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The Magdalene Message

Beginnings

By John ThomsonPublished 6 years ago 22 min read
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I had to spend years in my own darkness before gazing into her smiling hazel eyes, eyes which had seen the beauty and the horror of events which had taken place nearly two thousand years ago.

Two thousand years.

Where do I even begin? How do I share with you about the events which took place at the beginning of spring in 2011? How do I write a true story which is impossible to believe?

A good friend recently said to me, "Why don't you keep it simple? Why don't you just write it and let them decide what to believe?"

So here I am with my story—the story of how an insignificant and once broken man came face to face with the most controversial woman in the history of humankind.

The Magdalene.

Does this sound insane? Of course it does. But did it really happen? Yes it did.

But there's more.

Her appearance before me in a small and humble home in a city suburb on the west coast of England had a purpose. It was to ask me to tell the story of the truth of her. A truth which has never been written. And she also gave me a message. A message for everyone and the reason why the injustice of an imminent time of total conflict must happen for mankind to see that another way must be found to bring balance to the world.

For years afterwards I struggled with, "Why me?" And I still struggle with it. But over time there's been a gradual acceptance that it could only be someone like me. It could only be a man of no religion who would accept the responsibility of telling her story because those of religion would refuse to believe her story.

Am I afraid? Of course I'm afraid. Will I write about how it came to pass that she told me her story? Yes, I will. And so I'll begin...

It was early morning—7 June 2010.

I awoke at 3 AM. I was lying in a filthy bed in a single room in a homeless hostel on the east coast of England.

The town was Ipswich and my surroundings were a far cry from the lavish home that I once owned north of the border in Scotland.

The bed was filthy because I was filthy. Covered in my own vomit and urine. I was a stinking mess laying on top of the bed wearing only a pair of ripped and soaked combat trousers which I’d been wearing for days.

I could barely breathe. My tongue was swollen and dry, gasping for air and craving fluids. I was so dehydrated.

Barely able to stand, I made it to the dirty sink and drank from the tap. I could feel life seeping back into me but then the craving started and the panic began.

It was early morning and there was nowhere to buy alcohol at that time.

Frantically I searched the room, feverishly searching for what I knew would take the fear and the pain away. But there was nothing, only empty bottles of vodka.

I sat on the bed and felt the fear rise. I just wanted to cry but I was too afraid of what was coming to shed any tears. The fear was building as my body began to spasm and the tightening inside my stomach began.

I was going into shock. I was going into withdrawal.

I couldn’t sit still.

I was "climbing the walls." My heart was racing and my panic was rising. I knew what was coming because I’d been there before, so many times, in that terrible place where most people with my illness have been.

Withdrawal from alcohol. Time and time again.

My experience of withdrawing from alcohol without medical attention is vast and nothing less than horrific.

The fear and the physical pain becomes unbearable and there’s only one solution. Alcohol.

Withdrawal for someone like me is dangerous. It can kill.

Heart racing. Panic attacks. Convulsions. Stomach-churning gagging.

Pacing the tiny room over and over again. Pacing and pacing as the withdrawal took its grip and my illness hurt me.

In this desperate state, I would do anything for a drink. Anything to make the pain go away and make the fear subside to once again allow me to sink into that comfortable nothingness. And it's nothingness which an alcoholic like me knows only too well.

Alcohol. My saviour and my sanity. That’s how insane my reality had become.

Constantly looking at my watch to see if any time had passed. No time.

I did that for five hours and all the time my body gripped in spasms, screaming for a release from the pain. Screaming for alcohol. I did that for five hours.

I staggered to my feet and somehow made it over to the broken mirror on the wall. The stained wall above the dirty sink. My face was swollen and red, skin covered in slime. My eyes were yellow. My eyes were bleeding. I was dying.

Why?

Leaning against the dirty sink filled with dozens of cigarette butts and vomit, I stared into the mirror and asked myself, "What happened to you? Where did it all go wrong?"

The same questions over and over again. The same questions for five hours. The same baffled and confused stare at my reflection as the horror of my situation played over and over in my mind. Not the situation of having lost everything in my life, but the situation of having to somehow dig deep within myself to find the strength and the will to endure the madness long enough until I could buy more alcohol.

My will was powerful but my body was shutting down.

Legs buckling through exhaustion and a craving for relief. I sat once again on the edge of the bed with no covers. I looked down at my swollen stomach. So painful. Bladder filled with what was left from my vodka frenzy from hours before.

I needed relief but there was no toilet in the small dark room. The bathroom was in the hallway only yards away from where I sat, but I didn’t want anyone to see me. And yet at the same time, all sense of decency had been abandoned for weeks as my only thought was how I could my next drink.

