In my last blog I told you how I was helped immensely by P3, an amazing charity, it was Sian who lent me her copy of ‘the 4 pillars’ by Dr Rangan Chatterjee. I thought i’d try as i once read a book by Alan Carr (not the comedian!) on how to give up smoking, i read it with an open mind, not because i ‘had to’ or because the doctor said ‘i have to’ it was because i wanted to quit smoking. I read it and did what he said in the book, took in and believed what he was telling me and on the 2nd February 2004 i finished the book and smoked my last cigarette (not had even a puff since!) because of the succesful nature of the book i thought i would try reading Dr Chatterjee’s Four Pillars book and understand what makes us tick.

The Four Pillars are 1. Eating, 2. Movement, 3. Relax, 4. Sleep

I read the book within the week and was so impressed i wanted to put everything into practice straight away, anyone that has tried to keep to a New Year Resolution will realise how hard it is to change large parts of your life and stick to it.

I went back to the book and picked on small changes to do one at a time. I did 3 weeks without any alcohol at all which is quite good for me, i tried eating healthier which is going ok. Sian & Sarah then mentioned that he had a weekly podcast out and it would be worth a listen. My OCD kicked in and i had to download them from number one, luckily they were still available 🙂

I’ve become rather addicted to them now as i seem to be learning more and more, he has a guest each week that excels in different parts of science, they put things across in plain, understandable English which makes it easier to follow and live by.

There’s been some very interesting ones that i will be trying soon. One of the best i have listened to was from the founder of the meditation app ‘Calm’ i have been trying to do at least 15 minutes every day, when i miss one i do spend a lot of the day regretting it, when i do meditate in the morning i seem to be clearer in my thoughts, these thoughts are what led me to writing a blog, i felt my brain was storing more and more shit thoughts and stagnating, i kept thinking more and more towards further education but was struggling for time, writing a blog seemed to give me something to think about.

One of my proudest moments was when Sarah at P3 got in touch to say that her boss had read them and wanted to see if they could use them in their internal blog for P3 staff, not bad for someone that has never blogged before! It has given me a new lease of life.

My next one is going to be about the most important thing in my life, my wife, and what she has had to put up with, as L’Oreal once said ‘because i’m worth it’

As I mentioned in my last blog I was helped immensely by Sarah and Sian at P3, it’s a charity that is based in various locations across the uk set up to help socially excluded and vulnerable People to unlock their Potential and to help them open up new Possibilities, hence the 3 P’s.

I was very sceptical to start with, as you may have gathered from previous blogs that I’m not one that likes to talk to people about what I’m feeling, things that annoy me or stress me, so talking to a stranger over a cup of tea didn’t seem like my idea of fun. Sarah and Sian came round our house to introduce themselves and to ‘check me out’, I’m sure they must have sat in the car around the corner as they rang the bell bang on the time they said!

They both made me feel at ease so I decided that I would try it and give it a good chance of succeeding, I had taken the biggest step by finally admitting I had a problem and asking for help. The problem with men is that they will bottle it up, pretend everything is fine and plod on through life, I had gone past that stage and finally gave in, it was a case of accepting help or taking my own life, I couldn’t take anymore.

One of the greatest quotes I have ever heard or read was:

‘All it takes is a beautiful fake smile to hide an injured soul and they will never notice how broken you really are’ – Robin Williams

Sarah and the P3 team seem to realise that everyone is different, they help in the things you don’t want to do or feel you can’t do, they’ll chase appointments to make sure you are seeing the right people at the right time. She was happy to go with what I wanted, go for a tea/coffee or as we did one morning at 07:00, went for a run.

I know they’re a charity organisation, and you get 8 weeks with them but I would recommend them to everyone that needs help, they won’t do everything for you, you need to do that yourself, you’ve got to want to get better, want to accept help and suggestions and then only you can do something about it.

