This is me…. I think many may be able to relate

Disabled….. now that’s a word I can imagine many of us when we first had to use the term was sobering.

For me personally it was filling job applications out and always struggling with the question

“Do You Have a Disability”

Then as you run through each answer it slowly hits you and you end up swearing to myself at the fact because I had ADHD, Autism, Neurological Development Disorder, Learning Difficulties and S*****c Cerebral Palsy it labelled me as Disabled. It’s something I’d never thought of or considered.

But I must admit it made me have to look back on my life from birth onwards and it made for sobering thinking.

I was born on the 30th of June 1983 at Kings College Hospital in London. I weighed 4lb’s when Ivwas born but quickly dropped to the weight of a bag of sugar overnight. I had to have multiple tubes and wires taken out of me just so they could restart my heart. My family was rushed down from Oldham, my Dad flew back from Germany where he was stationed and had my big Sister there. Within four days of being born, I was christened because they didn’t expect me to survive.

Over time I went against every obstacle put in my way -

Won’t Walk or Talk - 3 going on 4 years old

First Special Needs School - Failed

Children's Psychiatric Unit - Survived it Just

Mainstream Infant - Junior - Senior School Failed

Growing up with Dysfunctional Parents, who didn’t tell you they loved you, treated you differently to your sister, often sent out on respite care so the family could have a break from the stress of looking after you - somehow I survived but yet failed 😞

I was always told I was naughty, couldn’t regulate my emotions, acted out, ran away from home, hit out, had great difficulty at school, didn’t make a single school friend etc huge failure!

Boarding School 95-99

Most stable part of my childhood, started doing well in school, smaller class numbers, driving cars and riding motorbikes, outdoor pursuits, attaining GCSE’s up to a C&D in English.

Breaking the tag of “Your Son will never amount to anything or do his GCSE’s”!!

Over the next 21 years after leaving school I attained NVQ’s in Horticulture and Environmental Conservation. I went onto work in the private & public sector as a Gardener & Estate Ranger in and around Oldham, Saddleworth and a large chemical plant in Clayton Manchester.

There is a key thing that I did as a child that I did as an adult which was to shut myself away behind a bedroom door away from the world. I had a good relationship with my Mum, but my Dad well it’s fair to say it was a non starter and I could go weeks without talking to him.

I had a couple of good solid mates who I did walking and camping with but as of this year I’ve severed ties.

In 2011 I met a young mum who had two kids online started a relationship which led me to moving to Chesterfield and marrying but then splitting up after 10 months as she was emotionally abusive, controlling and had anger issues! Pretty much the female version of my father on reflection.

I was then with what I thought an amazing person for almost ten years and married for over four of them years. We clicked, had a lot in common and just gelled. But in hindsight we each had our own baggage, I worked through some of mine while - well she didn’t! The problem for me was my job, I just burned myself out both mentally and physically until I could take no more!

All of my history with mental health came to a head ten years ago where I started to have to have period of time off work, sometime for over six weeks. I will say that I put it down as a trigger that my parents and sister came back into my life in 2014, after not speaking to me since I left Oldham and didn’t like my first wife, in fact my Dad even stated “Whose going to look after your Mum at night while I’m at work!” Then chuck in up until I left Oldham I was paying over £400 a month in rent.

From 2015 to 2020 I just became a changed person, I suddenly found I had a hair trigger, could get angry at the slightest thing,I became distant, I didn’t like myself, I started to do stuff to myself and even tried a certain thing that for rules and regs I can’t discuss! I slept on the sofa for over three years from 2020-2023, my mental and physical health just went off a cliff like a barrel over Niagra Falls! It’s not been right since. I was diagnosed with bursitis in the left thigh due to a hiking injury, I was diagnosed with early on set degenerative osteoarthritis in both hips, lower back to go alongside the left shoulder, had my gallbladder removed, diagnosed with Asthma, the chuck in EUBPD and then I caught Covid from my ex, then seven months later she dumps me, blaming my mental health as to the cause of ending the marriage!

I checked myself into the local hospital before being moved down to the Radbourne Unit in Derby, where under there care they removed the blinkers and made me see not only my marriage but it also enabled me to see things in my childhood that meant me saying I wasn’t the only one to blame.

I then went into a 24 hour supported living flat, then into a MHO (did more damage than good) then thankfully I looked at and accepted the flat I’m in today.

Having Covid in 2023 just floored me! I continued with symptoms long afterwards, even two years on things still ain’t right. Fatigue, Memory Fog, Concentration, Shortness of Breath etc I to have to carefully watch where I walk and have had to reduce my walk to a shuffle. Having long term covid alongside all of my other mental and physical conditions, means I am to ill to work, I am now having to live in an adapted flat for someone 18 years older than me, In five years I’ve gone from being a Support Worker to now being a Service User living in a Supported Living Flat as independently as I can.

I liken my mind to that of Dory from Finding Nemo!!

I often get angry with myself, despondent, feel hopeless, feel angry at the outside world, feel scared stiff, on edge, don’t like who I am, don’t feel like au have a purpose, feel ugly and fat, have no sense of control when it comes to ordering take away’s, feel like I’ve let everyone down, feel like I would be better off not here (being mindful of how I say things) and just generally don’t feel like I have an identity! I honestly still feel like the scared insecure, uncertain child I was all those years ago but with over 35 years worth of life experience being carried on my shoulders like the weight of the earth!

I’ve lost 3 very dear family members I was close to in the last 13 years and never got to see them before they passed and was never allowed at there funerals. I will of course over time will I will lose my parents, my sister, two remaining auntie and uncles both on my dad’s side, my three cousins on my dads side alongside a very deer cousin on my mums side, I will never be told of there passing or be welcomed at there funerals.

When it’s my time to go, there will be nobody in attendance, my body will be an empty vessel but I will be reincarnated into whatever being in the next life in line with my Buddhist beliefs.