Shine

Posted on by IAMONE

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When you are going through a rough time, the shining beacon of hope and light at the end of the tunnel is getting smaller and further away and every step you seem to take seems to be further from the light. The shining beacon that helps to tame the black dog from taking over and growing bigger.

Most people will go through a course of events that shape their lives to make them stronger and brighter type of person and take it in their stride.  Some people lives are shaped but also become consumed by the darkness or the black dog keeping afloat but occasionally being caught in a wave. Others become consumed by the black dog and everything around them struggling to keep afloat in the rough tide.  Others will slowly sink as if they have an anchor attached to them and struggle to reach out for help as the light is no longer visible.

Those that have been consumed by the darkness either by it shaping their lives or never seeing the end of the tunnel anymore as if the tunnel is part of the London underground tube map with turns and very brief moments of light.  Which has sprung a leak under the river Thames and the air is being replaced with water and you are being consumed by the water and shining beacon is further away and is no bigger than a pinhead now being taken over by the darkness.

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Sometimes this can be a nightmare or an actual event that happens when you finally are reaching the end of your own tether and struggling to find the power to carry on and find the hope and willpower to put the black dog to bed and encourage the dog to change to become a puppy again to stay in the dog basket.  The world is still spinning and sometimes we are just a number from our employment with employee numbers or NHS number we are no longer a person of the name instead of a number of being 1 of 7.5 billion people!  When you are standing behind the black dog that is bigger then you and no one can see you instead they see the impression of you which is you playing the game of impersonating who you were yesterday the day you didn’t feel the world was against you and they wouldn’t notice if you disappeared. You go through the motions for a period and finally something has pushed you too far and you can’t see any other escape until you are no longer seen or a number, you finally decide that the world would be better off without you… The final decisions and being consumed by the darkness and listening to the voice of darkness that is now in full control, you listen and block out the voice of reason you become reckless and forget what and who you once were.

Whilst you are going through the motions and you are becoming more reckless it keeps escalating to how reckless you are you are also putting yourself and others in danger when you start to listen to people who don’t have your best intentions to heart you start to believe what they are saying. This could be from not being worthy, not being wanted, sexualizing the situation and making you feel paranoid, too many other ways they could harm you and encourage this reckless approach to life.

You’re going through this and finally, something really breaks, and you can’t see the colours in the world it is all becoming dull and more grey and black.  You start to consider committing an act that is illegal but also it has the ability to destroy everything and hurt more than just you. The darkness will destroy everyone around you and the actions of the darkness will make you a shining star above.

Now, this blog isn’t promoting listening to the darkness nor would I ever want anyone I know to feel there is no escape and no one would notice if they weren’t around.  You see this blog has been a blog in the writing for the past 3 years as I have never been able to fully explain that night when the darkness leads me to contemplate following the black dog.

Very few people know this, but it wasn’t the first time I considered stopping the pain and being used as an object of hurt as if my emotions were a weapon against myself. I experienced it when I was 24 years old, you see I was living an unhappy life in London, my dad was paralysed and work at the time was destructive. My friends at the time who I lived near organized a night out between 6 of them and of course there was an odd number I didn’t know about them going out, so I was walking home from work going past one of my friends places and I walked into them all dressed up laughing smiling and happy. Then they saw me, and the humour and happiness were sucked out of the air instead it becomes silence as if I was an embarrassment to be no one could say anything other then “oh fancy seeing you here” … (this was my hometown and I had lived there all my life, so I don’t know why still to the date why it was a surprise.) “we are going out…” was as if someone had stabbed me in the heart with a cold ice pick. I was about to change stores going from the store I learnt my trade to the flagship store making a drastic change with a change of pace. I felt awful and embarrassed and ashamed by what had happened. I went into my final day in the store with some of the most amazing people I have worked with, basically trying to enjoy my final day around people that appear to like me. Throughout the day the group of people I classed as friends were messaging me and apologizing and giving excused for why they felt it was acceptable for their behaviour. The part of me was hurt but I accepted they had only 6 tickets and there were 7 people, also I had work the next day so wouldn’t have been able to attend.  I was hurt by the way they acted and when I finally responded after a fair few hours of crying and trying to find a way out of this mess. The simple effect of being embarrassed and ashamed to be around me whilst I was dealing with my dad’s situation which they were all aware of, as Dad wanted to end his own life and go to Switzerland to the Euthanasia hospital to take the control in the situation. It taught me a lot from those 2 days not to open about how I was feeling as people don’t care, but also “friends” aren’t always friends instead they are there to do lip service and pretend. This might appear that they had the best intentions which they might have done but they didn’t as well. If they said, “oh yeah, we could get only 6 tickets and if its ok x y z is going to come along and bring their girlfriends, we can do something next time…” I would have been fine as I said I had work.  So, this clouded my final day at my store and I was sad and did cry quite a bit as I felt alone.

I didn’t want to disturb people with what was going on in my mind as I didn’t really know either other than it as getting too much for me to handle. I did try to get help a year or so before but that ended up being unsuccessful as I was unsupported beyond the 35-minute counselling session for my dad but not for me.

Fast forward to 2014 I moved up to Manchester, changed my career, found a new home I was going through a lot of change. I had lost my dad 2 years prior to moving, and there was a lot of changes in my life from my friendship circle to my life. I was with my ex at the time but was being let down constantly by him and his best friend kept influencing our relationship even when I had tried to make the effort with him. So, with all the changes I started to spiral and started to feel I was losing myself as I was missing my family and my friends who I am still friends with today. I was trying to find my feet and I had been let down yet again by my ex so was home alone and struggling to find my feet and escape the flat, until I was meant to meet up with a friend and their friends, I forced myself to get out and finally see the outside I had been speaking with my ex as I accepted it and tolerated it. Well, it took me longer to get out of the house and finally got into town stopped to get cash out and had messaged my friend who moved kept moving on from location to location and I wasn’t sure where the place was, as I had only been living in Manchester 5 weeks. I froze to the spot and was struggling to control my breathing and panicking. I called my ex and told him I was panicking and unable to move so we spoke for 20 minutes and finally I manages to try find what I was looking for, which I failed to find but then walked in my friend sat in a café they didn’t see me but was messaging me throughout and I told him I was panicking and I could see him he didn’t notice me walking past so I told him to get off his phone and enjoy their friends. I got home with a shed load of sugary doughnuts and basically, I didn’t eat any of them I didn’t eat for a few days thinking back to it was in bed. I felt very alone, and the black puppy was not growing bigger, I struggled with everything and everyone around me as my housemates I was living with at the time were all over there house guest and allowing him to treat me like an unwanted guest and being very unwelcome as they weren’t thinking with there brain more of part of there anatomy like most men (few exceptions) think with.  As I was a housemate instead of seeing me as a human being and someone who needed support or a friend I wasn’t wanted, and I was “cockblocking” as their friend was there. I spent 5 hours in their company trying to help and try with their friend but spoke for about 5 minutes in total.  Their friend wasn’t interested and made fun of me for asking basic questions about their travels and what they did.  I went home a few days later and saw my aunt and was back in London and saw my old store and the assistant manager who was basically trying to make me feel ashamed of my work I did at my store before I left.  That was interesting as she had begged me for a job to come back and then was jealous that I had been more successful with what I had achieved. I couldn’t speak to my friends, so I had to send them a message to explain how it had made me feel like I was on my own and unwanted to be around. They knew how it had affected me and brought back the emotions of the previous experience not being around, they forgot basic manners and from there action the impact it has on people.

Fast forward a few months, into the new year I was newly single and tried to find the best path for me without rebounding into oblivion.  Sadly, oblivion did happen, and I became emotionally attached to someone. Same time as I was trying to find my feet I hadn’t been single for over 2.5 years, whilst settling into a new job. The emotions engulfed me when they cancelled plans with me for another person. I was home alone again and was spiraling and the black puppy was not a full great Dane which would be sitting on my shoulders, I spent majority of the days in bed not able to approach anyone as how you tell someone you are spiraling beyond control, this was until it completely engulfed me and made me react and struggle to see any hope. I considered there and then was there any point and maybe it would be better if I wasn’t here. My housemates got home, and we were talking and there was a lot of talking, I reached out to the works Employee Assistance Program for support with counselling to finally approach the subject and tackle this beast. I had my reservations about approaching a Psychologist, but I had to attempt to tackle this in some way, which this helped for a while.

