1066 All Stars

Life Is What You Make Of It

I have written various posts on my Dad’s death and, understandably I hope, have little desire to revisit the details again.

For context, it is worth just highlighting that it came within a month of starting my new job and three months before our son was born and it is those aspects that I wish to explore.

The last conversation I had with my Dad was in the hospital. He was recovering from his heart attack and appeared weak but in reasonable spirits. His primary concern seemed to be that I was happy as he asked about my new job and my future prospects. Perhaps needless to say, I downplayed it. Less than 48 hours later, he died.

It is difficult to objectively understand the impact that his death has had on me. How do you judge something that isn’t there, isn’t tangible?

One thing that was very apparent was the impact that my experience at The Priory had on me. As I have written elsewhere, I was surprised at how openly emotional I was. I had thought about this eventuality in moments of grim projection and always assumed I would be the ‘strong’ one, holding everyone else together. Instead, I found a connection to my emotions that I hadn’t previously experienced and which I expect helped with the grieving process.

The older I get, the more I recognise elements of my own character that I can see in him. Wanting to be funny, to be good, to better myself and to be liked; these are all noble traits of which I am justifiably proud. But taken to an extreme, they feed anxiety, doubt and self-judgement.

Oh, Boy

As above, I have blogged before on my experiences of adding a son to our family unit, exploring the difficulty I had in adapting and the recognition of suffering a form of postnatal depression.

More recently, our expanded household has undoubtedly been a cause of my stress and anxiety. Three children of 5 and under are hard work. The girls occupy each other to an extent but they also bicker and squabble over the same things that they want to play with. As twins, they are missing the natural hierarchy that exists in a standard sibling relationship where the older child takes the lead. Instead they have to learn to share in a way that other children do not.

At the same time, my boy demands my time in a way that only a two year old can. Trouble is, the girls want me too and so I constantly find myself walking a tightrope of how much time I am dedicating to each, inevitably feeling as though I am failing on all counts. On the one hand, I don’t feel that my boy is getting the dedication that the girls did at the same age. At the same time, I feel that I am constantly having to tell the girls no, unable to dedicate time to them as my boy has more immediate demands. In addition, I feel that I don’t make enough of an effort to ensure the girls are treated as individuals, relying too much on treating them as ‘the twins’ and thus a single unit with the same demands as it is easier to manage.

Whichever I way I cut the parenting pie, I end up eating a large slice of guilt.

As part of my CBT sessions, I am encouraged to challenge negative thinking and look for reasonable, believable alternatives. For example, my therapist would point out that raising twins is hard. We have a pressure that parents of a standard family unit simply don’t have and that should be acknowledged before I rush to pass judgement on my skills as a parent.

And this judgement is a recurring theme that should also be challenged. In moments of high stress, when emotions are frayed and tempers flare, I worry that the enduring image my children will have of me from childhood is a moody, grumpy, tired, angry man who never had time for them and just wanted to be left alone. I worry what example I am setting for them, what messages I am teaching them.

Perhaps all parents have these doubts. I like to confront mine as a means to overcome them. I am not the parent I want to be. Likely I never will be. But I’ll never stop trying.

Brexit

Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a dull post about the comical state of British politics. This will be far less interesting!

Having secured a permanent contract at my new employer, I at last had some security, much welcome given the recent addition to the family. Immediately I felt some embarrassment at my job title that placed me at odds with the rest of the team. I felt uncomfortable at any perception that I might have seen myself as above them, torn between wanting to acknowledge my skills and experience whilst not wanting to appear arrogant or presumptuous.

As I settled in, I began to assume more responsibility and carve out a role for myself. I came to be relied upon for certain tasks, my input seemed valued and my skills appeared to be appreciated. I developed a good bond with my new team and felt warmly welcomed. I decided that I could be happy here.

But over time, things began to change, almost imperceptibly. I started pulling away, relying more and more on what I had done in my old job, effectively saying that what we did there was inherently superior. I would place myself at odds with the common view, consciously taking a stance that was different from the others. Often it may have been justified; after all, consensus does not mean correct. But there was a subtext too as I seemingly sought out the chance to stand alone.

Naturally, my relationships began to suffer and as ever, an inner conflict raged. On the one hand, I was pulling myself away and being aloof. On the other, I would decry the sense that I did not feel part of the team.

At the same time, I made a true friendship, one of those people who, for reasons I have yet to grasp, saw enough in me to keep chipping away at the barriers I put up, metaphorically inviting themselves round for tea and biscuits, no matter how stubbornly I kept putting up a ‘No Trespassers’ sign.

But this in turn created an imbalance; if not quite all then certainly a large proportion of my proverbial eggs were transferred to just one or two baskets. In the face of perceived discord, I became ever more reliant on those baskets such that the eggs within inevitably began to crack. I felt like the helpless chick that emerged from within, lost in a world I felt incapable of coping with, desperate for someone to look after him.

Well, that’s very dramatic isn’t it? But there are some quite serious, deep rooted themes that underlie this behaviour that weave throughout the journey I have documented and which will eventually lead us back my tenuous Brexit link.

At the heart of it is a need for external validation borne of my fundamental lack of self confidence. Entering an environment with which I was familiar, coming from a background of management and multi-tasking, I could rightly talk with confidence and both seek out and embrace a senior position. At the same time, I held over my head the twin stigma marks of both redundancy and mental illness. How could I lay claim to be good at my job when my last employer were so keen to get rid of me that they paid me money to leave? How could I have confidence in my abilities when I hadn’t worked since June? How could I operate in the cold, corporate world when I felt so fragile that I felt I could break at there merest whisper of a breeze?