Sian lent me her book ‘The Four Pillars’ by Dr Rangan Chatterjee, it was my decision to read it and act upon it, if I didn’t it was a waste of my time, Sarah’s time and was taking the time for someone else that could use some help. I’m so pleased I did, great book which I’ll go into next time.

I suggest anyone that wants to change their life for the better can always start by talking to their GP, start getting the professional help they need and then look up P3’s website, http://www.p3charity.org

Sarah did mention that she has since started a twitter page too and she was going to send me the link for that too, anyone that’s on Twitter (I’m still technologically challenged) could probably find it themselves. Since writing this i now know it to be @p3charity

That’s all for today as I’m still in quite a good place at the moment and don’t want to darken my mood too much.

Thank you Sarah, Sian and P3

In my previous blogs I told you how I had started counselling and was seeing some improvement in my mental health, I will never be sure which one helped, was it the tablets or the counselling?

I was still having appointments at the doctors and my medication had increased to the maximum dosage, I was still having bad days, just not as many, Janet then referred me to critical care as I needed more professional help, I had an appointment with IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) I met with a member of their team who assessed and referred me to 3 different organisations

Even though she determined I wasn’t an alcoholic she was concerned at the amount I was drinking and the fact I turned to drinking on my bad days, as you may or may not know alcohol is a depressant so I needed to cut back. Unfortunately the referral for assistance in drink withdrawal never materialised!!

The 2nd was for CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) again due to underfunding the waiting list for that is 9 months to a year 😩 she did put together a safety plan for me, she said if you ever felt suicidal would you call the Samaritans? No. Would you go to A&E and get professional help? No. Would you call an ambulance? No.

I was starting to feel let down and alone again so we started the downward spiral yet again.

The 3rd referral ended with P3 a charity organisation contacting me to offer assistance, I saw Sarah Betteley and Sian. Sarah became my ‘care worker’ and was probably one of the most helpful and full of life person I’ve ever met. You get help for 8 weeks with P3, we met for a cup of tea (she wouldn’t let me go in the pub!) we even went for a run one day, something I was missing. She chased up appointments and referrals for me as she knew who to contact. I can honestly say she got me focused enough to turn the corner!

Things were improving slowly, had a couple of bad days but felt better quicker, I wasn’t self harming anymore, which is something I’d forgotten to mention, when I was in the dark place, cutting seemed to relieve the pain in my head, it was a genuine pain too, I’ve learnt that a headache on the front left side of my brain was the beginning of the darkness descending on me. It wasn’t a normal headache, I can only describe it as someone using a hammer and chisel and tapping away at my head.

Sian through Sarah lent me a book, The Four Pillars by Dr Rangan Chatterjee. What a book, I recommend it for everyone. I can’t praise it highly enough. I’ve started to implement some of the things in the book including meditation!!

I then tried his podcast which has various guests from the health sector and real, normal people. Again, brilliant. I’m now constantly listening to his podcasts on the way to and from work or when I want 30 mins of peace.

I recommended the book to a couple of very good friends of ours for their daughter who is suffering and I’m pleased to say that they too have found it helpful.

The period between Sarah at P3 and fully reading the book I ended up referred back to critical care, the doctor a saw was a **** and not helpful, his overall assessment was that I wasn’t planning or had a plan to kill myself but he was concerned that my OCD and impulsive behaviour was a major concern, that was the last I’ve heard from them too! It was up to me now, live or die and at the moment the living part of me is winning quite comfortably, I won’t be coming of the tablets for a while though, I missed 2 days because I’d run out and it felt as if I had gone back 6 months!

In my next blog I’d like to explain the benefits I found with P3 and Dr Chatterjee and try and put together some good links to help others too.

On the 2nd anniversary of my sisters passing I was driving a lorry for the weekend and everything was centred around the London Marathon that was coming up, on the day I listened to the commentary on radio 5Live (brilliant commentators on there but that’s another story!) I had many moments of tears and frustrations as you can probably imagine, I think the first sign was that the Royals were promoting their charity ‘Mind’ I clearly remember thinking ‘perhaps I need help’ but didn’t do anything about it.