A few months later I had asked for less travel with work and was finishing counselling with our EAP provider to another provider for CBT treatment as well as tackling this beast. The emotions were still growing and becoming difficult for me to contemplate what was going on.  Some people got involved and started to manipulate the situation where it was always in their favour, where I was pushed to the side and dumped in the gutter. The guy didn’t see it, but he was being manipulated and whenever something was planned to involve me it would be changed for their gain and I was no longer needed around. To incentive posts on social media, to conversations being insensitive around my personal circumstance with my dad’s accident and depression. I was also in the process of finding my new home where I still am.

Then the night where the world really did change, Saturday 30th August I was on edge all day and felt like I was a gooseberry around 5 other people.  We started off with food and drinks I was trying to be controlled with my drinking and the night started to change and became destructive for me as the conversation and situation was becoming toxic. To the point I said to one of my friends I had to get some air I couldn’t drive and go home like I wanted to as I had been drinking so I went for a walk having a panic attack, seeing cars going past seeing the lights flickering past and at midnight I couldn’t control my breath or find the best way out of this situation. I got to the bottom of the street and finally found the power to speak and say help. I called my friends and messaged them both with the one word “HELP” it was my only attempt I could ask for help from someone. They both called me, and I couldn’t say fully what was going on or even understand what was going on in my head. It was all going into freefall. I could finally breathe in calmly enough to get back in.  The night carried on escalating and the black dog appeared and it was no longer a great Dane it was the size of the house and every brick was falling in on me, every door was closing and there was no way for me to escape the constant assault from this beast.

The following morning when the dust was settling, and I was coming around I had tried to calm the voice and sweep away the bricks that were still falling.  Suddenly it was a situation in which I felt uncomfortable with and went for a walk, but the walk was going to be the final walk I take.

I had left the house and had only my phone on me, as I walked the voice in my head was getting muted, by another voice, my mums the darker voice was becoming silent and my mums voice was getting louder and clearer I was looking at a picture on my phone and saw my mum and dad, then my aunt. I was walking and crying until I finally stopped by a set of shops and stood by the side of the shop and again I found the power to ask for help and sent a text, they had been messaging me since I left the house and finally I had to break the voice and ask, and I did. I asked them for help and they sent one of my closest people I have in my life now. They found me, and we walked holding hands they were holding me hugging me as we walked to a quiet stream.  I cried a lot and they sat there listening and hugging me and talking when they needed to.  It was a while until we went back as we did I spoke to a few people and one of my friends slapped me and hugged me as they knew I was ready to end it all.

I went to my friend’s place in Derby we didn’t talk about the situation, but he knew as I had spoken to them the night before when I needed help. They looked after me and nurtured me when I needed support and offered me a place to stay.

The hardest part for me was to tell people I nearly succumbed to the darkness and let it take over my life, telling my mum was awful we spoke for hours an hour both in tears.  I then had to tell work that I wouldn’t be back for the foreseeable and they were amazing they let me take the time I needed and there as no rush to come back. I started “I Am One” started to get additional support with my illness with starting medication and tackling the problem in my head and started to stop hurting myself but others as well.  I was in treatment with CBT and was never home instead I was around people most of the time in Derby, York & Norfolk. I slowly started to find myself and the voice had become silent. I found ways to cope with work, my life with wider counselling and medication. It was a lot to work through and I finally found a way to silence the voice in my mind.

Last year I had a moment where I had a relapse and was having people messing with my emotions and using my friendship as a weapon against me. They copied my mannerism and symptoms to be used in a way for themselves to gain the upper hand and get sympathy. Also, my sexual desires with someone I have liked for a while and basically using it as an ultimatum which started a very nasty spiral.  I took some more time off work and spent time with my mum and started to find ways of coping without them in my life and trying to find the best way to live my life.  I stepped away from them and they created an argument with me to the point where they removed themselves from my life which saved me a lot of time.   I started to follow through with my coping strategies like mindfulness and the blog came back after a gap.

You see we all have many battles and there are many roads we must walk, and the path will be covered by a tunnel. Sometimes the lights in the tunnel will work and then there is always that one light that flickers and then stops working so that part of the tunnel is no longer clear of where to turn when you reach the fork in the road. Being unsure which is the correct path until you are walking it. We must find the path and when we are struggling to ask for help and get the support from friends, family, loved ones or professionals. I said earlier I learnt not to rely on friends and as you can see me in this blog alone I didn’t really learn this properly instead it was something I learnt about that group of people.  We are human beings and can make mistakes, but some mistakes can be costly and its not just for the person who is suffering it will also be the wider world, your family, your friends the people that care about you can be suffering from when you lash out and they need the support that you want back.

If you need help and are having suicide ideation or just need support, there are the Samaritans.

Samaritans-

telephone-116 123.

https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help-you/contact-us?gclid=CjwKCAjw7vraBRBbEiwA4WBOny3fvL7eGt2t3eSR_MIHPjn7-2gwx3uqam0rwd8RJsDfOuv9flD-7BoCg8YQAvD_BwE

We’re here round the clock, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. If you need a response immediately, it’s best to call us on the phone. This number is FREE to call. You don’t have to be suicidal to call us.

NHS 

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/suicide/

Their is also SANE a crisis helpline

SANEline – http://www.sane.org.uk/

0300 304 7000

4.30pm – 10.30pm daily

This isn’t the original blog I had planned to write but this is a subject I have been wanting to write about as it has always been a heavy scar that just seems to never heal. To anyone who is suffering make sure you reach out and don’t listen to the darkness you deserve to live, and you deserve to SHINE!

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To everyone who has read any of the blogs and has been part of this journey and kept the light switch on for me during my journey to recovery THANK YOU. You have been the saviour of my life and sometimes I forget to say thank you and show my full appreciation to you. You have been the SHINING Beacon I have needed.

I have and will always be a surviv(;)r.

I am ONE!

Rollercoaster

Posted on by IAMONE

Life can sometimes be a rollercoaster.  It goes starts off slow all flat and balanced and then slowly you go up a slope working its way up the slope, this is the good and highs of life.  Eventually, it gets to the top the pinnacle of the coaster, you go over the tipping point and then suddenly you realise you haven’t been strapped into your seat, there is a big drop down it isn’t slow on the descent it is fast, and you are plummeting to the ground before your eyes.  As you are hurtling to the ground fighting to stay in your seat you have a choice to breath and realise you have actually been strapped in so you can raise your hands up in the air or keep fighting to hold on and not realise you are strapped in and scream with fear and ignore the person sat next to you trying to help you. That slow journey up could take a minute or more but, on the way, down it isn’t as slow it is fast, and blink and you will miss it moments.  It also doesn’t mean there will be another upslope for some time as you could be caught on a very long downwards spiral slope that evens out for a moment but then drops again! There are several emotions you go through as you go up ascend the rollercoaster and the descent down out of control. You can hear the brakes being slammed on and the noise of the brakes being applied.

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Life is a rollercoaster as it is said in the song by Ronan Keating, you never know what life will bring when you wake up to start your day a nor do you know how it will end when you go back to sleep.  Instead, the only control you have is the moment when you wake up and open your eyes for a moment you have control of your thoughts even in your sleepy haze, and some mild panic that you overslept, or you have woken up early.  However, when you have depression or another form of a mental health condition opening your eyes can be one of the hardest parts of the day. Trying to find the energy to get out of bed and even find the power to walk out of the front door and pretend the world is still spinning and the world doesn’t see that, only you can see yourself on the rollercoaster free falling to the earth at an alarming rate. Getting from your home to the place you need to be can bring a number of issues you may not have factored in like the bus not turning up or it being late, the weather is still deciding what season and weather you will have you could have gone through every season in an hour and it still hasn’t decided, to just walking out of the front door.

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Whilst you are going through the fast journey to earth and still trying to see if there is an upslope, and it could be as simple as you have got through walking out of your front door and then the down part has hit you again, as you face a new set of fears that you have conquered. Then suddenly something happens and you find yourself on two roller coasters, part of your life starts to improve and is back on the upward slope, and this is slowly working its way up fighting to get back on an even kilter but then it happens the other part of your life is on the trajectory of plummeting so you are controlling only part of your life as it is slowly improving but the wider part is falling into disbelief and you feel like a failure.  No one is seeing your life going in this predicament as they can see the signs something isn’t right, and you are trying to cover up and act as if everything is fine by saying “I’m ok” never admitting you could do with some support.

