Part One ….

I’m putting it up here so that you guys can read what I’ve done so far .. but this page may not be updated on a regular basis ..

MY LIFE STORY

The biggest purpose of the book is to help people going through really hard times to maintain hope that there IS a way to get out of the hell they are in. Also, this book is intended to inspire people to live a better life and to follow their dreams. Also, it’s intended to be an interesting read about a life which, although in some ways has been fairly ordinary on the surface, is different to a lot of people.

Undoubtedly the most dramatic and the best part of my life has been since 2006, when life couldn’t have got any worse, and, since my recovery, when things have got better and better … with some setbacks in between, but I’ve had the tools to get through them.

I guess that’s the part I want to put most emphasis on. However, why not let you know about the rest of my life as well .. you may find it interesting

MY CHILDHOOD

I don’t remember that much about my childhood, really. Most of it isn’t that great. For some reason I remember a day in 1978 when we were living in Spain for a bit. That’s my earliest living memory. I also remember the start of 1980 as if it was not that long ago. Very random. Anyway ..

I was born in Manchester at the tail end of 1974. My family moved to Dorset in August/September 1979 (I’m pretty sure I started school in September) as my Mum’s parents lived down that way. We moved to an excellent large village called Broadstone, where my parents still live. I still have some memories of the house in Okeford Road .. times when I actually enjoyed Christmas .. times when I played computer games .. the large green area in the middle of the cul-de-sac road.

School was never really a good time for me. Primary school started off okay, I think .. but there were some people that teased me, and that went on pretty much throughout my school years. Thankfully, I was never really badly bullied. It was clear fairly early on that I was different to the majority of schoolkids. I never really spoke very much – okay I did speak to some people, occasionally, but I was never part of the ‘in crowd’ at school and didn’t make friends in the way that the majority of schoolkids did.

Middle school was possibly the worst school for me. There were some schoolmates who I don’t have particularly fond memories of .. and I was often in the playground on my own. Also, my self-esteem probably took a bit of a knock when I was ‘relegated’ to the second level of intelligence class – after having started off in the top level. I think I was renowned for being good at Maths and had a degree of intelligence, but my personality was maybe a bit ‘disturbed’. I was a good boy though, in most ways. I remember giving a talk in front of my class about music .. only it was about classical music, and the rest of the class would have been way too cool for classical music! I think I was seen as a bit of a ‘square’

I just didn’t know how to relate people .. you know, most people seemed to mix naturally with others and have a certain degree of ‘people skills’ .. I just didn’t. And as everybody knows, if you’re a bit ‘different’ at school, you get teased or even bullied. I really do hope the whole school situation changes. Is it really necessary for kids to go through a ‘rebellious’ and/or ‘nasty’ phase? Or would things change if kids were taught the value of self-esteem at a young age? Anyway, food for thought there…

Secondary school .. I can’t remember getting teased too much, except by one person who probably didn’t mean any great harm, although I sure wasn’t very popular, maybe I had a bit of a reputation as being a bit of a dick. I remember one of my schoolteachers saying on a report that ‘(Andrew) is in a world of his own’. I guess that’s what it was. I just hadn’t found who I was in my teenage years, at all, and was almost in some kind of fantasy world. I wondered at one stage of my life whether I’d had symptoms of autism. I was certainly very obsessive in my teenage years, and undoubtedly my biggest obsession was football.

I still am a big football fan to this day, but I’m not quite as obsessed about it now. I got interested in football in 1987, the year that AFC Bournemouth, my team, got promotion from what was then the 3^rd division, to the 2^nd division. Nowadays it would be League 1 to the Championship .. how times have changed. I was into football statistics a lot, and got a bit mad with the amount of football data I remembered. Ahem, anyway ..

My heart probably closed off to people during my childhood because of the treatment I got from schoolmates. A lot of people get treated badly by their peers in childhood, and it can take a good while to recover from the after effects. Certainly, a lot of people’s relationships in adulthood are a reflection of things they have suffered in childhood which haven’t been fully dealt with. Maybe it was programmed into my subconscious mind that ‘people are bastards’, ‘people are nasty’ or something along those lines. I can understand why a fair few people didn’t like me, as I hardly spoke to people and was a bit of a nerd. Oh well. Thank goodness it is possible to change.

RELIGION

I was brought up as a Christian. My parents were, I think, keen Christians, during my childhood. Like me, neither is a firm believer now, although Mum still goes to church. We’re more spiritual than religious nowadays. I had gone to a summer camp and committed my life to God once, but quickly ‘became’ non-religious again. I guess up until my mid teenage years, I never had a great interest in religion

However, I started going through a difficult phase – 1990 was quite a dark year for me personally – feelings of guilt and fear became quite commonplace. I wasn’t in a good place near the end of 1990. I can’t remember if I thought of suicide then, but I certainly wasn’t enjoying life. I started to turn to the church in the hope that there might be a way out of this mess. The first time I ever went to a church meeting out of my own choice was a youth group meetup near Christmas time. I was quite struck by how friendly and welcoming people were. Whatever I felt about myself, I did feel that people were really accepting of me.

Christmas 1990 was a difficult one for me, but at the start of 1991 I went back to church (my parents had stopped making us go a few months ago) – initially going to the evening service, as well as still going to the youth group, which at the time was run by a couple who I still know and who later set up their own church which I was a part of for many years. I started getting involved a bit. Even though I still had problems, people prayed for me when I asked and thought well of me.

I eventually decided to make a commitment, of sorts, to Christianity, and was baptised on Easter Sunday 1991. Although without a doubt the main reason I turned to religion was because I was messed up emotionally, not because I had any great interest in God or Jesus at the time.

So here I was, Andrew Bowker, a Christian.

LIFE GETS A BIT BETTER ..

Whatever my misgivings now about mainstream Christianity, I would certainly acknowledge that having a Christian faith certainly did help me, a lot. It never quite addressed the root cause of the issues I had, and I was always a very shy person even after becoming a Christian .. but it kept some problems at bay, and certainly life became a bit more bearable now that I had ‘God’ to help me. My sense of self was not great and so religion was always a crutch. I got a bit of a ‘high’ from going to lively church services, which would last for two or three days, and then I would wait for the next high. But I quite enjoyed going to church and I did start to come of my shell a bit and relate to people a bit more.

Over time, I became quite a keen Christian. I thought about how I would tell other people about my faith and evangelise .. it never quite happened. Beneath the surface was a fear of rejection. I knew nothing about the subconscious mind back then, but I can now realise how much it controlled my life when I was a Christian, despite asking God to help me and doing my best to be a good Christian, ‘surrendered’ to God.

But I was zealous about Christianity in my own, peculiar way. I guess some seeds of some sort had been planted in me and I was going to have an impact on the world. I thought I’d end up being in some form of full time Christian work, maybe as a missionary or evangelist. I saw it as a necessity to tell others about Jesus, after all non-Christians would go to hell if they didn’t know Jesus. Or so I thought. Christianity was something of a reason to live. I didn’t have much other reasons to live.

THE REST OF MY CHRISTIAN LIFE

Well, most of it .. The majority of my time in Christianity was spent at a great church led by my ex youth leaders from the church I was at when I first became a Christian. I played the saxophone nearly every Sunday there, and I guess I do miss that side of things. I felt like an important part of the church and it was somewhere I could belong .. an important aspect of life is to find some place where you feel you belong, somewhere you can call ‘home’. Being in a strong church helped me in my walk with God and helped me become a better person .. there are probably some things I learnt from church that I still practiced today.

