How to Be Happy

by David Burton

  I learnt about oil, crankshafts and radiators from the type of man who I wanted to become: whip-smart, family-centred, a beautiful husband and father. He was the masculine ideal. And he was friendly and very kind to me. We shared a taste for pop culture and became friends. Within three months, and costing another hard-earned thousand dollars in parts and a lot of sweat, Gutsy was running again. The hard summer was nearly over, and a new year was underway.

  We had spent the last nine months chasing Dani’s dream, and with it now dashed, I stood up to take control as I thought a man should. I tried to design a life Dani could be happy with.

  Dani, who had previously trained in teaching and dressmaking, would become an actress, and the two of us would return to our hometown to make a new start. I went back to the same university to teach. Donna, with her endless generosity, gave me work. And Dani enthusiastically studied acting.

  We spent a lot of nights indoors, watching TV. Our conversations got smaller; our shadows grew larger. Our hearts that had once beat so quickly grew withered and slow.

  When Dani said one day that she wanted to leave I begged her to stay. And she did, for another three months or so. But it was no good. It wasn’t going to work.

  We were unhappy for many months, and we stayed in that unhappiness because we were too scared to move. We didn’t even talk about it.

  I’m surprised we lasted as long as we did. We were two fundamentally different individuals. Dani is a gorgeous person; she taught me all kinds of things about myself that I didn’t know. It was a real and significant relationship for both of us. But, without knowing it, I had fallen into the exact same trap that I had throughout my entire life. Not Crazy Drama Dave, not Gay Dave, but this time ‘Dani’s Boyfriend Dave’. It was a role I had taken on with so much seriousness, it doomed the relationship right from the start. Lovingly light and airy Dani was chained down by my neediness and fear.

  We were standing in the kitchen over bowls of cereal. There was no sound but for the crunching of our breakfast.

  ‘I think I don’t want to be in this relationship anymore,’ she said.

  I nodded, slowly. I wasn’t surprised.

  ‘But I love you,’ she said into the silence.

  ‘I love you too,’ I replied.

  ‘We’ll be friends.’

  ‘We can keep trying,’ I said, but even I was not convinced.

  Dani shook her head. ‘I don’t think it’s meant to be.’

  I left the house and the van and I escaped to Brisbane. I was unsure if I was moving forward, or perpetually moving backward. I kept moving as quickly as possible, because I was too afraid to stop.

  I was single again. I had lost Dani again. I was in this same mental place. Again.

  I found a single bedroom on the ground floor of the lush apartment of a happy couple who lived upstairs. I sank into loneliness.

  My memories of the break-up became warped. I was convinced that Dani had fallen out of love with me. But I was hanging onto her for dear life—how could you just fall out of love with someone? Perhaps we could try an open relationship? Or a six-month break?

  I was in the void again, and the darkness enveloped me more than ever before. I ignored all my past knowledge of how to help myself. I was so tired. It seemed I would never escape the endless cycle I was trapped in.

  Why bother going to a psychologist and getting up off the mat again? I’d had a good run, I reasoned. But I couldn’t be bothered piecing back my identity and putting it into something that would no doubt give way once more. Every time I tried to rebuild myself I ended up in this awful place.

  At the end of the year, I made a concrete plan to end my own life. And I set about putting it into action.

  18

  Too Far Gone

  Killing yourself is not as easy as you might think. It takes commitment and a great deal of planning to do it ‘right’.

  For example, imagine for a moment you get it wrong, and you wake up in a hospital. Then you’re that person. You’re the guy who tried to kill himself. I didn’t want to have to face up to my parents or friends and explain why. I didn’t want everyone watching over me like a hawk for years afterwards. Any time I slipped into a bad mood I’d have to be placed on ‘watch’.

  Worse, what if I only cleared out my consciousness? I imagined my body, thin and pale, under the harsh fluorescence of hospital lights, the soft mechanical beep of a machine promising something that the rest of my body wasn’t. ‘Yes, I am still alive!’ But only just. My mother giving the nod to pull the plug. How awful. I fail to kill myself and force my mother to become a murderer? There are few grander ways to fail as a human being than to put your loved ones in that position.

  Similarly, I didn’t particularly want friends, family or even acquaintances finding my body. This would be too much of a trauma to leave them with.

  I thought a lot about everyone around me. I can’t say it’s the case for all suicidal people, but it was certainly true for me: I didn’t doubt that people cared. I didn’t wish to leave the planet because I wasn’t loved enough. No amount of fierce loving would’ve made me any better.

