“We were
travelling in speeds excess of 120MPH, and I remember thinking how peaceful it
would be if the car crashed and I died.”
Welcome to my first post. A very personal subject, one I rarely talk about,
most people around me know, but they don’t know. You see, I live in a very
small seaside town, I mean small, like if you see someone you don’t recognize,
they’re either new here or not from around here. So most people know most
people. I have spoken about my depression publically, briefly, I gained some
support and other people started mailing me on Facebook to talk to me about their
problems, but soon enough everyone moves on and forgets. I’m not writing this
in order to gain any sympathy, in fact that’s the last thing I want, it makes
me feel even more ****.
What I would like to do however is reach to those with mental health problems.
I see more and more people with mental health issues coming forward and raising
concern and awareness for people at a constant battle with their own mind, I
think that’s a good thing, unfortunately not many people understand that the
world we live in now is not the same as the world was 20, 30 years ago. I’m always
hearing phrases such as ‘well back in my day’ and ‘we had to walk 500 trillion
miles to mars just to get water one afternoon but we were still happy’,
unfortunately this generation of teenagers and young adults are forever under
increasing pressure to get high grades, to meet deadlines, to fund their
university, to fund a basic living, to make a positive change to this world
with knowledge from school which I now see as something which was a complete
waste of my time.
Here's a little about me. I left school at 16 with
pretty basic grades, nothing outstanding, although I knew then that these
grades were nothing but a piece of paper, I was wicked with computers, gaming,
social media, website development, phone development, excel, word, you name it,
I wasn’t great, I know that now, but I knew more than most, and that has always
seemed to get me by. I had no major issues in my life, I was a brat of a child,
screamed the place down, threw things, walked out all the time, I always felt
alone, like the whole world was against me, I really should have taken a seat
and realized that my mother was not to blame for my father not having a place
in my life, that if she couldn’t afford to buy me something, she really couldn’t
afford it, but nevertheless, I ended up having whatever it was I wanted.
Anyway, fast forward a few years I’m 18 and I go
through a pretty rough break up, which eventually led to me leaving my job,
college and smashing my phone to dust, drinking quite excessively which I
managed to hide quite well, so that was pretty much my low point, I didn’t want
to live, not because of a woman that was no longer in my life, but the fact
that up until this point, I’d worked my ass off on an apprenticeship that
sucked, Id decided 3 months into this job that I hated working in silence and
sitting down for 10 hours at a computer developing websites, really wasn’t my
thing. So there it was, I was smashed off my bonce most of the time, eventually
leading to my ultimate destruction of spending days partying on alcohol and
drugs, which probably lasted for a good couple of years before I found myself
sitting on the side of a bridge talking to the Samaritans (I don’t know why, it’s
not in my character to ask for help, but the lady I spoke to that day just sat
on the phone to me while I talked.) Which eventually led to me being taken to
the hospital and spending a little time in a mental health hospital.
Unfortunately for me, by the time I’d been in there a few days I couldn’t wait
to get out and told them I felt fine so they let me go.
I’ll skip the boring parts, 21 was when depression
really hit me, I was working 100 hours a week some weeks whilst my friends were
out enjoying the sun and having barbeques and drinking Jack down the beach. So I
started hitting the gym again, late at night, just me and the bar. I knew by
this point that this couldn’t be cured, I was an emotional wreck most of the
time, no one knew, but in my head I woke up every morning with the intention
that I was going to die that same evening, I started writing down quotes,
finding things to focus my energy on to distract me from the dark cloud in my
mind. My GP tried me on a few medications, citalopram, mirtazapine and
zopiclone, before deciding that there was a chemical imbalance in my brain.
Fast forward again and I’m sitting here today at 22 years of age (I’ll be 23
next month) I took it upon myself to talk about a few issues, my mother whom
struggled to understand why I couldn’t be happy was a good support network for
me, I opened up, I started talking about my problems, pretty openly actually
and I feel much better. I personally believe that the sector for mental health
is not educated enough yet to understand how each individuals mind works.
Please don’t take that as a criticism as I have seen many organizations such as
MIND and Suffolks Wellbeing service do some excellent work and are clearly moving
in the right direction, however group sessions and a telephone appointment
asking me how I feel on a scale of 1 – 10 does not help me at all. I feel
mental health issues are best approached personally and individually and the
best support tends to come from someone who loves you unconditionally. So open
up, talk, sing, scream, dance, do what you have to do, I got kicked out of my
house yesterday for reasons beyond my control and I’m still taking it on the
chin with a smile on my face and in my head, some things are just meant to happen, I’m sitting broke with no home
when really by now I could have been in an excellent financial situation if
things had gone differently, it’s perfectly fine, because one day I’ll be on
top, I know I’m worth so much more than the dark chapters in my life. Just remember,
I have to smile and laugh because if I don’t, I’ll probably cry (and being a 5’10,
95kg weight lifting bloke, crying doesn’t look great on me). Make this week
good, even if it’s been terrible.
Useful Info:
http://www.mind.org.uk/
https://www.readytochange.org.uk/
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