That one question we all ask ourselves at some point in our life is possibly, WHY.... why me?
You see for me as a small unhealthy, skinny 4-year-old boy, this wasn't a question I asked myself until late teens, because I was too busy trying not to piss my mind game playing mum off who was just starting to show signs that things were not right for her, and as she would often tell me with a good whack around the back of skull with whatever was closest to her, it was my fault.
My earliest memories of my mother are just like the one mentioned above, but you see she was very clever with it. When my dad was around she would put on an act to make him believe that life was all roses, but for me, my sister and brother, she was slowly stripping us of any form or inner happiness. Many things happened as I grew up as a kid, my parents would argue like any other couple would but the arguments would be started by her from some shit she had made up in her head and then she would keep pushing and playing games with my dad or us until the shit hit the fan and she got the reaction she had wanted.
That usually meant my dad being held at knife point against the wall or front door or scissors pressed to his gut whilst she threatened to leave and he's not to stop her or he leaves OR she's going to kill him in front of his kids. We would stand there scared, feet frozen to the spot trying not to let the urine go that seemed to fill my bladder out of nowhere because that would mean I would then be on the receiving end of the next thing she thought of for pissing my pants as a kid, and who knows what she was going to think of next right?!
You might be thinking "didn't anyone tell anybody about what was happening?" And you're not wrong to think that, but the fear of someone so violent and yet not wanting to go against them because they are your parent made the way of telling a no go zone, in the back of your mind you just want to be loved by them and for it all to just go away. You see, you’re just a kid with innocent eyes who looks past the fear and upset because you just want it all to be alright.
I remember an incident that happened when I was around the age of five or six and it was around the first time she got took and placed into care, I remember being in the small living room of the council house we lived in and out of the blue she told me to go and pack my "shit" up and go! Now as a child that age I didn't understand what the hell she was going on about, go? Go where?
She repeated herself again and again, the words finally sunk in and hit me as the venom in her words struck my stomach like a hand twisting my insides. The next thing I remember is me stood in the doorway, crying like a lost puppy crying for its mummy to come and save it, but no such luck from this one, only dead eyes and an emotional brick wall so hard a bulldozer would have struggled to make a dent. She repeated herself again and only this time she started to walk towards me, just before she got within striking distance my old man comes in and asked what the hell was going on. I was too scared to speak so he got a load of whatever she could make up to make it all my fault. She repeats herself again "go on, off you go!" Well that was it, I could no longer stand there dizzy from how hard I was crying and snorting, fuzzy headed, then it came, I vomited through upset!
Now what's she gonna do!? Would it snap her out of her rage? Make her realize how upset I was? Did it heck!
"You dirty little shit" I was so lovingly told, my dad stood in front of me and told me to go upstairs so I did. I remember hearing them at each other’s throats going over the same points over again to no end. I was in my bedroom with the first bag I found which happened to be my sister's Barbie doll suitcase and started to fill it with my underwear and whatever else a kid of five or six would think of. After a while, things calmed down and my dad came up to my small little bedroom and started to unpack the little bag and we sat and had a little cuddle and he calmed me down.
I don't think it was that long after that, that we were sent to my grandparents for the weekend and we came back home to just my dad at home and he had made the settee up with blankets and pillows and we'd all sleep together and make the best of him just losing his job and my mum being put in a psychiatric ward.
The first time we as kids were allowed to go and see her was not the most pleasant thing I must admit. All the doors had to be buzzed to let us through, the smell of body odour was so powerful. Finally after walking down large long corridors we got to the room my mum was in. A complete feeling of upset came over me, why was my mum locked in a room?
As we walked in I don't think anything could of prepared me for seeing her like that, long greasy hair, her eyes so watery and sad yet she had a glint of anger in them. The room was very basic, it had a bed and a chest of drawers and also a chair, and all of it was bolted down to the blue stained old flat carpet.
I remember my old man trying to engage in a conversation with her but all she kept saying was that the staff were trying to kill her and she kept seeing a dark figure at night time which talked to her! Just the kind of things you want to hear as a kid, scared the shit out of me that did!
