Just Another Blogger

It’s hard to give you a snapshot of who I am but here we go:

I lived the first 30 years of my life on the Isle of Wight and grew up in a big old house with woods to roam in and a stony beach to explore. My Mum ran a smallholding with chickens, goats and sheep, and my Dad ran the family engineering firm. I spent as much time as a kid exploring, shooting, and falling out of trees, as I did locked in my attic bedroom playing computer games and staring for hours at the mainland lights at night.

I detested school, did as little as possible towards my GCSE’s and managed an A in English Language and C’s in everything else that mattered. At the time, all I cared about was the 3 C’s in English, Maths and Science which would allow me to apply for any enlisted job in the Army. I joined at 17, quickly managed to break my wrist and decided that the army wasn’t for me. Hindsight shows me that I’d been suffering with poor mental health for years and had no idea how to handle failure on top of my Grandfather dying a few months before, and my parents divorcing at the same time.

That was 23 years ago and since then I’ve lived at 20+ addresses in 4 counties, I’ve been engaged twice, married once and I’ve got one child. I went to the US on a single ticket and no clue what I was doing at 18 and spent about three months getting drunk in parts of the US, Mexico, and the Cayman Islands before coming home and working random jobs for years to pay it off.

I’ve been a barman, timeshare salesman, bit of mechanical engineering on the shop floor, Nursing Auxiliary on medical wards, assessment unit and A+E, as well as being a back care tutor – randomly. I’ve worked numerous temp jobs, seen a lot of bodies and rarely stay in a job longer than a couple of years. I’ve pulled cable, delivered mail and parcels, patrolled the Iraqi border, and have tried and failed at more stuff than I can comfortably think about at one time.

These days, I’m trying to make myself a better human being after having a complete meltdown almost 3 years ago and then receiving a tentative diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD or EUPD). Since then, I’ve experienced the NHS and Veteran mental health pipelines and I’m currently (2021) undergoing Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), courtesy of my local health authority and trying to work out who the hell I am now.

After all the things I’ve experienced over the years and all the various roles I’ve been in, I want to find a way of passing on all that knowledge and lessons learned, as well as getting all the mess in my mind out and into print. I’ve spent all my life reading the stories of other people, gaining insight, and learning about how people work and now it’s time for me to start taking an active part in that process.

Just Another Blogger