I became, though, even more reliant on God and religion – I didn’t see any point in living other than that. I once said that ‘I don’t know how anyone could live without Jesus. I’d want to commit suicide’. I guess that was a combination of my own poor self-esteem plus the difficult times I’d been through, plus the way my mind had programmed itself to think that we should totally rely on God – he is our Creator and so he knows best for us .. the result of which was I became a bit of a puppet, not making my own decisions in life, needing God to help me get through the day.

I went through difficult times on and off, during my time as a Christian. There were frequent doubts about my sexuality – in fact I was never gay, but my lack of friendships with men plus my other emotional issues made me wonder sometimes. I was so lacking in confidence. Not surprisingly I never found a girlfriend during my time as a Christian – probably a good thing now!

I also adopted certain beliefs which probably offended my parents, who by the time had become far more liberal in their Christian beliefs. In short, I was a bit of a Jesus freak, a religious nutcase, a ‘fire and brimstone’ person was what someone called me once. That says it all really …

REALLY DIFFICULT TIMES AND GUILT

Unfortunately, I was exposed early on in my Christian life to a preacher who talked about ‘the unpardonable sin’ – which is a concept that probably has mixed views amongst Christians. I won’t go into it in detail here, but it probably had quite a big effect on me, perhaps even more so than I realised. I was sometimes scared about committing ‘the unpardonable sin’.

I believed all the stuff about hell, even the ‘fire and brimstone’ side of hell. Goodness knows what was going on inside my mind at the time. I thought that it was God’s ‘justice’ to send people to hell that didn’t know Jesus. Obviously, to any rational person, this is nonsense, but it’s amazing how our mind can be programmed by man made religious dogma.

Of course, something like this is only justice if it doesn’t happen to you. ‘Yeah, God will let me into heaven as long as I obey Jesus and trust in him. We all deserve hell, but God’s grace and Jesus’ sacrifice will allow us into heaven. God is a God of love but also justice.’ Really? The picture also changes when people talk about loved ones who have deceased. There probably aren’t many Christians who truly think that God would send their ‘unsaved’ deceased relative into hell. It’s an absolute monstrosity of the highest order, worse than Hitler or Stalin or Pol Pot, that a God would do such a thing.

It can’t really be that simple that the difference between an eternal hell and an eternal heaven would be believing in Jesus (or Allah or Mohammed for that matter). That defies all logic, and just shows how insane the human mind has become.

I don’t think I ever truly, in my heart of hearts, believed all this. There were times when I HOPED God might just allow me into heaven. But, for a sensitive person who’s had guilt and fear issues, the concept of hell is pretty frightening. I had one moment in 1995 when I thought I had committed the unpardonable sin, and I had to see the pastor soon afterwards for some form of counselling.

2001 came my first really nasty, nasty time. It was bad enough on its own, but, having been through what was eventually an even worse breakdown, in 2006, believe me when I say I’ve been through more than my fair share of hard times, and I’m so grateful that I’ve managed to come through them. I want to go through 2006 in more detail than 2001, but it is worth summarising what I went through in 2001, also – there are some similarities, but some differences ….

MY FIRST BREAKDOWN

As far as I can remember, both my breakdowns happened quite suddenly. They were both mind-related, my mind was such a thinker and I remember thinking thoughts of ‘How can Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross be enough to save us from hell’ – which meant belittling what Jesus had done, insulting him even. Panic really started to set in. I felt condemned, deserving of hell for thinking so badly of Jesus. I was living in between Poole and Bournemouth at the time. One night I phoned my church pastors in a real panic, thinking I was going to go to hell, this was it. They were away in Wales at the time. I ended up walking around the local area at night, in a real panic. I was praying ‘in tongues’ (you may or may not have heard that expression), desperately trying to find a way back to God’s mercy and forgiveness. I walked past some people who must have thought I was mad.

I was restless, in a state of terror and was fast going insane. I got to the stage where I laid down on the grass, probably in order to try and find some kind of solace in nature.

I had, I think, been signed off work by this time – I certainly was in no fit condition to work.

About a couple of days after this, on a Friday, I was due to head up to a Christian conference in Wales, where my pastors were at or had been. When I was on the train near Bath, I ‘prayed’ to God, something along the lines of ‘If I am going to heaven, let me make it to the conference’. I was pretty much feeling ‘done’ and condemned by then. I was supposed to get off the train at Newport, but couldn’t bring myself to go that far. I was in such an awful state and the people I was supposed to be staying with would not have liked what they saw. I ended up getting off at Severn Tunnel Junction station, which is near Caldicot. It’s a bit of a remote station, even though it’s only a mile or two from a town – there aren’t many houses immediately nearby.

So here I was, in the middle of nowhere, my soul tormented. It was early evening by the time I got into Wales, and I wasn’t going to the conference, neither was there time for me to get a train back to Poole, well, I’m not sure about that, but I probably didn’t even think about getting a train back. I didn’t even care.

I ended up sleeping rough somewhere in a field near Severn Tunnel Junction station. It wasn’t particularly cold, well it can’t have been because as far as I remember I ended up sleeping pretty well! The only thing I remember is a guy walking past with a dog.

I woke up next morning and walked around the area near the station. I remember thinking that I’m going to suffer in a fire and brimstone hell, whenever I die .. I touched some brambles and felt their sharpness and thought .. it’s going to be a lot more painful in hell. Nice. I’d brought a book with me by a well known Christian author – I’d had a habit over the years of randomly turning to any page when reading certain books, in the hope that I would get ‘a message from God’. The part I read talked about Judas, saying .. ‘he had sided with Satan and the enemy destroys those who are his’. I felt a bit like that. I went to a local shop and bought a drink for some refreshment, thinking that at least I could have this refreshment before I was condemned to hell.

I wandered about aimlessly around Caldicot, ended up being seen to by the police after ending up lying in some grass. I told them that I had betrayed Jesus, or something like that. They told me not to stay around Caldicot. I got a train back home, eventually, and got home the Saturday night. The people who I was supposed to be staying with probably had no idea what was happening.

I got back home, went to church on Monday (which was the August bank holiday) as they had moved into a new building and some work was being done. I felt cut off from everything, the rest of the church were fine but I was not. I had fallen, fallen from grace. Somehow, and I’ll never know how, I managed to go to church every week and play the saxophone.

Throughout the time of my first breakdown, there was a feeling of being cut off from God, thinking he wants to punish me for betraying him. It was torment. I won’t go into massive details – as the second breakdown was probably more ‘important’, if that’s the right word to use, and a lot of things happened that were similar so I’ll go into more detail when mentioning about 2006 .. I saw a psychiatrist – had a few appointments with him and also with a psychiatric nurse, they tried to help me but I never believed they would be able to. I had been signed off work long term, and my boss at the time kept in touch with me a bit. I saw him and the boss of the whole department, and I remember telling them ‘My life is finished, it’s over’ which sent them into a bit of a panic, and they called the doctor that I had been having appointments with.

There was one evening when I really flipped out when I was at my parents’ house, I shouted and told them I was devastated. Dad took me over to a church member’s house and I spoke to him for a bit, then took me home. I opened the car door whilst he was driving, a couple of times, half threatening to throw myself out the car. I think I may have stopped taking my anti-depressants temporarily.

