Month: June 2017

Originally posted 30 June 2017 via Blogger. Post copied like for like.

 You wake up in the morning ready for school/work/Jeremy Kyle every day. Same thing goes through your mind as a first thought…. Give me a cig……..Get me some coffee………Shut up you noisy git……..I need a wee………or for the very lucky…Hello world. It is at this point you get out of bed right? Or is it?
Imagine waking up in the morning and feeling like you have just awoken from a weekend bender. Your head is spinning around, the noises are making you want to keep your eyes closed until they go away, your body feels week & limp and a big urge to cry yourself back to sleep. Everyone else is running around doing the usual morning rituals, the birds are singing what’ on any other day would be a beautiful song and the sun is shining through that crack in the curtains we just cant cover up no matter what you try. Yet you’re still lay there wanting it all to end. I don’t want to move, I don’t want to go to work, I don’t want to face the world I just want to be left alone to lay in a ball and slowly sleep myself to death. It is at that point your mind starts to upset you more. It’s telling you’ you need to take the children to school, you won’t get paid if you don’t go into work, you need to “adult”…… Well I don’t want to adult, I don’t want to be grown up anymore…… Someone bring me my childhood back. But wait, that wasn’t the best either. It was the same as adulting apart from me being in a lot more debt than I ever was as a 5 year old. As I sit here now writing this I am struggling to remember a day where I jumped out of bed as soon as I awoke and I was smiling. I know them days once existed but I just can’t remember them anymore. 

So what can I do to cope with the big scary world?

Not the easiest task I must say. Trial and error never became such a task as it has with distraction.
“I need to tell my mind not to think the way it thinks”….. What the hell type of advice is that? I need to tell my mind, I never told you to train your mind to hide the cookie you are shoving in your gob did I? Who would say such a thing to someone with depression so bad they would randomly stab them self with a fork or a knife without a care of it happening or someone with such bad anxiety they can’t leave the house on there own, without a hoodie and without a pill bottle that rattles more than a babies toy. Yes you guessed it, a practice nurse gave me this wonderful advice whilst shoving her gob with Maryland cookies and a Starbucks coffee. This was just before the worst part of my life yet she never gave it a second thought. I left her office feeling worse than I felt before I went in. Cheers love, I hope the cookie chokes you I said as I was leaving.

I am currently at the point where I can’t leave the house without the few essentials.
Mobile phone with built in games or a PSP
Wallet with spare change for the coffee machine if I need to distract my focal points
Earphones to block out the world
Hoodie to block out the world
Set of keys to keep between my finger if anxiety its too hard
A bottle of Promazine for the same reason and
A Fidget Cube. Yes you heard that correctly…. A Fidget Cube.

What is a Fidget Cube?

Whilst the country is playing with fidget spinners, I have happily adapted to using the fidget cube. Same price as a fidget spinner but less chance of causing any damage. Usually in a “social environment” I can be seen clicking away with my cube whilst navigating through the masses of people showing my “game face”. For those who don’t know what a game face is, it’s the face you show the world whilst muttering the words “I’m fine”.
Recently my anxiety has been put to the test practically every day and the cube has been an amazing coping mechanism.

What are your real coping mechanisms I hear you ask? 

I’ve looked for many safe ways to cope with my issues however once my episodes hit it all goes out of the window. I’ve had gloves filled with ice in the freezer but they’re no good there when I am on the floor screaming and shaking. I’ve tried a band on the wrist but that’s only good for light anxiety issues. I’ve tried counting backwards or saying the alphabet backwards but that just makes me look like I have Tourettes on top of my other issues. I’ve even tried drugs and alcohol in my late teens but that just made me worse and go off the rails. The only way I am able to calm myself when I can’t cope no more is by hitting my head. I punch it, I slap it, I hit it with the palm of my hand, I hit it off floors, walls, doors or anything to my disposal. If I am not hitting my head I am punching inanimate objects like walls or doors. I just want the feel the new pain so I don’t feel the pain I am already in. I would never hit a person, just inanimate objects. If I am able to I go for walks. I won’t take anything with me, I just go for random walks. Recently I’ve found myself walking to the local hospital so if things do get too much I am able to get help quick but the walk usually calms me down and knackers me out at the same time. 
The problem with self harming is people struggle to cope with it. It’s hard for people to accept that self harming is “normal” to me when it is abnormal to everyone else. If I’m self harming, chances are I am in a bad place and all I need is to be either left alone or to be comforted yet panic sets in and everyone acts different. It is for this reason I try to take myself away from everyone when I do this. 

