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.



I do have a new life now though. I left Warrington 2 years ago this week and now reside in Kettering, Northamptonshire. A much smaller town than Warrington, but I've been much happier, up until recently of course.

Let's rewind a couple of years though.

I mentioned in a blog back then that mother dearest had planned to move down here to watch her grandson grow up. It left me in limbo, pretty much homeless and still without a full time job to save the money to get my own gaff up there.

Well, we soon came up with a plan. I'd wanted to move to Northampton anyway, so why not come here together? We couldn't afford it by ourselves, but together, we could be down here quite easily and quite quickly. We made that decision in July 2013 and we had moved into our new home by the end of September, just 3 months later.

There were challenges in those 3 months of course. We couldn't view houses down here, everyone was done online and we had to hit and hope. Luckily, we landed on our feet with the house we eventually chose.

But before we could actually move, we needed the cash money. The mother had received some PPI compensation, but I had to come up with some funds myself and thus started the period of my life which was perhaps the happiest and certainly the longest employed in one job.

6 months was the longest job I'd ever had before the one I secured in July 2013. A job, although through a couple of transfers, I still hold to this very day, 2 years and 3 months later. That's over 4 times as long as any previous job. Not too shoddy.

Don't get me wrong, the job is not fancy. It's bottom of the ladder stuff, but as we speak, I'm currently receiving the second highest hourly rate of my life and I've actually had a promotion in those 2 years. I wanted another up to manager up until my recent relapse. I no longer want that, even though I'd be damn good at it.

When I first applied for this job, it was solely to save up the funds to move down here. 3 months of working, without spending any of it. I was happy with that, because what was at the other end was something that made it worth it.

Of course, when I eventually got down here, it was so easy to get the same job in a different store. There was only 8 days between shifts at my old store and my new one.

After Dad died, I'd kept in touch with Cherry, the mother of my nephew. We'd talk on a regular basis and she'd keep me updated on how Jamie was doing. I'd first met him the day of Dad's funeral and of course I loved the wee man.

Now you remember the German? My biological brother? Well that's Jamie's Dad. No, father, no......sperm donor. When he found out I was moving down here and I wanted to be a proper uncle to Jamie, he had something to say about.

He actually said I had to prove myself TO HIM before I could have any contact with Jamie.

Challenge accepted. No, not the challenge of proving myself to him, but the challenge of defying him. I'd have a good relationship with Jamie and he didn't have a say in the matter. Like I said, Cherry and me and been speaking for a while and she was happy for me to prove myself to Jamie.

Now I'm uncle Dan and couldn't be happier about that. Work and my mental limit the time I get to spend with him, but at least I try when I can.




I've learned a lot about myself in the last couple of years. I live as close to a normal life as I ever have and I don't have severe issues clouding my judgement and opinions. Well, not as much anyway.

I went from having 10 months of depression and 2 months of hyper-manic each year to having 1 month of depression, 1 month of hyper-manic and 10 months of normal per year. Most of it was because I was fully medicated, but I would take that over the alternative.

6 months ago, mother dearest moved out of the house, she got her own place. It was always the plan and in March of this year, it finally happened. This meant a number of things:

1. I had my own home, with my name on the tenancy and all the bills
2. I had bills to pay
3. I had a long-term job
4. I was almost always living a normal life
5. I didn't have to rely on others just to get through the day

 Most of this you won't find that impressive, you've probably been doing it for years. But for me and the change from the state I was in in 2009 and 2010, it was nothing short of a miracle.

This of course is just the first in a series of blogs I'll be writing in the coming days and weeks, just to fill you in on the basics. Then I'll be delving deeper into everything.

As I've mentioned, I'm in the midst of a pretty serious relapse at the moment. So serious, I've had many thoughts of ending my life in recent weeks and things have just been piling on top of each other to make things pretty unbearable. I'm currently on the waiting list to see a shrink though and it's something as simple as having that to look forward to that's keeping me going at the moment.

I have many new friends and colleagues, many of whom probably don't understand why I'm the way I am. Hopefully some of those people are reading this now and are also catching up on my previous blogs.

I'm off my meds, as they have stopped working, I've come to the conclusion that I'm now suffering from full on bi-polar. If this is confirmed, then I'll actually be quite proud. I don't hide my mental and it will be just another reason to be proud of the fact I'm still here and still fighting. Thoughts of suicide have returned, which is not good and I've started to slip back into old habits.

I've taken the quite risky decision to become as bat shit crazy as possible before I see this shrink. The worse I am, the more they can do. My GP does have me on suicide watch, so I have to go and see her once a week. I know I'm not going to do anything, but it's good to have that support.

I'm still concentrating on the wrong things though. Even though I can't help myself at the moment, I'm still kicking on with helping others in need, especially those suffering from problems with mental. I couldn't another situation like with lil Sue. I couldn't lose someone else. It's keeping my quite busy because I know a lot of people who are having those kind of problems.

I do the same at work, I concentrate on the wrong things and sometimes miss the basics. But it's the person I've turned into. I care too much about my job like I care too much about other people. So the basics suffer, like keeping myself alive. I'm working on it, but it's not easy. Trying to change your life while you're trying to keep it going is a tough struggle.

I wish others were as caring as I am, because it would mean less work for me to have to do.

I'll let you decide if I'm referring to my job or helping other mentals there. Maybe it's both