As I mentioned in the first part of this chapter, please do not read this if you are of a sensitive nature…

I came to in the early hours of the morning, with tears streaming down my face I said out loud, “Oh Christ no, not another day, why can’t I just die in my sleep?”  You see the tape kicks in the second you’re conscious.  Shit, shit, shit, why was I taking this out on myself?  Hours later I began to pick at the tendons on my left wrist with the blade. 

I wondered how long it would take to die.  More importantly, how painful would it be?  Would my heart simply stop?  Maybe my lungs would cease functioning?  How was I going to breathe?  As you can see my sense of logic and reasoning was out to lunch.

My indecision was getting as bad as the loop-tape.  I wanted the death part but without the pain, I should be so lucky!  If I slashed my wrist I would have to cut through my tendons, something I hadn’t contemplated until now.

I followed a vein from my forearm to the base of my biceps with the scalpel blade. In the crease of my left arm I had a bigger target and no visible tendons.  All I had to do now was push the blade in.  I stabbed either side of the vein.  Forty-eight hours later I was still deliberating about my attempted suicide.

I heard the third dawn chorus – you wouldn’t believe the row those bloody birds made first thing in the morning.  My next stop was going to be my garage, quiet and dark all the time – perfect.  I guess I had it in mind to starve my self to death.  If that were the case why was I contemplating taking bottles of water with me?  Probably to keep my mouth and throat lubricated as I am a heavy smoker. 

So, with a supply of H20 and as many fags as I could carry, this being my only source of nutrition in the last seventy-two hours, the next task would have been to haul the mattress off of my bed and dump it in the garage.  But I was so weak I couldn’t shift it off the bed.  Let alone pull it down two flights of stairs and drag it across the car park.  It has been said that to take your life is the coward’s way out.  Yeah, bollocks it is!

What caused my suicide attempt was a catalogue of disasters one after another over a three-year period.  They plunged me slowly and painfully into clinical depression.  I was powerless to stop it and the last person to know I was ill.

After three days I eventually answered the door.  It was Bill, a close friend and school mate of mine. “We’ve been concerned about you mate, so has your Mum, nobody has heard from you in a while, we just wondered if you were all right?”  “Yeah, sorry mate,” I replied.  “I’m okay, I just feel a bit tired that’s all apart from that I’m fine.”  I tried to make small talk to mask my real feelings but Bill saw through this like a glass book.

I couldn’t keep up the pretence any longer.  The smile disappeared from my face and my head fell forward into my hands.  I showed him my arm.  “Why am I doing this to myself Bill?”  He was very calm about the situation.  “You’ve had a lot of stress in the last three years, things that were out of your control. Basically it’s affected your health.”                                            

Bill’s mother-in-law had been in the nursing profession for over twenty years and saw my break-down coming.  It was she who advised Bill on how to help me I later found out.  The advice was simple.  Without too much fuss, get Neil to his doctor, he is suffering from clinical depression.  Bill’s words to me were, “I think we should make a trip to the quacks, what do you reckon?”  “I know I’m not a hundred percent,”   I said, “but is it really that serious?”  He just shut his eyes and nodded a couple of times. 

Pre-empting my answer Bill had already phoned my GP – they were just waiting for us to arrive.  “Could you take me?” I asked.  “The car’s outside mate,” he said.  “What, today? …   What, now?”  “When you’re ready,” he replied.

Bill was the sort of friend you could trust with your life.  For him to be worried about me I knew I had to put my faith, what was left of it, in his judgement.  I made another pot of tea, the British thing to do in a situation like this.  I sat down to let the information sink in, not realising just how life-altering this visit to the doctor’s was going to be.

When we arrived at the surgery the receptionist showed us straight into my doctor’s room.  She asked me some questions relating to diet, sleep pattern and motivation.  My reply to all three was just one word, “Poor.”  The final question from my doctor, knowing in my heart it was rhetorical, was the hardest, shortest and the most painful I have ever had to answer. 