Gaming

One thing I have found helps me a lot with my anxiety is gaming. Whether it be a game on my mobile phone, a PSP game, a strategy game or a game on the PS4, I know immersing myself into a game helps me to distract myself from what is going on around me. When I am in a game I feel I am no longer on this cruel world instead I am in gaming world where I don’t have too deal with anyone other than AI’s and the odd fellow gamer. Never underestimate the power of a car racing game or a strategy game, they are more than just toys I assure you.


No matter what your coping strategy is or how you see people with mental issues, please remember we are all cut from the same cloth but every cloth has a different stain to talk about. 
Thank you for taking the time to read my rambles. Your love means a lot to me.
Stevie

P.S. I’f you’re going to get a cube I recommend getting a couple as you never know when you are going to use it. 
Ciao 

Originally posted 29 June 2017 to Blogger. Copied over like for like 18/03/2024.

 Simple answer…..Nothing, absolutely nothing.

Just like the vast majority of the world I was produced as a result of my parents doing the unthinkable in a bedroom (I hope) and then 9 months later along came the awesomeness that is me.

I am also willing to put money down that one day I will be shuffling off this mortal coil just like every one of you also. Except for maybe Bruce Forsyth, that guy will live forever. The only thing that makes me different to you, your siblings or the guy walking down the road with his bus spotting gear under his arm (I can see him walking down the road now as he does every Tuesday and Friday) is what has happened in my life to get me to where I am today. 
The question we should be asking is…..

What is my mental health history?

Growing up, depression was the taboo that women hid from others and men denied ever affected them. If you was having a “down day” you was told to suck it up and get over it. Anti-depressants were “housewives little helpers” and the mentally ill were locked up in the hospitals and treated like animals, doped up to the eyes on every drug they can throw at them only to be sent home to start the cycle again ensuring they return within 6 months if still alive. 20 years ago wasn’t much better either. Mental health was still a taboo however it was more open and talked about in womens circles. It was a new world, the millennium was just a few years away and people were becoming more “modern”, or so we thought….
With my childhood (if you could call it that) years coming to an end, the life I had experienced was already taking it’s toll. What I now know to be depression was starting to hit in and it was knocking me for 6. I was struggling to move out of my be each morning, wanting to be swallowed up and removed from the ugly world outside. I didn’t want to be alive, I didn’t want to exist, I just wanted it all to end. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case… there was a world outside and it existed whether I did or not. Nothing would change except just one less number on the existence we call life.
It was at that point I had 2 choices playing over in my head…. Do I suck it up, go to school and exist through the day as I was meant to or I could have ended it….. Except there was a problem, I couldn’t be bothered to do anything let along go ahead with the copious ways I had envisaged within my mind before even that exhausted me some more.
I’d like to say this was a one off but unfortunately this was just one of millions (I’m to lazy to guess how many really) I was to encounter. Even today I didn’t want to get out of bed, I didn’t want to exist, I just wanted to magically vanish from the earth into a random black hole. At first I thought this was normal for teenagers to experience or maybe normal for someone who had gone through what I had for the past 15 years.
I was called many names during the start of these days including a “lazy arse”, a “waste of space”, a boring sod” and my favourite one ever a “waste of valuable oxygen”. If only they knew I thought exactly the same about myself so I didn’t need them to tell me. Unfortunately my ever active life called me to come out of hiding, put on my “I’m Fine” mask and carry on with the life I loathed so much.

Many events happened during my childhood and teenage years which I will be going to in depth in future blogs however lets just say it wasn’t a normal childhood no matter how much I tried telling myself it was. No young boy should have to experience the childhood I experienced. I suppose it is my childhood and what was to follow that makes me the man I am today. It has taken me far too many years to build the confidence to do something like this. I won’t say I am “well” or “strong” as that would be lying, all I will say is I am ready to talk about what makes me the person I am today.

Have you ever woken up and felt so depressed you couldn’t build yourself to do anything that day. You don’t want to talk to anyone and you don’t want to see anyone? What would you tell your boss the reason for your absence is? Stomach bug? Food poisoning? Diarrhoea? Headache?…… Headache was my chosen “reason” for sickness but as the depression got worse I was being almost harassed by many to go get myself checked out. After a full year of tests, tablets and specialists I finally came clean to my doctor. I told him why I couldn’t get out of bed and how I felt every day. He looked at me like I had just asked for his first born to sacrifice to the mental health gods. I will never forget the response from him……… “Why don’t you stop being lazy, get up every morning and grow a set of balls”. It was at this point that I went a bit off the rails. I moved away, I found drink, I found drugs and I found violence was a quick fix to the depression. I was a bit of a scrapper when I needed to be anyway but I found pub fights was a great way to self harm without doing it myself. Unfortunately I can’t say for certain if it was my life experiences or the “chemical imbalance” in my head but something wasn’t right and I needed help.
Eventually I found a different doctor and finally received a referral to get some help at the age of 20…….. or so I thought. I went on a never ending waiting list of which I am still waiting for today. I keep my fingers crossed that I will get a call from Trafford Mental Health one day following the referral they received in 2002.

