My Story.

I was not the only one.

Trigger warning, contains mention of abuse, self harm, suicide, cancer and death.

My name is Chris, at the time of writing this I am 30 years old, live alone with two dogs and cats, I have no job but am a mature student of psychology and counselling. I have both my parents and 2 two friends. This is my some of my story so far.

I was the tender age of 5 when I lost hope in the system and figures of authority, I was sent to a catholic school to be taught by nuns, they would beat us and degrade us in any way they could, constantly reminding us that we were less then human, being left handed was seen as a sin and my hand tied behind my back, the girl next to me would be stabbed in the back of the neck with a sharp pencil when she couldn’t eat at lunch due to anxiety, I became a lucky one when I was removed from the school and sent to another.

My school life was a spiral of abuse and bullying by both teachers and students alike, I have learning difficulties and struggled to learn, in response to this the teacher sent me to the back corner to face the wall and copy shapes out of a book, it took until I was 10 years old to learn to read thanks to a kind teacher who bought a beano comic in and would sit with me in break times, learning to read. The play ground became a battlefield of insults, beatings and bullying and the kids were merciless, making fun of every aspect from my clothes, weight, height, foot size and hair colour, every part of me being torn to shreds, this never ended until I left school.

I was 7 years old the first time I tried to harm myself, I was found by my parents with a pair of scissors trying to cut the fat away so I could fit in with the other kids, this marked the beginning of not only self harm but also of a need to be accepted, a need that went bone deep and I would spend most of my life begging to be let in, to be accepted or maybe even liked. Of course I was eventually sent to CAHMS due to this attitude and at the age of 10 I received my introduction to the mental health service, where there were rooms of toys and soft chairs with nice ladies who wrote down everything you said and always asked questions, after receiving a diagnosis of ADD (I was too lazy for the hyperactivity), Dyslexia and Dyspraxia I never felt more removed from the other children, I felt that if I couldn’t be one of them maybe I could impress them in other ways such as fighting, acting out or being the naughty kid with no boundaries, this led to a lot of visits to detention, suspension but never the question as to why I was being this way, I was wrote off as a bad kid, told by teachers and school support staff that I was just too stupid to teach and wouldn’t get anywhere in life and I believed them.

I was not the only one to be let down by the school system.

I had no real friends growing up so I found solace in animals, mainly dogs and horses, so me and my sister would spend our evenings and weekends with animals, learning everything we could about them, and whilst that want to be accepted and be a normal kid would always be there I knew I could at least rely on my dogs and their training. I even managed to meet some people through training classes and events, never my own age and usually my peers by a few decades but it felt good to belong somewhere, but as always life has a way of kicking you back a few pegs, in 2006 it was found that my 13 year old little sister had skin cancer in her leg, what followed changed me.

At 15 I was thrown into a world of chemo, blood tests, biopsies, stuffy waiting rooms and sterile wards, Katie would eventually go into remission but due to being given the wrong doctor (a plastic surgeon who would check her scar recovery not for cancer) she relapsed and found a lump near her groin 6 months later, after tests this was found to be in her lymph system and would go on to spread throughout her body. She was eventually sent to QMC and deposited in a child’s ward called E38. E37 E38 and E39 being dedicated to children with cancer and leukaemia. Katie was the oldest child there at 14 and later 15 years old. The sights and sounds on that ward will forever be with me unfortunately, from a young girl losing an arm and a leg but being able to laugh and joke to a young man smiling through being sick after not having hydration before a chemo course. And whilst the screams and crying of a parent holding their dead child is something that still haunts me I can only look back in amazement at these kids who took their own mortality in their stride and tried to comfort others whilst wasting away.

My mum usually stayed with Katie overnight, as this was a ward where the terms visiting hours don’t apply, but on one occasion I stayed with her whilst mum went home for respite. The cancer had spread into katies spine and as such she sometimes lost sensation in her legs, so for her to go to the loo she would stand up, turn then sit on a commode, now being her big brother I refused to clean her, not through a sense of childish disgust but because to me it was a last boundary that shouldn’t be crossed after she had had most of the nursing staff, doctors and students poke and prod around her privates, a last shred of dignity to cling to. When I stayed with her i would hold her as she stood and a nurse would clean her. On one occasion however I stood holding her after she had been and suddenly her legs gave way, I wasn’t prepared and she fell to the floor knocking the commode over leaving her in a puddle of wee, two nurses came in and discussed how to get her into a bed (a winch was needed to preserve her collapsing spine) but as they spoke I was to the side watching as my little sister sat in her own urine sobbing and asking for me to help her back up and why wouldn’t I help her, after a few moments I lifted her back into bed and my parents were called but to me I had failed as a big brother, to this day I still see this scene in my worst nightmares and hear her cry, the guilt of failing as a big brother is immovable and will remain until I pass.

Had the GP reported the original mole quicker, had the remission Dr being looking for cancer and not skin recovery perhaps I would still have a sister. Perhaps not. Following Katies death at 15 I asked for mental health help on several occasions, but was given pills and sent away, there were no support groups for surviving siblings and little interest from the GP beyond a diagnosis of Depression and treatment through pills. From all of this I learnt at the age of 16 that no one actually cared, it was business as usual and so I got my greatest gift, the ability to shut my emotions down, something I relied on for most of my adult life.

I was not the only one to be let down by the NHS.