I plodded on working and going through the motions but never felt really happy or ‘normal’, don’t get me wrong, I had some great days with my wife, mum, kids, nieces and nephews but it wasn’t what it should be. We all go through ups and downs but the ups seemed to be getting less and less. On the 2nd anniversary I got the usual slide into despair as the marathon approached, I watched it on tv, cried and thought I had run 26.2 miles of the most iconic race in the world and don’t remember hardly any of it, can you believe I can’t even remember running around the Cutty Sark!

After the event when things usually start to improve I found I wasn’t coming out of the slump, I was getting ratty, was constantly tired, drinking too much and had a very short fuse. My wife and business partner suggested I see someone as I was becoming out of control, we were going to lose drivers and or customers, I kept saying I was fine, just tired.

If there’s anyone reading this that has suffered depression you will know exactly what I am talking about, if not you can only imagine what it’s like.

I’ll try and explain my feelings as everyone is different, on a bad day you don’t want to get out of bed but you don’t want to stay in it, you want to shower but can’t be bothered to get the soap out or the towel. You’re hungry but don’t want to eat unless it’s something easy like crisps or biscuits (no effort required) which in turn means you put on weight, you look in the mirror and think ‘I’m fat and worthless’ and so the spiral continues. The best way to get through a bad day was to drink, the more you drank the less hurt you felt until you went over the top and the depressive nature of alcohol kicks in, then you’re worthless and want to end it all and so it continues!

The best step I took was to go and see my doctor, I may have been lucky as the nurse practitioner I saw, Janet Thornley, was brilliant, she took the time to talk to me, even if the appointments went on a bit longer than they should have, she gave me options and I had an appointment pretty much weekly for a while. She was patient with me and we tried different ideas but settled on anti depressants, we tried a few different strengths and tablets until we found one that seemed to be working.

As you may have guessed from previous posts I am not the sort that wants to talk about things that are upsetting but she did put a good argument across for Councelling, at this point I had made up my mind that I needed to try and sort myself out or die, I wasn’t going to continue feeling like this.

Unfortunately the NHS is a superb service that is underfunded and understaffed, again that’s another story that I may revisit in a different blog! The waiting list for Councelling on the NHS was anywhere between 6 months and a year, I was lucky enough to be able to go private and was put in touch with ‘Councelling Works’ in Stony Stratford. I met with my councillor, a lovely lady called Kate Stubbings, she was the first person that I really spoke to about things, it was quite good for me up to a point, the best thing I got from it was to share my feelings with my wife and to tell friends what I was going through. That was a weight lifted, anyone going through the same things I was (or similar) really should consider talking to someone close, in confidence if it helps.

This blog will continue soon

I’m not great with this technology thing but I hope this gets shared and gains some followers so I can try and help some others. If anyone wants to message me then I can try and listen if it helps.

After a bad couple of days I’ve felt like I needed to continue with the story of my downward spiral into depression.

My wonderful sister had the shocking news of her breast cancer but decided there and then that she was going to give it a major battle. She was always a fighter and this was a fight she was determined to win.

Many people think their lifestyle and nutritional values go a long way towards their ability to avoid illness and diseases, this is unfortunately not true, she was a personal trainer, a ‘fitness freak’ with a serious liking for ‘clean eating’!!

Fair play to her, she was far tougher than I was or probably ever will be. After a long hard battle she was cleared of breast cancer. I think she could have given the doctors a run for their money with all her knowledge she gained from studying every single detail regarding cancer, chemotherapy, survival rates and anything else she could research. If someone said they’d heard about anything that may help then she was on it!

A short while later she was diagnosed with secondary breast cancer. I dread to think how she felt but my world started to crumble yet again, she had two perfect (or nearly perfect) kids and a wonderful loving supportive husband, I did and still do, think he was so good, I was in awe of him and how well he stepped up, I felt I was wading through treacle and couldn’t seem to do anything.

