Full On Relapse

Well, it's been a while. 2 and half years to be exact and a lot has happened that I'll start filling you all in on over the coming weeks. Bear with me though, I'm going through my biggest relapse since first getting help 5 years ago.

I'm not quite at the stage of another 'final bike ride', but certainly on a level of cup final day 2010 when I sat in my bedroom watching Warrington win the cup while polishing off 3 full bottles of Lidl whisky, a very low point.

One rule for everyone else...

Am I too soft on everyone? Or is everyone else too tough on me?

Time after time, I'm let down by so-called friends. I have no problem being let down if I'm given notice, or at least if people have the decency to tell me at some point over the next 5 years why they flaked on plans.

Robert Andrew Ibbitson 27/08/1955 - 16/12/12

It's been a while since I blogged. The plan is to whack a number out over the next few days and continue from there.

Number one of this new batch of blogs is about my Dad. I've explained a lot about him and out relationship and have already mentioned what happened to him in 2008.

Full Relapse

Well folks, it's been a while. Nearly 6 months in fact. A lot has happened in that period and here's the start of filling you in.

We'll start off with my relapse this year, which coincided with my lack of blog activity.

Father and Son, Part Two

Well the gap between part one and this one has been a big one. Between working and lacking motivation, I've not been blogging so much. Now I don't have work getting in the way, I have more time to blog.

Dad didn't notice the change in me for a good while. There were two reasons for this. One was he only got to see me for 5 or 6 day a month and the other was because when I was visiting him, my problems stayed in Warrington.

Principles

Don't be fooled about the title, this post isn't about my principles. I don't have any of those.

Principles was one of the nicknames I gave to the dog, Prince. Prince would be part of my life for 15 years and he certainly made his mark.

Losing My Little Mort

2012 was supposed to be my year. I'd pushed through therapy. I'd been declared fit for work and I'd been plying my trade doing warehouse temporary jobs for the first couple of months of the year.

Logging onto Facebook that day, I had no idea what I was about to find out.

TITA; Things That Annoy Me - Part Two

Well it's been a while since I last posted my musings and a lot has happened since then. First off though, I need to finish off blog projects that I have previously started. We'll start with the continuation of the things that annoy me. I had a lot of positive feedback from that one.

TITA: Super Dooper League

Most rugby league fans have an opinion on how the sport at the highest level should be run. I'm no different and I have my own view on it. This post will detail my own vision for professional rugby league, not just for Europe, but for the entire world.

Let's start at the top and work our way down the leagues, shall we?

Wide Awake

Sleep regulation issues and sleep deprivation were accountable and caused by many of my mental health issues. It's hard to pinpoint which started first, the cyclothymia, or the problems with sleep. They both started around the same time.

Not having a regular sleep pattern for 16 years was something I never got used to. It was frustrating, it was stressful and it contributed a great deal to depressive stages of my life.

Was I Wrong?

Well, 20 minutes ago I made a pretty big decision and I have no idea if it's the start of a relapse or if I made the right decision.

As most of you will know, I've been working as an agency temp since the start of the year and putting in a hefty 12 hours a day, Monday to Friday. The work was monotonous. 11 hours a day, stood on your feet, in one spot, checking the strength of the base on bleach bottles. It was very much physically draining.

Father And Son, Part Number One

The title of this blog entry is pretty self-explanatory. This one is about my old man, and my relationship with him.

It was nothing short of a rollercoaster ride over the years. The ride, as most of you will know, was tragically cut short a few years ago.

Relationships And Sex: Drugged To Legend

I left off yesterday with the tale of Louise and how I was led on and left heartbroken. That wasn't quite the end of that story though.

The final chapter of that situation ended up with a very short spell in Warrington A&E and it was certainly not through my doing that I ended up there

Relationships And Sex: All Sex, No Love

Well yesterday's blog ended rather abruptly and it may have seemed like Melody came off in a bad light. I only realised this after reading it back to myself and have since apologised to her.

Mel was exactly the kind of woman I wanted and I'll prove that point a bit later. We've got a lot more to cover before that though.

Relationships And Sex: Things To See And People To Do

This blog entry is going to delve very deeply into my love life. There will be some ewww moments, some back slapping from the men moments and some back slapping from the women moments.