My stomach was swollen and the pain was adding to the stress of my withdrawal. The solution was simple to my state of mind.

I undid the buttons of my combat trousers and relieved myself over the edge of the bed and onto the carpet. The stream of hot steaming urine seemed endless as it splashed onto the floor, soaking one of my feet which was without a sock. I didn’t care about the consequences or the smell. I was a person lost in the most misunderstood illness known to the world. Lost and without dignity.

Empty and lost.

The emptiness I felt during those hours surrounds me now as I write.

I know that I’m no longer there anymore yet the feeling of numbness embraces me once again as I write these words.

There is a realization that I’m no longer in that dark place. A darkness in my life that seems so long ago.

The feeling of nothingness had embraced my life for such a long time that I’d conditioned myself to not feeling much at all and was devoid of feelings for years.

The reality is, as I know now, I could and did feel. I just didn’t know how to process them for what they were. A common thread which seems to link us all together. People like me. People who live with my illness.

So it was with a feeling of emptiness that I emptied myself onto a very worn and very seventies style carpet in a homeless hostel on the east coast of England.

My life had been reduced to this state and I felt nothing. My life had been a success and all of that success had gone—taken away by myself and my lust for alcohol.

Only five years earlier, I had been enjoying lunch alongside Royalty in Edinburgh. My life was no more and everything that I had worked hard for had gone. All who I had loved wanted nothing to do with me.

It seemed my end was close. Yet all I could think of was my next drink.

A summer’s morning was breaking outside, so I began struggling to get dressed. My clothes were ragged and stank of urine but I didn’t care. My only thought was buying alcohol.

My immediate reality was that I could barely walk.

I stumbled down the two flights of carpeted stairs and into the reception area. I was so happy to find that there was no one around to see the state that I was in. No one to see my truth. Yet it would have been impossible for them not to know that I was chronic and in serious trouble.

The walk from the hostel to the shop was terrible. Weak with exhaustion from having not eaten in a week. My body in spasms. Baulking bile. I almost passed out on the pavement.

There was no way that I could walk properly so I stopped trying to pretend that I could and staggered my way along the busy rush hour sidewalk towards the shop that sold what I needed. The shop which sold what my body craved.

Somehow I managed to make it. I was early and had to wait for 20 minutes for the shop to open. I stood outside the premises. I was hunched over with fear at what I had become.

I was nothing.

Life walked by on their way to work. People strolling with a purpose in the early morning sunlight with thoughts of what lay ahead for them in whatever it was that they did for a living. People who had something to live for. People with lives and friends and family.

The living.

My life was gone and I didn’t care. Not for them or for myself. I actually stood and watched them walking by and pitied them as they strolled on towards their mundane existence.

My insanity was almost complete.

The placebo effect of my imminent purchase embraced me with a sense of relief. Then a question to myself, "Why does Ipswich stink of piss?"

The stink of piss of then walked into the shop as the shop doors opened.

"No!"

I began to cry when the shop owner refused to sell me two bottles of vodka.

The woman behind the counter told me leave the premises and to see a doctor. My fear escalated to blind panic as I begged her to help me. I begged her to sell me the bottles. I fumbled inside my pocket and produced the money needed to buy the alcohol. But she wasn’t interested.

Tears were streaming down my face as I confessed to being an alcoholic.

I was expecting pity but what I found was a woman who saw my truth and my truth was that I was in trouble. My truth was that I was likely to end up dead if another drop of alcohol were to pass my lips.

The woman behind the shop counter did the right thing. She could have made a profit that day, but instead she refused to serve me and told me to get medical help. The woman then told me to leave her premises or she would phone the police.

I pocketed my cash and staggered out of the shop.

My admission to being an alcoholic was dishonest. Despite my terrible circumstances, I remained in denial.

I knew it had all gone horribly wrong but I couldn’t seem to marry the substance abuse with my problems and with my consequences. I only confessed to being an alcoholic to find pity in order to manipulate the situation so that I could get what I wanted. To get what I needed.

I didn’t find pity that morning. I found compassion. One human being saw another in distress and the result was genuine concern from a caring place, "See a doctor!"

The woman saw the truth of me and it was a truth I couldn’t see.

Blinded by my illness, I left the shop. I was still in tears and with a new-found resolve. It wasn't to find medical help. It was to find a way to get what I needed.

I’d do anything.

When someone like me is in active addiction, I will do anything to get what I need to make the pain and the fear go away.

Once again, I found myself standing outside the shop on that sunny summer’s morning and once again I stood in shock as life strolled on past me.

