identity as the in shape “gym-bunny” and I lost whatever confidence I had left. I was now beyond broke and broken beyond repair. Still running from FIFO I began working as an Uber Black driver, eventually stealing 10 mints per day from my charter vehicle because my wage didn’t even cover my bills and child support, so I was too broke to eat. I was borrowing money left right and centre. From my parents, from friends and even from people who I knew were worse off than me. 
 
I had gone from the independent son and friend who’d made the audacious solo move to Australia, willing to sacrifice his life now for a brighter future tomorrow, to a guy who now had nothing yet took everything. I had become a burden, financially and mentally on the people I love and I knew it. This story screened in the cinema of my mind for days on end until finally, one morning, I woke up and knew what I had to do. It was time to put the people I love first and remove the burden I’ve created. It was time I relieved my daughter of the pain of growing up knowing her father was a loser and a failure. It was time. 

I walked out to the garage behind our home, strung up a rope, tied the noose and casually stepped up onto a crate. I stared through it, so at peace with what was about to happen and slid my head through. I took a step off that crate and it’s as if as soon as the rope had caught my neck, time slowed down for me to understand what was really happening. What I was doing to myself, but more importantly, what I was doing to the people I loved. My life literally flashed before my eyes as I kicked and squirmed hanging like bait on a hook fighting to get free. I remember seeing my daughter holding her mothers hand. It was her first day at school and I wasn’t going to be there for it. I could see she didn’t understand why other kids had both their parents with them and I began sobbing as I choked more. Somehow I snapped back to reality and found myself grasping at the rope around my neck, reaching out my leg with everything ounce of energy I had left. 

Lachy's beautiful daughter who ultimately and unknowingly saved his life

I finally got my foot back to the crate I had stepped off of in the first place, collapsing to the ground like I’d just finished a marathon. “WTF did I just do?” I thought. “Did I really just do that?” I stayed there for a while, slumped over, shaking and crying, contemplating my life and imagining the pain I almost caused the people I love. I thought about my daughter growing up without her dad’s hand to hold, and without his love. In those few sobering moments, I found something to live for. I realised I needed to be there for her and that I needed to do something about the journey I had allowed my life to take. It was time.

MY RECOVERY
From this point I spent the next three years working tirelessly on my mind, implementing and testing different tips tools and tactics to help me get back on track mentally. These are my top three for you to implement and test. 

Meditation:
According to Cambridge English dictionary, the definition of this is “the ability to focus on one thing only” and that’s exactly the ability you’ll cultivate. For beginners, try the app Headspace, which has guided meditation sessions ranging from 3mins to 30mins, with additional explanations regarding what you’re doing and why.

An added benefit of meditation, in some cases, is cultivating the ability to breath deeply into the diaphragm or belly. In doing so we activate the vagas nerve in behind our diaphragm, which then switches us from the stress dumping state of fight flight or freeze, back to calm state of rest and digest, or rest and relax.  

Grounding:
Unknowingly while chasing sunsets every day for the entire year following my attempt, I was taking photos and appreciating scenery, all while being connected to the earth barefoot. Put simply, the earth’s surface is negatively charged, and when we connect to the “free energy” source, our body release antioxidants as well as shifts back to the parasympathetic, or the rest and relax like above. 

Positivity:
Yes this may sound silly to some, but the law of attraction states that you get back exactly what you put out into the universe. So if you’re emanating positivity, its only natural it’ll come back to you. Along with this, by turning negative situations or thoughts into positive ones, we begin to breakdown old pre-wired patterns in the brain, ones which have us looking for something to be angry or jealous about, instead building new ones that allow us to search for the positives in negative situations more frequently, which in time will become habit, and if you’re habitually sending out vibrations of positivity, you’ll habitually find yourself among positive people, engaging in positive activities, ultimately inhabiting a positive environment. Osho famously says, "Where light exists, darkness cannot". This means then that where positivity exists, negativity cannot. The more positive we are, the more we lessen our opportunities to become negative. 

Thanks for reading

Lachlan.
 
Instagram: @open_up_podcast
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/openuppodcast/
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/lachlansamuel
Email: Lachlan@openupgroup.com
 
Links to the podcast:
https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/open-up-podcast-with-lachlan-samuel/id1359096106?mt=2
https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/open-up-podcast-2/open-up-podcast

Thank you for joining in on the blog.

Please fell free to contact me, to become a guest blogger or provide feedback via email at: The KiltedRogueRunner@outlook.com

If you or anyone else you know is in crisis please seek professional help
https://www.beyondblue.org.au Tel: 1300 22 46 36
https://www.lifeline.org.au/ Tel: 133 11 14
https://www.suicidecallbackservice.org.au Tel: 1300 65 94 67
http://www.sirensofsilence.org.au