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My life has been going through a strange phase since the beginning of the year,

  • I haven’t been on any anti-depressant medication for the past 6 months.
  • My work life has been on the way up since December
  • I found some confidence in the wider world and unknown social situations.
  • My work being recognized by my peers and others to the point they put in a recommendation and I was approached to leave my current position in a brand-new role. I declined to proceed with this for personal reasons.
  • The other extreme losing friends due to the difficult situation’s partly from my own doing and other peoples doing.
  • Sudden bills appearing a lot more then I anticipated so concerns around money have become a front-runner in my mind.
  • Feeling my support network has been under attack which has then put me in a position where I have felt isolated.

My professional life has been soring and it has been having a few dips, but it is my work life, and I enjoy what I do. Which I never expected to be headhunted for a new organisation that I hadn’t considered really leaving for. The thing I noticed was I have become very focused in a field I have learnt a lot about from my peer and become far more organized. My personal life has had moments where it is on the up but then it is doing a bouncing up and down coaster that suddenly takes dips and goes back up.

With my personal life been quite difficult as having to try and balance out what the thoughts I have been having and push them away from my reality to becoming overwhelmed seeing my support network being invaded from within but then I am excluded.  This has isolated me from the network that I needed at times.  The biggest part of having any health condition is having a support network and knowing you can turn to it when you need and not being afraid to approach them when you need help.  Also getting to embrace the positive moment life have given with them as you don’t just need a support network when you are having negative moments you need to celebrate the positives as well.  It doesn’t always have to be all doom and gloom.

With this I have had to make some cuts to my support network losing people who have made fun of my mental health and being inappropriate comments.  Where they don’t see the harm in the comments they made.  When someone is in crisis it isn’t appropriate to make fun of them of how they are feeling and are considering letting the darkness taking control and becoming the only voice you hear. When the black dog (I call my black dog Hurricane as mentioned in collection 2 of my blog) is present the world becomes silent and you only can hear that one voice, you can no longer hear your own voice.  Over the years since I have started to write “ I am ONE” I have had a number of occasions to have the Hurricane appear and change from being a small little puppy into a fully fledge elephant size beast that isolates and puts its huge paw on my back pushing me down with added pressure and stress to make the world harder not just for me but for my loved ones around me.

Some of my friends have started their own journey with mental health. As I have seen in my own hand they have followed in my own shoes, with the rebellion against anyone who has a view they don’t agree with and at times it has become toxic. It has hurt not just me but also to themselves as sadly people can’t always be there when they are under attack and it is something. I see now that sometimes you must step away and find your own space to be safe and be protected even though you want to help someone it just doesn’t mean you can save everyone.  I have moments where I have bursts of assertiveness and confidence and can be direct but open with who I am around and able to enjoy myself.  At times this has been a plaster over several issues until it suddenly appears to bite me on my backside.

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This is part of the beginning of my attempt to get my life back on the on straight and narrow and find that even ride on the rollercoaster. I am ONE will be back a lot more and it will be the third collection of blogs going forward.

I am….

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The Let-Down

Posted on by IAMONE

Think back to a time when you have felt your heart has been ripped out of your chest and danced on with a pair of size 13 metal toe cap boots and then rammed back into your chest without any care or compassion. Well it has happened to me many times and the pain it has caused has shaped my life beyond what anyone would ever recognise and some wouldn’t believe someone would go through this and still be here which is a constant battle of surviving. I will point out that my life isn’t as bad as anyone else life, this is just part of my story so far…

So, let me take you back 21 years I was 10 years old, I went back to my nan after school in the summer term.  I was doing homework and back then mobile phones weren’t very common in 1996. I got a call from my dad, which was rare but he was crying down the phone at me telling me he was dying, he was choking on a sandwich, and was telling me how much he loved me. He hung up the phone I was screaming down the phone and my nan was beside herself as she was calling my aunt who lived 2 doors up the road from me, to get my cousin to go down and check on my dad. I kept trying to all my dad but there was no answer I was beside myself, thinking at the age of 10 I would be losing my dad. My cousin went down and found he was ok and he managed to cough up the sandwich. Turns out he had been drinking for most of the afternoon and then fell asleep whilst eating a sandwich. And woke up struggling to breath as he hadn’t fully digested the sandwich. My nan and majority of the family were furious I couldn’t talk to my dad for about a week where ever he was I had to run and hide as I was scared if he was going to die. That night my nan kept hugging me and checking I was ok even throughout the night. I didn’t go into school the next day as I didn’t sleep much.

I had hoped this would be a one off but sadly this wasn’t to be, I had another call, this time I was on my own 10 years later from the first time my dad had made the call. My family had changed as important people in my life had sadly passed away, so my family circle was a lot smaller whilst my friendship circle was very small. As most of you will know my dad had a life changing accident that he was left paralysed from the chest down. My mum was away celebrating her 50th birthday and was away, so I was home just getting back to work after the accident looking after the pets. I have mentioned in a previous blog regarding what happened back then. So, my dad called me up on a Sunday I had just finished work and was sorting dinner out. Well the call was about how my dad was ready to end his life and I was to get back to living my life, and to forget him. I was devastated after everything I was then being told to forget my father and I was losing him again, pleading with him not to do anything that would take him away from me. He got the carer to end the call and he turned off his phone so I couldn’t get through. I was then struggling as who do I turn to, my mum who is away celebrating her birthday? My aunt lived up the road from me who was seriously ill and in and out of hospital? My other aunt who was ill herself. I was alone and not sure of where to turn. I had to make the call to my mum sobbing my eyes out unsure what to do or who to call feeling guilty for calling my mum ruining her birthday weekend. My mum was disappointed and upset as she couldn’t protect me from this or stop my dad from doing this call. After the call, I was signed off work for 2 weeks, my work place wasn’t happy as it was the run up to Christmas so the stress of being short staffed but I couldn’t tackle stairs or talking to people. My mum was home and was going to work and taking care of me, and a household and the anger towards her ex-husband. It took me weeks to call him again or visit him as I was once again scared.

Over the years I have been let down by many people not just my dad where he would cancel plans on me for his friends which I have mentioned in previous posts. My friends are also like this, one evening I was coming back home from a different job I had been working at and had been dealing with depression silently, where I walk into 6 of my friends going out in my home town, they were going out for the night. I was destroyed devastated that they had decided to go out but they kept it all quiet but then they were doing it in my own home town and became sheepish when they walked into me. I was come to the end of working in one location and had been given a transfer to the flagship store and I went into my final day working in uxbridge not really in the mood to celebrate my final day but instead I was crying at the smallest things as I felt betrayed, not wanted and I was just a convenience.

This was repeated on and off over the years by the same group and I slowly withdrew from the group and made myself very isolated and no longer a convenience for people as no one saw me instead they would get the occasional message while their lives moved on and grew mine stalled. I was busy dealing with my dad and having a mental health condition that was coming back with a vengeance. I lost my dad when I was 26 from pneumonia and yes, I was destroyed after all the times I thought I would lose my dad didn’t happen and then it had finally happened, he was free from the living hell he was living being a prisoner in his failing body. As he passed on his birthday and so close to my own birthday. Dad was free but the family were like vultures going against his wishes and making it about them. I was finally free of them as they were no longer part of my life. As this happened so close to my birthday I postponed my birthday to do something a few months later, as we went out for a belated birthday meal, I was quite sad and missing my dad at the time and then suddenly the people around the table stated showing pictures of their childhood with their dad’s. I sat there trying to keep it all in and stop myself from crying. It had been 6 weeks since he had past and then this. I excused myself from the table and hid in the toilets to cry and pull myself back together splashed some water on my face to hide the puffy cheeks. I went back to the table and they were still talking about their childhood with their dad’s. once the meal was over I started to walk off to get the train home, while they all went out for more drinks which I wasn’t invited to. I was devastated at how cruel they could be talking about their childhood and their dad’s and I had just lost mine 6 weeks prior and only laid him to rest a month prior to the night out. After this I didn’t see the group much, as I couldn’t face the pain that I was going through. Depression subsided for a bit as it was all wrapped up in grief.

