Squeeze!!

I consider myself a super user of the mental health service. If they were giving out PhDs on recovery from suicide and living with mental illness I’d be lecturing in Cambridge. I have gone from zero to fucking hero in just over 2 years. I have experienced every single emotion from utter despair all the way up to desperation with the intensity of a pin being slowly slid into an open eye. I have been beaten broken and smashed on obsessive intrusive thoughts. I’ve had nightmares of frightening realism and intensity. Where once I was confident and outgoing I became deeply introspective and hermit like. Too frightened to go out in case I had one of those debilitating panic attacks. Your senses become heightened to super human strength. You can feel the adrenaline surging through every vein, thrashing through your heart and brain like a tsunami. Goosebumps appear as your blood is drawn away from the outer layers, protecting you from any damage. Sweat pours out of every pore and you feel that your bowels are voiding all the waste so you can make a quick escape. A Stone Age man would find this flight or fight response very handy in surviving an attack from a sabre tooth tiger or giant hyena but what the fuck do I need it for? Walking around my local town there is no real threat, nothing to make my balls crawl up into my groin! An intrusive thought is all it takes to send me into a panic, that’s all and then all hell breaks loose.

What’s particularly difficult and vomit inducing is the fact that all this adrenaline that’s been dumped into your body has nothing to do, nowhere to go. Nothing to see or hear or run from, it’s all an illusion that triggers the attack. I try and remember to look at 5 things I can see smell touch hear….. and I breath very deeply and slowly.

I have conquered panic attacks, anxiety attacks, suicidal ideation, depression, risky behaviours and crippling introspection. The one thing that has me beaten is looking to the past. In one way, in order to understand how my present has presented itself I need to go back and study what went wrong, what happened to me, why am I like this? How was my id formed, my soul. In another way looking back is painful. It’s like picking at a scab and ending up scarred because you couldn’t leave it alone.

My recent past has been interesting to say the least. Some things I’d try again. Some things I’d leave well alone and some things I wish I could take back. I’m a different person to the man I once was, even way before the suicide attempt. I am stronger and most importantly, well aware of what I have. I’m learning to live with it. I’m unsure of whether I’ll ever recover but in knowledge there is absolute power. Power to change your journey, to become the person that you should have become years ago. That frightened child, hiding behind all of my fear confusion and anger is slowly coming out to play.

Recovery and redeeming your lost self esteem and respect takes hard work. You need to learn to be alone. Without being aware of who you are, how can you offer truth to anyone else? The damage in the past affects your choices of the now. Learning to deal with what happened will ultimately lead to recovery and realisation of where you find yourself. I have come to this knowledge the hard way, 2 years of shear hell where everyday was a choice between getting up or just fading away. Giving up isn’t really the Grant way and I carry on although my life still has its challenges.

It’s easier said that done believe me, but once you’ve sorted out your past you need to focus on today. Forget past hurts and regrets and wake each morning ready to grab the day by it’s balls and squeeze fucking tight!