Flight

It was so stressful for me to find myself being ostracised at school. So much so that I felt the pressure to impress all of the time. I took it as though there was something wrong with me and that's when I began to pretend to be someone else.

But that was so taxing that I ran away again and again until I could hardly face going back. That is how I coped - with a quick fix; a sticking plaster on a broken bone.

I say it's taxing because I put a constant pressure on myself to be the person I thought my friends wanted me to be. I'm sure you can see how it would take a lot of effort to keep up such a life. 

And so things became worse until finally the mental health problems started to set in. First I became anxious and depressed and then I had my first psychotic episode.

I imagine that there was some predisposition to developing psychosis in me somewhere - possibly even as the result of the head trauma that I had during my childhood.

Now I'm pretty screwed - I've put myself in such a compromising position by constantly running away that I have a monumental task ahead of me now.

Of course I couldn't have helped running away because I was in such a bad way. People told me I needed to push through and it'd only get harder but their words fell on deaf ears.

I'm slowly progressing forward a bit at a time now. I can do things at the moment that I wouldn't have dreamt I could do before. For one thing I am getting married whereas before I couldn't even make a simple telephone call!

A key is understanding and accepting who you are and building confidence on that. It's funny how easy it is for us to get so messed up isn't it? Luckily I live in a time of understanding; I have great support from the CMHT and Recovery College (among others), so I am far from facing this alone.

I honestly don't know if I'll ever be able to do things like work. I need to learn how to be me first; but that isn't as easy as it sounds.