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
