If you’re suffering from depression or mental health issues, don’t suffer in silence. There is a world of love out there for you.

For me, one year seemed to merge into another, which led to the next and was followed by yet another. So what do you do? Just sit there and allow your life to pass you by completely? Just wallow in the situation and then one day look back and realise you’ve missed it? It would have been so easy to do, but if you’ll pardon my French, fuck that.

I FOUGHT BACK.

From the moment I got this illness I fought it. In fact, I’ve spent my life fighting things, probably quite unnecessarily at times but quite essentially on other occasions.

The sad thing is, the more I fought, the more frustrating it got at times and when I left home to set myself up in a maisonette – and at last get the independence I was craving – the whole deck of cards came tumbling down.

I now think what happened was a ‘good’ thing, or at least necessary. I’d been brave and kept a stiff upper lip throughout. I just never thought that these symptoms might actually be there to stay. Well, three years on, I moved to my first property and started to do what my body was telling me it couldn’t.

I decorated the place and paid no regard to my energy levels or the increasing pain. This was my place and I was going to put my stamp on it, no one else. This was me doing something for me and to be fair, I’d got no money to pay for decorators or gardeners anyway. The painkiller quantity increased as the pain escalated, but I pushed on. Mentally this was crucial. I created a lovely home and garden. I now had a very swanky looking property having made it very modern and comfortable. The only thing that wasn’t comfortable was me.

Then I just fell apart.

I was sitting in a Pizzaland restaurant with Mom. The pizza (without cheese, naturally!) was brought over and I started crying. The poor waitress must have been thinking that the pizza wasn’t ‘that’ bad. I bet she’d never had a reaction like that before. Nothing specific had set it off, I just started to cry. I don’t think I’d cried throughout the duration of my operations (possibly apart from when I first got a walking stick, but that was just eyes watering, not this breaking of a dam flood of tears). All of a sudden, I just could not stop and for someone who doesn’t really show that much in the way of feelings publicly, it was quite a surprise.

My Mom was sitting opposite, witnessing what was about to become a full-scale breakdown. It just hit me: three years after my operation, I wasn’t getting better. I’d been in denial and hadn’t faced facts. I was tired. In fact, tired doesn’t even come close. I was world-weary.

So where is the fightback I talked about at the start of the chapter?

Sometimes to build yourself up, you first have to break yourself down. I’d been too brave, hadn’t allowed myself any time to express my feelings and it basically all had to come out. The way I’d tried to keep my emotions in check was just not healthy; I’d repressed my anger, my pain and my grief. I had tried to exercise control and wanted to be strong but I had obviously taken it too far.

I’d refused to show any sign of weakness with my alpha male ‘I take care of people, people don’t take care of me’ attitude. It didn’t serve me well; although in other ways, it’s that strength that kept me alive.

Over the following months, I kept trying to cheer myself up and yet found myself plunging deeper into despair. I’d got a lovely home but no friends willing to help ‘fill it’. I felt empty, devoid of life and the adventurous spirit had gone. Looking back, I can see what a gutsy thing it was to move out of my parents’ house. I’m proud how I insisted on doing the work but maybe I pushed too hard. I was also having trouble with the neighbour who lived above me. He was notorious amongst the other neighbours for causing upset and trouble. Of all the places I could have chosen, I had to move into the one with a resident nutter. This was one battle too many.