My cash was still in my hand. The nearest store which sold alcohol was almost a mile away but my body was shutting down and I was losing the final pockets of strength that I had within me. So something had to be done and it had to be done quickly.

It was at this point in my madness, standing on the pavement, that I reached my rock bottom.

The people walking on their way to work. They were the same people who I had earlier pitied for their mundane existence. They were to be my salvation in getting what I needed. Wearing filthy and ripped clothing and stinking of urine, vomit and alcohol, I asked complete strangers if they would go into the shop and buy vodka for me?

When making this request to these people, it was at that point that I lost all respect for myself and all respect for them.

Three people were subjected to my pleas for help in buying what was essentially killing me. Three times I was rejected with looks of anger and contempt.

Not only was I hurting myself, but I was also hurting those who I asked for help. I saw the fear in their eyes as they saw my truth and it was a truth which scared them.

That was my rock bottom. But it was to get worse as that summer’s day continued and I staggered on along the street in my own madness.

I found my salvation.

The memory of how I eventually found the vodka still eludes me. I must have somehow managed the mile walk into the town center despite my body shutting down.

Hours after the lowest point in my active addiction I found myself back in the small and stinking room of the homeless hostel with two plastic carrier bags filled with alcohol at my feet.

A bottle had already been opened and half of the contents were gone. I must have found a shop somewhere. Bought the vodka. Walked outside and onto the street. Opened the bottle and swallowed half of it in front of anyone who happened to be walking by.

What people thought of me was no longer an issue. I had reached new depths as I touched the bottom.

It would have been highly unlikely that I would have made it back to my room if I hadn’t managed to get strong alcohol into my body. The withdrawals would have eventually brought me to my knees and then into an ambulance. Yet another ambulance. So many over the years.

So I made it back with bags filled with alcohol but this time there was no joy at my success. Instead, there was another realization which was replacing the usual elation.

Sitting on the edge of my bed and covered in week-old sweat and stink, I opened up the bottle again and began drinking myself into another state of unconsciousness. Into my welcoming embrace of nothingness.

The sounds of that summer’s day breezed their way through my open window as the warm and welcome glow of the vodka filled me from within.

A beautiful and welcome relief. Relief to body and mind empty of the spirit it so desperately needed to feel.

Drifting into the blackness and the solution appeared before me. And for the first time in so many years I felt at peace.

It was the afternoon when I awoke.

Once again the realization of where I was and what was happening. Once again I was filled with terror.

My first thought was alcohol. Nothing else.

Terror gripped me as I couldn’t remember if there was anything left over from my earlier binge.

"Oh God, please! Please, God, please!"

I slumped over the edge of the bed and looked down onto the floor. Two full bottles of vodka were in full view and my relief was overwhelming.

Time and time again I had awakened from the blackness only to find that all of the bottles were empty.

An alcoholic can go into a state of blackout and then awaken and continue to drink. And then pass out again and never remember.

Despite my state of mind and despite my distress at what had become of me, I still remembered the choice I’d made before drinking myself into a state of unconsciousness only hours earlier.

My decision bestowed me with a sense of calm as I opened one of the two remaining bottles. My final two bottles of alcohol. My last ever.

The solution had been made clear to me and it was a solution so simple. Simple in taking all the pain away and making everything right again.

It seemed to me that I’d found serenity as the realization of what I needed to do became so obviously simple and clear.

Remove the problem and all of my problems would be removed.

I was the problem.

I gave myself 30 minutes to drink as much as I could and smoke a few cigarettes. And then I'd get rid of the problem.

The problem was me.

The problem was me and I was hurting those who loved and cared for me.

My hurt to them had gone on for long enough and now it was time for the hurt to end. So it had to be my end.

I loved them all so much and I knew that they would miss me terribly. They would mourn me and suffer in a terrible way in knowing that they would never see me again.

Those who loved me. Those who cared for me. They would miss me. But in time they would forget me and their hurt would subside as they moved on with their lives on their own journeys in this life.

My end would hurt them but it was so clear to me that I had to meet my own end so that they could be spared. They had to be spared the fear and hurt at seeing me this way. Spared in seeing what I’d become.

My failure in life had to end for the sake of those who loved me.

I believed that once gone to wherever I was going, once it was done, I would ask to return to watch over them and be with them to make sure that no further harm would come of them.

Belief is something that I’ve always had, even in that stinking room and it was with this faith that I made a decision to end myself so that I could care for those who loved me so that I could care for them and stop their pain.

The way out had become clear. A moment of clarity in the darkness of where I was. The way out had become clear and the way out was through the window of the room for the homeless.

