I don't feel the need to explain myself but as some members are not sure who I am I am happy to explain a bit about myself and why I am here.
*I apologise if this triggering to some, if it is please do not read.*
At he age of 14 I lost my grandad, he had been my best friend and my whole life, I spent every single day with him since the day I was born. 28th of January 1995 was the day my life changed and not for the better. To cut a long story short, I tried to ignore what had happened and didn't grieve. I was out with my friends, but my mind was elsewhere. Whilst my friends were taking about "boys" I would sit there and find small bits of glass and self harm badly. As teenagers, we experiment, alcohol and smoking became involved, also drugs. 6 months later I was begging and crying to my friend who's mother owned a pub to get me alcohol. I hid everything from my parents because I was ashamed. I would steal cigarettes and big bottles of the strongest alcohol from the pub cellar I could find.... which I'm certainly not proud of. Strong hard drugs also took a hold of me, every drug you can think of I took. This was an escape from my emotions. I found a boyfriend who was a lot older than me, (at the time he replaced the male bond I had with my grandfather). I moved out of my parents house to be with him at the age of 15. He was also heavy into drugs and alcohol. He also mentally and physically abused me, being 6ft 4 and nearly 18 stone of muscle I was picked up and thrown into walls, solid wood wardrobes and anything else you can think of, purely because of the paranoia drugs gave him. I weighed 5st 4 at the time because I had developed an eating disorder which nearly killed me in itself.
One day I was found unresponsive, I was taken in and sent to a rehab centre. It was a long road to recovery but after 20 years of being clean and sober I am sure proud of myself.
I had support workers and everyone around me to help me get back to where I needed to be and not once did I have a hard approach from any therapist or support worker. I did a psychology degree and had the opportunity to do a job i've always wanted to do. For the love of animals, I became a dog handler, I had the chance to work along side the police in central London, making sure that people felt safe in their community, to being involved in drug busts and working on one of the most well known murder scenes in Camden.
One night shift there had been a drugs bust where I was present, I had let my dog in first and I followed behind. I was grabbed around the neck by someone behind the door with the biggest machette that id ever seen. I was moments from death. This is where I decided that it had affected my mental health once again and triggered off memories of past where I thought it could have been left behind.
This has all left me with years and years of severe anxiety, PTSD, crippling depression, uncontrollable panic attacks, OCD and all the nasties including my newest health anxiety which came on 2 years ago. Ive had numerous amounts of intense psychological therapy and am currently in therapy again at the moment.
Im not asking for sympathy or praise, i am just expressing what ive been though and why I am here.
Have others been through a lot worse?....Absolutely. I am now married to a man that worships the ground I walk on who is very supportive and have 2 beautiful children. Which Im so thankful for.
BlueIris:
If you felt victimised by myself, i sincerely apologise. It wasn't my intention in the slightest. I don't wish for anyone to feel that way but I was just trying to explain to you by what I meant and as you were here to defend yourself, which you did and I understand that everyone has different approaches to things and I respect your opinion. If there is anything I can do but apologise to make it right. Please let me know.
Pulisa:
I sense a little sarcasm in your replies which I think is slightly unnecessary. But again, you have an opinion which you expressed and its ok to agree to disagree.
Carys:
I understand that this thread was made public. As pointed out I am not a regular poster here, but read through the comments and threads on occasions. I am a regular in the chatroom where I am more distracted rather than reading more on the forum where a lot of my triggers are. I care about the community here of course, but if its something I am not sure on or its a big trigger for me I wont reply as text can often get misconstrued and I wouldn't want to offer any advice that could be damaging or seen as unhelpful.
I see that you did reply to my post and i'm very thankful. I appreciate that this thread may have come across as trying to single people out or unhelpful, but this wasn't my intention. I felt this was the right sub forum for me to put this in and everyone has a right to express their opinion here.
Terry:
Your replies make absolute sense, you have put it in a way which I was trying to express but found it hard to get the point I was trying to initially make. Thank you for that.
I understand that some members now have a negative opinion about me, which is totally fine I accept that. Ive been here since 2004 and have made hundreds of friends from here which will be life long.
As i mentioned earlier, I go into the chatroom where I can get away from my daily mental torture and struggles as a distraction and talk about different things, have a laugh and a joke and listen to others and I have a better understanding of their background so feel I can give more better advice or empathy towards that member. Whereas, like other say, we don't know the full backround on members here so it would be unfair for me to comment on a thread when I don't know what has gone on previously.
I have had immense support from the members that frequent the chatroom and we have come to care about one another like we would our own family and I will be forever greatful for that. Some say things that I don't necessarily agree with, but its their opinion so I don't comment and chat about something else. We don't fall out about it. If someone doesn't come in to the chat room we wonder if they are ok, or how they are doing, how their day has been etc.
Just a suggestion,.. if anyone that does'nt come into the chatroom, maybe come in and say hello it would be nice to chat to others that are usually here on the forum.
There is enough hate, negativity, illness, suffering, poverty, stigma around mental health issues which we should be breaking down. We all are here for a reason. When we all get along as it should be on this site, difference of opinions are ok. I wasn't sure if the admins were aware of the situation that i had noticed. I now know that they are and they do a great job and it can be very difficult to keep up with everything, and I was advised that we could all make this forum run more smoothly by reporting things that we were unsure of. I didn't know that we could. Now it has been clarified I understand completely.
After being here for 16 years.... It really is the most beautiful place to be.
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Originally Posted by whispershadow