I started to see my first boyfriend and at the start of the relationship it was all new to me as this was my first relationship and my first kiss happened at bearscots. I started to see my first boyfriend in the October after my dad passing. He was kind compassionate and friendly. The first time I visited was interesting as I flew up to Glasgow and spent the weekend with him and met his flatmate at a party. I was really on edge as I was going into an environment I was unsure of what I was doing. Well the party went well except he drunk too much and mixed with prescribed medication so wrote off the Sunday so I was put into a very awkward situation that I was in his home with his friends and not knowing them whilst he was sleeping off the combination of a hangover and medication. I sat there alone and struggling to see how this would work. Part of me wanted to end it before I became to invested in the relationship then the other part of me wanted to see where this went. As I was scared of being alone, I still am if I am being honest. Well I let this relationship to carry on till December 2014 and we went on a permanent break.  During the relationship, I had left my old job and home and moved 200 miles away from London to my new and current home Manchester, I started in a brand-new career sector and it was all new to me. We went on a break as he kept letting me down and promising to come and visit me in my home as I was feeling homesick but also, I was slowly killing myself with all the travelling around the UK. I would travel up to Glasgow every single month at a lot of cost to myself and then spending a lot of money in Glasgow and supporting my now ex. We went on this break and in the month, I did stuff that I had never done, gone out getting drunk with friends and coming home at the crack of dawn. Doing other adult activities. (all legal I should add) well the final nail in our relationship was I sent a text on Christmas morning as I had done every other Christmas, and I didn’t hear anything from him for 4 days and his response was I forgot. There and then it proved I wasn’t anything to him and our relationship had reached its end. In January, we broke up 1 day before my best friend’s birthday. I went out to raise a glass celebrate his birthday but I couldn’t get through the night so left by 9.30pm and was home in tear. I hugged my friends as I left. The room was alive smiling and chatting and kissing, and there was me my heart broken and finally free from the psychological abuse I had to survive from my ex.

During the time of the break/ Break up I started to get feelings for someone else and as they treated me as a human being. Showed me what it was like to be treated as an equal and if I was worth something. Throughout the time we had always been flirty and supportive of each other. Well slowly emotions grew and I was getting attached to this person being in my life as someone important. It was a complicated as I had come out of a very difficult relationship but also, I was going through a lot with people manipulating and stirring the friendship we had to make them look better and isolate me whilst my mental health took a further decline with being made to become isolated and unwanted. That person leading me on saying “if it was complicated and you weren’t getting over your last relationship I would date you….” It hurt more than ever as I was being see not as me but instead as this damaged and hurt person that I wasn’t allowed to be loved anymore. Well the night of pride and many catalysts stirred the pot and made me feel more alone and isolated and the voices in my head taking feel control that I wasn’t wanted or needed whilst the others all had fun and were able to live in that time whilst I hide in a bed alone. The voices were loud and clear I wasn’t wanted and it was time to end it all. 30th August I had to run away out of the house I had once felt safe and then no more, finding the best place to finally succumb to the voices. I got to a point in a busy road, and I looked at my phone and saw a picture of my mum and my aunt, the voices becoming slightly quieter instead another voice my mum voice ringing in my head barely heard her voice becoming louder and warmer in my body telling me to ask for help don’t do this. I did the reach out too someone who was nearby who helped to stop me from committing the final act.

Well this blog was born after this moment of how my life had to change. Over the past 2 years I have had to repair mind and my physical life as well. I came back from the destruction that nearly had happened and instead I had concluded that it wasn’t to be with him and the relationship I had craved. It took me a while to finally approach this friendship again and talk to them. We organised a night out to catch up to discuss our friendship and how it couldn’t continue in that way. As we walked to go our separate ways he kissed me something I wasn’t expecting and had said it had to stop and we couldn’t carry this on as it hurt too much for both of us.  This occurred again at my birthday where they started to snog me leading me on whilst I wasn’t expecting this or wanting this. I had the emotions of I wish it would have happened and it would have been more but it wasn’t. From then it was a continual leading on and teasing of my emotions. Few month later they had a few dates and I was upset by this as it was a case of when it suits I was around. Then that didn’t happen and I closed off the world to anything being more serious with anyone instead I just kept my head down trying to find who I was.

In the April, I started to go on the occasional date which turned into a relationship which was only a short-lived relationship as we broke up in the august. Which I have already said my previous blogs that it was complex and complicated as it was abusive to a point. Even after the breakup it was still abusive and controlling which I am glad I escaped from earlier than before.

Over the past year I have had my ups and down and had more complications added to my life with change in my job, my support network becoming more fragmented and now it is more stretched than ever. I had a mini break down earlier this year when a person who has seen my mental health break down in the fullest use it to benefit themselves and another doing the lead on then hurting me. It has gotten too much to the point can I trust people to be there who aren’t out there for something that benefits them instead of it hurts me.

I don’t ask for a lot and never want to trouble people with my problem of feeling like the world is against me. I spent last night in bed from 4.30 pm and shut down all my social media accounts including my WhatsApp archived every conversation muted some. I decided I can’t trust anyone I have to hide away and keep myself to myself and no one will miss me as I have had more sadness then I care to remember not just the ones mentioned above as well compared too happy memories. I do not know if i will be able to come through this for much longer alone.

I am one and I am most feeling it at the moment.

The reject

Posted on by IAMONE

Have you ever woken up and just feel like you are alone and no one is there anymore? Slowly while you have been going through the motions and blocking out the emotions that you are slowly losing not just yourself but the world of support is disappearing by the way side. Slow those that once stood in your corner step away to focus on their own lives and their own happiness, while you find take every step forward heavier than the last. The weight of being alone and no longer having the support you once had that love and compassion helping to will you on to succeed is no more and then you look around there is no one there you are finally achieved what the illness has always wanted, you are rejected from your support. You are now a reject the goal of the illness, the ones you love and care about only see so much of what is going on behind the mask but not fully. There aren’t enough cracks for anyone to see fully behind those hazel eyes.

The illness goal is to be the sole survivor of this battle and not the person, you become this capsule that is only holding the illness within it and there is nothing that can stop it from dying unless the holder of the illness dies. While their heart breaks no longer having the people you never thought would leave vs. the people who reach out but some of them aren’t there to support you for you instead they are there to gain a victory or part of you, emotionally or physically as if you have a price tag sticking out of you from different vantage points.

Slowly the illness has been building the walls and the bricks are clear so you can see through them but no one can see them instead they feel this barrier and they try and try to reach through but slowly they feel the barrier getting bigger and deeper and no longer able to reach and get frustrated that you don’t see the support and have better things to be doing and their own battles that need to take the priorities or finding what makes them happy and how they can manage that. No longer able to focus on you instead they must focus on themselves.

A piece of you cracking every time the support network is being chipped away like a sail boat going out to sea, with no intention of coming back as they have no sail to guide them back to shore or to the harbour where you are standing. No matter how much pleading you have for them to come back they just don’t return the boats have no parted with you and your tears rolling down you cheeks adding to the sea and the emotion of being lost at sea sweeping over you the dread of being cold, alone and no longer having the people you love more than anything standing with you, helping you stand tall and seeing their smile and the smile isn’t a fake or as if they want part of you other than seeing you safe happy and want you to be the person they all know and love.

Once the illness like depression gets a grip it takes a lot for it to be put back in Pandora box, sometimes it is impossible to achieve this without help of your supporters and the people who want to see you achieve your dreams and goals, whatever they might be. But most of all they want you to be happy.

So, life for me is difficult right now slowly I have seen parts of my support network drift away or I have had to cut ties with people due to certain situations which I need to keep myself away from as I need to focus on me. Which could be classed as selfish but sometimes you need to be, especially when people are exploiting your past and using it against you. From a difficult few years with breaks ups to finding my feet in a whole new city, new home, struggling to find the support or somewhere I feel like I belong it is tough, as I feel more and more like I have been rejected from people lives as they should focus on there’s and all I want is to be part of their life like I was before. In the last few months I have attended my 6th Manchester Pride, my 5th Bearscots in Edinburgh I have also started to distance myself from people who I feel I need to get a breather from, and those that I have drifted away from. I recently read a thread of my past relationship and of course instead of focusing on the nice loving messages we once had instead my eyes are drawn to the negative comments, of being fat and deserving to never be happy. I will be the first to admit I will always feel like a third-class citizen behind my friends and family is because I want them to be happy and put their happiness before my own. I put myself out there and made myself my own priority and came away scared and damaged more than I would ever let onto the world as no one needs to see the piece of me that has been rejected by someone that has hurt me. Then again, I probably hurt him in way he just doesn’t have the same outlets as I have. While I rejected a lot of the negativity from the break ups and the fireworks and restrained from posting fully what happened when I just wanted everyone to be happy. I made peace and put years of animosity behind me and accepted that the wars that my head was creating from an illness wasn’t worth the war nor was the illness I took a year of disliking someone and reality was I disliked myself and accept there were many faults not just one sole person.

