I thought I'd give some insight to why I have taken it upon myself to end my life. It will be a long read, I apologise in advance for that. But as I find myself alone without any family or friends I feel it necessary to tell my story. With the hope that it will find its way back to those I love.
I have a long history of hypersensitive emotion control. One minute I'm happy, the next I'm angry but underneath the rollercoaster of emotions I am so miserable. Along with my emotional challenges I was unknowingly was dealing with:
- CPTSD - Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
- DID - Dissociative Identity Disorder
- BPD - Borderline Personality Disorder
- MDD - Major Depressive Disorder
At the age of 40 I have only just found out that I have these conditions after having my world implode with devastating consequences. Not just for me but for those lives that were connected to me.
I grow up in a one bedroom flat in north London. In the beginning it was my mother, Dad, brother and myself. Yes all of us in a one bed flat. I remember being happy riding my bike with my dad, my dad putting me on his lap while he drove round the block, racing him in the park and never winning. Then my dad died and at the age of 8 my world exploded. At that point all that was good in my life left me. I felt alone, abandoned.
Everything for me became difficult. I struggled at school because I am dyslexic everything was a horrifically difficult for me. And when I needed support from my friends and family I received relentless bullying from those who I thought were my friends at school and physical punishment from my mother. They were times that I was beaten so hard that she cut me.
I would get bullying at school for being the poor kid that wore cannon trainers, hand me down clothes and couldn't read or write very well. - the reading and writing hasn't got much better throughout the years. I would spend all day at school be bullied and come home wanting to hugged and loved, only to be beaten because I didn't understand my homework. I had no safe place so my mind developed dissociation. I created alternate personalities to deal with all the pain that was dealing with. - all of which I did without me actually knowing. I'm not sure how or why this happened but it did.
Throughout my life growing up I every stressful episode I had resulted in one or more of my alters to take over. During these episodes I had blackouts or memories that felt like dreams. When I expressed to my mother that I was experiencing these episodes I was dismissed. - my feelings were never validated
Before high school I tried to kill myself. I took all of my mums medication. Of course it didn't work but it was the only time my mum told me she loved me.
My bullying continued into high school. The kids continued to act my financial state but they also called me gay. I don't know why that started. Tuesdays and Thursdays were PE days after the actives the teachers made us shower in groups. They use to wet towels and whip me with them. Until One day a group decided that because I was "gay" that they would hold me down and push broom handles into me. This went on for 3 years. - nobody helped me.
I now know I spent the first 3 years of high school switching between alters having very little memory of events. Things like learning to play the trumpet, trombone and saxophone I have memories of me spending every lunchtime practicing, but I now have no idea how to play the instrument. But I own a saxophone and I have memories of me playing in a nightclub in Liverpool. Apparently this is a skill that one or more of my personalities have but I do not. I only cruelly have some memories of it.
I've spent my whole life in and out of altered states of being, and I had know idea. Living through crisis event after crisis event having blackouts after blackouts and having memories like they are outer body experiences. Confusion, depression and the uncontrollable surge of emotions lead me to the suicidal thoughts. I put myself in hospital 3 times. 2 causing irreversible damage to my liver and kidneys and one that put me in a coma causing some mild brain damage. Memory problems, nerve damage and some small motor functions.
I've tried on multiple occasions to get help but they always say I just had depression and anxiety and that I needed to try and find a better way to deal with stressful situations and left me to it. The problem is I never actually know when a stressful event takes place as I'm a passenger along for the ride in my own body If I'm lucky. I am only aware of what happens after the event has reached a point where I have a mental breakdown and I self harm.
What I struggle to understand is how I can go through life not knowing I've lived it. Doing things, saying things, creating memories but having no memory of those events. Then having a mental meltdown and imploding taking everything that's in my orbit. Doctors and therapists now say that it's not my fault. That I have no control over my alters once they take control. But this doesn't help me or those that I love and care about.
I recently have come out of the worst crisis I think I've ever had. I've awoke from my living nightmare to find that I have had an affair for 3 years. An affair that I have no real memory of. And the ones I do I have feel like dreams. I'm currently in a mental health hospital and I for the first time I have a diagnosis (one that is incurable) I'm on medication which has calmed the noises in my head and me. But I can't cope with the diagnosis. I've been having more memory blackouts and I'm alone with nobody to turn to for support. Which leads to stressful situations, which leads to dissociative switching.
All I know is that I will not allow myself to hurt my wife and daughter in the way that I have. As selfish as it my be to others, to me it's a selfless act. I would kill and die to protect my wife and daughter from anyone that set out to hurt them. That includes me.
So my death will serve 2 purposes. Saving them from me and ending my suffering.