Eventually, I reached out for some help and posted a note through the letter box of some ex church colleagues, basically saying I wanted help and thought they would be the best people to help me. I went over for some kind of counselling sessions where they would speak to me about aspects of Christianity and emphasising the goodness of God and Jesus.

It got to the stage where I became a bit more optimistic and went back to work, and eventually opened up to the people I was seeing for help, and ‘confessed’ what had happened. Things turned around. That’s the shortened story, but it was a bloody difficult time, absolutely hideous. All I could do really was wait to see if things would improve, and somehow they did. I got back into Christianity – to all intents and purposes, I had been away from it for the past few months – and I went to a church service in Horsham which had a big impact on me. I felt set free – 2002 was definitely the best year of my life so far, in contrast to 2001.

Looking back at things now, I can see that the breakdown and this subsequent coming back to Christianity was all about mind programming and the way my own mind was working at the time.

Over the next four years, from 2002 to the end of 2005, I was fairly involved in church, and still enjoyed it, although I was struggling to fit in at times. I met a great group of Christians who were good mates and had a prayer group every Monday night, and I was really pleased to be involved in that. I probably felt more at home there, and was maybe pulling in two different directions with the prayer group and my church commitments. I was still a good Christian .. although I never quite got to telling others about my faith, which I was supposed to do. I never got anywhere close to having a girlfriend, of course, there were some ladies I fancied, but I never had the confidence to do anything about it – and I made a bit of a fool of myself in one or two cases. I still had a lack of confidence and insecurity and that showed in the way I dealt with certain people and situations. It wasn’t really something I was aware of, though, at the time.

THE STORY OF 2006

Okay my friends, this is really what you’ve been waiting for .. the first few pages have just been an appetizer Here’s the exciting bit (although I don’t know if that’s really the right word to use ..!)

I think that gradually, over the years, a lot of anger, emotions, feelings and general ‘stuff’ had been building inside me over the years – and I didn’t know how to deal with it. Years of ‘reliance’ on God whilst, at the same time, not taking responsibility for myself – me who I then saw as a useless sinner with no strength – meant that I had been relying on something outside of me for happiness. And that’s always a recipe for potential disaster. All these emotions and thoughts ended up becoming a ticking time bomb that eventually exploded.

It looked bright enough at the end of 2005. After Christmas had passed, I was at church on the last Sunday service that year. I went forward for prayer – I think with the intention that I would move forward in my Christian walk and get rid of the barriers I had put up. It was a genuine desire at that time.

New Year’s Eve – I had the choice of going to Weymouth with the Happy Gang (the people who I went to Monday prayer group with) or to the church New Year’s Eve party. I should have gone to Weymouth and would have preferred to, but there were some church people who really wanted me to come to their party, so I went there instead .. I didn’t really have the confidence to say no in those days. Anyway, I doubt it would have made much difference in the grander scheme of things.

The church party was quite good, really, but I came to the realisation that something I had a vain hope for was not going to happen, and I felt a bit bad when I got back home, but nothing too serious.

I think that was the start of things, although anything could have started off ‘the ticking time bomb’. Soon afterwards, I was having doubts about my sexuality, again, having ‘feelings’ towards other men, hard to explain really, and I knew how the Bible condemned homosexuality .. although in reality it was my mind acting weird. I think part of me thought I ‘should’ be gay, due to my personality – but I wasn’t actually, so the misalignment these thoughts produced caused my mind a lot of stress.

Everything just escalated very, very quickly after that. I was sure I wasn’t ever going to go through anything as nasty as 2001, but all the horrible thoughts I had from back then, came flooding back. I had a very analytical mind at the time and all the things about Christianity and the Bible that I found hard to accept .. all came coming back, and I was quickly being drawn into a horrible, horrible pit. At the same time, I still believed in hell, the fire and brimstone hell that some Christians unfortunately still believe in, and so, at the same time that it was becoming apparent that I was ‘rebelling’ against the Christian God, I was getting somewhat worried about hell.

I really didn’t have much control over what was happening. It all came so quickly and was so overwhelming. It was only a couple of weeks into 2006 that my work was starting to get affected. I spoke to my boss at the time who was very understanding. I went to see my parents after speaking to Mum and saying that I had had ‘a nasty relapse’.

The feeling was generally one of horror and dread. If you’re worried about going to a fire and brimstone hell, that’s pretty bloody frightening. I was reading Christian books and the Bible and they all seemed to be saying things which I couldn’t accept and/or giving me signs that I could be damned. There was one night around the 2^nd/3^rd week of January whilst I was still at work, where I couldn’t sleep properly and went outside into the freezing cold, and ended up taking refuge in my car for a short while. I then stepped outside of the car and said (to God) something like ‘If I am not going to be judged, keep me alive’. Of course, I didn’t die.

All sorts of evil thoughts and bizarre thoughts had now come to the forefront of my mind. I thought that I was being influenced by some sort of spiritual force, in this case a dark force. Maybe even Satan himself … I could see how much ‘sin and evil’ was inside of me, supposedly, just by the thoughts I was having. Some people say thoughts are ‘just thoughts’, which of course is true, but if it gets to the stage that they can cause you to have a complete breakdown, then you can’t really describe them as ‘just thoughts’. There is no need to go into the exact detail of them, and I can’t remember some of them anyway, but there was a myriad of ‘bad thoughts’ ranging from Christianity to people to myself.

I wrote down a long list of the thoughts I was having, with the intention of explaining what I was going through to someone, probably my church pastor. It was about six pages long, explaining that I was evil and weird and was rebelling against God, basically. There is a belief that you have to confess things to other people in order to ‘bring it out into the light’ – not just in religion I might add – which is all well and good – but when it gets to the stage I was at, it’s probably a bit much.

There was a wedding on the third Saturday in January, which I went to. I wasn’t really able to pay much attention to it as I was far more preoccupied with my own feelings of guilt and condemnation. I texted the pastor after the wedding basically saying I needed to speak to him as I was on some kind of pathway to destruction. He said to wait until tomorrow after church, quite understandably. After driving around aimlessly, not even sure if I was going to go the wedding reception, I eventually did go to the reception, went in briefly but couldn’t cope with seeing people in a happy state whilst my life was, basically, now hell. This had happened in a matter of 3 weeks.

I went out of the reception and back to my car, saying to someone I knew as I walked past that I’d had enough of life. I sat in my car, I didn’t leave the reception altogether, I think I was waiting to see if a friend would come and sit with me. Sure enough, that was what happened. John Browning, a Kiwi guy who was and still is a friend of mine. I had the essay of my sins with me and I read it out to John at the time. I must have sounded like a total weirdo, and he said something to that effect, although not in a judgmental way. I went back to the wedding reception near the end of it, but couldn’t really be happy, even though it was obviously a wonderful occasion.

The next morning, I was, as usual, due in church to play the saxophone. It ended up being the last time I played saxophone there. I was in a horrible state, and sometime in the middle of the practice I walked out and went back to my car. I cried out, I think more than once, the words ‘Jesus, have mercy on my soul’, whilst I was picturing the possibility of myself in torment in hell. I was persuaded to go back into the service and play saxophone, and I listened to the sermon and probably took notes as I always did, but my mind really wasn’t there. After the service, John and I went upstairs to the pastor’s office and I read the essay of my sins and weirdness and rebellion to the pastor. I thought he might hate me for it, but he was okay and said that I was free now that I had confessed my sins, as the Bible says.