I calmly sat and drank. I calmly sat and smoked. I even listened to some music and watched the seconds tick by as time approached my deadline.

It went quickly.

For days the time had passed so slowly as I sat in my mire.

Now it was time.

Staggering to my feet, I took one final look into the broken mirror and stared straight into what I saw. And what I saw was nothingness.

I grabbed the chair and pushed it up against the wall below the open window.

Pulling myself up and onto the chair, I leaned out and then looked down and saw the pavement so far below.

There were three people standing below. They were just standing and talking to one another. An older man and two young women.

The trio stood below and to the left of where my fall would take me. So I was grateful for that. I was grateful they wouldn’t be hurt.

My thoughts during those final seconds remain clear. At the very least, there would be multiple injuries or body broken. These injuries would stop the pain. Ideally, if I could land on my neck then the outcome should be final.

The drop was at least 30 feet. One final fall. One final fall to grace. A grace from which I had fallen. One final fall would stop my hurt to others.

I leaned back into the room on top of the chair and it was just enough distance to be able to throw myself forward.

There was just enough strength left within me with the little that I had left within me. I grabbed the sides of the window and with force, I threw myself forward.

This was no cry for help. No plea for another chance at life.

I threw myself with such force at the open window.

It was the top floor. Window left.

Struggling. Fighting. I couldn’t make it through the opening.

I found myself stuck.

Hanging high above the pavement as my body was jammed at the waist in the metal frame.

The man and the two women were still standing on the pavement below and oblivious to what was going on so far above them. And all I could think was, "Please don’t look up. Please don’t see me like this!"

My image.

Despite the horror of what was going on for me and despite what I was doing to myself, my only thought was what others would think of me as I dangled high above and with the sole intention of ending my own life.

It was insane. It was insane because I'd become insane.

Then my sanity abandoned me altogether.

In that moment, there was a realization. It was a moment of clarity about something that had always bothered me. Something I’d never really been able to understand. And it took that desperate moment in my life to become enlightened to what it meant.

"So this is what they mean when they say is the glass half full or half empty?"

Despite what was happening, my darker-than-dark sense of humor remained and it was a welcoming comfort for me because my sanity had clearly jumped out of the window before me.

I began to laugh to myself.

Somehow I managed to wriggle myself free and ended up back in the room where I sat on the edge of the bed.

The laughter departed. Hopelessness returned and once again I found myself in the grip of my own darkness and in the grasp of my own nothingness.

I felt lost as my only hope had gone. Lost as I realized that I couldn’t even end my suffering and the suffering of those I loved. The sense of uselessness amid the nothingness overwhelmed me. I couldn’t even end my own life.

I was useless to myself and to the world.

Sitting alone in the stinking room as I felt the tears well up from deep within me. And then my phone rang.

The ringing broke my isolation.

For one full week I had sat alone. Drinking and willing no contact with the world around me.

My phone was ringing and something inside of me sensed to me to answer the call. So I did.

His name was Ed and he was my community psychiatric nurse. A kind and caring man. A gifted professional in his field of mental health care and a man who had done everything to help me get well and to help me heal from the harm that I was doing to myself.

Ed had spent eight long months doing his best to treat me and to help me to find peace with myself. And time and time again, it had always ended in a dark place. My dark place. And by my own doing.

He asked me where I was. I answered and told him what was happening.

He told me to stay put as he would be with me within 20 minutes. I said I would remain in the room. He told me there was one final option. He told me there was one final chance for me. A decision had been made by his superiors. They'd agreed to find the funding to send me somewhere that could help me.

They were going to send me to rehab.

I promised Ed that I wouldn’t move until he arrived. And then I hung up.

A chance. I had a chance.

I sat on the edge of the bed and became aware of a sense. It was a feeling that I’d forgotten. It was a feeling I hadn’t felt for such a long time.

It was Hope.

Looking down at the worn 70s carpet, I saw that there was still some vodka in one of the bottles. But I didn’t pick it up.

It seemed as if the stinking room had become very quiet. So very quiet.

It felt like I was being held close by a complete silence and it felt like I wasn't alone.

And then as I was still looking at the vodka bottle I felt the silent words within the room, "No more for you! You have suffered enough!"

I’m sitting in tears as I write these words.

Hope.

There was no urge to drink before he arrived. I just sat and waited.

Then my friend Ed arrived. And with him was two precious gifts.

The first was himself. The second was the start of my recovery from alcohol and the beginning of an experience which would see me meet a very wise and gifted woman who lived nearly two thousand years ago.

The Magdalene.

To be continued...

psychological
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About the Creator

John Thomson

Author. Filmmaker. Clairvoyant. Bristol, England.

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