Lots of people have their problems; some more than others. Some find it hard to talk. Some prefer to express themselves through writing or other creative means. I'll be the first to admit; I don't really know what my 'coping mechanism' is. I've spent the best part of seventeen years trying to figure that out. Maybe this will give me the answers to the questions that I have been asking myself all these years.
To get to the source of the problem(s) I've been having; I suppose I'd better talk about everything that I believe has contributed to the tangled up mess inside my head. I apologise in advance if any of this is upsetting to read. But I don't apologise for opening up and showing people 'my world' as I see it.
The beginning of my problems started when I was just eight years old. I was living with my Mother, Father and younger brother. Everything was great. My home life was stable. I had friends at school. I was a happy child. My parents enjoyed stable jobs and both were able to provide for both my brother and I. Then one day in January 1995, that was all about to change.
I remember the day like it was yesterday. It was a bitterly cold day and I was full of a cold so my Mother decided to keep me off school for the day. So she asked my Father to take my brother to nursery in the car. He refused on the grounds that he had 'something to do'. So my Mother had to take me with her to drop my brother off at the nursery. My Mum didn't drive, so we had to walk down and back two hills to reach the nursery. Easier said than done when you consider I was ill and my brother was relatively young. This inevitably caused an argument between my parents and my Mum got me and my brother ready and off we went to the nursery. On the way back from the nursery, my Mother stopped off at one of her close friends. Whilst we were there, my Father took the liberty to ring my Mother’s friend to speak to my Mother. I am not 100% on the content of the phone call, all I remember is getting back home and he wasn’t there.
Days, weeks and months went by and he still didn’t turn up. It was clear that my parents had split up. But I didn’t know or understand why. I was just eight years old. I often found myself thinking back to a specific time, when my Mother was at work and my Father took me and my brother out in the car and he went into a house and left me and my brother there for a few hours whilst he did whatever he was doing. I still don’t know to this day and has often had me wondering about it.
A few months later, my Father invited my Mother, me and my brother to a circus that was taking place in my hometown. I didn’t want to sit next to him. He left us; he hurt us so why should I give him the satisfaction of sitting next to him. My brother, not old enough to understand (neither was I but I could understand how hurt he had made us all feel) sat next to him. He was always closer to my Father up until him leaving.
In May of that year, the local football team won the biggest prize in English football, The Premier League, (big hint of where I come from). A commemorative book came out with match reports from every game as well as pictures and interviews. My Father took the liberty in purchasing the book as a gift to me. In the front he wrote “To James, I told you we could do it!” He never did tell me that, he absolutely despised football and I saw this as a deliberate attempt to ‘win me over’. Needless to say it didn’t work. Three months later it was my birthday. He bought me two games for my Sega Mega Drive. I rang him up at work, to thank him. I remember the conversation as clear as day. The parting comment towards me was “I’ll have to go now, because I have to pay your mortgage”! Naturally I was distraught that my own Father was being like this towards his own son, his eldest son even. Later on in that year we moved out of the house where we were living and moved into a council house on the other side of the town where we lived. This was a far cry from what we were all used to. As a result of this change in housing arrangements, I had to move schools. At first, I was fine with moving schools but I still missed my old friends at the old one. I never got much of a chance to see them, with my Mother not being able to drive or afford taxi and bus fares.
I was extremely close to my Father’s Mother and have many happy memories of her. Throughout this time though I refused point blank to go and see her. I cut off all emotional and physical ties to my Father’s family. I just didn’t want anything to do with them and I didn’t feel guilty in the slightest. I associated them all with my Father so I didn’t want to know them.
I quickly settled into my new school and met some new friends. One in particular who I will refer as D was a particularly bad influence on me. He encouraged me to take up smoking and set fires to derelict properties across the local area. When I think back now, this was also a cry for attention because of how I was feeling. This behaviour last around a year and stopped when D and I went into Secondary school. I still smoked but the setting of fires had stopped.