Speed through to today, the dilemma of my life seeing these clear bricks and walls appearing around me slowly closing off the world to what I should be achieving finding my own happiness and instead I resent and feel rejected by others as I have become uncomfortable about the world around me. It has made me start to think is this home the right home for me or would it be better for me to return to where I call home? Or do I carry on fighting and finding a new home in the north? Part of me will always love my home down south and not London that is where I grew up but my home is always where my mum is. I have always tried to fight through the doubt that I needed to get through the feeling of never being good enough and being rejected. I must fight through and I should make the most of every opportunity. Taking the steps to fight and no longer feel the rejected ugly duckling or as if parts of me have a price tag attached to them.

“The bravest thing I have ever done was continuing to live when I wanted to die!”

Fighting through the feeling that sometimes feeling it might be easier if I wasn’t here. As others don’t need the grief of my narcosis and instead find someone who isn’t as complicated as others are. As the quote says I should take the positive out of the fact I am still here and I am still fighting through the darkness and unhappiness that is festering and instead of hiding away from the world. this weekend I have hid away from the world and stepping away from events that I have once attended and enjoyed and stepped away from people I care about getting to wrapped up in my own head afraid of something that hasn’t even happened or even listening to what people are saying instead I am listening to the illness and what it wants me to listen to.

Part of me is always going to want me to just disappear but the rest of me wants me to achieve what my heart has always wanted to find happiness and having a comfortable life, feeling loved and wanted and having someone who thinks of me just as much as I think of them.

Now, it just isn’t to be instead it could always be something of the future goal. Right now, it’s time for me to find me and being the ONE.

 

Dear Alex…

Posted on by IAMONE

Dear Alex,

Your 20 and life seems to have been slightly rough for you so far being forgotten about by friends, and you took the direction of starting to work and focus on being a manager! You have worked hard the past few years and thought they were hard but, you are now 20 and sadly the next 11 years are going to be just as hard if not harder.

Before you turn 21 you will have the moment your life will change forever, your father is going to be involved in a life changing accident and he will no longer be the same as he will be in a wheel chair. The night of change will be a night of remembrance and many members of the outlawed family will accuse you of the accident that wasn’t your fault and you need to learn to accept that. You didn’t provide dad with any of the alcohol nor did you tell him to walk up those stairs. You will have to move him and you will have to decide which will seem hard and but it’s a life or death call. When you make decision to move him its ok his neck is already broken before you even touch him. It isn’t your fault, you don’t have to put a brave face on and try to carry on or feel guilty you can take time out and be there for your family and yourself.

You will a have to live with dad’s decisions if he wants to trust people you don’t agree with all you can do it try to protect him and support him and make sure he isn’t taken advantage of. The outlawed family will act as if they have not been hidden for the past 20 years of your life. You are 20 not 50, dad wants you to live and accept you didn’t do anything wrong. You have your life to lead and you can be there for your dad and your mum and still try to live! The world now knows your secret that you tried to hide from the world of being gay. Ignore the outlaws as they will hover like vultures and act as if they have always been there. You know differently, they will disappear when they see dad isn’t going to get better and they can’t have anything that is dads as it is yours and it’s all tied up in the estate. Now this is where the seeds of depression will be planted as you will have that fear of stairs and you will struggle to start with to overcome them but you will overcome it. Also, you will relieve that fateful night over and over in your mind and you need to stop it and let it go. It was a horrible accident and you had no control over it.

When you have turned 21 you will celebrate it won’t be the big birthday that you may have wanted but you will be with a small number of people that you laugh and enjoy yourself at the school disco in Hammersmith, others missed out as it was a great night. You got many kisses mainly from odd people but a few nice men too. Few weeks after you do this you will have an interview with the psychologist with dad next to you. Do not listen to them or be pulled into the room as you will be left on your own the psychologist will be focusing on dad not you! This will continue to plant the seed of depression and you need to be strong and accept sometimes it is best people not knowing the full story and dad is one of them. When you are struggling you need to talk to people they aren’t bad some of them are there to support you and will listen if you let them in.

Later in the year you will be faced with another hard hurdle when aunty passes on, close to her birthday and the night before you will be with family, the 4 of you will be in the garden united as the final 4 and you will be together. You will pull through this and will tell work how you feel and be in control you will lose the thorn in your side not long after. Also, you will make work aware you will take time off for your family as it is you family. You will see more change later in the year when you move to a new home, you will see dad in a wheelchair and see him in a care home, and you will have to hold yourself together. When work tells you that you can’t take the time off for your aunt’s funeral, you decided to make the change and find a new job which will be terrifying and completely different to what you are used to but you will grow to love the job and sell more than a pair of shoes! You need to keep your confidence as you know how to work with customers and you know how to get the best out of people you just need to keep you cool and take it on the chin.

With all this change and missing the people you have to talk to people when you need them as they won’t know what is going on in your head if you don’t tell them. Same time you need to make friends with people and stop holding it in. you will make friends with people who are completely idiots and don’t deserve you as a friend. That is normal and they will soon show their true colours. You don’t need to accept their poor choices as your own. Be your age and live your life Alex as no one else will live it for you, and you don’t need to be a keyboard warrior or live your life through other people instead you have to live it for you.

For the next few years you will feel isolated and alone but as I said above you need to move beyond your circle of friends and make a new path that is focused on you instead of focusing on everyone else. Also, you have had a bad deck of cards dealt as you keep saying “it’s better it happened to you rather then one of your friends” well you don’t deserve it and nor should you feel it’s better for you. Instead it just happens and you have been strong so far and have had to pull through a lot this has made you a better person. Many will have crumbled and cracked before now, keep your head held high and keep it high. You will be forgotten about by people but that is a choice they have made and yes some of their choices will be immature and you will not know what to do with yourself at the time but you will get through this.  Don’t let your mind dictate who or what you want to do, you can do anything you want when you put your mind to it and be the person you want to be.

When you turn 27 you will have a very big shock and a biggest change you have ever faced in life. Dad will finally be at peace and he will make the decision to be at peace. This will be devastating and he will pass on his birthday. You will be there and you will have to keep strong as you will have to deal with the outlaws and put them in their place a lot as you will lose your father and that is the most important part, they are losing one of their own who they share some DNA with but they won’t have the memories you have with your dad or learning how to say, “yellow yolk” they won’t know this and you will. The cousin who is jealous of you will be there and say she is losing her uncle and make you feel bad for not always being there for dad but he admitted he wanted you to live! And he said this in front of them all that he wasn’t always there for you, this is a big thing as you have never heard him admit his mistakes like this or that he is proud of you. Spend the time with your dad and the rest of them will have to disappear. You will go through the argument with them as they are jealous of your relationship with him, as they will be guilty of where they have been for the years and they will never admit this to anyone.

Your friend won’t know what to say or how to act with you as they don’t know what has been going on and you need to make sure you make time for them. Don’t keep being a lone wolf and suffer in silence. For many months, you will fight with the outlaws and there will be a point you will slowly start to live. You will have a fantastic holiday to Murcia with 3 great people. Work will be supportive about taking time away and coming back into the business, you will slowly start to build the confidence to make new friends and start a new life as you want it and attend your first big gay event such as Manchester Pride and you will also get the confidence to go to Edinburgh to attend Bearscots. You will go to both events and you will have a great time and you will even leave one of the events with a boyfriend which you didn’t anticipate ever happening.

You will be happy for a while and you will be confident and make some big changes over the years with a career change and move from where you call home of London. You are with him and eventually you will have to let him go the sooner you do the better as he will hurt you and not make priorities you before his ex and you will always play second fiddle, he will mess with your mind and make you feel inferior because he forgets how important you are.