I felt temporarily better, maybe for a few hours .. But speaking to someone wasn’t going to solve these problems. For a start, I was so fucked up inside and there probably aren’t many people who would have been able to understand what I was going through anyway. And something like this was not going to be solved overnight.

I went to work the next couple of days. I think it was on the Tuesday that I asked to speak to a work colleague who was a Christian. I basically told him that I was going to commit suicide, I felt I was damned already so what was the point of living .. he tried to persuade me to think of the good person I was and that God had a plan for my life. We both agreed that I should be sent home for the day. That night, I visited a friend who lived just across the road from me at the time. He kind of knew a bit of what I was going through, and it was good to spend some time with him. I felt a bit better when I went home that night. It didn’t last long …

I woke up in the morning with all thoughts blazing and couldn’t cope. I left home about 4.30 or 5, phoned my parents in a panic and said I needed to see them, I told them I was suicidal and had enough. I can’t remember a huge amount I said but I was in some distress. They managed to listen to me and do enough to persuade me to go to work (I certainly wasn’t planning on going there..) – I phoned to say I was going to be a bit late.

Soon after I got to work, the feelings of damnation etc started back. I was having thoughts about cursing people – now that I was under a ‘curse’, some kind of force seemed to be drawing me to get other people to come with me to my doom. I had visions of the fires of hell and thought, that’s where I am going. I am doomed. Under God’s curse.

I was obviously in no sort of state to carry on working. It was Wednesday in mid/late January, and the last day I would be at work for some time. I told my boss I was going for a short break, as obviously she knew I was having a tough time. I couldn’t cope being at work anymore, walked out of the building and never came back. My car was parked at my great aunt’s house near where I worked. I was intending to tell her how bad things were, but she wasn’t in at the time. In hindsight, I’m glad she wasn’t.

I drove back home – I was living with an Indian couple at the time. I told Emmanuel (who is a psychiatric nurse) that I was planning on committing suicide, and I think I was planning on clearing some of the stuff out in my room. He was very unhappy (not surprisingly) and said what a bad effect it would have on people if I did commit suicide. I had dinner with them, and maybe that comforted me a tiny bit. Mind you even a large dose of comfort wouldn’t have made a huge amount of difference with the state I was in.

I was kind of intent on committing suicide, although of course I was never going to be able to bring myself to do it, especially with the prospect of the fires of hell awaiting me .. even though I was going through hell on earth, it was a picnic compared to hell .. How on earth can people believe this evil that God would punish people like this??

Anyway, I drove off in my car, to the well known beauty spot of Durdle Door, within the beautiful Purbecks. I parked my car near the top of some cliffs, somewhere I might be able to jump off and kill myself. As I was picturing the fires of hell somewhere beneath me, I was writing a note explaining that I was committing suicide (at least I think I wrote something). This was it. My life was over. The way I had programmed my mind and the things I had heard and believed, made me believe this .. I was cut off from God now .. There seemed no way back, at all. The Bible had harsh words for people who abandoned the Christian faith .. and, the Bible was true, so I believed. I just couldn’t control what was going on.

I’m not sure if I stood anywhere near the edge of the cliff (I don’t think so) but I couldn’t bring myself to do anything. Sometimes there are advantages to being a bit of a wimp! Whatever was going on in my mind, the fear of ‘what would happen’ if I committed suicide was greater, plus I don’t think I could ever bring myself to jump off a cliff anyway. I just ended up staying at the top of Durdle Door, and stayed in my car overnight. Obviously, with it being winter, it was a bit cold. I just ended up sleeping in the boot overnight. I vaguely remember cars passing by in the late night/early morning, but for some reason I slept reasonably well, under the circumstances.

Thursday, I woke up and managed to get myself out of the car. I hadn’t eaten probably since Wednesday lunchtime, and there were pins and needles in my legs. I managed to go for a quick walk near Durdle Door, and then drove to nearby Lulworth Cove, went to the loo and wondered around aimlessly for a short while. My mind was all over the place, and I drove around slightly aimlessly, going for one or two walks in some fields. People, including my Dad, were trying to get hold of me by phone, but I wasn’t answering.

Eventually I rolled up in the pretty well known village of Corfe Castle, parking my car near the well known castle. I ended up walking to a fairly secluded forest area. I was feeling a bit like Judas Iscariot, who supposedly betrayed Jesus and ended up hanging himself. I had supposedly betrayed Jesus, in my heart if not in person, and maybe I was destined for the same fate .. I was trying to act out hanging myself, although not making any proper attempts.

I think I ended up walking in some field, when I actually decided to answer one of my Dad’s calls. I’m not sure what prompted me to do this when I had not answered so many calls .. my parents were about to report me as missing. I didn’t really care much about myself and didn’t feel that anyone else should care .. if I was destined for hell and under God’s curse, why should what happens to me matter to anyone? I told him where I was and where to pick me up .. obviously by now I wasn’t really in much of a fit state to drive my car.

My parents picked me up from the centre of Corfe Castle, took me back to their home, and immediately arranged an emergency appointment with my doctor. Whilst waiting for them to take me, I made the mistake of reading the Bible – the book of Revelation to be precise, at a part where it talked about ‘the bowls of God’s anger’. Nice. At the time, I had a belief that, sometimes, if you randomly opened up a part of the Bible and read it, that would be the message for you to hear ….

Anyway, I went to see the doctor. I can’t remember much of what was said – I’d seen him a lot during my first breakdown so I probably told him pretty similar stuff to what I would have told him then. He came up with two options, knowing what a state I was in .. one of them was to go to the local psychiatric hospital, and we all agreed that would be the best option. So I went there.

MY TIME IN HOSPITAL

I was taken to the hospital on Thursday night. I had some kind of test where I think they measured something like my pulse rate or blood pressure, and asked me some questions. I went into the lounge area where patients most commonly hang out. I saw straightaway that one of the patients was delusioned by religion and asked if I believed in Jesus Christ. One of the other patients got quite annoyed when Jesus was mentioned.

They didn’t have a specific room assigned for me to sleep that night, as I had been brought to the hospital in a bit of an emergency, so I ended up sleeping in the lounge. There were some football highlights on that night so I watched some of them – light relief, if there could have been such a thing. I was in torment and anguish, and looked out of the building feeling in such a state. The prospect of hell was frightening. When you have first hand experience of what I went through, any theories that God sends people to hell because he is ‘just’ become absolute bollocks, and that’s putting it very mildly.

I went to sleep. I awoke, or was awakened on the Friday just after 5am by a patient saying the words ‘Welcome to hell’ somewhere down the corridor. How prophetic it seemed .. was it confirmation of what I already thought .. that I was going to hell?

I felt that I had sided with the devil. Just before 6am, I felt that I wanted to be with Satan and not God. I then tied some of the bed linen round my neck pretty tightly and thankfully let go before I really started to suffocate. That was probably the closest I’d ever been to attempting suicide.

I told one of the staff nurses what had happened and he was unhappy about it. I was told to fill out a form which included reasons why I should or would not commit suicide. I then spoke to an understanding member of staff for a short while, and then got moved to another hospital ward where I stayed for the rest of my duration at the hospital.