I'll warn you now, some of this may be hard to believe and some of it may be seen as bragging. Everything I say will be the truth and I'll make sure I let you know when it's bragging. most of it isn't though

TITA; Things That Annoy Me - Part One

This may take some time to type, but it'll be fun for me nonetheless. Once you've read through it, feel free to add your own in the comments section, or even comment on some of the choices I have made.

This is going to be a big long list I feel

Beats And Tunes, The Music Of My Life

Most of you will like a song for it's lyrics and how they relate to you, or relate to life. I'm not one for listening to songs, I prefer listening to music. The music I listen to tends to have a direct effect on my mood, whereas if you're a listener of lyrics, the songs tend to reflect your mood.

This is why I like hard, fast and energetic music. I can actually feel my spirits being lifted by certain music. Hard dance, trance, jumpstyle, hardstyle and the like are always the first to go on my MP3 player. It's the kind of music the older folks would call 'just a load of thumping'. I'm a big lover of beats, but the actual tune that accompanies those beats can do wonders for my mood.

TITA: Harnessing The Power

This post goes against the mould a bit. It's not about me, my condition or anything like that. I've decided I may as well publish my thoughts on a few subjects while I have an audience. Similar blogs to this will have the title as TITA, an acronym for Things I Think About.

This one is about power, or more importantly, renewable energy.

You Can Choose Your Own Family

Why have you got 20 written on your head? I was asked this on the 21st of August 2003 and little did I know, the person who asked it would later help save my life and become my sister.

It was of course my 20th birthday and someone had written the number 20 on my forehead with eyeliner. I was sitting on the red circular bench outside KFC on Abington St in Northampton. It was the haunt of the moshers/emos/goths/freaktards of Northampton and the surrounding areas. Think of it as the fountain and skittles of Warrington.

All's Well That Ends Well

I wanted to move back to Northampton under my own steam. Sadly, the move would eventually be forced.

Back when I was 16, if you remember, my mother kicked me out and had discussed the subject openly with my brother but hadn't even hinted anything to me. Well this repeated itself when she informed me that she had been planning to move down to the Northampton area herself for a while. She had actually started the ball rolling.

Rehab Scene Two

I had made a choice. I was to leave Warrington and I had set a deadline of Summer 2012 and there was no way I was changing my mind.

The plan wasn't just to start in a new town, it would be to start my life again, completely. A new home, a new family, new friends and even a new name.

Rehab Scene One

I didn't have to wait long to get onto the second step of the ladder and since that appointment with Dr Wrong, my mood improved a hell of a lot.

First up was an assessment, which was quite nerve racking. I had walked to the appointment, but you can't tell the mother that, she gave me bus fare. The bus fare was spent on a packet of smokes though and with my nerves, I needed the smokes more than I needed to get the bus. It was only at the hospital in Warrington anyway, not so much of an issue.

The Voices In My Head

I have no idea yet if this will be harder to write than my piece about suicide, but I'm going to give it a shot anyway.

I've never had voices in my head telling me to do bad things. In fact, I don't even have a police record, I've never been in trouble with the law before. The voices in my head are my own creation. The creations lead to scenarios in my head that can go on for hours. Let me try and explain.

Bike Ride To Nowhere

Music plays a big part in my life, but not like it would with most. The majority listen to the words, relate to the song and like it for that reason. Not me, I listen to the music. That's why I like club music. Not this naff pop dance that you get in the charts, but hard dance, jumpstyle, hardstyle, trance and such. When I do move, I like to move at a fast pace and the high BPM rate, coupled with a decent tune, can pick me up quicker than anything else in my life.

This is why, when packing for my final bike ride, the first thing to go in was 8 batteries for my MP3 player. They'd last me about 5 days and half of them were rechargeable. Onto my MP3 player went the hardest, fastest music I could find. A couple of gigabytes of music that would distract me from the deep muscle pain of that first 130 mile leg of my trip.

From Everest to Mariana

In my own weird way, I've started to enjoy writing these blogs. I've written down my feelings and history before, but I've never published them and nobody outside my circle of trust has ever read them.