Secondary school wasn’t a particularly pleasant experience. I was bullied to extreme levels. So much so, that I had the whole dining room to myself so I could have my dinner without the fear of being targeted. I was targeted mainly because I had a very weak bladder and sometimes I would urinate in my pants without realising. Inevitably this caused people to wonder what the smell was and they all quickly discovered it was me. I became a very easy target because I was shy and very reserved. I was punched, kicked and spat at on an almost every day basis. My only salvation was my pet Dog, Tess. When I got home, I would get myself changed and I would go out on long walks with her, sometimes in the fields behind my house, or up to my Mother’s parents. I had forged a very close bond with my Mother’s Father throughout the initial stages of my parents splitting up and looked up to him as my own Father. He even managed to get me to quit cigarettes at this time. This is something I am forever grateful for.
As I was walking my Dog one day, I came into contact with an older girl. She began to talk about Dogs and how she loves them. This made me feel quite happy that someone had a mutual interest. So we walked around the fields for a bit and I felt I had found a friend. I would find myself wanting to get home so I could go and take my Dog to go and see her. Over the course of time, I felt I could trust her properly. However this was not the right decision. One day, I met up with her at our usual meeting point, the local park. She seemed very distant and very cold. But she insisted we still go on our walk which we had done over a few months. As we approached the mid-way point in our route, she snatched my Dogs lead off me and let her off the lead. She then proceeded to kick my Dog. I tried to get her to stop as my Dog was in obvious pain. The girl then pushed me down and pulled my pants down and started forcing herself onto me whilst strangling the life out of me. I was just 12 years of age at the time. I didn’t have a clue what was going on. After what seemed like an eternity, she ran off and I quickly tried to get myself together and get my Dog and run home. When I got home, I tried explaining to my Mother what had happened. She either didn’t believe me or refused to accept what I was saying could happen to her son. Either way, it made me feel very isolated from my family and felt I couldn’t open up to any of them.
Around this time, I had a very good friend who I shall refer to as B. B is a year younger than I. But we liked the same music; we liked football and naturally spent a lot of time together. As is often the case when we grew up, we grew apart. He formed a band with people I had introduced him to. Whilst I was still friends with him and supported him with his new band, things were and still aren’t the same as they were in the early years of our friendship.
As I grew older, I became more and more withdrawn from everyday life. I’d often stay in my room listening to music, watching DVD’s. Around the age of fifteen, sixteen I met a girl who I really liked. We hung out together all the time. We enjoyed the same music and us spending time together was an escape for both of us. I had my problems with life as did she. She had a boyfriend who lived in Manchesterand she would visit him every weekend. He was much older than her and he treated her like a Dog. She was always smiling around me, this naturally raised my confidence and self esteem. September 2002 saw a major change. I was walking along the canal with her and our friends. Some local teenagers came running down and beat me to a pulp. Why? Because I like(d) different music to them and dressed differently to them. My head was like ‘Elephant man’ and my spirit was crushed to an all time low. Shortly after this happened, my ‘friend’ disappeared off the face of the earth. Nobody knew where she was or what had happened to her. I felt very alone again. I had no friends, I felt very disconnected from my family. I had no-one, apart from myself.
The girl that had forced herself on me came back on the scene, through no fault of my own. I was walking home from college one day and she appeared from nowhere. I tried to walk off in the opposite direction but she chased me down and did pretty much the exact same thing as last time. I didn’t have the confidence to stand up to her. She was immensely stronger than I was. After it had happened, I ran home as quickly as I could. I grabbed my Dogs lead and wrapped it around my neck with the sole intention of committing suicide. If it wasn’t for my Mother shouting me for an errand, I probably wouldn’t be here telling my tale.
My Grandfather had been feeling unwell for weeks around the same time. He was slurring his speech. He was very unsteady on his feet. He was admitted into hospital so they could ascertain what was going on with him. Around this time, my Father had been in touch with my Mother in regards to my Nanna. She was gravely ill in a hospice and didn’t have long to live. He advised that my brother and I should go and visit her before the inevitable thing happened. This was around the time I had been talking to a wonderful girl over MSN Messenger. We would be chatting until the very small hours of the morning. She lived in a nearby town. She liked the same music as I did. She was 2 years older. But I didn’t care, the more I chatted to her, the more I liked her.