  It was me. I hated me. I hated the black and endless void inside of me. I was bound up in regret and anxiety and nothingness. I had placed my trust in structures that had slipped out of my hands with heartbreaking fluidity. High school. Sexuality. A girlfriend. All of these things were gone. It didn’t occur to me once to place faith in myself, to figure out who I was—because I was no one. I had no identity. The only thing there was black emptiness.

  And so I told myself I needed to die.

  My mind became obsessed with death. Every ceiling beam became an opportunity to end it all. I saw my body hanging limp, swaying gently from a rope as my soul dissolved into thin air.

  It wasn’t necessarily the method that bothered me. Hanging seemed okay. Possible. A gun was the easiest and quickest. If I had been able to purchase a gun, I probably would have. Drowning was equally possible. A poet’s death. But I was scared my body would betray me, that the end would come too slowly, that I would fight my way to the surface at the last minute, hating myself all the more.

  Still, it was a possibility. The method wasn’t difficult, it was finding a space that was private enough to carry it out.

  I thought of pills, tiny bottles of poison, neat in their finality. But the execution of a drug overdose again may have ended up with my body fighting back. My weak stomach would likely vomit the whole lot up, and what if I only ended up brain dead?

  The thoughts circulated and became coldly precise and deliberate. Planning, figuring it out, looking at how. It seemed only a matter of time. Occasionally, I would have a moment of lucidity, like waking from some terrible nightmare, and then I’d realise that something was terribly wrong. I shouldn’t be thinking this. I needed to do something.

  Talking to Gary seemed too painful. What was the point? I would only end up here in the same void again.

  There was one option that I’d never tried before. And I figured there was nothing to lose.

  In the middle of our suburb was a run-down, overworked medical centre. I had never been in before, but I called and made an appointment to see a GP.


  I read a worn copy of Woman’s Day in the waiting room, surrounded by coughing children and sleepy-eyed parents. In the corner was a Christmas tree. The tinny sound of popular carols leaked through the stereo system. It was December 22nd.

  The young male doctor who called me into his office gave me a benign smile as I sat down.

  ‘What can we do for you?’

  I coughed, embarrassed. If I was going to say it I needed to say it. Just get this done.

  ‘I, uh, I have a history of depression and I’m in the middle of a pretty intense, um…I don’t know…’

  The doctor nodded slowly.

  ‘Are you thinking of hurting yourself?’ he asked, neutrally.

  I looked down. ‘Um, yeah.’

  ‘Have you done anything to hurt yourself?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Are you alone?’

  I was puzzled at that question. What did he mean? Living alone? No friends? I didn’t understand.

  Yes I’m alone! I wanted to scream at him. I’m fucking terrifyingly pants-shittingly alone!!

  ‘Um, I’ve got, um, friends and that.’ (Of course, Amber, Ravi and Donna had no idea about what was going on.)

  ‘Okay,’ the doctor nodded. He scribbled a note quickly on a prescription pad, tore it and handed it to me.

  ‘Have you been on antidepressants before?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Take one of these a day, just before bed. They’ll make you drowsy.’

  That was the entire interaction. I was out of the office within four minutes.

  Puzzled, I called Gary. I wanted to know what the pill was, how it was going to affect me, and if it was addictive. He did some quick research and called me back.

  ‘If you feel like you need it, take it,’ he said. ‘But you should know that there have been some reported cases of it increasing suicidal thoughts, particularly in young men. If you feel like you need it to get you through Christmas, take it. But watch yourself, and you should book an appointment with me.’

  We said goodbye and I hung up, more confused. Did I need it? What if it made things worse? Was it possible to overdose on these things and finish myself off?

  Without thinking, I rang Mum and Dad. After small talk, I explained I had been to a GP.

  ‘Just to help me out. You know. The break-up. I’ve got some pills here.’

  ‘Oh, Dave,’ said Dad, ‘I think that’s the right decision, mate. You need to look after yourself.’

  ‘Come home,’ said Mum. ‘Come home and take the pills and get better.’

  I shrugged it off. ‘It’s no big deal,’ I said.

  We said our goodbyes.

  That night, alone in my bedroom, I swallowed a single pill with water. It was 7pm. Half an hour later, I was soundly asleep. I disappeared inside a forgiving blackness.

  A vibration at my hip stirred me. I felt as though I had gained a hundred kilos. My entire body was heavy, every muscle was lead. I breathed deep, and strained to open my eyes. The light seemed to burn me. I reached for my phone.

  It was Dani. Dani was calling me.

  ‘Hello?’ I said. My voice was dry and crackly.

  ‘Hey,’ she said.

  Silence.