I sensed that others considered me aloof, stand offish and may have perceived this as a belief that I was somehow better. The harsh truth to admit is that I probably did. It is an inherent conflict that as much as I doubt myself, I am also able to recognise my strengths. I seem to veer wildly between arrogance and self-abasement. And so it is with my relationships with others. I crave an invite to a party I have no interest in attending. I convinced myself that I wasn’t liked, wasn’t needed and wasn’t wanted. I withdrew, accentuating my sense of isolation whilst at the same time fuelling my sense of resentment at feeling isolated, a self perpetuating circle. My mood spiralled down into a seemingly endless sadness. And all the while I continued to move my eggs across to the one or two baskets in which they felt safe.

And so we come to the question of Brexit. I found myself standing on the edge of my known world, faced with an important choice to make. I could continue on my current path, ploughing my own furrow, isolating myself from all but a handful of key relationships. Or, I could seek to change by taking a risk, involving myself more, actively seeking out new relationships or developing existing ones. I could choose to leave or I could choose to remain. In or Out.

But unlike the real life Brexit, it is ironically the remain path that holds more doubt. Voting out is easy; I operate within my own bubble, taking bitter comfort from the darkness that I have become so used to operating in. Voting to remain on the other hand is hard. It goes against my natural instincts to put myself out there, proactively attempting to make relationships. What if I am rejected?

But then what if I’m not? Perhaps it is not rejection that I am afraid of but acceptance. Am I ready to forgive myself? Am I ready to be kind to myself? Am I ready to love myself, warts and all? I guess there is only one way to find out.

I vote to remain.

The More Things Change…

As part of my redundancy, I was afforded the opportunity to see a career advisor to help me back into the workplace. They helped with my CV and online profile amongst other things but the principle thing they stressed was that job offers often come from our own network of contacts. And in a round about way, so it proved.

Finding the recruitment agency process to be a dead end, I made contact with a company that operated in the same sector as my previous role. I had already had informal discussions about a role with the company via a third party some months previously and it seemed a natural fit; my skills and experience would translate perfectly.

And so it was that just before Christmas, a potential role started to emerge. It would take a few weeks to come to fruition but by late January, I was on the move.

It was a temporary role to start with, just a 3 month placement to tackle a project that had come up. But it was a foot in the door and I backed myself to show my worth and earn a more permanent role.

Working in a familiar environment proved to be a double edged sword. On the one hand, I knew the market, I had experience and so I could hit the ground running. On the other, especially considering the circumstances in which I had left, I found myself constantly comparing how we did things at my previous company. That comparison then extended to what my role was versus what it had been, how isolated I felt compared to how many people I used to know until eventually the comfort of familiarity became a smothering blanket. If I was going to be doing the same work, I just wanted to do it in the same place. Doing the same thing somewhere else served only to remind me what I had lost, what I felt had been taken from me.

After 3 months, I was placed onto a permanent contract. My hard work had been rewarded, but challenges still remained. No doubt a combination of redundancy, a temporary contract and my underlying confidence issues,I always felt that I had to justify my position, never truly feeling part of the company. Over 2 years later, I still feel something of an outsider, something I will explore in more detail later.

At the same time I found myself locked in an inner conflict. I had not been a senior executive or anything of that nature, far from it. But I had held a management position with a degree of responsibility and part of my nature pushed me to want to get back to that level. On joining the company, I was keen to show my worth and stake a claim. But as time went on, I became comfortable where I was. My world became quite small, there was little need to speak to anyone outside of the immediate team. And anyway, doing so reminded me that I didn’t know anyone. Before, I was a well-known face. Here, I was a face in the crowd. Speaking to other departments made me think of my previous colleagues in an equivalent role. I gradually became wistful and melancholy, losing the desire to spread my wings.

It became something of a running joke in the team that I would reference my old job constantly. I was hurt at first (I’m rather more thin skinned than I like to show) but I understood. It was a fair cop. That was all I knew, it was my only point of reference. I missed it. Despite it all, I missed it.

Finally there sat underneath it all the spectre of mental health. I felt obliged to hide it, to put on a mask of competency and control. No matter the inner turmoil at being asked to produce a report, speak to a new colleague or draft a letter, I gave the impression of nonchalance. Yet inside, I was wracked with doubt, gnawing away at me.

In time, I felt comfortable enough to share some of my past with colleagues. Not management, but my immediate team members, In a way, it helped me to bond but more to the point, it felt good to be open and honest. This is who I am, for better or worse. I feel no sense of stigma or shame.

Whilst my first year in the job brought stability and restored some semblance of confidence, it would also bring two of the most defining experiences of my life, which we will look at next time.

Still To Come

Blimey, is this still going?

In the final instalment, we revisit the death of my dad, the birth of my boy and we take a look at Brexit (but not as you know it) as I face my very own internal In/Out referendum.

Get Your Stuff and Get Out

There is a certain wonderful irony to the fact that the single biggest event that happened to me that could drive me into therapy happened whilst I was in therapy. Or, more to the point, just about to leave therapy.

Let’s rewind a little bit. I had taken the step of being open and honest with my employer about my mental health condition. In return, I was assured of support as I worked my way back to full capacity.

After two months of therapy, my psychiatrist agreed that I was ready to go back. I would be phased in on a reduced schedule until I was ready for the full on grind of the working day. My job, as I had been assured before starting my treatment, would be there waiting for me.

Days before my proposed return to work, I was told that in my absence, my position was being made redundant. My department was to be reorganised, my role the only apparent casualty. What a coincidence.

Typically, I regret my response. I had every right to feel considerable anger but instead, I sought validation; I wanted to understand if this was professional or personal. Was this a rearrangement of a department on the grounds of efficiency or a reflection on my perceived worth to the organisation? Did it really matter? It did to me.

I was offered the chance to go back but in a utility role and apply for any of the other full time vacancies available. But I saw the writing on the wall. I had no interest in being a spare part. I never returned to the office.

I suspect it is difficult to know how to feel about being made redundant at the best of times but my circumstances were certainly unique. On the one hand, I had lost my job, my working home for the past 12 years. I was saddened to feel that I wasn’t wanted, angered at how it had been managed. And of course I was fearful of what came next.