I’d started doing a bit of running, I used the NHS couch to 5k app and found it therapeutic and enjoyable. I’d say I became addicted to running, I did the 5k eventually and signed up to run the MK Festival of Running 10k, it was hard but I completed it and gained my first medal, a day later I signed up for the MK half marathon. I still remember the day, at the 7 mile marker I thought ‘what the f*** have I done?’ It was thinking about my little sis and what she was going through, I remember thinking if she can put up with the pain and discomfort she was enduring then I could surely suffer for a few hours! The 2nd of many running medals soon came along.

I then decided I’d enter the Virgin London Marathon and try and raise money for a cancer charity. When the ballot was drawn I wasn’t lucky enough to get a place, it was a week or so later when I was offered a place by Breast Cancer Now, must have been an omen, half of me was ecstatic to get a place and the other half thought ‘what a twat, it’s miles!’ A lot of jogging and training in between running a transport company and visiting my sister I managed to clock up a best run of 13.1 miles in the Silverstone Half Marathon (another cool medal), I read about everybody else’s training and realised I should’ve been up around the 20mile mark. Oops! Panic set in, I started looking for excuses and reasons so that I didn’t have to do it. My sisters health deteriorated so not running was no longer an option. The day approached, the 24th April 2016, the day I was dreading, then not long after midnight I got a call from my brother in law saying she had passed away. Devastated is an understatement, a decision had to be made, run or not, many people said I didn’t need to do it, she was looking down on me saying ‘if you don’t do it I’ll kick your f****** teeth in!’ I don’t remember much of the day, not even running around the Cutty Sark! I do remember the pain I was feeling and how much the memory of my sister pushed me on.

6 hours 1 minute 13 seconds

I crossed the line and just burst into tears, I’d made it but she wasn’t there to see or hear me brag about it, she would’ve been looking down thinking well done but I’ve still stolen your thunder! We were always quite competitive.

My health, well being, mental being and motivation was sliding further down, the following years marathon was a reminder of that awful day, if I remember correctly, that years chosen charity was Mind, I was listening to the Royals, William, Kate and Harry explaining why they were involved, for a few minutes a cried, cried some more and thought I may need some help, I decided to revert back to my own defence mechanism!

This has been extremely hard to write and most of me would like to share it with everyone, part of me would like to keep it quiet, go into my own world, and a very small part of me thinks ‘what’s the point of going on?’

I’m going to leave it there for now and then I’d like to explain how my recovery got started, how it’s going now and what I’m looking forward to…

After my dad passed away I buried myself in my work, for me it was the perfect job, I got to be alone with my thoughts, back in those days there wasn’t really many mobile phones about, once I was off the boat I was on my own until the truck was empty and I’d called the office. Slowly phones started getting more popular and luckily were expensive so I was left alone again.

Looking back now it was probably the worst thing to do, when I eventually saw a counsellor some 20+ years later it was explained to me that all I was doing was putting layer upon layer of stress and distress on top of one another!

I could never get over the fact that I went to work the night my dad died and not talking about it helped me in the short term, ruined me in the long term.

I ended up getting divorced and moving away from my kids (still seeing them and paying maintenance and mortgage) this in itself made things harder, my new partner and I struggled to make ends meet but were determined that all the kids (and hers) were looked after and have everything they needed, I worked longer and harder and created more stress but was still worrying about the financial situation.

My dads mum, Milli (or big nan as she was known to my sister and I) developed bowel cancer which deteriorated her health quickly, especially as she must have been living with a broken heart. To me it was becoming a big downward spiral, death and illness, I couldn’t and still can’t remember the really good times.

My mum and sister constantly said I should have grief councelling, keeping quiet and alone was the best way forward for me at the time!!

