From the early stages, there was a very gradual realisation that my reactions to certain situations were somehow different. Aside from being brought up by two anglo greek cypriot parents, where slightly different things were expected of you, back then you soon realised that the majority of other school kids were on a more relaxed lifestyle. That was the first hurdle to overcome, almost living by different guidelines the moment you got home, and adapting when you got to school.
The struggle and achievement with school
This all comes through experience although all the while I wasn’t a bad student, yet certain teachers would complain that I didn’t pay attention, and most of the time it was translated by them in a negative way.
I can remember year 9, the pressure was on, to sit yearly exams to determine which maths and English sets you would be in. I knew i had to up my game, and here began the struggle. I determined which way to revise was best, and through much self doubt and deep internal struggle i was getting lower and lower in my own mental state. I was struggling inside myself, especially having an older sister that was a model student with straight a grades to her name and a stereotypical chauvinistic father, typical of that era, that a boy should naturally be better than a girl. Inside myself, i knew a lot rested on this, so i set about an intense revision regime, not so much for other subjects but for maths.
I surprised myself and scored 89% on the test, and was awarded the top maths set as a result. But, I knew achieving it had caused me much internal struggle. By the time it hit GCSEs I knew something in me was going to again struggle under the pressure. It did, and I felt I was under extreme pressure, I just couldn’t take information in, and seemingly had no idea why.
You look for answers in other things, maybe music, which always stimulated me in a very positive way. You look for any way you can to escape your own mind, which of course there is no escaping. Any moment of peace us welcome when your mind races, and you’ve always struggled for sleep. In the end i started smoking, which when you’re new to it, can be very relaxing.
Anyway, i just about scraped the grades i needed for college, but the pain and internal struggle to get those results, didn’t bear thinking about. I eventually bunked off college, only attending for my parents approval. I’d go to play snooker, and make sure i got back according to my college timetable. I actually got quite good, but the funny thing is, i didn’t struggle to focus on it. So in that making it tough to assess what the problem was within me. By the time i was 19, i had attempted to move away from my somewhat overbearing parents, and failed. I ended up falling out with my mother in particular, and left on bad terms, despite yielding to their wishes, and working intensely in employment.
Disowned by my parents
I needed possessions from my parents, and my mother very much wearing the trousers in the household told me i had been disowned indefinitely, and never to return. I was forbidden from even gaining my own property.
When push turned to shove, I broke in when I knew my parents were in work, leaving my parents a note explaining the damage was as minimal as could be, and that money I’d paid up for board would cover the expense.
Nevertheless, unhappy with this, I was soon apprehended by the police and arrested. I was staying undeclared with a friend on a council estate, which he wanted kept out of it, so not being able to provide an address, I had to go no fixed address. With this, after court (having spent over 24 hours in the police cell), I was remanded in custody at her majesty’s pleasure. Whilst you’re incarcerated, no one bothers to tell you what to expect, and the following morning, I’m taken off to young offenders.
Having been there 3 days, and deliberately scoring myself a beating from prison officers (so as to have means to complain and hopefully get out of the predicament) I saw my solicitor.
Complained of my physical state. He appealed to get me a placement in a bail hostel. Later that evening I was told an address, no money or anything, and told I needed to be in south London by no later than 9pm, or warrants would be out for my arrest. I knew no one other than in my own area, which I was not allowed back to as per my bail conditions.
I made it back there, bunking the train, and walking to very close to my parents. I knew the local parade of shops, my friend that lived on the same road as my parents lived above the shop, which he also worked. I knocked on his door, no answer. I wasn’t gonna hang around, so I remembered that his work van had no lock on its back doors, I went in there to keep out of sight. I left the door slightly ajar, so id hear if he came back in. Some 40 mins later by a huge stroke of fortune he was back, i told him what was going on, and he gave me a fiver. I set off for the nearest tube station to arrive on the opposite side of London across the river, not knowing what was in store for me.
Falling into depression and thoughts of suicide
Having enjoyed most of the time in the bail hostel, my parents kept charges against me all the way until the trial and then dropped the case. This was all supposedly to teach me a lesson. It didn’t, but spending the majority of the year away, and essentially homeless was turbulent, in and out of various hostels, I eventually appealed to my father to be allowed back home.
