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 50^th 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. 30^th 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.