THE WARD

I do not remember specific days in order like I remember my first couple of days. However, I would like to take you through the various happenings and incidents that went on whilst I was at the ward (I do remember the name of the ward but for confidentiality reasons can’t really say it). I can’t promise it’ll all be in the correct order …

The interview with a psychiatric doctor – Pretty soon after I entered hospital, I saw a doctor and was asked a few questions, one of them being was I suicidal. I found these interviews a bit difficult as I know the staff were trying to help me, but I didn’t see how they could possibly help as they would almost certainly not have been through anything similar to what I was going through. I guess I found it all a bit intrusive.

The Spirit of Lucifer – I had heard something about having a Lucifer spirit during my time in Christianity and the first night I stayed in this ward, I felt that I had the ‘spirit’ of rebellion that caused Lucifer to supposedly fall from grace, and become ‘Satan’ or ‘the devil’ (oooh spooky). I had delusional thoughts to the extent of .. maybe I was an antichrist or even ‘the’ antichrist!

I felt like I had been possessed, that Satan had taken control of me. I had thoughts of satanism – was I being drawn in towards satanism? I just felt an evil, evil person. My eyes became horribly bloodshot during my time at hospital. Maybe I thought at the time that the devil caused that.

Evil thoughts – The depths to which my soul had sunk knew no bounds. I was having murderous thoughts towards people. Thankfully I never acted on those thoughts, and I now think that maybe a higher power of some sort was protecting me from doing something really terrible.

My parents had brought a bag to the hospital with some of my belongings, but what none of us knew was that a sharp knife was in the bag. I must have left it in here from one of my house moves. I had thoughts of stabbing myself with it, stabbing someone else with it .. thankfully never did, and eventually told my parents to come and collect it, as obviously, no patients in a psychiatric hospital were allowed knives.

I would read the Bible occasionally and open it to a passage which confirmed what was happening with me – that I had fallen from God’s grace. I was aware of the story of Ananias and Sapphira, who God supposedly struck dead for lying. I wondered if God would strike me dead. The fear of hell and wondering whether God would get me there sooner wasn’t a good combination!

I was well aware of passages in the Bible that said it was impossible for people who had been Christians and turned their back on the faith, to return to grace. I had read that ‘the unpardonable sin’ was more a continuous state than a specific act, and I was continuously in a state of sin against God (so I thought). I was condemned to hell, according to fundamentalist Christian beliefs, and there was no way out of it.

One of the passages that mostly summed up how I felt was in Hebrews chapter 10: If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge his people.”It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Also another passage – because I thought that, as I was supposedly an example to other Christians, that other people would fall from God after seeing what happened to me: But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

Having been a firm Bible believer, this probably gives you a better idea of how I felt. At the time, I believed that non-Christians would suffer in hell for eternity once they die. For some reason, I was ok with this happening because God was ‘just’. Of course, when there’s the prospect of YOU going to hell, it’s an entirely different story. Anyway I digress. So God would judge people who didn’t believe in Jesus. But even worse for people like me who knew ‘the truth’ and turned their back on it. I would be judged even more severely. This obviously caused distress on an almost unthinkable level, within my soul. I’m not quite sure how I survived it all. One afternoon when my parents came to visit, I expressed how bad I felt because of this.

There were three times when I was in particular distress (although I was in distress most of the time I was there). One morning, when the staff came to wake me for breakfast, I would not get up, I was so weighed down by hell and fear of dying. One of the staff came in who I hadn’t met, and introduced himself. He was a nice chap, but didn’t succeed in getting me out of bed. Eventually, a senior psychiatrist who I had seen a few times during my first breakdown in 2001. He could see I was in distress so he let me be. I got up eventually. There was another time when I could hardly eat, I was feeling really awful. The worst one, and the only time at the hospital when I really flipped out, was one afternoon when my parents came to visit. Obviously, parents can cause emotions to overflow at times, although it wasn’t their fault, it was more the way I was feeling and the fact it was my parents – I wouldn’t have flipped out in the same way if friends had come to visit. I shouted and said the words ‘excruciating agony’ and had to be restrained by some of the staff.

Eye opener – Obviously I cannot describe how the patients behaved, for confidentiality reasons. But I can say that it was an eye opener, and made me realise how overlooked the issue of mental health was. There are precious people with mental health difficulties that need our help. I’m sure anyone who works within the mental health profession will tell you that the general public has no real idea of what mental health issues really are.

The staff at the hospital were really, really helpful. I expect they probably knew there wasn’t a great deal they could do to improve my situation, but they were very supportive and non-judgmental. Hey, maybe they thought I was a bit strange, but they’re probably used to all sorts of weird and wonderful behaviour. They talked to me and, even though I wouldn’t say exactly what was going on, they listened to whatever I said. I was allowed to spend quite a bit of time in one of the quiet rooms which normally only women were allowed to spend time in. I used that room quite often to read, play games, watch TV and talk to my visiting friends. The one thing I really didn’t like was having to go for an ‘interview’ with members of staff, which was either every week or every 2 weeks. They knew I was in distress, and were, I’m sure, generally trying to help, but feeling like a worthless piece of shit, I didn’t really care. The one reason, more than any, that I thought medical staff wouldn’t be able to help, was because I saw things as a ‘spiritual’ problem which wouldn’t be able to be solved on a ‘secular’ level. I assumed people would know very little about the spiritual world, which I saw as being poles apart from the normal world of medicine. How would someone who knew nothing about Christianity be able to help? Yes I know, crazy, although it was true that the staff couldn’t really do much to solve my problem.

There was a chaplain at the hospital who came to see me a couple of times. He clearly didn’t believe in a judgmental God, and did his best to encourage me, was very positive. Having been conditioned to believe in a god of judgement, it was hard to reconcile his beliefs with mine at the time.

I didn’t really converse with many of the patients. There was one guy, probably in late 30s/early 40s who I got on well with, and he sometimes came into the quiet room when I was there and we would watch TV. Come to think of it, there was a couple of other guys that I sometimes spoke to. There was a room which was a kind of ‘hangout’ for the patients, which I’m sure there is in most if not all mental hospitals, it had a TV. I didn’t spend a huge amount of time there, possibly because I didn’t feel on the same wavelength as most of the patients. For some reason, I remember watching part of an FA Cup game between Cheltenham and Newcastle in that room, though…

The meals were served at breakfast, lunch and tea – the food was okay, nothing special but then you wouldn’t expect it to be. The strange thing was, as I was still being paid from work, I wasn’t spending money and so saved quite a bit of money whilst I was there! However, I would rather have money difficulties whilst my soul was at peace, than save lots of money whilst my soul was in hell.

Also, every morning and night, I had to (like the other patients) go for my medication day and night. The medication did help me sleep, and I do think medication has its value, but often I think it’s used as a substitute for dealing with your inner hurts and issues.

Waking up in the morning obviously wasn’t always easy. It’s pretty well known that the morning is a horrible time for a depressed person. Medication came before breakfast, I think. I bathed less often than I normally do. I didn’t exactly care about personal hygiene or appearance. I was aware that I looked pretty awful though. Going to the loo and having a bath was a bit of a job in itself. I was reminded of hell whilst I was in the bath, because baths are hot .. although I have never had my baths awfully hot.