There was a terrible, sickening silence after she said the words “Have you tried to harm yourself in anyway?”  “Yes,” I said quietly.  After that I don’t remember speaking any more.  I was mentally exhausted and overwhelmed with emotion.  I had to let Bill take over the proceedings.  He asked my GP what the next step was.  Doctor Gibbon replied, “I think it would be best for Neil to see Dr. Gadhvi, the head psychiatrist at Claybury Hospital.  I have made an appointment for Neil to see him this afternoon.  I need a second opinion.  Based on his report Neil may have to go into hospital for a short time.”

Things were moving too quickly for me, with talk of head shrinks and hospitals, but I was in no fit state to argue.  I was swept along with the tide after that.  This was starting to feel like a sad episode of “Casualty” come to life.  Karen Gibbon was a kind, caring and considerate person. 

She made sure I understood what was going on, without belittling me, emphasising that a stay in hospital would be probable, after my consultation with the other doctor.  Family and friends had carefully planned my path towards hospital; the trip to the trick-cyclist was a mere formality.

After visiting Dr Gadhvi my fate was secured.  I fell silent again.  This was too much to cope with.  Bill took over as my ears, eyes and brain.  At the end of the consultation it was decided that I would go in hospital as a voluntary patient for a minimum of two weeks. 

Technically I was sectioned under the Mental Health Act, but I was informed I could leave the hospital any time I liked.  Bill asked the doctor when this would happen and was told, “There will be a bed ready for him tonight.  Perhaps this afternoon you could help Neil pack a bag,” Bill nodded in agreement.  Christ, what do I pack?  I’ve never been in hospital before, let alone a nut house.  What the fuck is it going to be like in there?  Of course I had a vivid picture in my mind, who wouldn’t?  At this point I was petrified and powerless.

This was another situation that was totally out of my control.  My life was now in other people’s hands.  I didn’t like it one little bit.  Bill was still on hand for support, and later that evening he ferried me to the hospital.  It was only a short ride, but I remained quiet for hours as I remember.  Communication was down to hearing and nodding only.  I didn’t have the strength for anything else.

Part three next week…

 

Rather than leave a long gap in my blog, I thought I’d serialise the first chapter of my first book into bite size chunks.  It’s not what people want to hear about at Christmas, but the harsh reality is, for some, this will be the worst time of the year.  I’ll see how it goes down and then I may do the same to chapter two, as it’s at that point where my sense of humour begins to creep in…  

The first page is called The tale of woe and it relays, in brief, the background of how I became ill.  Following that is a poem called This year’s blackness, which depicts the depths of my depression and then the first part of chapter one begins.  As it is a true-life story and not a soap story, please expect some expletives, but there aren’t as many as there could’ve been.  Also, if you are of a sensitive nature do not read this chapter.

THE TALE OF WOE

My childhood was a happy time in my life.  My mum and dad were the best parents anyone could wish for.  And a large part of my working life was spent laughing, grafting and paying the bills. 

In 1988 my marriage fell apart. To add to this, in 1989 I was made redundant for the first time when the printers I worked for, D.S. Colour International went into administrative receivership. Twelve years of work ended in one fell swoop one afternoon in January.  Six weeks later I resumed work at another firm, only to be made redundant again four months later, a month before Christmas 1989.  The icing on my cake of doom was watching my father die of lung cancer on November the 2nd 1990.  It crushed my spirit to the point of attempted suicide.

Prior to this, I had been drinking heavily every night for eighteen months.  I felt as if the entire structure of my life was falling apart, and so I resumed to alcohol as a way out.  The worst part was not being able to control these life-altering losses.  On three separate occasions I managed to find new employment, but having a mental illness meant that I was unable to sustain a working life. 

Eventually my flat was repossessed and I felt as if I was left with nothing.  By then I had moved on from clinical depression and was diagnosed with a bi-polar disorder.  I regained some, if not all of my lost marbles and today I am stabilised on Lithium and anti-depressants.  Unable to return to my old trade I fell into writing by chance. I found a way of channelling my negative energy and turning it into positive thought. I simply wrote it all down onto paper… lots of it.  I am a special person and I don’t mind saying it out loud now.  I survived everything that you are about to discover in this book…

After reading the first 70 pages I wrote my eldest son, Daniel, broke down in tears. He said, “That upset me, I didn’t realise that you had been through so much.”  Poignantly   the pages he read were about the beginning of my illness and my first hospital admission. 