I entered the world of work and worked as a dog trainer and gamekeeper for a 10,000 acre estate looking after a total of 25,000 birds and a herd of deer, I truly enjoyed it as I worked alone, in the countryside, just me and my dog. Unfortunately the shoot closed down and I had to move on, and so I found myself in enforcement, something to which I learnt I had a penchant for because of my ability to close down emotionally, I could go to the worst of jobs and receive the daily verbal abuse I took. To me it was no different to the threats, beatings and bully boy tactics of the school yard. I had moments of euphoria where I would find myself enjoying life and succeed. But for the most part I would be in ruts of depression and have mood swings aplenty, now I obviously know it to be EUPD, but at the time it was diagnosed as depression and anxiety. I was fobbed of with medication and even after asking never referred on for further help. During the 10 years of working in enforcement I made work friends and never admitted to any of them my inner turmoil. Whilst I could act happy and normal at work each night I found myself smoking more, drinking and self harming, doing all this and constantly imaging ways in which to end it, my obsession with suicide became all consuming, id throw myself into projects to try and avoid the thoughts that haunted my every waking moment. The few that were let in to my emotional turmoil would respond with things such as man up, sack up, be a man, stop being a wimp, and our favourite, just be happy. This advice came to me from alleged friends and professionals, so again I bucked up, bottled these thoughts and feelings and shoved them down deep, the nightly depressive episodes and mood swings were my dirty little secret that I tried to keep from the world.

By the age of 26 I had attended a little over 50 funerals for family and friends, the worst was a fortnight in which I had to attend no less then 6 funerals, all natural causes, all expected but none were really prepared for, work gave me the time off to attend the funerals themselves but expected that I maintain business as usual and act in a professional manner at all times regardless of personal life, This all changed when one particular work colleague noticed things were amiss and that my arms were always covered, he silently took me to one side and offered a route out, a series of counselling sessions which I took, I suppose looking back this began to break the carefully constructed wall I had made that withheld all emotions.

I was not the only one to be let down by workplaces.

At 28 I finally broke, each piece of my carefully erected wall came crashing down in a symphony of pain and mental agony. Before this I had secretly tried to end my life but never a serious attempt, id self harmed and put myself in harms way to feel alive or just feel something but nothing like this. I literally woke up one morning and just felt relief, id accepted that I would prematurely exit the world and leave all this constant pain behind. I made a plan to be acted upon after a family meal, I decided that I wanted one last happy memory to leave my family and friends with. So I smiled and laughed and played with the kids, afterwards id be happy and free in myself so what did I care. After the meal I sat with my dog in the garden and watched my last sunset, then I received a text from my mum saying she and my dad loved me and was proud of how I was doing. This changed it all, 28 years of pain came rushing out, 28 years of heartbreak, loneliness, self hatred and pure disgust at myself came rushing in and I truly broke, I collapsed to the floor and began to cry uncontrollably, it took all my strength sometime later to call my mum and ask for help, my parents and my two friends rushed around and sat with me whilst I sobbed and asked for forgiveness and said I was sorry but I couldn’t do it anymore, I couldn’t go on. I was lucky in that my parents took control of dealing with the mental health service, due to their shouting louder and louder I was admitted to the crisis team, then CMHT and 8 months later after a 20 minute conversation I was diagnosed with EUPD, Depression and Anxiety. 29 years of not knowing what was wrong with me and having no identity other then a stupid sad sack and suddenly I was given a title, for better or worse I at least knew what the enemy was called.

I was not the only one to be let down by my own mind.

I still had hurdles to overcome, I got told by an engagement worker to go out and meet girls and that would solve my problems, a GP told me to suck it up a bit and get on with things to make myself better, I’ve been told I wasn’t interacting with the service and so they would have to dismiss me, I’ve been thrown from one service to another and put on so many pills I would rattle (my personal best is 12 different medications at the same time).

To this day I suffer from debilitating panic attacks, anxiety from going into public spaces or even out my own front door, depressive mood swings and euphoria, I’ve attempted suicide twice and self harmed by cutting and burning, pushed friends and family away and stayed shut in my house like a prisoner. In the space of 6 months I lost my house, my car and job due to poor mental health but most painfully I lost my dog Berry. Life has become a daily battle with myself, made up of trying to take positive steps, inch by inch, day by day, not always winning, but still trying and there is hope. I’m now a mature student at university with the aim of helping others like me in the future, I have a home and rescued a puppy. I learnt from dogs a major life lesson, one that I try to live by, eat, drink and be merry, laugh loud, laugh hard, enjoy the small things and love freely, and if you can’t do any of that? Piss on it and walk away.

This isn’t even half of my story I could tell, but after looking back on my life I have learnt a lot, I’ve learnt that our emotions, both good and bad, are required to make us into the people we are and aspire to be, the people we surround ourselves with should make us better people in ourselves and we should strive to return the favour. But the biggest lesson I’ve learnt is that I am not alone in this story, I am part of the silently screaming majority who suffer with mental health issues, my story is one of thousands of stories filled with fear, pain, regret, abuse and sorrow but to name a few things.

I’ve said that I’ve been let down by the school system, NHS and work places, but even then I’ve experienced the true nature of what they stand for, the teacher who taught me to read in his own time inspired me to read more and I now read for pleasure, the nurses and care staff who looked after my sister were and remain to be walking hero’s, the Dr who took time to explain to me what’s happening and the Counsellor who took me on pro bono all of which inspired me to better myself so that one day I could have the opportunity to help another, the work place colleague who noticed I wasn’t well and the members of society who take it on themselves to create support groups have shown me that even the smallest of actions can make the biggest of differences, whilst there’s no magic wand to make things better, These are the people that make the world a better place.

Finally, I was recently asked what advice I would give to someone suffering with their mental health and trying to work through the quagmire that is the system and daily living, and honestly I don’t know, unfortunately there isn’t a universal truth or piece of advice I would dare give, apart from this, it doesn’t matter how broken the system, how dismissive the work place or how society may view us, there are people that want to help, and they are the ones worth sticking around for, but most importantly, we are not now, nor will we ever be, alone.