So fast forward a few years and after she was let out things seemed to be semi OK on the whole mental side due to the god knows how many pills she was shoving down her neck. The beating still carried on, she had favourite tools you see, she used to wear slippers and they were her mild telling off tool, then if she was more pissed you would get told to take your trousers down so you're stood in your pants with your trousers round your feet and you would get the underneath side of the slipper round the back of your legs and if you tried to move then you got shoved to a wall and it went on.
As I mentioned earlier, I have an older sister who did eventually start to let on to close friends about the happenings at home. They couldn't believe it and convinced her to talk to a teacher about it. She did this but the teacher told her that she would have to get social services involved and that is something that she didn't want to happen. Eventually my sister told me that she had told a teacher and what she had said about social services being involved scared us both a lot. The idea of me my brother and my sister all being split up and placed in different care homes was something that we just did not want to happen because we knew that there was a real chance that we wouldn't see each other for many years or if not at all.
Now when you go through these tests of physical and mental abuse and violence I genuinely believe that your reaction and the person you become is already deep in your DNA. I think there's some people who find it difficult to go within themselves and pull out that survivors instinct, that’s not to say that they don't have it because we all have a survival mechanism deep inside of us but what I mean is they struggle to grasp those fundamental ways of using that survival instinct, finding a way to not let the abuser get to you.
You see one thing I started to develop through these testing times was an inner deep rooted, determined strength of mind. I couldn't tell you where or how it came about but one time I can tell you about is when my dad finally snapped after she had played games with his head again and instead of taking it out on my mother (through words not violence) he grabbed a handful of my hair, pulled me down to the floor and began to hammer fist me in the right hand side ribs, hard. Real hard.
It was in-between the first couple of hits that I relaxed my body and went into my head and thought with an inner sickening smile "do it, break my ribs". Now as time went on this only got stronger and stronger. My defiance grew stronger but with that came the attraction to hang around with the wrong kids I knew from school and neighboring streets. Yes, I'm no angel and I did some stealing and generally being a gobby teenager, drinking and all the stuff we all did right?
At the age of 15 I was kicked out of my parents’ house, and there I am in the army careers office being told that because I had asthma, I couldn't do the job I'd wanted to do since I was 5 years old. WHY....why me!!? All this shit as a kid and now this.
So, for a while I did nothing but go round to friend's house and waste the day, the weeks just wasting time and not actually doing anything with my life. As time went on I had this moment where I just needed to sort myself out and instead of sitting around feeling sorry for myself thinking why me, this is my luck in life, I started to use those feelings of aggression and put them into being aggressive towards sorting my life out and so there I was in the job center applying for anything and everything from grave digger to working in a factory and everything in between.
One thing that has helped me through the years is having a passion for fitness, keeping fit going for runs, lifting the weights and boxing have all helped my mental state as well as my physical state, because I genuinely believe that if I hadn't kept training then I would be in a very bad place.
I'd say to anybody who is struggling with mental health or dealing with a lot of stress and difficult situations that the best thing that you can do to self-help is to take up some form of exercise. Don't just think that drinking or drugs or going to the doctor's to take some pills are going to take everything away and you'll be your old self again because you won't, you've got to do it for yourself and you've got to do it for your loved ones. Your body is designed to move, to lift so it only makes sense to use your body for what it was designed to do, and in return you reap feel good hormones your body gets stronger and along with that so does your mind and your will.
Now this deep inner strength I've mentioned, it can be the difference between a good/bad decision or maybe just maybe the difference between life and death. You may not know the power you can have over yourself and your mind. The will and strength to talk about problems. The will to keep going up that hill to reach the peak when your breathing so hard, your legs are completely knackered, blisters are all over your feet and your toe nails are just bleeding, KEEP GOING!
Maybe to get that book out just one more time and put the next hour into your dream job KEEP GOING!
Maybe it's time for a change for you, maybe life needs a shake up? DO IT!
A strong will and a level head will serve you well in all walks of life.