When you make the cut, you will go into a spiral and start to live your new life and lose the confidence and start to encounter the worst depression as it will have all mounted up to implode in your mind. Throughout you will have some people playing games with your mind manipulating you and you will find someone who has helped to make you feel human for a brief period. You will find you finally snap and your mind will implode, you will take the time you need to regroup and rebuild your mind. You will regroup and settle into your new environment with a new home that you can call your own. You need to reject the negativity and remove all the toxic people from your life they don’t belong in your life.

As you grow and mature and find your safe space in your mind, then you will encounter more difficult challenges over the year you must pick who you want to be associated with and if you want to be involved in the challenges. You can take a step away when you need from some people if you do not agree with people’s morals or past decisions. Remember you know the difference between right and wrong and those who stand with you. You also must move on and accept somethings may never happen its life and you have proven over 11 years with all the fight and battles you have had you deserve to be happy and find that person who deserves you.

You have to let people into your life and you need to be honest with others and make them aware of how you feel. The person you might wish to be with may not actually be the right person for you. Don’t wait for Mr right now wait for Mr Right and enjoy yourself in the now. You deserve it, and you need to accept it as well. You are stronger then you will ever believe.

Love

ME.

X

 

 

 

Hurricane

Posted on by IAMONE

11 years ago, I began this fight that I never knew what it would become a life changing fight that would alter everything I do and who I am. I grew up alone, I was a victim of being bullied for being me, I was the fat kid.

This battle that takes control and bigger than I am or the ever can be. the disease is described as “the Big Black Dog” it starts off as a little fluff ball of doubt smaller than a grain of rice then it grows like a puppy until it’s a fully-grown dog that can grow to full size with a bat of an eyelid, but won’t shrink or disappear as quick instead it lurks in the darkness or rolls over for its belly to be scratched thinking you have beaten the incurable illness.

The hardest part of the battle I found that the lapses are manageable but the relapse I have been fighting off for the past few weeks trying to see a hint of light through the cloud and just not being able to find the break in the cloud instead I have had thunder and lightning flying in my head. As a hurricane causing a barrier between me and the outside world and I am caught in the eye of the hurricane. The eye of the hurricane the most dangerous part of the entire event, nothing can get in and it you feel the calmness within until suddenly you see a car flying past before your own eyes. With every spiral, it gets more issues added to it making it a bigger and unmanageable or uncontrollable.

My latest black dog has yet to be given a name as it is a newer dog, and part of me feels it should only be called the one thing that flows through my mind now of “hurricane” currently my lounge feels incredibly small when in the face my lounge is spacious. Space has been taken up by a very large black dog with a paw on my chest trying to keep me down and to stop me typing and clear my thoughts. The fear for the hurricane is simple when he is smaller and just big enough to fit back in Pandora box. Yes, I said it in the pretense that I will defeat this illness.

So, what brought this on, as you may or may not have read I have fallen for someone who won’t reciprocate the same feelings. I have had a lot of work pressure recently with new job role and some poor choices of my own, not listening to my mind and saying “STOP”.  I should say this is keep saying yes and volunteering which I need to stop doing and say NO. 

On my way into work for a few days I already figured out how to end my own life, but I fought the voices back and told them no. One of the days my will was quite low and weak and felt it just take one step and it is over with. I did take that one step, backward away from the danger. I have also been experiencing nightmares of losing my mum which makes me cry every time I think of this nightmare. Friends who I don’t notice I am slipping into this spinning fortress of pain as they see the outside I appear fine and I say I am fine but I’m not I am hiding away the problems as I know people are having their own battles. This is something I should have learned previously as it was a big factor in my last breakdown.  Also, not being noticed people can see through me as I stand in a room and just look right through me as if I don’t exist, probably because they can see I am uncomfortable and have no confidence to say “hi”. Some of my friends are popular and have bags full of confidence and never let the mask slip and the exude confidence by the gallon and there is me who just doesn’t have an ounce of confidence to speak. Instead, I slip away into the shadows away from the eyes. It’s same with apps people don’t notice me as I have morals and ethics and I appear nice or too nice.

Most the trigger points anyone can go through it is common for people with a mental health illness to go through several triggers that create a bigger chain and a bigger event that you could never predict.

I am embarrassed with myself for letting this reoccur when I knew what the warning signs were and the trigger points were being reached and I didn’t listen to my own mind, but the Hurricane as I write this no longer has his paw on my chest trying to stop me instead it has given me back my sofa and breathing has got a little easier.

With embarrassment, it also gives me the encouragement to embrace the illness same as before and take control of Hurricane but also the trigger points. I have been to see my doctor and have begun another course of medication but also restarting counseling and other wellbeing support apps that are available on different platforms. Yes, I am fighting and yes, I going to put all the lessons I learned before but this time get them reinforced. My blog helped me last time as I got a lot out of my mind and onto virtual paper which the hurricane that is ongoing in my head throws the paper out of my hands and into the world to see. I won’t deny this blog could go dark and twisted but it can also show light and hope and peace of mind in some way. I must do this for me which last time I did but it was more for helping that one in four people who face mental health issues. This time I am ONE and I am fighting out of this illness.

 

 

 

 

Puddle

Posted on by IAMONE

When you were a child and you saw, a puddle would you jump into the puddles in your wellingtons getting a little splash and getting a surprise if the puddle was a bit deeper than you expected. A bit like the on the vicar Dibley where Geraldine jumps into a puddle smiling and so in love with here on screen boyfriend but the surprise of the puddle wasn’t shallow it was very deep and she goes as low as she can.

 

The lowest points in life are when you are seen just by the outside persona and not the person you really are. Sometimes life will give you lemons and you have choices of making lemonade or squeezing the lemons onto pancakes. This can happen when everything has been going well for so long and then suddenly you walk into a wall which you weren’t expected to see and you trigger a course of events and feel like the world is against you. When you look around and you can see the path of destruction that the world is smiling with everything that is going well for them and you look at yourself and there is nothing but destruction mess and chaos. Sometimes the chaos could be dangerous or unsafe when you are facing problems with hearing voices, and they come over with all the emotions and the un-surety of where to turn when they can’t see anyone nearby who will stand with them.

The deeper the puddle becomes and the harder it becomes to pull themselves out of the puddle as the muddy walls have started to collapse and trapping your feet so they, struggle to claw around at the grass nearby to keep your head above the puddle’s surface. Slowly being dragged under the surface of the murky water feeling the pull from the silo of mud pulling you under the fight to keep yourself above the water becoming harder and harder slowly losing sight of the sun above as you are going further below the surface of the puddle. The hope that someone will see you have bene pulled under and they will put them arm in to save you from drowning in the chaos that is happening. For some people, this will never happen and no one will be there to save them from being dragged under the watery surface. Whilst others may get saved and find the ability to breathe and escape the watery grave that will end the chaos in their mind but not the chaos around them.

Each time I write I give a part of myself closure that a scar has been opened and are now closing and slowly being put to rest. The emotion that can close the suffering and the pain of what has happened in the past and the way some people have hurt me and how I have hurt myself and let my emotions become controlling and how the control my life and emotions.

I am currently going through the similar feeling of Geraldine except I didn’t have someone who I have been in a relationship with. Instead of I have emotions for someone who doesn’t notice how I feel or how much they mean to me. While they begin to start seeing the world with the variety of colours and I am slowly losing the colours in the world and they are becoming darker and harder to see the vibrancy of the colours in the world. the reason I have fallen this hard is because they saw me for me, a human being and that I have a kind heart that I wear on my sleeve, being cheeky and a nice person, who believes in being a good person and hope that being nice and good will bring good things to them and others.

The reality is being a nice person doesn’t mean you get the rewards you feel you deserve, doesn’t happen sometimes you must work and work and work until there is no way of finding that goal it might not happen the way you want. I have 2 simple goals in life

  1. My family and friends are happy and they don’t have to experience any pain or suffering.
  2. That I will find someone who will love me for me, not as a piece of meat, but as a human being who believes in ethics and has a moral compass I know what is right and what is wrong.

I don’t ask for much I am not asking for personal gain with money or materialistic possessions. I want to find that person who loves me for me including all my quirks and not as an object. I am currently deep in this puddle that is life and that the puddle is pulling me under with the mud and clay and struggling to breathe a find who I was this time two weeks ago. Momentarily finding the odd spark that brings back small bits of my identity but then it goes fast enough.