At that stage I hadn’t seen my kids for over 10 weeks.  A short dad cuddled his son’s six foot frame and with a lump in my throat I replied, “You were only 11 at the time mate, it all happened a long time ago.”  In truth, I still remember it as if it were yesterday, but at least it is in the past now.

What saddened me the most was that my disorder had raped me of my passion for music.  Then it had the audacity to remove my chuckle button as well – never again!  I now know that my sense of humour is one of my finest qualities.

THIS YEAR’S BLACKNESS

I sit here like many condemned to this illness,

What I hadn’t banked on was all the stillness.

After thirty-two years of row and noise,

I no longer felt like one of the boys.

 Sitting in darkness the mind drifts away

 Suffering from years of mental decay.

 Knowing tomorrow I’ll feel just the same,

 I’m slipping, but slowly, I’m going insane.

 Neil Walton 13/9/99  copyright (c) 2006 

CHAPTER ONE: THE LONG LIE IN

I had been on the missing list for sometime; ignoring the phone, the door and the outside world.  My mind and body had taken such a battering over the past three years, (1986-89) and I just couldn’t take it any more.  I didn’t have the energy for conversation.  My brain was on overload and my body was paralysed and lethargic. 

I had turned into an introvert, the direct opposite of my usual character.  My arms and legs were like lead and I felt bone cold, as if my core temperature was lower than any body else’s.  Add to that a poor diet and a feeling of utter worthlessness; I was a sorry example of a human being.

I had a loop-tape of losses and problems to come relentlessly playing in my head. The only thing that stopped this tape was sleep – the next step was obvious.  I was at breaking point.  If I could have laid my hands on a gun… I might not be here now. Only a fellow sufferer or a specialist would understand the mental pain I was experiencing.  I found a scalpel blade in my toolbox and went into my bedroom closing the door behind me. 

I gazed at the sterilised Swann & Morton for hours on end, the loop-tape still playing.  I slept most of the time.  But there were those awful four to six hours spent awake, going over and over the reasons for ending my life.  Why was this happening to me?  What had I done to deserve this treatment from life?  The answer of course was nothing.

I began nicking at the skin on my left arm just to test the pain factor.  With a brand new blade it was quite painless.  Then I cut deeper into my arm making seven to eight cuts between my forearm and biceps.  I watched as my blood pumped from the wounds.  I laid there in a cold sweat as it trickled down my arm and soaked into the duvet cover.  Sometime later, I reached for my lighter and cigarettes which were on the bedside cabinet. 

I was momentarily prevented as the duvet cover was firmly stuck to my forearm with congealed blood.  As I pulled it away from my arm, it opened four of the cuts I had inflicted on myself.  I remember thinking that this wasn’t going to be easy.  The pain was so severe that I had to stop and think of an alternative way to end it all.

The options seemed endless at the time.  What about an overdose of paracetamol?  How many would I have to take?  If I could have been sure that I would have just gone to sleep and not woken up to being resuscitated, I might have chosen that option. 

As it was, I continued questioning each form of suicide but had no answers – looking back it probably saved me.  My lethargy was so painfully strong that I couldn’t find the energy to drag myself to the chemist, only a hundred feet from my front door.  I drank a glass of water, lit another cigarette and laid there wondering what to do next. 

I thought long and hard about my sons, Jack and Daniel, who I think played a key factor of my survival.  How could I even think of leaving them fatherless?  I felt so selfish and yet in so much pain.  Suicide or death in general seems so unfair.  You die and everybody who knows you suffers in one way or another.  What a dilemma, what a guilt trip, as if I didn’t feel bad enough already.  I went back to sleep with thoughts of my parents, children and close friends on my mind.

More next week…

 

I’ve reach a spot and I got to stop but it’s not bothering me…  I’m not feeling my best at the moment and I believe, for me, it is ‘that time of the year’.