FRIENDS AND FAMILY

As I’ve already mentioned, the staff (psychiatric nurses, health care assistants and doctors) were very good and very supportive. However, I’m not sure what I would have done without the amazing support of my friends and family whilst I was in hospital. My Mum visited pretty much every day, and Dad visited when he could. Also my brother and great aunt came at least once a week. I guess I would have expected my family to visit fairly regularly. But I don’t think I would have quite expected the support that I had from some of my friends. There were a few friends who I hadn’t seen much just before I was admitted to hospital, and so didn’t know what was going on. I received a invite from Jon Taylor to a social event, about a week after I had entered hospital. I was having tea at the time. I told him what was going on, probably said that I was afraid I had lost my salvation and that I couldn’t see a way out. (Thank God for mobile phones, by the way, I just had this thought as I am writing. I used my phone a lot whilst I was at hospital, mainly sending and receiving texts, and I’m not sure if people would have been able to get hold of me so easily if I hadn’t had a mobile phone). He texted back saying there was a way out and that he wanted to help me, then texted me several Bible verses to try and encourage me.

He wasn’t working full time, at the time, so was able to visit me quite regularly. I believe he came over the next morning, and we were allowed to use one of the spare rooms to talk. I poured out all my woes, and he was very non-judgmental. Maybe part of me was half-expecting him to say that I was damned after the things I said to him .. although it would have been absolutely horrendous if any of my friends had told me that they thought there was no way back into Christianity. Sometimes you believe something negative about yourself, but when someone else agrees with you about that negative thing, that makes the situation worse. I know I told him about thinking of being drawn to satanism. Oh my goodness, I really did have some thoughts and a half! A lot of Christians believe that once you’re a Christian, you’re always a Christian, kind of thing, which is clearly nonsense in some cases, but I think that belief of ‘everlasting salvation’ amongst my friends helped them to encourage me that there was a way out. Jon was, I believe, about to pray for me or started to pray for me, when, unexpectedly, into the room walked JP and Isaac, two friends from church. JP had recently started a job in London (which I found out he soon quit) so I was a bit surprised to see him, although he had texted me soon after I entered hospital to see if we could get together. They were both in quite a buoyant mood, and Jon, Isaac and JP were soon praying for me, and I expect some of the staff could hear them. It was good that people were starting to support me, even though I was still right down in the dumps and could not see any way out.

Gradually, word started to spread amongst my friends what was going on, and different people came to visit. Andy Johnson phoned me soon after and visited on quite a few occasions – he didn’t give me any particular spiritual advice, he would take me outside for walks and play games such as Scrabble. Kevin, and his housemate Dave (from across the road where I had been living) visited a couple of times. Dave said that he had been through a bad experience and thought he would go to hell, but he came back to Christianity. He told me that you cannot lose your situation. I believe they brought me a well wishing card, which was good of them. Helen, Mandy and Russell from the Monday night prayer group came to visit, as did Howard, a friend who I knew through Jon. Alex and Louise, good friends of mine who I know through church, came on a Saturday afternoon. Jon Taylor’s Dad, Rod, came a couple of times and Andrew Collis came once. John Rowles, a guy from work who had recently become a Christian, visited a few times when he could. He is, like me, a big football fan and he bought the Sunday football edition ‘The League Paper’ for me at least once. Philip Brightwell from the Christian Union at work came once. Steve, my church pastor, came a couple of times, once with his sons in law. Andy Roff, a friend of mine from church, visited a couple of times, once bringing a card from a friend of his that I had met. My housemate at the time, Emmanuel, who is a psychiatric nurse, came to visit.

I guess in some ways the friend visits kept me going. I would feel slightly better after people had visited. Jon, Andy and JP visited a lot, but everyone contributed. I received a lot of texts from people saying they were praying for me. Maybe, just maybe, this was divine intervention, even though I felt a million miles away from God. Jon brought me some Christian literature to read, at my request. I was obviously hoping for some way back to faith, and maybe some Christian material could have been of help. Although deep down, I probably didn’t think it would be. JP said about how he’d been through a hard time and said that I had to choose life or death. I had always felt pretty powerless as a Christian and felt that I needed God’s approval to do anything. I felt even more powerless now, ‘I’ was just a completely useless sinner who was condemned to face God’s judgement. Realistically, I could do very little to make myself better at this time. The one thing that I needed, which I got, was support. I will forever be grateful for that.

I wasn’t allowed out of the hospital during the first week or two there. After that, I was occasionally taken out for walks by either members of staff (it was winter at the time, the first time I went out, I remember it being fairly cold..) Friends were also allowed to take me out – one of them took me for a fairly long walk, along the beach, as did one of the staff members, it was good to walk near the beach. Friends would take me to a sort of playground that was just outside the hospital.

‘DEMON POSSESSED‘

I don’t believe in demons or Satan now. There is no ‘evil one’ that is planning to destroy Christians and destroy other people. There is a lot of evil on this planet though. It is pretty frightening how far the mind thoughts can go. At the time, of course, I still did believe in Satan and that I had sided with him. I remember one time when my pastor was soon to visit, that I wrote down a list of ‘confessions’ I was going to make to him. I think I did tell him a fair bit of nonsense, but he didn’t really have much of an idea what was going on. I think that was a good thing, really. It was soon time for me and church to go their separate ways, and there wasn’t really a great deal they could have done to help me. I can’t remember exactly what I wrote but I’m pretty sure I mentioned Satan somewhere. I think I’ve already mentioned that I was wondering whether I was an antichrist or the antichrist. I have little doubt that many other people with severe mental health issues have thought the same. Religion and mental health is a common combination. I felt powerless to fight against ‘Satan’ – I had been drawn in to a situation, by the thoughts of my mind, which was impossible to get out of at this point. It was as if I had a choice between God and Satan, part of me wanted God just so I could get to heaven, but the discord between the Bible and my thoughts was so great that it was impossible to reconcile.

I read a couple of books Jon lent me, so that maybe I could get some insight. I tried to do some self-analysis from some of the stuff the books said. But I just couldn’t get back ‘to God’.

SEPARATION FROM GOD

Not everyone believes in God, of course. But a lot of people do, and for some people, God and faith is an extremely important part of their lives. A lot of people would say that they couldn’t live without it. I was certainly like that. I remember saying once, in a church meeting ‘I don’t know how anyone could live without Jesus. I’d want to commit suicide’. I said, to myself at least that ‘If I didn’t have my faith, all I’d want to do is die’. I just couldn’t imagine life without God. I guess it’s similar to someone saying that they cannot imagine life without their spouse. Once you become attached to something, it becomes part of you and it’s hard to imagine life without it. For me, my faith had got me through some tough times. I was never able to fully deal with my issues through my faith, but it had been a big help. Now, here I was, completely separate from God. I did pray once or twice when I was at the hospital, but it was almost like trying to jump from one side of the Grand Canyon to the other. It was incredible how things happened so quickly. A couple of months ago, I was happily involved with church .. and now this. I remember one night feeling physically sick – conscious of the ‘fact’ that God had left me. I really was on my own. It was horrible. Separation from God, for some people, is one of the most horrible things anyone can experience. Especially if you believe God to be a god of judgement. I was in a ‘state’ of sin, and believed myself to have committed the unpardonable sin. I had read somewhere that the unpardonable sin was not so much an individual act as a continous state of sin against God.