I just wish the person I liked would see how it hurts and how I wish it would have been a different story. I also want my friend to be happy and that’s the ultimate thing. I have slowly started to lose any hope of happiness for myself and can hope for the future for my friends and family.

 

Mountains

Posted on by IAMONE

We breathe, we bleed, we cry and we fall, but we all rise.

I am standing on the brink of destruction at the top of the mountain that I have built every single day. Slowly and steadily taking each step carefully, with the odd cliff created along the way built with a path for me to walk. The path’s near the cliff are blocked by big boulders blocking the road as I walk along stopping me from encountering them again.

The biggest boulder blocking the road where I should not go. This blocks the hardest and darkest part of my life and where there are the loudest voices. Reinforced with many stones and sticks preventing me from getting access to the road I should avoid. The biggest cliff is nearest the top of the mountain with the biggest drop just below the peak. As I have built this mountain I have invited people along on this journey and some have joined me on the road to the top of the mountain and some have come along on journey but have tailed off on their own path on their own journey.

While I carry on working on myself I get lost and begin to question if I have made the right decisions with everything I have gone through should I be me when I never appear to win or get that lucky break to find happiness along this very long journey. I look at what I could have had if I wasn’t this person, as being me doesn’t mean I get the happy ending. I have worked and had to fight through the darkness for years and all I want is the happy ending with someone special who treats me the right way instead of being beaten down into submission. There is a person I have loved for years and hoped one day I might get that chance with that person as they were the first people to treat me like a human being when I had ended my past incidents.

While I have had many happy memories I still have the sad unhappy memories which I have a boulder on trying to shield away from the pain that I have caused and have also suffered. They go back to the point of my breakdown and a night my world imploded all around and I ended up alone very much alone. The night was meant to be exciting and joyful as it was pride. The Parade has happened and the day was tainted with a cloud that was flooding in fast and dark and heavier.  Influences and voices coming in from all sides and being made to feel like the unwanted gooseberry was so much to take. I ended up being alone walking through a town at midnight crying my eyes out wanting and willing it to all stop from the voices to the emotions of hurting and not being here anymore. Crying out for help with people who I knew would be there and help me through in some way. I was unable to drive away and escape the chaos due to having alcohol in my system and knowing I wanted to end all of this was all I wanted but not to take others with me. Receiving text messages of what would be the worst situation for me to walk back into to make me feel like I have no control and no escape. I wasn’t wanted and so begun the mountain and the first cliff I had to avoid. The following morning, I had to encounter trying to pull through as I survived the night that the voices didn’t get me. Instead, I was crying most the night and feeling lost and damaged. The dreams I had once had smashed and no longer a dream more a nightmare had happened I was losing control of my mind and my body was telling me to RUN keep running don’t look back and run to the nearest of escape point that I could end the pain I was suffering. I ran and ran and had the odd message and I got to a point where I stopped running and looked at the messages through the tears. The tears burned with animosity and isolation how I deserved to feel this way and deserved to be alone. There was no one with me or around I went against the voices telling me to keep running I made a cry for help and someone came they came. I was in no fit state to do much where I was standing I noticed a broken glass bottle and the voices picked up on this that I went against the voice and there was an escape was messier then it had planned for me. I was no longer in control the voices was controlling me. Once my cry for help arrived we walked I stumbled and mumbled what was going on. The voices were telling me to stop and I was mumbling and going against every time it said STOP.

My realization, that my dreams were most definitely over having finally lost every single part of me my fight with myself was now changing into a different fight. For many months, I went to friends I could escape from being at home so I could focus on a way to survive with the loss of someone I loved so much it hurt. There were days all I wanted to do was the message and go back to how it was before the walls and world broke. All I wanted to be held and told it to be ok and I wasn’t this damaged a mess that someone would love me and I could find happiness which was and still feels impossible after everything the past 2 years. for the time, I was focusing on me and the being away from the real world of social media and the normal conversations of work and life beyond a condition that had become a major part of my life. The fear of being judged for being ill or taking time out because the invisible illness it was and still is a taboo that mental health illness is in some people eyes just something in your head when really there is nothing worth than being in your own head and trying to tell the thought so to go away and get back into Pandora box and to remain in there as you don’t know who opened the box or who has the key but it isn’t welcome to the conversation or the party.

The mountain is deep and the mountain is high and the peninsula of the mountain is a long and deep road and me still to this day doubt I will ever get to the top feeling I deserve love or happiness. My dreams have changed over the years and I have become more open to the idea of marriage and having someone I could love and say is my partner and it is recognized as equal to the all.

I had got to point where I have felt comfortable and have felt calm and the random parts of this mountain the water is still and peaceful my mind had become at ease. I began a relationship and I was nervous about it after my last relationship ended in mental torture where I was never good enough to be loved or treated the same as others. I wasn’t good enough to be treated as a partner instead I was the afterthought and never visited instead I was the mug that went through with this for years. This relationship affected me still how I never fully feel I am an equal or that I can ever be loved. I won’t go into much about my last relationship as I usually get a right to censor suddenly appear but it ended at Pride 2016 and has systematically made me more self-conscious than ever before as part of my heart have not only had a scar on it but the scar will never close. Same as my first relationship it has an open wound. The Mountain has encountered more broken bridges along the way and the cliff edges have become more unstable along the way. The lakes are no longer calm or at ease instead, they have turned into rapids with big spikes in.

Following both failed relationships which I won’t say was all on my past ex I have some responsibility to them failing as well as I allowed them to change and take control and allowed the behavior was my downfall. I have worked hard for me the past 11 months to find me. Ignored the voices and tried to find my happiness which I thought I might be a step closer to which I was very much wrong about. Instead, I ended up being more alone and more lost and hurting just the same as I did 2 years ago. Which more worry and fear than ever before in my body and soul that the voices were finally right I don’t deserve anything other than pain and loss and to feel this way. Sad to say the person I had always had hopes for to ask me out won’t ask me out for so many reasons they won’t partially they deserve better than someone like me. I am currently away and nothing changes, I sat here and write a blog and I thought I had finally been able to put an end to feeling like this. I sat and wrote why people don’t need me or want me,

·         Ugly

·         Fat

·         Unhappy

·         Crazy

·         Not important

·         Gullible

·         Abused

·         Freak

·         Disgusting

·         Not in the same league

 ·         Suicidal

·         Damaged

·         Stupid

·         Disappointment

·         Dead behind the eyes

·         Forgettable

·         Convenience

·         Weird

·         Bland

·         Beneath people

 

Some will say this is the voices and the disease taking control but these have been the emotions I have had for years about myself. I was the last pick for every school event, as I wasn’t the popular boy or was I really wanted around as much by my friends as they made new friends who were the popular kids and the ones everyone knew of. I was the one that hung around with outsiders and intelligent guys. I was a band geek who enjoyed being friends with people and I worked hard to achieve what I achieved in school. I had a lot of challenges within studying and achieving my goals. I still am working hard on improving myself. I never got the chance to date or any of the normal stuff kids get up to as I was forgotten about instead I was the joke to some people as I was the forgotten kid. No one would notice I was there unless they needed entertainment.  I brushed away the bullies and the comments of how I had double chins and wasn’t much more than a blob as kind hearted as kids can be they can be just cruel.

I walked up the mountain and in a way, I just seemingly kept walking around the same path and not climb the mountain to control my future. It has taken me 12 years of dealing with this disease and fight through and try to push through and get out of bed every single day. I have had to fight for everything I have now and how I am still standing is a small miracle as I have had to put so much of my heart soul and body on the line to get me through the darkest parts of my life. Some things no one should ever see like their father falling in hurting himself or being threatened with dirty needles or a knife.  I saw my dad take his final breath on the 22nd January 2012 at 00:54 I was the only person in the room. I sat in the funeral car with only one person praying this was only a dream that my dad wasn’t dead instead it was a horrible nightmare and the route I was taking wasn’t past my families homes of my departed aunt and uncle or nan and grandad. Filling the funeral car with my family that no longer walk this earth but walk above with my father joining them above helping him to recover from his accident and to walk again. To being out for a very late birthday meal to how being a child and how your dad would pick them up when they fell over I had lost my father 6 weeks before. Still devastated staying up every Saturday until the same time to say goodnight to my dad, I did this for a year missing my dad and my family.

