I've never previously subscribed to the theory that things you experience as a child have a bearing on things you do as an adult. My mind could never see a link between being smacked as a child and growing up to be a violent criminal. If you broke the law or did something bad it was because you made the bad choice to do so, not because your parents struck you for taking extra chocolate from the cupboard. Recently though I have begun to understand that it's not the big behavioural traits that people refer to, but the subtleties of adult life. I have a tendency to look backwards to my past rather than ahead to my future and that has proven to not be a good thing for me.
About a week ago I had an awful day. I went to bed the night before fairly early and was more than ready to sleep. After sending the usual Goodnight / Good Morning text to Jess in Australia I began drifting off. I hadn't quite drifted when the phone went again, Jess's reply brought a smile to my face... All was well in the world. Then out of nowhere... BOOM. Shiver.
Nothing happened to set it off, I just became a paranoid mess and gradually got worse, all sorts of horrible thoughts ran through my head.
"Oh, God... Why have people always told lies about me? Why do I get spoken to like this? Why do people do that to me? What if I can't do this or that? Why do people's opinions of me affect me so much? How am I going to be able to afford to live and pay for x, y, z?"
All of these things have at some time been part of the thought process but never before have I experienced it in such an intense way. I managed to get some sleep, but very little. The next morning I woke up and the thoughts were there, getting more and more intense. The questions, the lack of an answer to them, unintentional rhetoric. And that led to another question... Why now?! Why a random Tuesday morning in October?! To this day I still don't have a clue what brought it on and on the verge of tears I almost stuffed the van into a hedge... That snapped me out of it. I don't want to lose my life, especially with a stupid loss of concentration.Slowly but surely I began to recover... began to cheer up and perhaps being forced to deal with customers without showing them any of the pain I was in was the biggest help. Obviously at the moment with Jess the other side of the world, I am alone with my thoughts with no ability to be distracted from them. Customers forced my hand, they don't know me, don't want to know about it and don't care about anything other than how much money they have to give me or what idiot ordered all of that from me! As the day wore on my mood grew better and better and when I got back from work I had a shower, sat down on the couch and asked another question... what the hell was THAT?! With a doctor's appointment already in place for that week I was convinced by Jess to say something to him about it. I agreed... reluctantly.
Later in secondary school onto our late teens/early twenties, I was always the one people came to with their problems and I didn't mind that one bit. It meant I had friends. At primary school I was singled out and took a lot of abuse from the other kids, physical and vocal. To start with the same was true at secondary school. But approaching adulthood I had friends, real mates, and for once I had something to offer them; an ear. I was the one to help when someone found out their boyfriend was cheating on them, or if their girlfriend split with them, I was the one to help out when they felt they needed to leave home, I was the one who would drive across South Devon just to see them for a few minutes to make them feel better. I had even been known to drive up to Bristol just to see a friend for a few hours because she felt alone. I was there doing my best and trying to be strong for them, to show solidarity for them. But if I had a problem? Keep it to yourself, Charlie, people already think you're weak so don't prove them right.
The fact is that some of my friends were there for me just as much as I was there for them but I didn't utilise that when I needed to, or even realise that was the case. I thought that by smashing the hell out of a cricket ball or running in and bowling as fast as I could that I was releasing any stresses I may have had. After several years of this practice the biggest problem I ever faced got worse when the ability to go and release that stress was taken away from me and I wasn't allowed to go and smash a cricket ball or bowl as fast as I could. As a child all sorts of lies were told about me at school that if I heard now I'd just laugh off, but I took it personally. At secondary school, lies were told about me that were stupid teenage lies that again I'd laugh off if I heard again now. But as an adult, the worst lie possible was impossible not to take personally, and was far more serious. Aimed for maximum damage, taking my cricket away from me denied me my stress relief and that is where this has all really started.
No cricket meant being forced to sit at home, alone with my thoughts. Nothing to distract me. To say I was dealing with it on my own wouldn't be accurate, the amount of messages of support I had during this time was fantastic but of the friends that gave the support only one or two made the effort to actually come to see me. If I wanted support, it seemed like I had to go and get it from them. Some had their own things to deal with, that's fine. But suddenly everything seemed like a conspiracy... suddenly my mind was telling me that I was only good for people when they needed support, but if I wanted any I had to give it to myself. Normally this may have been true but having lost my main method of stress relief I felt I had nowhere to go.