Lots of my friends started divorcing, there seemed to be constant deaths, everything was still spiralling down. The next most distressing time was when a very close friend of mine suffered the loss of a baby, so tiny and stillborn, I clearly remember her husband carrying the tiny coffin on his own into the church, I remember thinking if that was me I’d probably be dead too!! They were so strong and I wasn’t.

Another layer was added. Then, early 2013 my best mate asked me to be his best man (for the 2nd time!) finally some good news, things were on the up, a stag do to plan, speech to write and a great day to look forward to. Then the morning of his wedding my mum rang in tears to say my sister had been diagnosed with breast cancer. That was the start of more depression, the wedding joy was short lived. We now had to get together as a family (which was pretty small) and help my sister, I couldn’t do it, I wanted to take myself away and finish it, to take away the grief. The only things that stopped me was my mum, sister and wife, they had enough to deal with. Yet another layer was added and the next chapter started….

As far back as I can remember I’ve always had a good up bringing, good memories and fun times.

Back in the seventies and eighties everything seemed hard, being liked, being good at sport, being good at school. At least we didn’t have to contend with social media!!

I’ve often watched programmes like Heartbeat, Call the Midwife and Downton Abbey and wished I had been born ready for those eras, everything seemed level, everyone helped everyone else, no major crimes, a fight was fisticuffs and then shake hands, none of the ‘pulling a knife’! I suppose that’s the start of the mind thinking ‘I can’t cope anymore’ I didn’t realise at the time but I now think today’s fast, non stop, 24 hour society has gone a long way to causing my issues. Everything that follows is building layer upon layer of those problems.

Back in 1994 I took an overdose, I can’t even remember the reason why but it’s not a normal reaction to any problem that a ‘normal person’ has. I suppose that if awareness of mental health issues were as good then as they are now I probably would have been given help way back then. Alas, it wasn’t forthcoming.

In 1997 my major issue happened which I thought was the cause but obviously not, it was an extension, or a better way of putting it, was another layer being added to the already fragile mind.

My dad, a wonderful hardworking man was diagnosed with lung cancer, that was a shock in its self, I suppose denial that it was really happening was my go to mind set. He battled cancer bravely as many many cancer sufferers do but passed away on 7th October 1998. It wasn’t his passing that hurt but the following situation.

I was a continental lorry driver at the time working for a company in Kent, I’d always wanted to be a lorry driver after my dad so dreams were being realised. I went to work that night and when I arrived I had what can only be described as a premonition, a voice, as clear as day told me not to go to Paris that night. I told the transport manager that night that I couldn’t go (they knew of the situation at home) but I was persuaded to go! I got a call at lunchtime from the boss telling me that my dad had died. I can’t describe or get people to understand how clear the premonition was because it’s the only time I’ve had it, so many probably haven’t experienced anything like it. I should have listened and stayed at home that night.

Family and friends will often say ‘your dad was a workaholic so would have been proud you were still working’ my mind says he was thinking ‘where’s my boy?’

I spent from October 1998 until today carrying that burden and there’s only one person that can give me the definitive answer and he died. Therefore I’ve had to learn how to cope rather than repair the damage that my brain has suffered.

I’m going to leave it there for now before I start the big black cloud to move over me!

After some time discussing with my family, I or should I say we, decided blogging may be a good idea. They say talking helps, not as much as people think, but it does help. Hopefully it will help me on the road to recovery and if I’m lucky, one person that is suffering or that one person who knows someone that is suffering can get some help or guidance then it will be worth it.

I’ve never done anything like this before and I wasn’t sure where to start, I’m going to try and go back to when my mental, yes I said the word ‘mental’ issues started. I will try and be as honest and open as possible about the past, the now and what I hope to get from the future.

Many of my friends and family know most, or at least some of the things in the past, I’m not sure any know all though!

I’ve been excited and dreading this in equal measures, right now I’m feeling good about it so I’m going to relax, chill out, get some sleep and start my story tomorrow.