Depression

I originally wrote this on Facebook, but for some reason decided I wanted to post it here as well.

You know those thoughts that you keep suppressed in your head so that you don’t upset other people?

I can’t be bothered with holding those back anymore.

I simply don’t see the point in life anymore, all I seem to be doing is surviving from day to day. I’m not enjoying this anymore, depression has literally robbed me of any interest I had in doing things like Football, Video Games, Music etc.

November should be a month that I’m looking forward to, as I’m seeing some of my favourite people over the next couple of weekends. But I’m exhausted.

I stretched the other day and managed to pull a muscle in my back. I frequently pull and strain muscles in my legs, but I have to keep going. I can’t stop, because if I stop then it all falls apart.

I have daily panic attacks, but I can’t stop.

I’ve had panic attacks whilst driving to work, but I cant stop.

I’m tearing myself apart mentally but I can’t take the time to actually try and recover.

I’m going to say that I’m fine, and that no-one needs to contact me as I’m still going to have to go to work. I have no other choice. I’ve had 31 days off since April for different things, and I work a contract where I can only have 25 days off in a year, including sick days. Which means that I really can’t take anymore time off. So I have to go.

Also I get paid daily, so for each of those 31 days I’ve lost a day of pay. Money is tight as it is, everything seems to go up in price but wages never rise to match this.

I’m a type one diabetic, but I can’t afford to eat the foods which would be best for me. I rely on quick, snack foods as they are the easiest and cheapest thing to eat. In fact I’m 6 foot 2 inches tall and I weigh around 9 1/2 stone. I’m underweight and sick of the thigh gap that I have, I have body confidence issues, but as a man I probably shouldn’t talk about those.

So why don’t I kill myself? I mean I’ve planned it, and I’ve come close to throwing myself in front of trains, or plowing my car off of the road. But there are people that I want to keep living for. My kids for one, the two little, autistic monsters that have saved my life time and time again. But yeah, I certainly need everyone’s “expert” opinion about how to raise my autistic children from fucking idiots that haven’t got a clue. Steph and I have got this, we’ve had this for six years and we’ve done it the majority of the time on our own. I know we have got people that we can ask for help from. But these are our children, we chose to bring them into the world and therefore the responsibility to raise them falls to us, and that’s a responsibility that keeps me going.

When Sophia was born, I had just left my teaching career. I loved the teaching side of education but unfortunately the amount of bullshit that has to be done to allow you to get to the teaching side of things is ridiculous. All I wanted to do was make a difference in children’s lives, I worked in poor areas, with “rough” kids but they were some of the best people I’ve ever met, and honestly I’d love to work with another class of “rough” kids but the stress is unbearable.

For example at my last teaching job, I was commuting for an hour and a half through London there and back. I was getting up at 6am and not getting home till 8pm, but when I got home I still had work to do. I still had to plan and mark. I’ve lost count of the books that I marked on the train. But I was also under pressure as unfortunately I was very naive with the first job I took which in hindsight was the worst decision I made, and after the first teaching job that I had suffered badly with undiagnosed depression. I don’t like standing close to the platform edge when I go one the Tube as it reminds me of the times that I thought about throwing myself under the wheels, but I didn’t want to inconvenience other commuters.

Sophia saved my life when she was born, and I don’t think I can count the amount of times she has since. Everytime I think about killing myself, a small voice in my head asks “But who’ll walk Sophia up the aisle?” Sophia’s autistic I have no idea if I will ever actually get to walk her up the aisle, she may never be able to leave home and that scares me.

There’s also Ben, I struggled to bond with Ben when he was born. Ben’s birth was difficult, and he had to be rushed to the ICU, I didn’t get to hold my boy for long before he was whisked away, and no-one told us what was going on. I found myself sat in an empty corridor outside of the ICU waiting for someone to come back, but they didn’t. I thought my boy was going to die, I thought that he was having to fight for his life. I’m not blaming the NHS as they do a wonderful job, and I can understand that the nurse that said they’d come and tell me what was going on probably had a more pressing matter to attend to and honestly I can’t fault the NHS they are doing a wonderful job. I went back to Steph, who understandably was equally worried. Ben was fine, obviously, but Steph and Ben had to remain in the hospital for the remainder of the week, which meant that I only got to see Ben during visiting hours, and Sophia went without seeing mummy for the week as we knew she wouldn’t understand having to leave mummy and Ben behind.

But the help isn’t there for dads. We are making progress, but I was left hung out to dry. I once went to the doctor in Wrexham, and explained that I’d been having suicidal thoughts and that I wasn’t feeling right.

Do you want to know what he said?

“You’ll be fine, everyone has bad days.”

FUCK ME RIGHT?

So I bottled it up, and then in November of last year it all came pouring out, as I developed anxiety about taking phone calls at work as I was terrified that each call was either going to be a suicide call or just a call where someone was in a shit situation but there wouldn’t be anything I can do. I once spoke to someone that couldn’t get help from food banks, and hadn’t eaten in a couple of days, that person also had a severe medical problem.

I enjoyed my job, I met some amazing people through that job, and I’ve done a bad job at keeping in contact. But I’m knackered and really don’t have the energy anymore. I’d love to be able to do the job again, but I can’t.

The worst thing is though, is that I feel pathetic for feeling like this. I have a roof over my head, I have access to food, heat and water. I’m safe where I live. I have enough money to survive. So why am I depressed?

There are people out there that have nothing, and we do nothing to help. People like to talk the talk, but not walk the walk.

Do you know what I’d do if I could take a year or two off of work? I’d train as a haidresser/barber and I’d open my own hairdressers/barbers. I’ve got friends that I can hire, which would mean that they would be working for a boss that would understand that they need time off for things. But as part of my business there would be a day a week where I would go to a random city in a van modified to be a mobile hairdressers, and I’d give free haircuts to the homeless. Eventually I’d like to be able to open a place where the homeless can come in, have a shower, get some clean clothes, have a haircut and get some food. But that’ll never happen, so what’s the point?

It’s been good to type this out. I’m feeling a lot better now, and I think I just needed to get this off of my chest. But apologies to anyone that I have upset, that wasn’t my intention.