There's a massive stigma surrounding mental illness, yet most of us have either suffered from, or has seen someone suffer from some form of mental illness in their life. Since I went public with this on Sunday, I have heard stories from people I've known for a short time, or even people I've known for the best part of two decades who fall into this category. Either they themselves have suffered, a loved one has, or even both. What I want though is for people to feel confident enough to not just tell me things in private, but to put it in the public eye themselves.

I'm more than willing to help of course, feel free to come to me with any problems you have, either on here, Twitter, Facebook, phone, front door, whichever is easier for you. But the more people who know and understand your plight, the bigger your potential support network could be.

Suicide Is Not Easy

I was eating my Sunday lunch in the living room when I heard the news about Gary Speed. I was awestruck, it was a complete shock to me, as it was for many others. The ignorant, or misinformed, think suicide is selfish. They wonder how a person could take such an easy way out and leave their family to deal with the aftermath, so they don't have to. Well I'm really hoping that those who have read my blog up to now, no longer fall into either the ignorant or misinformed categories.

The brain, and the mind is very complex and nobody understands it. The story of my father is great proof to that. Nowhere is the butterfly effect more apt than in a description of the brain. One misplaced word in a text, one car journey, one lost love, these can all effect the brain in a way that can lead to irreversible damage. My blogs have proven that aswell I think.

The End Of A Family

Trying to fulfil my promise to my Dad by making him proud was no easy task. By the time he got ill, I had already linked my life to bipolar disorder. I came across it by accident. Of course I had heard of the condition before, but I didn't know a great deal about it.

I was flicking around a rugby league forum and came across an article about an Australian rugby player who was coming over to play in this country, after having problems down under due to his Bipolar disorder. There was a thread on one forum, where someone basically asked what bipolar was and how it could affect a player. About 4 replies in, someone posted something that gave me an idea what I was suffering from. This person spread awareness of the condition, pointed out some of the symptoms. The poster may not know it, but he contributed in some way to changing my life.

Death Just A Whisker Away

“We worked in gangs for all we were worth

The young boys pulling the wagons

We were digging the tunnels, shifting the earth

It was then that it happened

No-one knew how the cracks appeared

But as it fell they all disappeared

Stone fell like rain”

-Genesis – Driving The Last Spike

I think that song and especially those verses are quite apt for what happened in October 2008.

Cyclothymia Explained

I thought I'd give those who have been reading my story a little treat. I'll have a quick run down and summary of the effects of my condition in both stages, the lows and the highs.

There are two stages of the illness Cyclothymia. The dysthymic stage (the bad) and the eurphoric stage (the not so bad).

Back At Home

I've come to the conclusion that I need to fill in the basics first, then once that is done, I can delve deeper into each part of my life in further posts. This post will cover the basics from 2005 until October 2008 when the biggest fall of my life occurred. It may be another long one like yesterdays, please be patient.

I left off having made the decision that I wanted to come home. I made that decision on the Thursday and was moving back in on the Sunday. It was January 2005 and although I didn't know it yet, it was going to be the beginning of the end for me. Which ending, was not certain for 6 years.

The Southern Years

If you read yesterdays blog, you may already have an opinion in mind. Maybe you think I'm lazy, maybe everything I've done is my own fault. If you think that's the case, please keep reading and hopefully you'll learn a thing or two. I don't want you to feel sorry for me, not even a little bit. What I want is to highlight the issues people with mental health problems suffer, no matter how trivial they may seem to you. Perhaps reading my blog will point to a friend, or a member of your family who has shown similar symptoms recently.

That's precisely what I want. If I can help just a single person, then I could have changed a life, possibly even saved a life. The death of Gary Speed yesterday kick started me into this. I started a blog here about 16 months ago, when I thought I may have cancer of the Tsurav Gangulys (more on that later). Sadly, someone who I thought was a very good friend, someone I thought actually loved me as a friend, accused me of only writing it to get attention. Her words were “pity party”. Needless to say, I haven't spoken to her since that moment and have no intention of ever doing so again.

The Beginning

As I've started this blog nearly 16 months after my initial contact with the mental health teams, I'll have to track back a bit. I'll do this over the next few days.

I had a fairly typical upbringing. Parents separated when I was 5 and my Mum brought me up, with regular visits to my very loving father, who I took after in many things. Things were all going very well until I hit high school. Before that, I had played football non-stop, gone to Cub Scouts every week and behaved very well, both at school and at home.