My Mental Health Story Part 4 - The Downhill Slide Begins

And life goes on; there are many, many blank periods of my life post-accident, and having a poor memory is something I have to live with, although I must admit it is very, very frustrating, especially when it comes to people, their names, and even where I know them from.

But as well as having to understand my anxiety, I had to come to terms with another aspect of how it came about. And so, for the second time of dealing with a new diagnosis, I had to come to terms with the letters PTSD! ‘Hang on a minute,’ I told the nurse who gave me the news. ‘That’s for people who have served in the forces and have been to war,’ I tried to explain. ‘No, no,’ she said in reply; it’s a traumatic event, and that is what you had when falling off the bike!

I was gobsmacked, being ex-forces; that was my ignorant understanding of PTSD, and as I had no experience of those four letters or anxiety, I certainly had no idea that you could be diagnosed with anxiety through PTSD, which you could get from falling off a bike! Talk about confusion.

Confusion comes in many formats!

"Confusing signage" by miss_rogue is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

And to clear this up once and for all, an online search will tell us that ‘Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition generated by experiencing or witnessing frightening events, such as violence, accidents, or disasters (or being involved in one.) Symptoms include flashbacks, nightmares, severe anxiety, and overpowering thoughts about the incident, lasting for long periods of time, months or even years, and disrupting daily life.’

A very appropriate three last words, as that is what happened. I mentioned it in my previous post and told you of an example of how it affected my work, and that continued. As mentioned, I struggled, and when you are used to setting quite high standards at work and those start to drop, it isn’t good. It wouldn’t have been good for me pre-accident; it certainly wasn’t good while having to deal with anxiety too.

I certainly didn’t have flashbacks, as I don’t remember the incident, nor did I have nightmares or overpowering thoughts about the accident, but I had anxiety, and with my experiences, I would say it was quite severe. And here, thirteen years later, it can still affect me, although very rarely and at a very low level.

I have always used a scale of 1-10 to describe how bad my anxiety was or is. If it rumbles away inside me these days, it will rarely get above 3 or 4; however, I will tell you of a very strange incident some 5-6 years ago, so some 7-8 years after the accident. I got up for work one morning, and my anxiety was at 10. I messaged my boss and my clients my apologies and didn’t venture out of the house that day. But with everything that had happened and the teachings from the course that I would occasionally work with, what happened that morning just did not make sense, but that will be my next post!

Meanwhile, I felt I was falling apart, and I went to see my boss for a chat but made sure the father was there too, and my wife came along for support. Why, I will never know, but I had to be honest with them, and I told them I couldn’t cope. Then there was an amazing generous act from the father. Remember, his son had been on a residential course to help when he had the same problem? Well, he told my wife to look at a suitable, similar course with the same company, and he would pick up the bill!

I was shocked. Why was he doing this, as it hadn’t been a work-related accident? At a later stage and not sure when, I asked him why he had paid for the course, and his reply was the biggest professional compliment I ever received. Never mind a bonus, or a ’well done,’ or an enhanced redundancy payment, or a well-worded reference.

He told me that when his son had needed time off work with his anxiety and I had run the business for him, I was his rock. He said he didn’t know how he and the business would have coped had I not been there. That was huge for me, absolutely massive. But from my take, I was only doing what I was paid to do, manage the business. Again, with all my memory issues, this is something I will never forget!

And ‘rock’ can also be used in many formats. The Rock of Gibraltar and my own experiences whilst visiting. Back then if you’d told me I would be someone's rock, I might have fallen off this one.

"Rock of Gibralter" by scot2342 is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Unfortunately, he is no longer with us. I found out about four years ago he had died from cancer, which doesn’t surprise me with the amount he smoked, but, JK, I will never forget you or your kindness.

The course and what happened next would make this post too long, so I will bring this one to an end. With that, there is a lot more to tell, but remember the three words: ‘disrupting daily life?' Well, that will also come into the equation; in my next post, that will be explained a lot more, as will the course.

The course I went on is still available and out there for people to book, but it wasn’t for me, and again in my next post I will go into the reasons why. And please remember at this stage, if you wanted to go on a course to help with your situation, the one you chose will be different from others, and as I found out, the one we chose may not even suit us.

Admittedly, I went on this course because it had worked for my boss. There was no research, no looking around. If it had worked for my boss, surely it must work for everyone, and that unfortunately is not the case! Which, as mentioned, I will explain.

As mentioned, I did find the institute and course online, and it is still available; they have glowing statements from people who have attended their workshop and whom they have helped, and that can only be a positive, and it includes sportspeople and others. So, it does work for some people; it just didn’t work for me.

And in my next post I will tell you all about it

Thanks for reading

DJ