On the other hand, I was leaving a job that had made me miserable and they would pay me a reasonable sum to get rid of me. I had a chance to strike out and try something new. Undoubtedly there were reasons for happiness.

With the various legal wranglings, I benefited from a further month of therapy before my redundancy became official. Wrapped in the bubble of the Priory, I had the comfort of knowing I was around understanding, supportive therapists and fellow patients. In a sense, I didn’t really have to deal with it, only in theory. I was able to process my anger and sadness and begin to accept.

With my employment terminated, my therapy came to an abrupt end. I was resentful of being robbed of the chance to go back to my old life and put right so many things that had been wrong, apply the lessons I had learned. Instead, I was out into the big wide world, my therapy incomplete. I felt like Luke Skywalker at the end of Empire Strikes Back, partially trained, confronting Vader before he is ready. Would I too be beaten by a superior foe before being cast adrift in the wilderness?

Post-therapy, I struggled with conflicting thoughts. On one hand, I told myself I was allowed some time to process and recover. I would take 2 weeks without the pressure of searching for a job, just to relax and unwind. By the second week, I became anxious, creating a phantom external pressure that I ‘should’ be looking for a job, any time not spent in front of a recruiter a wasted minute. And so instead of a break, I found myself descending back into depression, wondering where to turn next.

That turn would take me in an unexpected direction.

Temporary Insanity

Having charted the escalation of thinking errors and learned behaviours, my time at the Priory was very much a watershed where I discovered myself and began the process of recovery. For the first time then, we enter a period of my life post-therapy where I attempt to reintegrate into the world I had left behind.

The trouble was that as much as I had changed, the world was still very much the same. In addition, I had been robbed of the safety net of going back into an environment where management knew of my circumstances. I had always assumed that if I went back to my old job, there would be an inherent level of understanding and openness.

Instead, I found myself on the open market and, wary of the stigma of mental health,I felt obliged to hide my recent past. And so enquiries about my job history were fudged; I had not worked since early June but was not officially made redundant until September and so that is the date I stuck to, acting as if the period from June to September never happened.

After applying and failing for numerous roles, I reluctantly took the step of applying for temporary work. I figured it would be a good way of reentering the workplace with less pressure and help me to feel good about myself that I was earning money again. I could not have been more mistaken.

A role came up just before Christmas. I did my best to wriggle out of it, thinking I would take Christmas off and reapply myself in the New Year. A combination of persistence and guilt eventually persuaded me to take the role and so I found myself trudging off to patrol the immigration courts in some place I had never heard of.

Walking in, I didn’t know what the rate of pay was so I e-mailed the agency. The reply made my heart sink; minimum wage. I wandered round in a daze most of that day, the only bright spot a brief moment when I thought I wasn’t required and would be sent home. Alas I worked the whole day and would return the next.

That night, I got home, collapsed on the bed and cried.

The next day was more of the same. Again, I returned that night and cried.

I could not process how far I had fallen. From a manager, regularly liasing with senior managers and the executive committee to earning minimum wage setting out paper cups and filling water jugs. I felt utterly humiliated, demeaned and embarrassed. Was this to be my future? Was this all I was good for now?

After a couple of weeks, I was transferred to another court that had recently opened. Perhaps inevitably, I took the lead amongst my colleagues, the senior staff and Judges impressed by my confidence and competence, wrongly assuming that I had been doing the job for many years. Yet inside, despite the lack of responsibility and the ease of the role, I remained convinced that I was barely capable. And of course, I wanted out.

And my chance would soon come.

License To (Be) Ill

Having accepted that there was a problem, the road to recovery led me to the Priory.

A couple of weeks before I was due to start I went for a visit and to meet my key worker. She asked me a series of questions to get to the bottom of my issues and to give me an outline of what to expect.

To start with, I would do therapy part time. Some days would be all day sessions, others would see me go back to work in the afternoon. It was an arrangement that lasted 3 days; after that I spoke to my psychiatrist and told him that I couldn’t manage both at once. To my surprise, he agreed but said he had done it that way deliberately as he didn’t think I would accept going into therapy full time without trying and failing to manage both first. Clever bastard.

I wonder what people think when I tell them I received treatment at the Priory. Do they think it is a cosy country club where I got to hang around with booze-addled, fading rockers for instance. The truth was far less glamorous.

I have written before about the broad concepts and themes I encountered at the Priory and the various lessons they taught me. So let us instead take a step inside that world to see what the daily life of therapy is really like.

I should caveat from the outset; I was a day patient, so I went for my sessions, spent time on the hospital premises but at the end of each day, went home to my family. This is undoubtedly a fundamentally different experience to full time patients who live at the hospital during their treatment.

With that established, my first session was a group therapy and indeed this would be how most days would start. Groups would vary in size; sometimes there may be as many as 8 or 9, other days there were only 2 of us. Either way, the basic principles are the same; we would work our way round the room, each person introducing themselves and sharing their current mood, providing as much or as little additional information as they felt comfortable. All patients in my group were day patients but the reasons for seeking therapy were varied. Some, like me, struggled with anxiety and depression. Others may have sought solace in self harm, suffered a loss or any number of other issues. Either way, we had all reached a point of desperation where we needed help to find our way back.

To start with I found the sessions awkward. I didn’t know what to say and was uncomfortable expressing my emotions. I tried to make a light of things, hiding behind humour as we are so often wont to do. And like many, I would use a range of words to describe my state of mind without actually using the core emotions, obfuscating my real feelings. More on that later.

It was in one of these early sessions that another patient described themselves as being ill. This was truly a unique concept to me at the time. I assumed I was flawed or weak. Illness sounds like something you can recover from and I felt very far from that. But gradually I began to open up and share. I came to understand the thoughts that drove my feelings and influenced my behaviour. In time, I came to take an active role in these sessions, even feeling confident enough to engage the other patients and offer the benefit of my experience where appropriate.