I’m not on my way to hospital, I just feel like I’ve run out of energy and drive.  So rather write a whole bunch of crap and put out into the world, I’m going to rest up and come back in the New Year.  Yesterday I hit the pit at 4am and stayed there until 4pm!  Am I worrying about anything?  No, everything’s fine in my life, although I am still single, and after six years I think I’m allowed to moan about that from time to time.  I’ve tried the dating site malarkey and had some great chats, but that’s all. 

Oh, and there was that lovely lady who said quote, “Ooh no, I couldn’t date anyone with a mental illness,” despite informing her I’ve been well for last 10 years!  Yeah, cheers for that love, I hope your fun-bags turn square and start festering at the corners on Christmas Eve.  Honestly, the last place I thought I’d be stigmatised is in my own front room!  Still, that’s life I guess.  Maybe I’ll find a like-minded partner in the New Year…

So what are you lot doing for the Yule Tide bash?  I hope you all have a blinder and get what you want from the bloke that shoots down your chimney.

Now there’s one thing I’ve just thought about and it happens every time we get a cold snap here or a light scattering of ‘God’s dandruff’.  Oh yes, one flake and the whole country stops running.  Has your council got enough grit?  You wait; it’ll be the top story on the BBC for weeks.

What else before I hibernate?  Oh yes, check your ‘Thankful list’.  You may believe you’ve had a bad day, week, month or year but as you know, there are people far worse off than us. 

When it’s minus 5, thank your lucky stars you don’t have sleep in a shop doorway in Oxford Street.  And let’s not forget a very basic right.  All we have to do is wander 5 yards into the kitchen to get a drink of fresh clean water.  Some poor buggers have to walk miles for a bucket of brown liquid which might just kill them.      

And, if you have food in your fridge, a bit of cash in your pocket and clothes on your back, whether they’re fashionable or not, you are a millionaire in some countries.  So, to the New Year: same crap – different day?  I sincerely hope not.  So if you need cheering up over the festive period, you could do worse than dob in a multi national company for tax dodging or invite your friends over for an ‘Immac a Moose’ night.  Catch ya laters guys x

 

I’ve got 250, 000 points on my nectar card, but despite this the cashier at Sainsbury’s insisted I still don’t have enough for a bee hive!

Don’t you wish you knew more about peat bogs?  Just me then!

Forty years I’ve been watching Dr Who, and not once have I seen anyone use the bathroom.  Well I haven’t!

And another thing… if penguins couldn’t swim they’d drown.

Do alcoholic elephants drink to forget?  I’m just saying!!!

Hospital news: need cheering, bored with life on the ward?  Forget all about art therapy – Immac a Llama. 

If CD’s were square, you’d have to trim the corners off to get them in your player.  You bloody would…

Thought for the day: only make rash decisions with people who have rashes. 

At what point does a watermark evaporate?   It’s being observant that keeps me sane!   

Down?  Depressed?  Losing the will to live but feel the need to smile?  Put a coat hanger in your gob.

POEM OF THE WEEK

There once was a girl from Nantucket,

who was scared of kicking the bucket.

She fretted so much, she used drink as a crutch

But in the end she just said f… ..

[I’m sorry my editor won’t allow me to finish this!]

The secret thoughts of a manic depressive…

Day 11: thinks?  Better change my boxer shorts I suppose.

Day 12: naaaa – who’s going to know?

 Day 13: ooh look – flies!

 Day 14: could turn them inside out again?

 Day 15: naaaa – I’ll do it tomorrow.

 Day 16: thinks?  Better change my boxers I suppose.

 Day 17: oooh look, a squirrel…

 Day 18: I bet he doesn’t have to change his underwear.

 Day 19: I wish I was a squirrel.

Is it possible for humans to hear a dog when it whistles?

A female giraffe can’t knit.  Fact!

And finally… this just in from the stupid quotation section of ‘Rustic Weekly’… If pots and pans were ‘ifs’ and ‘ands’, there’d be no need for tinkers.  What the hell’s that all about!?! 