Getting older my dreams changed and as I said about getting married I always believed I didn’t feel the need to get married as it’s a piece of paper but not only is it equality but it’s a bond between me and that other person that makes it special and growing up as an only child and it’s the question you always get asked would you want to have children, and honestly I would but I would want to adopt as we have so many children within child services who need a home and need the care they deserve. But alas it’s all a dream and right now I doubt I ever will get to achieve any of them. It’s just the way my set of cards were dealt and reshuffled again and again.

My mountain is hard to climb and fight through the darkest gloomiest parts of the mountain and avoid the cliff edges.  I know I can be hard work for my friends and my family as I have so many issues that people can only hear so many times.  Also, there are only so many times I can keep pulling myself through the hardest and darkest moments.

Poem of Convenience

Posted on by IAMONE

The Convenience
by Unknown

Shhhh do you hear the noise? Sitting there in your big chair, can you hear the noise?

The noise of a tear drop from my cheek. The pin drop on the floor or each breath coming from your chest? Can you hear it? Can you feel it the emotion the run through every soul and person?

Listen to the weeping angels crying on the shoulders of those we have lost the tears that have been shed for those who no longer live here. Those that have passed on to a new home a new time and place.

Can you feel it the sensation on your skin as every hair tingles and your emotions are running sparking electricity through your body, the noise the sensation they running wild through?

Stand still and listen to the world pass by can you hear the tear drops can you hear my screams am I just the convenience that keeps coming back for more. The laughing the smiles are long gone the tears streaming down my face waiting for you to notice the voices no longer coming from my mouth but in my head taking over the day and life no longer the fun instead the screams waiting for the moment to ask Are you ok? The worlds colliding and taking over my being and soul I scream for it to stop and to leave but they continue to collide while you sit there unaware.

The keyboard warriors the socialites the ones that say I am there but cannot see what is happening or going on behind these hazel eyes.  The man of convenience sits and weeps while you party and dance. you don’t see the scars I have on my arms and body nor in my heart that has been destroyed day in and day out. You don’t see behind those rose-tinted spectacles. I will never be good enough for you to take them off so you can see the true me full of marks and scars. You will just carry on even if I disappear into the land. Hidden away from your eyes you will forget who I am or was and instead you will find a new convenience from the social world.

The land is waiting for a new body to take and feed off the bones of the last convenience for this earth. the soul has moved on beyond this realm and is in the newer plain awaiting my entry into beyond the pearly gates the hands of the lost awaiting to welcome the newest soul to their ranks. They no longer feel or have emotions they are beyond the living they are fearless and free. They don’t have the pain they once had in this realm we call NOW.

The defence of space, the word you say to protect yourself but not for anyone else to see if you got too close and touched the fire that has burnt your hand and your heart that you are scared to get close again. The voices and the murmurs ring around the corridors but you listen to their voices and words but not my own. You say you are a friend but you are like the rest, you never know what you have lost until they have left you alone, you begin your journey minus the convenience that was once there to hold your hand through thick and thin as convenience has the possibility of no longer being your convenience.

The soil is waiting for a future soul to welcome into its clasps you will never know what you once had until the convenience is no more.  your madness and my own will no longer be. This is time to leave you and the pain and suffering and listen for the tears.

Can you hear them fall….?

 

 

Full Circle

Posted on by IAMONE

Well 2015 saw the beginning of the battle. Everywhere I looked there was leaves covering the path, making it impossible to find the route through the fog that slowly drifted in and was taking over my mind and my view. Looking around at what used to bring me joy and excitement was slowly crumbling within my own hands. Feeling each part of the puzzle become heavy and impossible to slot back together, the puzzle was no longer the same puzzle I had in 2014.

The beginning of the circle breaking up with my boyfriend at the end of 2014 ending a period which had been going on for too long and being let down slowly clouded judgement and decisions and accepting being made to feel inferior. My ex came along at a point in my life which is when I needed someone after losing my dad in 2012 on his birthday and grieving and trying to work my way through feeling insecure and unsure of who I am or wanted to be. I have been brought up to be kind, honest and to have manners. Some can see these qualities as weaknesses I see them as being who I am and want to be. It makes me strong and constantly reminds me of my upbringing. After splitting from him, ignoring my own mental health and seeing the fog from afar.

Through 2015 the battle continues and losing the qualities I possess that makes me tick and find the person I was losing. Seeing what half, the picture picking up on the situations and not dealing with them in the right way. Lashing out and making the situation worst or the person who was seeing it and wasn’t real. Some cases it would be the latter and some not so, I became the person who couldn’t be believed.  Posts on social media and comments and the now fully covered path of leaves and rocks no longer seeing where I was meant to be heading. Making the direction of travel impossible to remain on the rails, until the implosion of Pride ’15. The night my world and my soul, being and body could no longer cope or survive as that version of me. The fear and the darkness flooded every part of my body, I finally needed to stop and breath and find the light switch to find my way out of this spiral of destruction, the same spiral my father went through. Now trying to just remain standing and brush a few leaves away. From the moment 30th August 2015 was my lowest point atom find the strength to turn the key in the ignition of my car and drive away from Manchester for a night and trying to find some peace in my head, driving to my best friend’s home and we didn’t discuss what had happened or what was going on, I was left to just take a breath and find aa footing. The hardest part of the illness was making the call home to my mum telling her how low I had become and feeling a failure for being weak. Fear and darkness were part of me from that point on, for several weeks I had to stop and break the routine rarely home in Manchester but at friends and family’s homes keeping myself to myself and writing these blogs through my battles of the highest and lowest moments of depression.

Getting back to what a routine is meant to be, and returning to work, continuing with medication, the path slowly becoming clearer with leaves still across the path in places but slowly the wind blows them away. Friends becoming more available the more I was open about having an illness, no longer feeling isolated or alone. I felt a part of something that wasn’t just me in this fight but I had support. Throughout fighting the illness, I remember that I had to learn from this fight.  New Year’s Eve in 2015 was my first night out in Manchester since pride and my first time being out with others, my friends who are my support network.  Facing so much in 2015 was difficult and some part hurt and still do, it did teach me a lot.

2016 was the beginning of a new chapter and new milestones. Turning 30 and settling into a new life of being me. Being able to say no and distance myself from anything that didn’t make me smile.

Walking into fear and the possibility of bumping into fear at any point was terrifying at times, but then freeing myself of the fear. I began a relationship which wasn’t on the cards at all. The relationship had its moments of happiness and great darkness. As most relationships, they have ups and downs and they all have different directions, sadly the relationship didn’t work and there has been a lot of words and comments have been said and aits now time to put the whole situation to bed.

From these moments, it has developed my resiliency and drive and make me stand back on my own 2 feet, with friends who are now family. Each battle has to let the dust settle and the moments after the fight is when you can see the clear picture of what has happened. Overtime the dust completely clears and you can new parts of this ever-changing puzzle that you never noticed before a piece of part of the puzzle.

When you begin to fight through and deal with depression you slowly deal with recovery, and find challenges great and small. Throughout my 18 month when I started this recovery, I set myself some challenges to achieve was to be able to sit in a public space alone with strangers around me and being able to drink a coffee and to feel comfortable in my own skin. Something I have constantly felt uneasy about. Finally achieving I can sit in a room alone as I am never alone, I am supported by great people, I have an amazing family and some uniquely brilliant friends. In 2016 I, had as many lows and highs and the one of the greatest high’s I will always hold I no longer surviving I am a survivor! From that I challenge the walls and the fears a no longer run away unsure instead I stand my ground.

From this I’ve decided this will be the final blog for #IamONE as I am no longer the one alone, I have gone full circle being able to go out with people I would never dreamed of spending time with at New Years!  I survived Pride 16 when the world was looking like it would implode again it didn’t! being able to go back to Scotland and being at the event that brought me into the gay world, and become part of the community. The lows don’t need to be gone back over again, those who have been part of the lows my only wish is for you to find happiness and be at peace of the past and live in the now. I am free from those lows the sadness and the darkness, I hope you find that inner peace one day. Bearscots I started to say a mantra,

I am Kind

I am Strong

I deserve better

I am…ME

Thank you for reading this blog and being part of my journey I am no longer the person I was in 2015 or 2014! I am the newer me, not fully recovered and never will be cured but I will continue this fight with your helping hand.

My favourite quote I have, “Stumbling isn’t falling” I will never fall with all your kindness and support.

Thank you

I am finally FREE to be me.

Alex