My depression was getting worse, my mood swings were getting worse also. I didn’t want to mingle with the people outside, I didn’t want to exist and I didn’t want to converse with anyone. With no help at hand and not being able to get up in the morning I became nocturnal. I started working nights so I wouldn’t have to get up in the morning, instead I was getting up in the evening and it suited me just fine I didn’t have to interact with the world just a handful of people each day. My idea of heaven. It was only when I met The love of my Life Carmela in 2005 that I started to feel a bit better. I had something to exist for and someone who loved me unconditionally. Until then I had struggled with relationships. I struggled to trust, I struggled to believe in myself and I told my mind they had found every floor in me and would push me away so I would walk away first. This is partially to do with my childhood and partially to do with my first love but we will talk about that another time.
In the same year along came my little princess Katie. Not to Carmela unfortunately but t someone else who will probably come up in one of my blogs soon. Anyway I am digressing a little.

The dreaded downers were still about however Carmela was telling me how along with my downers came some very scatty and active up times. My voice would change, my actions would change and I would act like a little child who has been eating smarties all day. We approached the doctor once again and finally I was given a successful referral to a mental health clinic in Cheatham Hill. It was here that I received my first diagnoses of Cyclothymia (Bipoalr 2) and referred for psychological help. Unfortunately this is where the help ended at the time. Manchester Mental Health were adamant they had sent an appointment to me however it wasn’t received. They decided to call me 2 weeks after this appointment date to tell me they had kicked me off the list, removed the referral and no way of getting to see anyone for at least a year. It turned out years later I was to find out they sent my appointment to someone else but they didn’t want to admit that to me at the time.
This news came at what was a very bad part of my life. For reasons I will go into on other blogs, things got to much for me. I couldn’t handle life anymore and I wanted it to end. It was this time that I attempted my life for the 4th time so far. At the time I was taking a high dose of Amytriptaline for my “high blood pressure” (the doctor refused to accept the initial diagnoses from the mental health clinic and was adamant it wasn’t a valid condition). I hadn’t taken these tablets as I am very forgetful like that however Carmela was not so forgetful so the prescriptions were piling up. It was at this point I took 3 months worth (100ish). I awoke that morning having had an argument with my daughters mother the night before over my contact being stopped so a stupid reason, looked at the love of my life who was dying every day right in front of me to cancer and I was having flashbacks from childhood. I looked in my draw and found the pile of tablets Without a thought I popped every single one out of the foil into my cuff link box and binned to boxes downstairs. I then proceeded to swallow the pills a handful at a time all whilst Carmela was asleep next to me. After taking every single pill I lay down next to Carmela, cuddled up to her, gave her a kiss on the back of the neck and told her I will love her until the day I die. I will go into all this further in another blog as I am aware this is stretching on a wee bit but safe to say I didn’t die or I would be scaring some people finding this.

Anyway After 11 years of prodding, poking, attempted suicides which I will go into further also… I finally opened up to a CBT councillor about the gruesome childhood I endured. I hit rock bottom and I didn’t see a way out. I had to tell someone and get it off my chest. I needed the correct help and I needed closure. I needed to find my identity and find a reason to carry on with my life.
I was no longer able to work, to live, to exist, to hide behind my mask. I was no longer a human being……… I was nothing.

Like I said earlier, I am not “fixed” nor will I ever be “fixed”, far from it. I am only just able to navigate from day at the moment. The only difference now is I am not alone and I am no longer afraid of my past. I will attack it and hack at it until I am able to cope with it. It’s happened and it will always be there, the only difference being I am able to accept it as being the past and look to replace it with the joys of the future.
A typical day consists of at least 10 flashbacks, what feels like a different mood change every minute, hyper vigilance, anxiety at the stupidest of times, fear of the unknown and uncontrollable scattiness. A typical night will include nightmares, talking, screaming, crying in my sleep and me randomly sitting up.

My aim of these blogs are not to look for sympathy or to flair up emotions. They are to help me to understand once I put it in writing, to vent to anyone who is willing to listen and hopefully to help others to understand mental health.