In many ways these group sessions were the most important part of my recovery process. Whilst other sessions were still conducted within groups, these morning sessions were more intimate and direct, patients engaging with each other, coaxing out details or just sharing a sense of understanding. They helped to create bonds and friendships that helped me through.

Other sessions followed a similar path in that they comprised groups, usually then splintered down into pairs or smaller groups to discuss subjects in more detail. Content varied from an understanding of the biology of anxiety, to stress management techniques, assertiveness training to exercises designed to help us get in touch with our emotions.

And this is perhaps my biggest take away. I had become so used to hiding or ignoring my emotions that, to this day, I struggle with understanding them. We all use a variety of words to explain how we feel; annoyed, upset, frustrated, glad, fuming, aggravated. The list is virtually endless. But what do these words mean? Is aggravated worse than annoyed? Is being upset worse than being frustrated?

And so to clear up this confusion, we were encouraged to think of the core emotions; anger, sadness, happiness and fear. It can come as a jolt when you describe your mood as sad. Indeed the most common reaction is to try and fix it. But sadness is a valid emotional response that we should allow ourselves to feel. It doesn’t need to be fixed, it needs to be felt, experienced and understood. Only then are we able to process and move on.

Sometimes I feel angry. I am very often afraid. Right now, I feel an undercurrent of sadness. And that’s okay. I will work through it until I emerge on the other side.

And happiness? I’m working on it.

The Lonely Traveller

I’ve always been a bit of loner. From eating lunch in the car to lunchtime walks, I have tended to isolate myself from the group, something I will explore in more detail in the next instalment.

During my Priory stay, I made a number of friendships. We helped and supported each other through and I greatly valued these relationships. But post-Priory, all but one of these relationships have disappeared, the surviving one, I am ashamed to say, owing more to the boundless enthusiasm of the other party than any effort on my part.

But why should this be so? I certainly value these friendships. Part of it is clearly down to the deep rooted issues of insecurity. An inherent sense of inferiority leads me to believe that the other person sees me only as an arms length friend and so I hold my distance so as not to embarrass myself by appearing too keen. Of course the other party probably feels I am being stand offish, finding other relationships that are far less work. This in turn reinforces the sense that they didn’t like me that much in the first place and the cycle is perpetuated.

The friendships I do hold are borne out of two distinct sets of circumstances, at least in my mind. First, that we became friends at a different time when I was a different person and so they didn’t know the doubt-ridden, inferithon I have come to view myself as. These relationships are so well established that I hold no sense of insecurity over them, they are battles that have been fought and won many years ago. Second, where the other person does most of the heavy lifting, chipping away at the outer layers, forcing their way in until I open up and accept them. It must be hard work, which makes me feel guilty, but it also serves to create a deep sense of bonding.

Against this backdrop, I navigated my way through therapy with a sense of resentment. I was always open about where I was and what I was doing but had a tangible sense that, outside of family and a couple of close friends, I was doing this alone. Break your leg and you get a card and flowers. Break your brain and people don’t know what to think. Maybe they say nothing for fear of saying the wrong thing? Perhaps. But I would take a clumsy attempt at understanding over deafening silence.

It is worth reiterating, I was in a mental hospital. A hospital. For people with mental health problems. It wasn’t a holiday club, it wasn’t 3 months off work. It was hard, emotionally draining work. Everyday we were forced to challenge our thoughts, confront our feelings and begin to change our behaviour. It is a task not undertaken lightly.

I spent 12 years on my old job yet I remain in regular contact with just two ex-colleagues. Again, I am forced to ask myself, why? I do not always like the answer.

Dare To Risk It All

Frustrated with my lack of progression, in 2008 I sought a transfer to our internal risk team. I thought it would give me an opportunity to learn some more technical skills and develop a genuine career path.

I was aware that the department head had a reputation as a whip cracker but I was confident I could handle it. My move kept getting delayed for various reasons but, with a couple of weeks to go until my start date, I went for an introductory session. And immediately I regretted deciding to move.

Within weeks of starting, I wanted out. I registered with job agencies and searched vacancy websites fruitlessly. For the second time, I felt that I had made a horrendous career error. Again, I sought a way back to my old team and again found that door had closed behind me.

And again, I felt out of my depth. I had no formal training, I didn’t know what on earth I was doing. The manager was incredibly demanding, from the old school of expecting you to learn on the job, either get with the program or get out. Fortunately I found myself around a team of really decent, supportive people. I made friends with one in particular, the only girl on the team (an interesting side bar) and we all supported each other when one of us got a tongue lashing.

During this time, Karen and I looked to start a family, only to discover that I had some plumbing issues. IVF would ultimately come to our rescue but these were stressful times. The combination of this, but even more so the sense of being hopelessly unqualified and out of my depth, took me to the doctor where I went onto anti-depressants for the first time.

And yet bit by bit, I started to build credibility. Once again, I found myself a trusted member of the team, relied upon by my colleagues. I delivered a report, highlighting some key failings, that drew praise from the managing director, who described it as ‘the best report I’ve read all year.’ But I still felt out of my depth, still felt that I lacked the basic training required to do my job competently. I felt like a fraud, waiting to be caught out.

I decided to speak to HR. I asked for some time off, unpaid, just to get a break, They refused, understandably, insisting that I would need to see the GP to secure time off. Instead, the opportunity arose to go back to my old job. The circumstances had changed, the role had somewhat evolved, and I had the chance to go back in as a senior figure to address some performance issues.

And it was glorious! I felt like I had come back home. I chucked myself into it with enthusiasm, thrilled to be doing something I felt competent at, putting out fires and restoring order. But after a while, there were no more fires to fight and I didn’t know what to do with myself. My manager at the time astutely observed that I was great at managing in a crisis but didn’t know how to operate at normal speed. I would later come to understand this as a symptom of anxiety.