  My brain was moving too slowly to speak. I didn’t know what to say. It was daylight. What time was it?

  ‘Are you okay?’ A voice came from the other end of the line. Dani was on the phone. Dani was calling me, I’d forgotten…

  ‘I’m, uh…’ my voice trailed off.

  ‘Dave?’

  ‘I’ve taken this pill, this antidepressant thing, um.’

  What time was it?

  ‘Oh.’ Her voice was heavy with recognition.

  I was still in my clothes from the day before.

  ‘I’ll speak to you later,’ I said. I hung up the phone and checked the time. It was 11.30am.

  As I slumped my way to the shower, the world around me seemed to shift and change. I felt as though my soul had left my body. Every movement took a strength and an energy that I didn’t possess.

  I stood in the shower and let the hot water course over my body, all the time praying. Please God, please, if you have any kindness, just kill me. Just leave me alone. Please, please, please, let me die.

  I went back to bed. It was the only thing I had any energy to do. If there had been a gun, or even a knife within reaching distance, I would’ve used it.

  But there wasn’t, so I slept for the afternoon.

  When I woke up, slowly coming out of the drug, I knew I wouldn’t be taking it again. There would be no need. I would only live for a few more days.

  After much thought, I arrived at a firm conclusion. A car. It made sense. I was too much of a coward to stab myself, and I knew that drowning would result in me swimming to the shore and vomiting up sea water. My cowardice became another reason for my self-hatred. But gassing myself in my hatchback seemed to be an appropriate end.

  I had been considering it for some time. On a final trip to reclaim my things from the house I shared with Dani, I had stolen a garden hose and hidden it in the back of my car. It had been there for weeks, waiting for me to make the final act.

  I put a pile of old towels on the back seat. These would help with the circulation of the fumes. I had seen on television that you were supposed to line the windows and doors with towels, to make sure none of the poisonous gas escaped or became diluted.

  Not wanting to ruin Christmas forever for those I was leaving behind, I vowed to hold on for another week. I spent it with my extended family, and then I had a couple of days with Mum and Dad.

  The time with them made me feel some guilt. I needed to make sure I had done everything I could to find happiness again.

  I went to see Dani one more time to plead my case.

  We met at a coffee shop. I was taken aback by what I found. Dani was joyous, relaxed and free. She was a different woman from the one I had come to know in the last six months of our relationship. She was happy.

  ‘I’d forgotten how much I loved men!’ she squealed, laughing, telling me of the pleasure she was finding in being able to flirt again.

  Even in my sadness, I realised that this was the way it had to be. Dani was just being Dani, and I couldn’t ask her to be anything other than who she was. I had to let her go. She was already gone. There was no going back.

  I had seen my friends that day also. We had played boardgames at Ted’s house. I had the opportunity to speak to Amber. I had a brother and sister there, with ears to listen. It didn’t matter. I was too far gone.

  My car was ready.

  I was ready.

  This was it.

  Outside my Brisbane home, I sat in the front seat of my car and tried to think of where I could go to park the car and be alone. Outside, the rain was pouring down, and I wondered how this would affect the fumes. It was late afternoon. I would find a spot, perhaps my beloved wheatfield that I had dreamed of all those years ago, and drift off
into the sunset.

  I googled my method on my phone. I wanted to make sure I was doing it right. As the sun set, the rain got heavier, and the sky turned dark grey. The bright screen blinked back at me and I saw my plan for suicide slowly melt away in the rain. My romantic vision of a field disappeared. I’d need an enclosed space for the fumes to work. I would have to make peace with the thought of the kind couple who lived upstairs finding me in their garage.

  That made matters more difficult.

  A quick scan of Wikipedia brought up other problems. Cars made after the 1970s have a catalytic converter installed in them, which drastically reduces the toxicity of their fumes. My car was made in 2000. Unleaded and ethanol fuels were dramatically ineffective. I had, of course, filled my car with ethanol fuel.

  Dammit.

  I started the car and drove. I drove for two hours. The road was slick with wet, and I contemplated the vision of my crumpled car careering off the highway. But unless I put myself into the path of another vehicle, I couldn’t guarantee my own demise. And I didn’t want to traumatise some innocent truck driver. I was trying desperately to think of a nice and generous way to kill myself.

  No such thing exists. You cannot erase the marks you leave behind.

  I found myself, almost without thinking, at my parents’ doorstep.

  It was midnight by the time I pulled in. Uncharacteristically, my father was still up. I didn’t realise it, but I was crying. I had been crying for hours.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I insisted as I sobbed.

  Dad nodded. I hadn’t cried in front of him for years. The rest of the house was still and quiet.