I weighed somewhere around 88kg (I'm 5'8",that's a lot!)

Was at a shitty point in my life, if I'm honest. Pretty bloody low.

Freelance work wasn't happening, debt, overweight, single, knocking on 25 with seemingly nothing to show for it, friends all moved to London leaving me stuck 'out in the sticks'. Felt pretty much on my own.

Got part time job at a bar/restaurant, minum wage and unsociable hours but it paid and I started climbing out of my overdraft.

Gave online dating a go, why not eh?

Met someone really cool and cute, started seeing them for dates and the like (we even had a weekend away together).

Unfortunately, she called it off after a few months - a short (but nonetheless enjoyable) time. Devastated. But managed to make it down to 78kg with some romantic inspiration, while it lasted.

Started working more and more to avoid sitting at home, feeling sorry for myself.

It's now nearly Christmas. Workload ramps up like CRAZY with customers' Xmas parties with their friends and colleagues and whatnot.

End up working all day Christmas Eve and CHRISTMAS DAY at the restaurant. Cock ups by our formal manager means things in my section don't exactly go as planned and I can't do anything about it. I essentially had my first (and so far only) panic attack, mid-shift. I get put on a simple task for the remaining 5 hours and finish the day without making TOO much of a fool of myself.

Looking back, I'd ended up at the lowest point in my life. I seriously considered leaving the bar Christmas night and not going back to my family and just driving off somewhere. I wouldn't tell anyone that I'd gone or where I was going and I planned on not coming back. I had visions of driving to Scotland, parking at a beach, filling my pockets with rocks and walking into the sea. Reading all if this so far, it sounds like an overly dramatic reaction to a shit day, but it was the culmination of years of down times, bad luck and tough breaks. Straw that broke the camel's back, and all that.

I decided that I should not do that, and I'd probably fuck it up anyway. I decided to go home, see my family and have 'mock Christmas' on boxing day.

Get home Xmas night, having completely exhausted myself. I spend until early January ill and crashed out on a sofa, occasionally getting up to exchange gifts with my family and eat roast potatoes.

During this time, I'd reasoned out that I had done no freelance work and nothing toward my career for MONTHS whilst I was at the bar. I decided to severely reduce my hours at work to allow me to do gigs at weekends (when most people need my work).

I go back to work on the 5th, with my speech ready to give to my manager about fewer hours/more freelance work. I'm basically told that it would be unfair on the other employees and that I would be better handing in my notice. I bit the bullet and decided to quit.

However, I'd forgotten about the work Christmas party. It was tonight and the ONLY time the bar was closed, one evening a year. I decided that I'd treat this like a farewell party for work. What's more, it was FREE DRINKS all night at another bar (perks of working for a pub chain) and they'd paid entry for all of us to go on to a club after.

We all went to the bar and that's when the free vodka started - and our friends were pouring the drinks, so singles ended up as doubles and doubles ended up as QUADRUPLES.

My last memory was at about 11-11:30pm, before we were due to leave for the club.

My next memory was at some point the next day, probably at around noon.

There were bright lights and strange aches and pains, and a doctor stood over me.

"Can you hear me? You've had a bit of an accident, you're in hospital and we're taking you to surgery", I remember him saying.

Now, some if this is based on CCTV and some is purely conjecture but it's the best account that I can assemble, given the circumstances. I have absolutely no memory of ANY of this - vodka is magic stuff, isn't it?!

It transpires that we had in fact gone to the club (despite my dislike of clubs) and people remember me arriving and not much else.

I believe that I must have grown tired of it pretty quickly and decided to leave via the exit - only I must have not picked the regular 'exit' and unwittingly taken the 'fire exit'.

Being in the basement of a large, multistorey building, the fire exit lead to a stairwell. Stairwells in big buildings with lots of businesses in them don't tend to have doors that open from the stairwell into the building, as anyone could break into the stairwell and get into any level of the building. This being the case the only door that I would have been able to open would have been onto the roof. (again I remember NONE of this).

Now the roof of this building is huge and flat, and I don't know if I drunkenly assumed that I was on pavement (perhaps a large car park) or whatever, but I must have ended up wandering round.

I must have wandered quite a bit, as I evidently ended up wandering OFF THE EDGE OF THE ROOF.

I fell 4 stories, onto a SPIKED fence surrounding an electricity sub station, falling inside the chain link fence of the station.

I had collapsed my lungs, ruptured my spleen, broken multiple ribs, scratched my skull and knocked myself out - and I remained there until I was discovered by a passer-by at approx 10 o'clock THE NEXT MORNING.

Being early January, it was pretty cold to be outside and unconscious for 10 hours, so I ended up with a pretty bloody serious case of hypothermia too. I apparently had a 'near-death' core temperature of 26°c, which I was later told actually helped me survive having collapsed lungs for so long.

I spent 9 days in hospital, where I had my spleen removed, stitched here-there-and-everywhere and was briefly on a breathing machine.

My family were by my bedside the whole time and all my friends rallied around to visit me when I got out of hospital to continue my recovery at home.

I was amazing to feel so much love from everyone and horrific to see what I'd put everyone in my life through by nearly dyeing. I had seriously contemplated doing it for real - and the thought of what misery I would have left for the people I would leave behind made me feel terrible that I had contemplated taking my own life such a short while ago.

During my recovery, my small group of best friends even clubbed together and bought me something to pass the hours/days/weeks of rest: a brand new........ Xbox One!

And now I'm fully recovered, working freelance and weigh 73kg!

Thanks for reading what has been a therapeutic but way too long post. Sorry for the occasional all - caps words.

TL;DR: A near-fatal accident bought be a new found lease on life, weight loss and an xbox.