Strangely though these feelings of people conspiring against me weren't alien. At secondary school I always had the feeling that people were plotting against me and waiting to hurt me or do something bad to me. Sometimes that was unfounded, sometimes I was completely right but still caught out. Being ambushed and egged in the local park by ALL of the 6 in our group of mates I hung around with did nothing to ease my feeling that people were out to get me. Going further back to primary school, being Eric Cantona Kung-Fu kicked from 4 different directions simultaneously while the Head Teacher (Shirley Armitage) looked on and ignored it probably started my paranoia of injustice. Someone I thought was supposed to be in authority saw it happen and did nothing. People dismissed it as me being a rude child when I was happy she said she was retiring. I actually cheered and (up until my mid-20's) I did not care less how her retirement had gone, to me that was unforgivable. These days I'm a little more forgiving and would probably find some closure in her seeing the success I've become despite all that went before. I wish her no ill.
Aged 7 I was already a little paranoid about kids bullying me. Aged 14 I was taken by surprise despite being paranoid something might happen. Aged 23 I was completely paranoid because the lie being told about me may be believed and I couldn't walk anywhere without constantly looking over my shoulder, my paranoia had me genuinely fearing for my safety and my life. I know that sounds over the top, but at the time it seemed very real. To this day, I try to know who and what is around me wherever I go.
So when mentioning all of this hesitantly to the Doctor I wasn't surprised to hear what he said even if I didn't want to hear it. Producing a leaflet he encouraged me to contact the Depression and Anxiety Service for South and West Devon, every fibre of my being is against me using it. I know I'm not a selfish person, the friends I've been there for know that too. But I know that my main reason for not calling the number on the leaflet is completely selfish; I don't want to hear stranger's problems. If I call them, I want them to help ME. I don't feel able to help anyone to the same degree I used to, certainly not the quantity of friends I used to help at the same time, I just don't have the strength. Previously I had thought depression was a weakness, just people being wet farts. Now I know differently but the shame of being the one who is "weak" and "needing help" was very much there.
Some friends I can't even bring myself to message or to attempt a friendship with anymore because the reminder of how things were at certain times is too overwhelming. That sounds awful, and again selfish... my health has taken a massive hit since those times and I cannot bear to help some of them anymore, especially as (again a selfish thought) the help I received from them was minimal. That's not to say the help wasn't appreciated, because it really was. I just felt it was disproportionate in the relationships which should be a two-way street without priority in either direction. Life rarely works out evenly though.
What frustrates me, and probably the people who still read my blog, is that time and time again I revert to the subject of what bad things have happened to me. Why can't I look forward and to all the great things my future holds? Perhaps it is because I genuinely cannot believe at times that this really is my life, these things have happened to me. When the chemical imbalance in my brain produces the good thoughts it brings me back to the much more philosophical view. The worst part of my life (2008-09) led me to take the decision to go back to Australia in 2009-10, the BEST time of my life. During the best time, the best thing ever happened to me. I met Jess. Late in 2010 things got better still with our engagement, 2011 better still when she came to live with me. 2012 has been just as great with her by my side. Now she's back in Australia and after the latest intense experience, the similarity from 3 years ago isn't lost on me. The most intense shiver episode I've ever had comes not long before I return to Australia, scene of happiness.
My 3 trips Down Under have been the best 15 months of my life, and as trip number 4 approaches this weekend the paranoia is being held off by the knowledge that good times will return very shortly. Friday night and a Qantas Airbus A380 mean that the NHS leaflet can remain in my drawer for the time being, or maybe the books could be good reading for the flight? Either way the feeling of no hope has been replaced by massive excitement because I haven't seen my fiancée in almost 6 weeks. A change of scenery often initiates a change of attitude, and as the cold darkness of winter approaches the UK it is nice to have some light and warmth available. Roll on Sunday in Sydney.
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