Suicide Is Not Easy

I was eating my Sunday lunch in the living room when I heard the news about Gary Speed. I was awestruck, it was a complete shock to me, as it was for many others. The ignorant, or misinformed, think suicide is selfish. They wonder how a person could take such an easy way out and leave their family to deal with the aftermath, so they don’t have to. Well I’m really hoping that those who have read my blog up to now, no longer fall into either the ignorant or misinformed categories.

The brain, and the mind is very complex and nobody understands it. The story of my father is great proof to that. Nowhere is the butterfly effect more apt than in a description of the brain. One misplaced word in a text, one car journey, one lost love, these can all effect the brain in a way that can lead to irreversible damage. My blogs have proven that aswell I think.

The End Of A Family

Trying to fulfil my promise to my Dad by making him proud was no easy task. By the time he got ill, I had already linked my life to bipolar disorder. I came across it by accident. Of course I had heard of the condition before, but I didn’t know a great deal about it.

I was flicking around a rugby league forum and came across an article about an Australian rugby player who was coming over to play in this country, after having problems down under due to his Bipolar disorder. There was a thread on one forum, where someone basically asked what bipolar was and how it could affect a player. About 4 replies in, someone posted something that gave me an idea what I was suffering from. This person spread awareness of the condition, pointed out some of the symptoms. The poster may not know it, but he contributed in some way to changing my life.

Death Just A Whisker Away

“We worked in gangs for all we were worth
The young boys pulling the wagons
We were digging the tunnels, shifting the earth
It was then that it happened

No-one knew how the cracks appeared
But as it fell they all disappeared
Stone fell like rain”

-Genesis – Driving The Last Spike

I think that song and especially those verses are quite apt for what happened in October 2008.

Cyclothymia Explained

I thought I’d give those who have been reading my story a little treat. I’ll have a quick run down and summary of the effects of my condition in both stages, the lows and the highs.

There are two stages of the illness Cyclothymia. The dysthymic stage (the bad) and the eurphoric stage (the not so bad).

Back At Home

I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to fill in the basics first, then once that is done, I can delve deeper into each part of my life in further posts. This post will cover the basics from 2005 until October 2008 when the biggest fall of my life occurred. It may be another long one like yesterdays, please be patient.

I left off having made the decision that I wanted to come home. I made that decision on the Thursday and was moving back in on the Sunday. It was January 2005 and although I didn’t know it yet, it was going to be the beginning of the end for me. Which ending, was not certain for 6 years.

The Southern Years

If you read yesterdays blog, you may already have an opinion in mind. Maybe you think I’m lazy, maybe everything I’ve done is my own fault. If you think that’s the case, please keep reading and hopefully you’ll learn a thing or two. I don’t want you to feel sorry for me, not even a little bit. What I want is to highlight the issues people with mental health problems suffer, no matter how trivial they may seem to you. Perhaps reading my blog will point to a friend, or a member of your family who has shown similar symptoms recently.

That’s precisely what I want. If I can help just a single person, then I could have changed a life, possibly even saved a life. The death of Gary Speed yesterday kick started me into this. I started a blog here about 16 months ago, when I thought I may have cancer of the Tsurav Gangulys (more on that later). Sadly, someone who I thought was a very good friend, someone I thought actually loved me as a friend, accused me of only writing it to get attention. Her words were “pity party”. Needless to say, I haven’t spoken to her since that moment and have no intention of ever doing so again.

The Beginning

As I’ve started this blog nearly 16 months after my initial contact with the mental health teams, I’ll have to track back a bit. I’ll do this over the next few days.

I had a fairly typical upbringing. Parents separated when I was 5 and my Mum brought me up, with regular visits to my very loving father, who I took after in many things. Things were all going very well until I hit high school. Before that, I had played football non-stop, gone to Cub Scouts every week and behaved very well, both at school and at home.