THOUGHTS/THE BIBLE

The Bible is called ‘the good book’. Whilst parts of it, such as The Psalms and Proverbs, are great, and other parts inspirational in their own way .. but, seriously, how many Christians really believe the whole Bible is relevant to today? Mostly, they take the parts that they are comfortable with, and discard the rest. It is bizarre that Christians are so anti-gay because of something written in the Book of either Leviticus or Deuteronomy saying that homosexuality is an ‘abomination’. Most of the rest of the passages in Leviticus or Deuteronomy are completely ignored, but let’s not go there. The ‘scary’ bits of the Bible are rarely preached in churches nowadays, which is probably a good thing. Bits like ‘Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father, who is in heaven‘. A lot of people think that just by saying a ‘sinner’s prayer’, that they can go from hell to heaven, just like that. An absolute lunacy of thought, but I guess I used to believe it. There are a lot of parts of the Bible which have the potential to torment people, especially someone like me who was (and still is) sensitive and who had a very analytical mind at the time.

I guess a lot of Christians can just accept things at face value whereas I was always more questioning about things. It seemed a bit odd to me that there were so many bad stories in the Bible but that Christians had a view that you could never lose your salvation. If the Bible was actually true, then surely the bad bits could not be ignored? I used to think of things such as – if Jesus had defeated Satan at the cross, why was Satan so active today (thought at the time). What about the end of the world? Would non-Christians be cast into hell then? In that case, it would be quite wrong to ever want the world to end. Or otherwise, does that mean Christians went to hell before the devil did? Which is obviously unfair. I had thoughts like this when I was at hospital, on top of the separation from God and the fear of hell that I felt. There was clearly a difference between my thinking and the Bible, and some of the assumptions that I had made about Christianity could now be wrong. It’s hard to let go of beliefs when they become part of your identity, which they had. At this point in time, I thought there was only one winner. Not me.

LEAVING HOSPITAL

I was at hospital for a month or so. I was a bit surprised when told that they were going to let me leave. I was still in a horrible state. I think they had decided there was nothing more they could do for me, which was true. It was near the end of February when I was let out, and my Dad came and picked me up in the afternoon. He commented something like ‘I bet you’re glad to be let out of hospital’. It was a bit hard to be glad about anything, and I knew that I was still in the pit of despair, but anyway, I was going back home. I went back to Emmanuel’s house that evening, but still was in a terrible state and it became clear that my negativity would affect everyone else in the house. JP was by now living there as well and he said that he was quite concerned the next morning. I don’t know if it was the same morning, but I remember going out the house and taking a quick walk. It was freezing cold. I spoke to one of the HR people at work – the first time I had been in contact with anyone from work since I was admitted to hospital, updating them about my situation.

I stayed at Emmanuel’s for, I think, a couple of days. But I had been at my parents’ house a bit and I phoned my Mum up one morning saying that I needed to spend some time at home. Obviously, it wasn’t going to be easy for my parents and wasn’t necessarily fair on them to have me at home, but it was the only option. I left most of my stuff at Emmanuel’s and I did pay some more rent to him, but I ended up never properly moving back there, probably officially leaving around April/May time.

Obviously, when you’re in a crisis, some of the first people you’ll likely turn to for support are your parents. Just because .. they’re your parents. I hadn’t always got on famously with my parents, and there has been some tensions, probably mainly due to personalities which I didn’t know how to deal with at the time. But I knew they would support me, even though it would be tough and it probably wasn’t what they wanted. So here I was, back at home, a few years after moving out.

The feelings I had at this time were much the same .. I really couldn’t see a way out of this. I hadn’t denounced Christianity yet, but I was a million miles from God at this time. The first Sunday after I went back to live with my parents, I went to my Mum’s church, maybe to try and find some hope. I then went to my church, but that was really hard. I could see everyone so happy, the music was lively as ever and people were praising Jesus .. I was still scared of going to hell and the like. I walked out of the service half way, went back to the car (my Mum had brought me) and a friend of mine eventually came and spoke to me for a while. I went back in at the end, feeling a tiny bit better, but I felt like I was oppressed by an evil spirit, which certainly didn’t reside with being in church! I must have known by this time that my time at church would soon be up.

My feelings of depression and fear and not being able to see a way out were pretty continous .. at the same time, even though I didn’t want to live, attempting suicide was never really an option for me, because my fear of hell was so great and because I would find it extremely difficult to attempt suicide anyway. Fear of an afterlife .. maybe to some people that sounds daft. But maybe something that we’re unsure about .. life after death .. helped keep me on this earth. I felt like I died 1000 deaths and more during my breakdown. Was Jesus really the saviour? He was meant to have gone through some of the worst suffering ever .. so I believed. What I was going through was surely worse. I wished I had never been born, cursed the day of my birth and believed that I was extremely cursed.

I’m not quite sure about the order of these events, but here are some specific things that happened and thoughts I had ..

The texts and the friend visits weren’t so frequent once I’d left hospital, which was inevitable, but Andy J did come round a few times, played Scrabble and generally offered support. Jon T saw me a few times and we went for walks. I stayed friends with the ‘Happy Gang’ – my friends from Monday night prayer group and saw them a few times. Someone called Traceyanne who I had met more recently and had been through hard times herself, took me for a walk a couple of times.

I had been assigned an occupational therapist by the psychiatric hospital. I know he was trying to help, but I felt he thought I was in a slightly easier situation than what I was. He came round and spoke to my parents, and called me downstairs. I felt patronised and whilst I was in a terrorised state, he said something about giving me tablets. I took offence at this and said to him something like ‘If you had been taken hostage and were in danger of being shot, would tablets be able to help you?’ and he also said that he would call the police if I didn’t calm down. I did kind of calm down, but not before I hit one of the doors quite hard, causing a dent.

There was one afternoon where things got particularly bad, the family were going out somewhere but the sheer terror of the fear of hell and damnation meant I didn’t even go out and just slumped in bed. I stayed at home a fair bit, was often so depressed that I didn’t even listen to music, and being a fanatical music addict, that is strange for me. I did try and get out when I could, I’m not a stay-at-home person – sometimes I would go to Poole library with my Dad, sometimes I would walk to the nearby town of Wimborne, sometimes walk around Broadstone. As the months passed by I went out a bit more often, either using the bus or the car, although I don’t think I drove until a little after the breakdown started.

Next to where my parents live is a small area called Pocket Park, not a proper park but it has a few trees and some grass .. I occasionally would walk there and fantasise about having a violent death, feeling that the day of my death was not too far away. Perhaps if I wasn’t a sensitive person, I would have ended up attempting suicide .. but no matter how bad my life got, I was just too scared to do it.

My Dad had been working away from home but he had to come back home after I had a nasty day. Eventually he got signed off work as well. I will probably never know how badly my breakdown affected my parents, and I’m not sure I want to, but Dad was off work for, probably, 3 months or so.

Not surprisingly perhaps, I self-harmed a bit. The worst case was undoubtedly after I received a text from a well-intentioned person which really triggered me and later in the evening ended up banging my head a few times on the kitchen floor, quite hard, and blood came out. To this day I still have a scar on my forehead, albeit not a really bad one, from that night. An emergency doctor was called out and I can remember telling him that I didn’t want to live. Somehow, I managed to calm down and went to bed. The next day, I got a hat to help cover the wound up, as it was fairly visible for a little while. I did punch myself once also, causing a black eye, and probably self harmed a little more but thankfully didn’t use any knives or anything .. could never do that!

