Biography

I was painfully shy, virtually mute and unhappy as a child. I was grossly neglected, emotionally and physically. I was initially thought to be deaf and dumb as I only communicated in secret occasionally via sign language with my sister. I was completely subservient, displaying unquestioning obedience to everyone. Inside my head my only ambition was to escape to the sanctuary of a monastery and become a Trappist monk (I would later make up for those 9 years of silence!).

My father was apparently a normal working class bloke who invariably went straight to the pub after work, only coming home to sleep. I never had any sort of relationship with him and on the odd occassion I met him he was paralytic (drunk). He died when I was 9. My mother was a bizarre lady who lived her life in books. Despite living in abject poverty she thought she was a member of the ruling class. She was an utter snob and believed she was a "magical and special" person who looked down her nose at her peers. She spent her days sitting in an unkempt house, smoking, drinking and declaiming loudly in her upper class tones "Any fool can scrub a floor". I was one of the fools who worked weekends to pay rent while still at school. My sister cooked and cleaned. My mother was hospitalized and diagnosed as manic depressive when I was 6 but later managed to hide this by immersing herself in alcohol for the rest of her life. She became even more embittered after my father's death and subsequently despised virtually the whole world, including her children... but excluding the intelligentsia, people who had a university education, read the classics and spoke latin. The poor soul would dance and sing and recite Shakespeare for them.

My life changed dramatically after my father's death, we moved from the city to the country where I suddenly found myself the centre of attention as the "new kid in town". I came out of my shell, discovered my voice and then never shut up. I became the class clown, gave up on school work (prior to this I had been a high achiever) to concentrate on entertaining the other kids and maintain my new found popularity. I was constantly disruptive and fooling around, the loudest and most extroverted kid in school... in other words a complete twat. As you can imgaine I brought out the worst in teachers, thus perpetuating my lack of any adult role model to respect.

I left school at 16 and fell in and out of jobs, my life spiraling downwards until at 18 I was unemployed, homeless and suicidal. After a period of sleeping rough, I found myself sitting on a bridge one night, ready to jump. A chance encounter with an old friend who was crossing the bridge and took me home to his for a coffee turned things around for me, I decided to finally go and ask for help. Funny how little things can make huge changes... the old butterfly effect. Next day I saw a doctor who prescribed antidepressants which were of no benefit, nor was his sighing and the look in his eye which sneered "get a grip laddie", so I never went back to him. However, I plodded on and eventually got a job labouring which paid for the deposit on a bedsit. The one thing that got me through this difficult time was my girlfriend. We soon got a flat together, she helped me organize my life into some sort of normality and while still in our teens we got married and still are!

The love, stability and happiness my wife brought made my 20s the best years of my life. I became a psychiatric nurse, I played in a band, we had a great social life and for a few years everything in the garden was rosy and once again I was dazzling the world as Mr Wonderful. However, I had another downer in my late 20s and in an effort to restimulate myself I went off to train as an RGN. I then worked in a surgical unit for 8 years. Whether it was the lack of change, disillusionment with the NHS or whether it was just my inherited maternal genes kicking in, my mood began to go seriously downhill. By my late 30s I was no longer the life and soul of the party but a miserable monster, I hated work and loathed going in, everyday becoming more and more desperate. I remember driving to work one day listening to the radio and I heard a new song, Soul Asylum singing Runaway Train. I remember thinking that just summed up my whole life and wanting to drive my car right over the bridge.  

I sold cars for a while before eventually returning (sheepishly) to the NHS to work (somewhat ironically) as a psychiatric nurse. Although initially enthused and full of vigour I quickly became disillusioned with other peoples lack of drive. I dived into work striving for 100% excellence and was dismayed at other folks "let's just do what we have to" attitude. I became increasingly irritable and intolerant, once again changing from the nice guy to the horrible weird guy.

I soon got into an annual cycle of drive and depression and to cope with this I changed job every year to reinvigorate myself. However, I did manage to channel my energies a bit better after realising that I'm not really a team player after all and I moved into  more autonomous posts. Strangely enough the point when my life collapsed and I became profoundly ill was not when I was unhappy at work. Quite the opposite. I was in the best job I have ever had and thoroughly enjoying it. I was out and about liaising with other agencies and services, had great colleagues, was well paid, had a company car, no debts, nice house. Everything was great and yet I became profoundly depressed. This happened when I was hospitalized with myocarditis. Was it the stress of the physical illness? I was 44... almost exactly the same age as my mother was when she went mad. Coincidence or DNA?

Anyway, after going mad at the age of 44 I was never normal again. Even in between mood swings now my brain feels altered. My personality has changed grossly, (apart from writing anonymously on here) I am now very secretive and isolate myself from the rest of the world. I was given ill health retirement from work (you can't really get involved in public speaking and conferences when you're mute and moribund) and now just "potter about" mostly aimlessly. 

I guess in summary I have never been normal in my life. I have always been way over enthusiastic or completly dejected. I have never experienced that normal feeling of calm and of being neither up nor down that I hear other people describe.