After a few more years, I eventually moved out permanently, and settled in Gloucester where I had family. The heat was on, managing my finances and paying my own rent. I couldn’t afford the extravagant lifestyle I had enjoyed in London, I wasn’t earning nearly the same as I was, and of course did not have my parents as a cushion any longer.
Before long, I became depressed, deeper than I ever had before. I’d decided that quitting my long term weed habit was entirely essential to pay the rent. I’m sure this didn’t help, but in that, most others I knew still smoked full time. I didn’t want to be around it, and isolated myself. I became further and further contained within my own depression and withdrawal from a long term habit, which I realised helped with social anxiety and helped me to feel more confident. I made an attempt at my own life, cutting my own wrist very deeply with a Stanley knife. I knew it wasn’t bleeding enough to finish me, yet id gone very deep into it. I just rolled over on my floor, hoping to be gone by the time I woke. Through some stroke of fate, when I turned over, I pocket called my mum, and no sooner was I drifting off to sleep, I could hear my mums voice coming from my pocket.
She knew there was something wrong, i told her it was nothing, and i had been asleep. She didn’t believe me, but I got rid of her eventually. After she’d hung up, I became very aware of the intense pain to my wrist. I wasn’t quite sure what to do for the best, as I knew I wasn’t going to die, I phoned my mum back and told her the situation.
My children
After that skipping forward a few months I encountered the biggest disaster of my life to date. I had a girlfriend, who was nice enough, but there was definitely no designs on starting a family with her. So from there I was in absolute dire straits, but this time suicide was not an option. I knew it wasn’t the answer, despite having no idea what to do, and definitely no money or a suitable property for any of it. I knew I was in no place mentally, so set about convincing my now sons mother to get an abortion. As much as I pleaded she just couldn’t go through with it, and I’m blessed with too much empathy and compassion to force someone beyond their own comfort.
Fast forward a few years to my son being 6, and myself and his mother parting company a few years previously. I was happy in a relationship with Tanya. She was a beautiful soul inside and out, but i knew within myself, that i had never gone beyond three years in any relationship id had. The cracks were beginning to appear, and i knew i had to look within and admit my faults were fracturing yet another relationship. This one meant very much to me, just like the girl after my sons mother had, which ended disastrously taking me several months to recover from. During this time, I had been blessed with a beautiful daughter, which I really wanted, as I already had a son. Life was good, everything seemed as good as it could be. I was financially sound, had a beautiful girlfriend whom I absolutely doted on, and got the daughter I’d dreamt of. I honestly thought id missed the boat of ever having a stable family life of my own, after the disaster that was my sons mother.
By 2009 my daughter was born, and what a totally euphoric and momentous occasion it was. We were both high on life and looking forward to the future.
The shadows of grief
I was sat on my computer one day, when my uncle messaged. He just greeted me with my name, and there was a five minute pause. Eventually he messaged back explaining he wasn’t sure how to put this, but that my cousin George (27 years old) had been in a car accident, and was pronounced dead at the scene. I had moved to Gloucester from London in large part because cousins I had grown up with, in 1989 had emigrated to Cyprus. They came back in 1997, and whenever I visited, we had a great time together. George was the next down the age tree to me, we had been very close over the years.
This shocking news had come two days after my daughter was born. And hit me very hard. 2 years had elapsed, and life was inevitably never the same again. This time, I was noticing my father had become very different in character. I told him he wasn’t himself, and that he must be unwell. He was then complaining of heat on his neck, and headaches. The doctor just said it was neck strain from posture, and old age.
I saw how he’d become uncharacteristically absent minded, slow in thought, and complaining of dizziness quite frequently. I insisted he get to the doctors urgently, he wouldn’t hear of it. By 2011, he had been diagnosed with having had a brain tumour. This was irreversible, but could be operated on, we were lied to and told it wasn’t actively growing, which it was. By the time he was operated on, it had all seemingly gone ok. He was slurred in speech, and needed walking rehabilitation physio. All of this was in progress, and after I left London for home in Gloucester, I was pleased at the progress. Within a month I returned, and his behaviour was totally changed.