Anyway I think it is time for me to sign off and try to get some sleep before the dramas in my head start once again.

Thank you for listening and feel free to ask any questions or leave any comments.
Stevie, Misty and Daisy

Originally posted 26 June 2017 via Blogger. Copied over like for like 18/03/2024

 Call me day, call me night, call me any name you’d like but I’d be grateful if you would call me Steve.

I know what you’re thinking, oh no not another boring bland blog (say it three times fast) about living with depression. I assure you I will try my hardest not to be boring or bland however I can’t promise that I won’t try to be funny…..ish…..

So why a blog I hear none of you say or why now no one is shouting!!

I’ve lived with mental health issues for as long as I can remember, but I have only recently been diagnosed with PTSD. Whilst sitting on a chair across a table from my key worker in Meadowbrook Mental Heath Centre Salford Royal, out comes the phrase, ” you’re suffering from PTSD” for the third time that month. Surely that is for Soldiers I hear my partner say to the key worker through the hazy sounds running around my head. “Not at all” I think he replied…….”anyone who has had a traumatic experience can suffer from PTSD”……….. I have no idea what was said after that as I phased out for yet another flashback, finally coming back round with my worker looking at me and asking “is that okay with you?” Turns out he was increasing my medication for the third time since coming under his care. 
Three months later I’m lay on a bed in Wythenshawe Hospital, waking up after having surgery on my wrist which unfortunately went through a glass window the week before. Still dazed and confused from the knockout gas they gave me 6 hours earlier (which they lied to me about I might add!!!!, “this is just air” my arse), I see a nurse hovering over me telling me how glad they are that I am awake as they struggled to wake me after my operation and how worried my partner was. Not acknowledging what was being said I got dressed as quick as I could and escaping as soon as I was allowed. With a big bandage on my arm and a very spongy sling over my neck which I still have no recollection of them giving me…… I walked quickly to the car park via the very expensive parking payment meter (£10), jumped into my car and sat there for five minutes before setting off for home, via the sisters house of course. I know I know, I’m not supposed to be driving with a bad wrist or after the knock out gas but what an I say?….. It’s a man thing. 

A week later I’m back at Wythenshawe hospital sitting in a room waiting for the nurse to come in and take off the bandages. Funny story about the nurse…. on my letter from the hospital it read “Nurse lead appointment”, my partner thought that the nurse was called Nurse Lead, I didn’t want to correct her but I thought it was for the best………. Anyway, the nurse arrives but quickly runs back out because she needed to talk to the Physio doctor first. When she finally returned she started taking off the bandages whilst telling us what damage I had done. Having removed three shards of glass I had missed they then proceeded to attempt to repair the 30% of my tendon that had cut, the two nerves that were cut and the two veins that had been sliced. Apparently it was more than ‘just a scratch’, which is what I keep calling it. She then goes on to explain how I was struggling to breath and that they struggled to wake me after the operation. I didn’t think nothing of it but apparently it’s a big thing. Eventually I was wrapped back up, handed instructions on hand injuries, told to contact my doctor regarding the above and t return again in 3 weeks to see the “hand” doctor. It was at this point I joked as I have done for many years now “I should write a book about my life but it would end up in the fiction section it is that unbelievable..”  
That night I lay in bed looking at the ceiling as I do most nights and started thinking about the idea of writing a book. “What did I know about writing a book” I was saying to myself whilst the sound of Dave Lister teaching Cyrton to lie was echoing in the background. With Rimmer talking about his blog I thought……. what a good idea……. I like to ramble on with myself and constantly digress from one subject to another…….. What better place than a blog. So here I am. It’s my first real blog so there will be teething problems but lets be honest, there any many people out there who are more than willing to correct me so sod it….. lets do it.. 

What to expect from my blog

As my life has been nothing more than a roller coaster ride with far more downs than ups I imagine there will be a lot to talk about. I do plan on doing this starting from childhood and working my way to today over the next few weeks however chances are there will be some off topic blogs, some ranting blogs, some blogs about my gaming habits and possibly some random blogs to mix it up. I also imagine i will digress rather quickly in my blogs so they won’t always be on topic. 
It may also be worth noting that some incidents from my past and some current events may be a little candid or lacking information. This is due to ongoing police investigations and will be disclosed once allowed. 
No longer am I hiding behind the “i’m fine” statement or the unspoken events of our lives. I’ve hidden for far too long and it almost killed me so many times I run out of fingers. It’s time to know the real me. 



Hope I don’t disappoint.
Stevie and the scratch