I visited my Nanna, simply because my Father made me feel guilty by saying “If you visit her, I’ll visit your Grandfather). She couldn’t recognise my brother and I, which made me feel very upset. I hadn’t seen her in 8 years. I had grown up, she had possibly accepted I didn’t want to see her. This is a decision I have regretted ever since. Approximately a week or two later, I met up with the girl from MSN and we went to a concert in Manchester together. When I first saw her and hugged her, I almost instantly fell in love with her. I had never felt so happy and safe in my whole life. We had a fantastic time at the concert and we were holding onto each other all night. We even came out of the venue holding hands, as though we had been together for a long time. I carried on meeting this girl as often as I could. I stayed the day and night with her when it was my Nanna’s funeral. I just didn’t want to be away from her. About a month later, I plucked up enough courage to ask her to be my Girlfriend. She kept saying no, but I kept persisting and eventually she said yes. I was the happiest guy in the world. I may not have had friends but I had this girl who just made me smile for no reason whatsoever.
As I was approaching my 17th birthday, the girl began to ask what I wanted for my birthday. I didn’t really want anything. I then thought, well she should meet my Grandfather. And that’s what she did and even though my Grandfather couldn’t talk, he certainly approved of this girl. I felt really happy. However my Mother couldn’t accept this new girl in my life. She made very nasty comments about her and how she was taking me away from her. This put a huge strain on our relationship, before it had really begun.
The said girl went to University and I visited her every weekend. We would go out together. Stay in her room and just generally enjoy being together. When Sunday’s came around I didn’t want to go back home and often had very long and drawn out arguments with my Mum. She would say very derogatory things about the girl and it put huge strain on us when we had to part ways.
Throughout this time I noticed my Mother was displaying very odd behaviour. She would be waking up at night punching her pillows and literally head butting her bedroom walls. I encouraged my Mother to go to the doctors. Over the course of time she was eventually diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia and Bi-polar disorder. This went some way to explaining her behaviour towards my girlfriend and other people.
When I was apart from my girlfriend throughout the weekdays, I started to feel insanely paranoid and scared that she would leave me for someone closer to her.
This was around the time I started self harming. Something that I've never been proud of. I couldn't stand being alone. My Mum was not in the best frame of mind. I was struggling at college and struggling to accept what was happening to my Grandfather. One particular incident was when I smashed a Pyrex dish against my head and cut my thumb so bad that it was hanging off by the narrowest of margins. It was the most gruesome sight I have ever seen!
In my girlfriend's second year at University, I joined her in the town where she was. I moved in with three students. I felt it was the right thing to do but looking back it wasn't. I was 17 and I really wasn't ready to move out. Over the course of this year I got more and more jealous of my girlfriends new life. We had a lot of arguments and some even got physical. I am not proud of this at all. I don't condone any sort of violence. I sought counselling and initially it worked. But I felt myself slipping into a very dark place with no sign of stopping.
Amazingly through the summer, I started to feel a lot better but it took a very traumatic event for this to happen. A week before my birthday; my girlfriends Father was taken into hospital and to cut a long story short, he passed away the day before my 19th birthday. It took this for me to realise the error of my ways.
Over the course of the last seven years since that happened I find myself feeling the same feelings I once did. My Grandfather is no longer alive, neither is my Grandmother. In fact all I have left is my Father's Father. I don't know him very well. My Mum is a lot better than what she used to be. I believe my younger brother and his girlfriend having a baby has helped this. This has been tough for me to accept but I am slowly relishing my role as an Uncle as each day goes on. I also am pleased am still with my girlfriend after almost 9 years of being together. The girl deserves a bloody medal.
I have recently been suspended from work and this has made me realise I need help to get through these problems. That's when Lala came calling. She has been immense in helping me through my troubles. I cannot thank her enough. I am putting this out there because I want people to know, that whatever people face, your not alone. I am more than happy to help anyone with anything. As you can probably tell I've been through the mill once or twice, so that will stand me in good stead when offering advice.
I am not putting this up anonymously because I am not ashamed to admit: I've needed help in the past. I still need help and I believe through the power of friendship and Twitter, I can find myself again and be at one with myself again.
James