My reporting line would change and I began to take on more responsibility. Processes were reviewed, staff numbers were trimmed, tasks were absorbed. It never occurred to me to say no. I started to spend more time at work and so to ease the load, was given a laptop. Great idea; now I could spend longer at work plus do even more work at home. I felt I always had to play catch up, always try and stay one step ahead in case someone realised that I was a fraud and it all came tumbling down. I was running on fumes.

And yet I had fun too. I had a small team but we had a real bond. I knew everyone and knew all the systems. I enjoyed having my own little domain.

Then came my performance review. It turned out that as hard as I was working, I sucked.

That was the final straw. I knew I had a problem and I knew I needed help. I had become miserable and obsessive. I had lost interest in life. I wanted to be struck down with some non-fatal but debilitating illness so that I wouldn’t have to work. I spoke to HR, spoke to Occupational Health, spoke to the NHS and spoke to a psychiatrist before finally, I rebuilt my life at The Priory.

One of the last things my department head said to me was how we needed to start rebuilding my confidence. My role was then made redundant just as I was due to leave therapy.

Life Is For Living

So there we have it, a whistle stop tour through some of the key events in my life that have shaped my view of the world and my place within it.

It is temptingly easy to work backwards, find an instance of anxiety and think, ‘Ah look, here is where it started.’ Being made redundant, getting referred to a mental hospital, feeling out of my depth, feeling unlovable. Each taken in isolation can be traced to an earlier example.

But the truth is far more complex. These are not behaviours learned in the last few years, these are life long thinking patterns, established and reinforced until thought passes as fact.

And so I challenge the thought, I confront the feeling and, with patience, understanding and kindness to myself, I seek to change my behaviour.

Here Come The Girls

Having been love’s unlucky loser for so many years, something strange happened around 2002-2003; I kissed a couple of girls.

Now let’s not carried away here, I didn’t suddenly turn into a stallion. We are still very much riding the smooch train here. But I started to feel like I wasn’t a completely unattractive, ugly, fat slob. Actually, I thought I was pretty cool, funny and a decent laugh to be around and that seemed far more important to me than how I looked.

Confidence breeds confidence and so I found myself locking lips with a handful of ladies. And I moved past the thought that a girl (any girl) had to be THE girl. I removed the pressure from myself that said if I didn’t hook up with someone tonight I would be single forever. I took these situations for what they were and enjoyed them on my own terms.

Which was fortunate because my life was about to change forever.

I Do

Three vacancies to fill across three teams. Half a dozen interviews, only a handful of decent candidates.

Late one afternoon. ‘Scott, fancy interviewing a young blonde with me?’ That young blonde was Karen and yes, yes I did.

I took to her straight away. She was pretty, she seemed nice (a quality that was surprisingly important to me) and I took an instant shine to her. I’ll always remember the date (15th September 2003, fact fans) because her interview coincided with a dear friend’s birthday.

Needless to say, she got the job and I managed to manipulate our resources so that she ended up in my team. I had to remain frustratingly aloof, maintaining a healthy distance as her manager whilst secretly hoping that we could get to know each other better.

Of course deep down I assumed that she wouldn’t be interested. One of my mate’s liked her too and a strange thing occurred in my mind; because he liked her I automatically assumed that meant that she liked him. To my mind, there was no possible way that she would like me back.

But we started spending more and more time together. I would join her for cigarette breaks (yes, the dirty chimney mouth. I soon got rid of that habit) and she would come back to my house for tea and biscuits (honest!).

And then one Christmas, there was a problem with the trains. Karen being Karen, she offered to drive me all the way down to Hastings, then sat at the dinner table and forced down a steak the size of Norway that mum laid on for us. Christmas Day, I got horrifically drunk then spent two hours on the phone to her, nagging her on all the reasons why we should get together. She came back to Hastings to pick me up and surprised me by curling her hair ( I love her natural curly hair!). That night, back in Tolworth, as she stood on the doorstep saying goodbye, we shared our first kiss. All together now; ahhh.

There was one more Hastings visit to come. I had returned home for New Year and on a last minute decision (and much nagging on my part), Karen joined me. We saw in the New Year together watching Dirty Dancing. It was great.

In 2008, we got married. 8 years later, I wake thankful everyday that this wonderful woman came into my life.

Despite it all, my self confidence issues remain. I look at our wedding photos and genuinely wonder why someone as beautiful as her would marry such a funny looking little troll as me. Don’t get me wrong, I recognise that I have strengths; I am smart, witty and kind. But bottom line is that I think I am ugly, or at best a bit weird looking. I keep waiting for Karen to realise. I wonder why she felt she had to lower her standards and settle for me.

Almost There

One last post to come as I look back on the events that brought me to where I am today.

The Other Karen

Long before I met Karen, there was this girl called Karen. Okay, this getting confusing. Let’s wind back a little bit.

Coming out of University, my experience with the ladies amounted to no more than a drunken snog with one solitary girl. I had no confidence in myself as being in any way attractive but gradually I began to build a semblance of confidence in myself as a person.

Whilst working at the bookies, various cashiers would come and go, either in my base branch or at branches I was asked to cover. But there are two ladies who stand out above all the others.

The first was the special lady from Wales. I never told her this, but I had an outrageous crush on her. She just seemed so kind and lovely. She made me laugh and she made me smile and a part of me (that I buried deep down, locked inside a box that had a label on it that read, ‘as if, you fat loser’ ) wished that we could be more than friends.

Of course for those keeping score, this is a repeating pattern. This was the third girl to enter my life in any sort of meaningful way whom I pined over. In hindsight, I recognise that I simply craved affection and validation, themes that have very much stayed with me, but which at the time were misdirected.

