Me, myself and it. My story of depression

 Well, where do you start after over 2 months of wanting to disappear off the planet. There I guess! Yup, it’s been a very tricky time for me of late, and I’m not going blow by blow, because frankly I can’t put it into words or feel comfortable doing it. However, with mental health awareness week just around the corner, I did need to write something that normalises what mental illness can come to mean. As usual I’d been putting too much pressure on myself, and although I’d loved everything I was doing for mental health awareness, it’s that passion of mine that keeps me going, but following on from a very successful online forum, I crashed. Not in a dignified way either. I will always remember it, and until she reads this, I’d never told my wife, but it was March 1st, the day before my 40th birthday and I couldn’t face things anymore. I told my family that I had a headache and went to bed. I got in to bed and I cried. Not just a tear rolling down my cheek like I’ve experienced many ...

 It was back in 2017 where I wrote my first blog, detailing my struggles with mental illness, and over the years I’ve updated this page with stories of battles and achievements, and really I wanted to write something that shows how much stronger my illness has made me. Since being diagnosed I’ve always made it my mission to help others in a similar position. Mental health became my passion and I want to offer help to anyone who may need it. It’s become my mantra, and I’ve made some really good friends from it. Some of those friends have gone on to campaign along side me, and in some ways, supersede what I set out to achieve. I have my own plans in place though, this is why I’m studying for a degree in Psychology and Counselling with the open university. The best way I could see to affect change, was to use my lived experience to start a new career. Would I have done that without my battles? It’s hard to say, but I was remarkably settled in my career on the railway. The degree has f...

  A number of years ago I lost a friend to suicide. I had no idea she was struggling that much, and I’ll never forgive myself that I wasn’t there for her like she had been for me. Her death is one of the things that has spurred me on to be a mental health campaigner and someone who will always try and be there for everyone who needs it. However, it is also worth noting that I too have had suicidal thoughts, and given my illness, will quite often resort to those thoughts, albeit fleetingly, when I have perceived myself as doing wrong. I’m not proud of that, especially as I have such a good support network. Whether people don’t realise that or not, I’m unsure, but when I have offered crisis help to others, only to be accused of supporting hate, and putting other peoples mental health at risk, it really affects me. Not in a way where I get angry, vent and move on, despite appearances. I carry that burden with me.  To find out that I have let somebody down who needed me, despite h...

 It’s okay to not be okay. 6 words that can change your world.  I don’t like myself. I have to live with things I’ve done, or considered, because of my mental illness. I wake up every day with a cloud over me. However, every day I have the love and support of my family and friends. I continue to battle back on a daily basis and you can too.  People have used me, manipulated me and broken me. However, others have picked me up, dusted me down and rebuilt me. My mental illness affects my life every day, and dreading my own birthdays and Christmas is an awful thing I have to live with, my brain doesn’t afford me the luxury of pleasing myself or being the centre of attention, whilst at the same time making selfish choices that make me the centre of attention.  I have to live with the memory of considering taking my own life when my children were just babies. I have to live with the memory of my wife crying when my destructive behaviour affected our relationship.  How...

  Imagine this for a second. Your other half is playing in the summer sun with your toddler, you’re stood there watching them, not a care in the world. However, you’re stood there watching them with a handful of pills in your hand, because you can’t give them the love or care that they deserve. Thinking that despite the initial hurt, their life would be so much better without you. Is it hard to imagine? I live with those images every day. I can picture it as vividly as any day in my life. My wife never knew until I first spoke about my suicidal thoughts last year. I felt a sense of shame for thinking of it. Now imagine a few months later, as your second child is born, facing the fact that you cannot bond with them. Thinking that they’ll never like you. What sort of parent are you? It really got to me. I ended up writing my thoughts down, how I would be better off dead. Perhaps subconsciously I left it for my wife to find. Imagine the distress that caused. She could see I wasn’t cop...

One of Black Sabbath’s best songs. However, I’m not writing about my love for Birmingham’s finest, rather how a testing few days has left me paranoid about everything and everyone. I’m not getting in to what happened, it’s dealt with and I’m trying to move on. The repercussions on my mental health have been immense though, none more so than the paranoia. It’s never been an issue with me before, despite it being listed as a major “symptom” of BPD. I was more of the impulsive, harmful, sometimes suicidal sufferer. I think I preferred that to a degree. I knew where I stood with those and how to deal with it. I’m now faced with a daily barrage of thoughts, making me question my choices and what I can or cannot say. I recently closed my previous twitter account due to a number of issues arising from tweets that were, unfairly, being attributed to a poor mental health campaigner. However, each time I now see a tweet about mental illness or hypocrisy, I think is that about me? If they don’t r...

Been a while since my last blog, mainly coz I’ve been in such a good place. I’ve kept a firm hand on my BPD, and amid lockdown I’ve been supporting others because I’ve not had to worry about myself. I even reconciled with an old friend. Finding that strength, I had been putting myself out there again, and last Monday I had an interview for another job. Something out of my comfort zone, but equally something I believe I could do with my eyes closed. I believe I came across as happy, relaxed and experienced, and finished the interview having made the interviewers laugh. Brilliant, I thought.  However, this is where BPD will inevitably kick in. After talking to my wife and explaining how well I thought I’d done, the thoughts began creeping into my head. “That was too quick, and too easy. You’ve fucked it up. Best accept you’ll be stuck doing this same shit for a while yet”. I would tell myself it doesn’t really matter, I’ve still got a well paid job no matter what. “Yeah but you wante...