I declared and insisted on investigation into this, which eventually yielded that excess brain fluid had put too much weight on his already fragile brain, and caused irreversible brain damage. There was no turning back. He could no longer address his own immune system, and over a period of 6 months, withered away to nothing, only able to hear. I was the last person to speak to him before his passing , on that day, I just knew intuitively that today was that day. I don’t know how, but I just did. I told him he had to go, and was hanging on for us. That I’d see mum was ok and had what she needed. I left it at that.
Some 35 minutes after I got back to my parents, the hostel phoned to say he’d gone. It was honestly the worst and most crushing moment of my life. I kept it together, as I had no become the oldest male of the family, and had to suspend my grief to tell his brothers, sisters and mother that he had gone. I couldn’t cope, and after I left my mother, within a month I had suitably argued with Tanya enough to justify separating from her. I wasn’t allowed to grieve for the sake of our daughter, and it was causing problems.
I didn’t know which way to think, how to feel, what to do, or how to go about it. The shock and impact I was faced with, was overwhelming to say the least. Eventually by new year, I had reconciled my differences with Tanya.
My life was torn apart by grief
Disaster was never far away though, and by early 2010, at an age of 61, just older than my own father, Tanya’s mother had passed away. Then my father in 2013, and by 2016, my own “manic depressive” mother had effectively killed herself, smoking herself to death via cigarettes. She had swapped from usual strength cigarettes to weaker ones when she was diagnosed with COPD. But, this just meant she smoked some three times as many, and by the time she had passed, was on at least 60 per day.
I turned the negative into a positive and gave up cigarettes.2023, and we now know the full extent of what i had always known, must be an ongoing illness with Tanya. A swell as enduring chronic eczema, she had an underactive thyroid, coupled up with autoimmune disease, those things alone had accelerated her into perimenopause, we had also suspected that fibromyalgia be another culprit too. Being her own strong willed self, she would not succumb to it, and didn’t want to leave paid employment although she was within her rights to. Having been with her for fifteen years, there was never really a day go by, that I wasn’t a carer to her, and it was soul destroying watching her suffer.
Eventually it seems she was so worn out, that yet another (it was a regular occurrence) episode of eczema had become so regular and had escaped her, into a moment of complacency, she had dismissed it. I’m guessing by then, with so many ailments, it had become difficult to assess what conditions was causing what. She had contracted sepsis. By the time we had got to the hospital, it was already in its third and final stage. Her kidneys had already died. The worst happened, and late July 2023, I lost the last remaining person I knew I could rely on. She was my everything.
It completely changed everything. My plans for the future, my own life, and someone that very much understood my own struggles with life. When it first happened, I think I was just numb, things didn’t hit me for a good six months. During the lead up to those six months, I had deliberately removed all harmful tablets from the house, so I wasn’t tempted to overdose. I couldn’t do that to my daughter. I felt myself slipping back into agoraphobic tendencies again, and knew I had to snap out of it. No longer was it just about me, I had a then 12 year old daughter to think of. I had done enough grief in my life to know how best to approach it within myself. That said, I still made some glaring errors. I forced myself to keep eating, I stayed in a routine, so as to oversee my daughter going to school. When I felt myself becoming more and more isolated within the house, I forced myself out to a support group. They didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know, but going out gave me routine and structure. I’ve continued as my dearly departed Tanya had begun investigating, what my own mental state yields. Id long since realised that occasionally something went snap occasionally, and id have intense anxiety, not to mention my ever present struggle for sleep, impulsive behaviour and overthinking
I now have the answers
I now have answers, I have a mild form of bipolar known as cyclothymia, and been diagnosed with quite a high intensity of ADHD. I also suspect this is not the end of assessing myself. I think my father had ADHD, and my mother most definitely bipolar to some degree.
The best way to cope with it, is for some to take the medication. However, i have decided this is not for me, as I know myself well enough to adjust my behaviour accordingly enough. Nevertheless, with any type of bipolar comes episodes. Depressive, high energy manic ones, or they can be a mixture of both. They can last for years, or dissipate within hours. I recognise when they’re present and cope. No one said it was simple, yet I’m still here, pushing myself despite disaster upon disaster to keep going, in search of my next chapter. Finding the inner strength to meet the next day.
I’ve beaten addiction along the way, lost three stone, and seen off depression every time, which is no easy task. Sometimes you have to force yourself, look inwards, and press on. Everything starts from the mind, and your own admittance, realisation and determination will see you through.