And then there was Karen. On a team night out, we had a drunken snog. Of course I thought I had hit the jackpot. ‘This is it!’ I thought. ‘I’ve gone and scored myself an actual girlfriend. And she’s hot, too!’

Alas it wasn’t to be. She wasn’t interested and we didn’t cross paths again in any meaningful way for some months. But by chance we found ourselves out together one night. Everyone else had blown us out and so we went out just the two of us and really hit it off. We would get drunk, eat filthy chicken, rip off the ‘Bud’ bit of the Budweiser label and give it to each other. We enjoyed each others company and laughed at those who thought there was anything more going on. We were happy just being mates.

Except of course I wasn’t. Oh come on, an attractive girl who liked spending time with me? How did you expect me to feel?

And so I buried the feeling deep, pretending that I was happy just being mates. Pretending I wasn’t bothered when she cast glances at other guys. Pretending I wasn’t heartbroken when she hooked up with a boyfriend.

One night we kissed. To my surprise, she instigated it and I pulled away. As much as I wanted to, I knew that she was drunk and would regret it in the morning. She would see it as a drunken mistake when to me it would have been so much more. And so we went on just being friends.

Eventually she moved away. I went to see her and we had fun but the feelings remained. I was due to see her again another weekend but, having made a drunken commitment to my (future) best man, called her the next day to say, ‘Sorry, I won’t come and see you because I fancy you and it’s not fair on me to keep putting myself in this position.’ Blimey, that was surprisingly assertive of me.

Some time later, we reconnected. I had moved on, meeting my future wife and the feelings I had held previously were placed into context; affection and fondness mistaken for love.

It sounds pathetic but the truth is, this was the closest I came to a relationship until I met Karen (er, the real one). We went to Thorpe Park together for my birthday. Sometimes we held hands. It almost felt like being a couple.

But it was an illusion and an unhealthy one. The feelings were only ever one sided. Friends told me, warned me the path I was walking. But I ignored them, not wanting to admit the damage I was doing to my psyche in my desperation to share her company and receive her validation.

That it was never meant to be was no more apparent than how quickly I got over these feelings when Karen (you know, my w..oh, forget it) came walking through the door for an interview. Something we shall look at next time.

Sadly we since fell out of contact, which I consider a shame. Whatever other (inappropriate) feelings I may have had, we were first and foremost very good friends.

Oh, and the special lady from Wales? She is still from Wales and she’s still a lady. But most of all, she is still very, very special.

The last instalment in this series took us through my University years. This time in my life had such a fundamental impact on my future mental well being that, inevitably, I don’t feel as though I did it justice. Hey, I don’t have an editor you know, I just write down whatever words happen to fall out of my brain (scaramanga – see!?). So perhaps I’ll revisit that period again at some point.

In the meantime, having left Uni, I set off into the great unknown…

Closer Than Close

As University drew to a close, I decided I had better get a job. Having by now firmly ingrained the notion that I was a clown and therefore incapable of a proper, sensible career, I applied at a local bookmakers on the basis that there was a shop at the end of the road.

I ended up spending two years with the company. I started as a lowly cashier but soon progressed to assistant and then shop manager. I didn’t especially enjoy it at the time; the hours were long and the pay was short. But it gave me a chance to demonstrate some responsibility and establish an identity. I developed a sense of confidence, became an effective trainer and demonstrated to myself that I could work independently and build rapport with others. The frequent downtime also gave me ample opportunity to work on a book I was writing at the time.

But perhaps the biggest take away was the friendships I made. That I remain friends with the first person I ever worked with there (a truly wonderful woman) is something of which I am proud. I also met a special lady from Wales, who would go on to become a flatmate and very dear friend. Plus I met a girl called Karen, but more on her later.

Eventually I tired of retail life and after an unfulfilling stint in temping, got an opportunity for an office job with a finance company.

I didn’t have a clue what they did but, buoyed by my relative success at the bookies, I felt confident that I could establish myself here. My confidence was quickly shattered as I realised that I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know the systems or the people, I was afraid to ask questions. But this soon passed. I applied myself and carved out a place. I soon found myself promoted, initially to a senior administrator, then to a team leader. I felt confident to play the lead role.

But cracks appeared. I started to become stressed, taking the work too personally. I would procrastinate over queries, hoping they would go away rather than having to tackle them. I struggled with the concept of being a manager versus just being one of the team. I noticed (sought out?) instances of people who didn’t take to me. I sensed that they found me big headed, full of myself and, yes, arrogant. I wanted more; responsibility, recognition; money. But at the same time, a fissure of doubt ran right through the middle of me.

After a couple of years, and having met and hired my future wife (more on her later), I changed departments, moving into a credit based role. And for the first time in my working life, I found myself feeling utterly hopeless.

From virtually day one, I felt out of my depth. I had been a team leader, used to taking charge and leading by example. Now, I was the junior in a department of more capable, more experienced, more intelligent people. I felt intimidated by my manager. I felt small, like a timid little boy. I screwed something up, not realising my error for several months. I then spent the next year worrying that my error would be discovered, spending all my waking time ruminating over it. Within months of joining the team, ostensibly a promotion, I wanted to go back. But that door was closed.

And so I stuck at it and, with perseverance and hard work, I started to get better. I became confident in my skills, I became trusted and I built some respect. Eventually an opportunity came up for a new role within the department, to manage a small team-within-a-team. I excelled, I felt confident and happy and felt that I was really contributing something. I was even awarded employee of the month.

And then around two years in, I got the itch. I felt that I should be earning more and that I deserved more recognition. I saw my peers progressing, people who I deemed either junior to me or simply less capable getting opportunities for progression whilst I stood still. And so I sought a move to the Risk department, a story I will tell another day.

As with University, it is difficult to convey just how impactful this period of my life was. These were formative years, I very much grew up with this company. I made friends, I developed skills, I got drunk (a lot) and I had fun. But by turns I also felt hopelessly incompetent.

But the worst was very much yet to come.