RENOUNCING THE CHRISTIAN FAITH

Obviously, I had been more than aware that my relationship with Christianity was not right. Unlike my first breakdown, where I eventually came back to Christianity, I never thought there would be much chance of that this time. But, on the other hand, for a little while, there was a part of me that wanted to come back to Christianity, out of fear if nothing else. About a month after I came out of hospital, I got invited to a friend’s house to have a meal with some people from the Happy Gang. We were watching a film which I don’t remember about, but remember having thoughts along the lines of ‘Christianity is stupid’. It was a little more than just that but I can’t remember the exact details. My mind just could not figure certain things out and could not accept certain aspects of Christianity. Knowing what I know now, my mind was seriously messed up at the time, and I wasn’t thinking logically. Trying to figure things out in your head does not work. However, even though it was extremely hard at first, leaving fundamentalist religion has undoubtedly been one of the best things I’ve ever done.

It was Sunday, somewhere around Easter 2006. I didn’t go to church that day and decided that I was making a complete turn around on the commitment I made to be a Christian, and abandoning the Christian faith. If I was going to hell and if I had betrayed God/Jesus, then surely it wouldn’t make a huge amount of difference if I formally quit Christianity. I went for a walk to Wimborne Market, bought a toffee flapjack (my favourite) and, that morning, I felt, perhaps, a little bit of a ‘release’ and even felt slightly good about my decision. This didn’t mean I was out of the woods, far from it, but maybe I got a tiny glimpse of the good that was to come. I texted a few friends about my decision and to my surprise they were supportive. Some good friends of mine, Alex and Louise, invited me round their house – and it was really good to see people, it was somewhere that I could feel as much as ease as I was able to. We played a few games. I also looked on the internet for stories of people who had been Christians and were no longer. I found quite a few. I enjoyed reading these stories, and was a regular visitor to ex-christian sites for the next few months, one of which was to turn my life around. At least I wasn’t the only person to turn his back on religion.

After I had made that initial decision, my mind drifted back and forth between wanting to come back to Christianity and not wanting it. I suppose, having made a decision without a huge amount of thought – even though I probably knew at the time that I had practically stopped being a Christian – meant that I was going to question it for a little while. I went to a service at another church with the Happy Gang, and spoke to Helen about how I was feeling. One thing she said to me was ‘It’s not about Christianity, it’s about God’. How true that is, to this day. When you make such a big decision, it’s inevitable that you’ll question ‘Have I done the wrong thing?’. Although my mind was so fucked that I didn’t really have a huge amount of control over what was going on. I even texted some friends to say that I wanted to give Christianity another try. However, the seeds had already been sown by the decision I had made on that Sunday, and after a massive internal battle, I abandoned Christianity ‘again’ 3 or 4 weeks later. This time I sent out an email to friends. This time it was more or less permanent, even though I had one or two people try to persuade me that I was ‘saved’. There was too much that didn’t add up, that my mind could not accept, about fundamentalist Christianity, most of which is probably too deep to go into or I cannot remember.

LIFE AFTER CHRISTIANITY…

It was now somewhere in April. Everything had happened so fast! The previous Christmas, I was still an active member at church. I had gone forward for prayer. Fast forward to Easter, and I was on my way out of Christianity! However, the fear of hell still had a grip over me at this time, and I was to remain in a hell of depression for about three more months. Trust me, this was more than long enough!

DEPRESSION AND HOW I FELT 

Up to now, I haven’t really covered all the details as to how I felt during my time of depression. So I’ll try to give as clear a picture as I can. Whilst there were specific events that happened, some of which I have already gone into, the feelings of hopelessness and depression were pretty much constant. The fear of hell was different to what a lot of people will have experienced, but some of the feelings of depression were probably pretty similar to what a lot of people have been through. Full on depression is pretty much the worst thing imaginable. I don’t really know how I ever got through onto the other side. It’s easy to describe depression as ‘feeling hopeless’ but I don’t think that begins to do it justice. Depression is a trap from which there is seemingly no escape. The only time I got the slightest amount of peace was when I was asleep. The feelings of torment were so intense at times, I would go with my Dad for a drink on occasions and see people in a seemingly happy state, and wish that my life hadn’t gone wrong. The whole depression, thoughts that I had abandoned God, fear of judgment .. I wished I could have been someone else, that it wasn’t happening to me, but it was a living nightmare, and it was me that was going through it. I didn’t want to live, but was afraid of dying – as most people would be if they were scared of going to hell. I cursed the day I was born, as I did during my first breakdown, said to myself that it was the darkest day in history .. mirroring what the biblical prophet Job went through. I did think of suicide, of course, but thinking about it and going through with it are two separate things. It must take a lot of guts to attempt suicide, and I never really came that close to doing so. I read books about people who had done it, and also read accounts on the internet of people who had.
It is well known that the morning is a horrible time for depressed people – I heard it described as ‘the horror of their existence’ – and my best friend throughout the depression was my bed. I would always go to bed fairly early, and not wake up until as late as possible – I think I had about 14 hours sleep a night. Some mornings were worse than others, but my thoughts were generally along the lines of ‘f*ck’ when having to get up. I probably would have stayed in bed all day if I could. I would not say that I looked forward to going to bed – it was impossible to look forward to anything – but there was some kind of mild relief when it was time to go to bed.
I was physically alive, but in every other way, I was dead. It seemed some kind of mistake that I was still breathing and walking. I truly was ‘the living dead’ for a few months.
Thankfully, I didn’t completely cut off from my friends, and I still got invited to a few events, mainly from the Rossmore Road crew. I did sometimes go for walks – I’m definitely not a stay at home person, even when I’m at my worst, I have to get out of the house from time to time. But I probably wasn’t very good company for quite a few months. Sometimes I would go to the library with Dad.
The worst depression is when you cannot see a way out. I was subconsciously comparing myself with other people who were depressed and thinking that my situation was so much worse than theirs .. I mean, how many depressed people have had the fear of hell and torment hanging over them? Possibly a few, but I felt like I was in one of the biggest crises in the world. Somehow, there must have been something inside me that was still looking for answers .. maybe all this religious stuff was not true after all .. I mean, it was becoming more and more clear that the Bible was not as flawless as I had been led to believe.

THE INTERNET
Maybe the breakdown was when my addiction to the internet really started. During the early stages, I would look at the wrong kind of sites .. such as sites about God’s judgement. Once I had consciously decided to leave Christianity, I would look at ex-Christian sites – which I did for a few months. I also joined a support site for people in crisis – not because I thought it would help me much, but just so that I could feel a little less alone. I would read accounts of depression and stories of people who had committed suicide. For some strange reason, I was still alive. I don’t want to sound perverse, but maybe, reading these stories was a mild source of comfort for me. It was something that I could empathise with and relate to. I think it’s very important in times of crisis to find something you can identify with. Reading a book on positive thinking is not going to help you when you’re down in the dumps. Find something helpful that ties in with your situation – for example, if you have been abused, look for resources for abused people. And even if you feel that something can’t help you, it can be worth looking at, just to give you a bit of hope. I remember looking at a website of someone who had depression for several years but managed to find medication, and survived. Ultimately, I knew medication would never solve my problems, but I could relate to that person in some way.
I didn’t seriously think that I would get better, and maybe there was part of me that didn’t want to get better, but my situation was so bad that I had to do whatever I could. The fact that my situation was so drastic possibly made it easier for me to ultimately recover. I would keep looking for resources through the internet and books, in the forlorn hope that maybe I would stumble upon something that would be the answer.