With my confidence issues already well ingrained, a lazy summer of 1996 soon gave way to Autumn and attention turned towards University. Truly this would be a life altering experience during an impressionable time in my life, although not quite in the way I expected…

University Challenged

I never expected to go to Uni. During the latter part of the 6th form, the teachers began discussing it with us; where would we go, what would we study? It all seemed foreign to me.

We had a class trip to a University fare, a chance to go round various stalls to find out more about the universities on display, ask questions and get some idea of where we wanted to go. We attended a speech (I sat at the back, natch) where some over excitable chap extolled the virtues of university life, encouraging us to move as far away from home as possible.

I laughed it all off. University? Me? Coming home, I hid the prospectuses in my wardrobe. I was embarrassed to show my parents for some reason and so I tucked them away out of sight, like an upmarket, rather dry top shelf magazine.

Eventually it began to dawn on me that this was a reality. I might actually go to Uni. And so I discussed it with my parents. ‘University?’ came the reply. ‘I thought that was for clever people?’

I didn’t have a clue what to study. I liked English, I had always been a keen writer. I quite enjoyed History too, although I suspect that was more because I respected the teacher than anything else. It didn’t seem to matter to me either way. I wasn’t taking any of it seriously, I didn’t have a clue what my future career might be. I was more concerned with where we were going on Friday night.

Reluctantly, begrudgingly, I completed the application. Eschewing the advice of the earlier speaker, I applied to the campuses most local to home so that I could pop back at a moments notice. It would almost be as if I hadn’t gone away at all. This was actually going to happen. Gulp.

But there was one saving grace. They would only accept me if I achieved specific grades and, what do you know, I hadn’t. My buddy and I celebrated like Christmas had come early when we got our results. We had got crap grades, this was great!

Except the Uni accepted us anyway and so it was off to Kingston.

I had a pleasant enough first day with the family. Mum bought me a Star Trek mug with a Klingon Bird of Prey on it. I still own it, it is my favourite mug. Eventually they had to go. Mum cried, one of the few times I can remember her doing so at that point in my life, blubbing from behind a sodden hankie, ‘He didn’t want to come in the first place.’ After they left, I shed a tear too.

Luckily I had come with my best mate and so the experience was shared. Plans to pop home again the next weekend were soon shelved as I settled into Uni life. Maybe I could make a go of this after all.

Things soon changed. Not ready to embrace my new environment, I failed to spend any time with my housemates, instead spending most of my time at my mate’s. My friends therefore became his friends and I felt lonely in my own flat. But other more serious issues began to emerge.

The doubts over my physical appearance and attractiveness to the opposite sex came to the fore. I had no experience of speaking with girls, even in a capacity as friends. We had mixed classes in sixth form but I largely stuck to my own, speaking to girls was too embarrassing. But there was a problem; my mate had got himself a girlfriend. And so here I was, tagging around like a lost puppy, the dutiful best friend there for comic relief and a ‘you’re so cute.’ But I didn’t want to be cute, I wanted to be attractive.

Not understanding my feelings, I misdirected them, surreptitiously coveting my mate’s girlfriend and become jealous at the lack of affection returned. What was wrong with me? Why was he better? I became hyper sensitive, liable to react to the merest slight, misconstruing and misinterpreting events and innocuous comments as hurtful.

Evenings at the student bar became an exercise in futility. I wanted female attention but was too frightened to pursue it in case I was rejected. I remember vividly a girl sitting next to me one night. My buddy offered a nudge of motivation as she cosied up to me but I shunned her. I assumed it was a set up, some joke being played. Why on earth would she be interested in me?

The theme continued into the second year. Now living with my friend and his girlfriend (amongst others), my feelings of jealousy and isolation grew more intense. Night’s out would regularly end with me shutting down, sitting sullenly in the corner, not speaking to anyone. Eventually I would leave, feeling completely abandoned, more than once finding a quiet spot to let the tears come without an audience. It would be a scene oft repeated.

I felt broken, completely, utterly and thoroughly miserable. And of course the others didn’t understand. How could they when I didn’t understand myself. The sadder I felt the more I drank. The more I drank the sadder I felt.

I graduated from university in 1999. My 2:2 in History reflects a sense of underachievement. I was more than capable of getting a 2:1 but didn’t apply myself, too happy to play the fool. The pattern repeated.

But away from the academics, there were larger lessons to be drawn. For many, University is a defining life experience where they discover themselves. I emerged miserable and defeated and more importantly to me, still single. You would hear stories of the lads who had rampaged through uni bedding girls left, right and centre. I graduated at age 21 having kissed one solitary girl, a moment soon dismissed.

Of course I understand now that this was my first experience with depression. At the time, I thought I was just miserable. Looking back, I see the thinking errors, combined with the heady mix of hormones, immaturity and environmental changes. I was a little boy lost.

So it was that I emerged into the big wide world. I moved in with some new people, friends of a friend, and finally started to build some confidence again. The ladies remained largely elusive but I began to develop a sense of who I was. I had fun and my relationships with those around me improved as a result.

Of all the things I regret in life, my time at Uni is undoubtedly the biggest. It is the biggest single influence on my life to come, both a conflation of issues to that point as well as a melting pot of new anxieties and self taught deficiencies. Here was where I defined myself as inferior, incompetent, unattractive, unlovable. Here I peered into the abyss and heard the Black Dog barking. And here I entered a tunnel of darkness from which I have yet to truly emerge.

Still To Come

A rather longer post than planned so next time we’ll start life in the office and meet a girl.

In the last instalment, we looked at my present day issues with self esteem and how it impacts on my life, affecting my relationships and outlook. So now let's delve into my murky past as we wend our way through my mental memory lane...

Chunk

Name calling is a part of growing up, almost a rite of passage. Most of us pick up a nickname or two, usually just good natured joshing from your mates.

I was never a hulking great bloater as a kid but I was definitely overweight, the fat one in my group. The names varied; fatty, chunk, bloater; take your pick.

There is a tendancy to laugh them off as just part of growing up but stop and think about it for a second. Everyday you are reminded that your defining chacteristic in the eys of others is how you look. Not only that, but how you look is distinct enough for people to comment on it and label you. As the 'fat' one, the label is, by default, mocking. It is a subjugating put down. And so as a defence mechanism, I laughed it off and played the joker, relying on puns and other jokes to retain my popularity. But each day, bit by bit, my confidence is chipped away as I am left in no doubt that I am, how do we put this delicately, looks challenged.

My mates meant no harm of course and weight is one of those things that we can control. In practice though, as the label is reinforced, your desire to break away from it is eroded and so I lived up to it, eating sweets, crisps and other crap. 

But there is one particular instance that stays with me, as clear in my mind now as the day it happened almost 30 years ago. It was common in those days for our local neighbourhood group to congregate in next door's garage to play snooker or just hang out. We were usually a group of boys, younger sisters occasionally joining in. This time, one of the older lads had invited some girls. It was summer and so I was wearing shorts and t-shirt. As I came walking down the drive towards the garage, I heard one of the girls sniggering to her mate, whispering 'oh my God!' I don't think there is any danger of me being paranoid, it was very obvious that they were taslking about me. Laughing about me, about how I looked. It was hurtful.

Nicknames and joshing can be harmless. But sometimes, they stay with you. And this one would follow me to University and beyond. But more on that later.

Arrogant

I always had a sense of being the odd one out in my family. Not in a bad way. I had a very happy childhood. My brother and I shared many similar interests and I was lucky that, by and large, he didn't mind his younger sibling tagging along. Mum and dad meanwhile were pretty relaxed and, whilst we didn't get everything on the wishlist, we had a pretty decent life.

Even before secondary school though, I started to realise that I was the academic one. I would take real pride in being top of the class, having the neatest handwriting getting top score on the spelling test. A fun afternoon for me was painstakingly sketching Transformers pictures or writing my own stories. I was never a brain of Britain but I wasn't dumb.

At secondary school, there was a parent's evening when I was in year ten, or thereabouts. One of my teachers (history, I believe) remarked that I don't put my hand up to ask questions enough. In my mind, it was because I thought I knew the answer and if you think you know the answer, why would you ask a question? The fact that your answer turns out to be wrong is inconvenient but you learn from the mistake and move on.

In the car on the way home though, I was called arrogant. The assumption was that I didn't ask because I assumed I knew everything. I really struggled to understand this mindset. Looking back, I understand now that it is the thin line between confidence and arrogance. I had a (unfortunately misplaced) confidence in my answer and this was mistaken for arrogance.

Now, I am not naive enough to consider myself blameless. As I went through school, I think I became subconsciously aware of the fact that I was moving beyond my parent's school level and this likely informed my attitude. I felt intellectually superior to them and my brother and likely showed it.

At the same time though, I thought I was an idiot. I was placed in the top set for maths but felt completely out of my depth. After agonising over one particularly difficult piece of homework, the next day I asked the teacher if I could be moved down to the next set. He laughed it off as nonsense and I proceeded to get a GCSE B, despite never feeling like I had a clue what I was doing. When I moved on to A-Levels, I took History along with a couple of my closest mates. I was placed in one class (taught by the head of year), they in the other. After a couple of days, I asked to swap because I wanted to be with my friends. Again, the request was declined but shortly after, my two friends were moved across to my class. Finally another parent's evening whilst we were in the 6th form, also featuring the history teacher / head of year. This time it emerged that they had hoped that by placing my two friends with me, I would drag their performance up, however they were concerned that in fact they were dragging me down. Those reprobates have a lot to answer for!

I find these examples fascinating and illustrative. Firstly, the confidence / arrogance line is something that troubles me to this day and its origins sit right there in that car ride home. I became paranoid about appearing big headed and so would play myself down, act the fool, accept a role as buffoon or joker. At the same time the self doubt is already painfully obvious, even at this early age and yet apparently I must have masked it from those around. And so whilst some thought me arrogant, I thought myself incapable.  As ever it appears that others had far more belief in me than I ever held in myself.

And as ever, this is a theme that we will come to revisit later.

All By Myself

Summer 1996. I am 18 and getting ready to go to Uni. The world is my oyster, I have no responsibilities and plenty of time on my hands. So, what to do? Get drunk with my mates? Go meet some girls? Hell, get a job and earn some beer tokens?

How about sitting inside starting Championship Manager '94 over and over again? No?

By this point, I had regularly started going clubbing on the weekend, my cohorts and I slipping into the 18+ venues with regular ease. Yet already I was conscious of the feelings of inadequacy. Friends started to get girlfriends and so splinter off from the group. The thought genuinely never occured to me that I could do the same. What on earth would I say to a girl? Why would she even look twice at this fat, arrogant fool?

Instead when I did go out, I would get drunk and be crude. I had no idea how to interact with girls. I either ignored them or played the cute best mate, enjoying the pat on the head of being an obedient, house trained puppy whilst all the while pining inside for something more. I was 'sweet' but never good enough to actually be fancied.

And so eventually I retreated to my own world on the computer. Friday nights, once filled with booze and puke, now consisted of TFI Friday, Eurotrash and Championship Manager. I still went out occasionally and usually had great fun. But there was a growing sense that girls were something I was destined to miss out on. If one did approahc me, I assumed it was a wind up. I would treat them like you would an angry driver who beeps you then starts shouting at you whilst you wait at the lights; stare straight ahead, pretending they don't exist until eventually they go away.

And so began a descent into isolation that would start to truly manifest at University. But we'll save that tale for another day.

Still To Come

In the next instalment, we're off to Uni, I start my premium finance journey and there's a certain girl named Karen, but not that one.