 

 

Remember a time when you paid your gas or electricity bill in their respective showrooms?  Now you can get your electric topped up in the chemist and pay your water bill at the corner shop.  No wonder the UK is in a state…

And it’s no wonder the children of this country are growing up with a confused outlook on life, especially when the ‘I remember when’ stories begin.  “It’s a windup clock son,” “Yeah but where do the batteries go?”  Frightening!

It’s all changed and not for the better.  “You wait until your father gets home,” is just one of many parental sayings that’s dropped off the register too!  We’ve already lost Woolworth’s and Cadbury’s is now owned by the yanks, so what’s next?  That’s right, the comforting sight of your local police station, and it’s all part of a cost cutting exercise by those in charge.  So what’s the plan B?

Oh this is a peach, to balance the books, 264 front-line desks will be closed, but you’ll be pleased to know that if you need to report a crime in the future, you can pop down to Tesco.  Failing that, try the library under the Crime Section! 

I mean, on first hearing, this notion sounds like a viable option, but I can’t help thinking there will be problems in the long.   For example, in what part of the supermarket will the police be sited?  Well, aisle 999 is out of the question, unless the shop’s been built on the site of a disused runway.  Will you be able to give your statement to one policeman and have another listening in for free or will you simply find the boys in blue in a glass box at key points around the building with, “In case of a crime break glass,” printed on the side?  

In hindsight they would be better placed on the fish counter, (what for it – wait for it), because you could call out the flying squid straight away!  Why, they’d even have a cod car handy wouldn’t they (Bur-dut tshh).  And if you think about it, if fish started stealing from the supermarket, you could bring it to the attention of DCI Sprat and he could be deployed to catch the Mackerel!

No, no, no, no.  Something’s gotta to give.  The very fabric of our society has relied on cash for too long, so rather than keep printing more; surely the answer is to dump the existing monetary format for something totally new? 

Think about it.  At the moment we’ve got a 50, a 20, a 10 and a 5 pound note, so swap the notes for livestock!  A lamb would be worth 50 quid, a piglet would be 20 quid, a rabbit would be a tenner and you’d get a frog for a fiver.  I can’t fault it, except you might need to get a bigger wallet and getting cash out of the ATM might be a little harder.  But hey, it can’t be any worse than it is now, can it?

 

If you’re still hacked off with the barrage of anti smoking campaigns don’t fret, another issue will soon take its place.  If you smoke in your car though beware…

The worst thing that could happen to you, if you were riding along on your perambulator 100 years ago, is a rogue chicken may have run out in front of you and you ended up in the duck pond.  And even 50 years ago there was only one cycle-related incident reported, when a coalman’s horse trotted out in front of a tandem!  Now it’s a totally different story, but still the ever keen prat on two wheels will insist on their right to ride about on four ounces of metal with a saddle on it, rather than in one and a half tons of non-British automotive tackle.

So what’s the fuss all about?  Well, the British Tour de France winner, Bradley Wiggins was knocked off his bike by a vehicle and ended up in hospital.  Personally, at the age of 32, I think it’s about time he got a proper bloody job!  Worst still, not long after Wiggins prang, the British Cycling head coach Shane Sutton was involved in a bike crash. 

Now, one of two things will happen.  It’ll all go very, very quiet and the stories will fade into cycling history or we’ll see a small fortune spent on an on-going set of bloody boring safety campaigns, despite the fact that somewhere in the third world, thousands of men, women and children haven’t got clean water to drink!

You can see it now can’t you.  Bloody Bradley ‘the toothpick’ Wiggins will be saying something like, “You never think it’s going to happen to you,” or a badly thought out slogan like, “Think car – think bike!”  Piss off, give it up son.  It’s never going to be safe for cyclists to ride on British roads; they’re not designed for it. 

I can only assume that the ardent cyclists of today are stuck in a time warp of yesteryear, when the only other traffic on the road was another rider or the local wildlife.  Surely you need your head examined if you believe it’s safe to go up against the potholes in our roads, let alone the drain hole covers, taxis, buses, lorries, idiots on motor cycles and pedestrians who are too drunk to walk straight.

“Think car – think bike!”  What a bunch of crap.  If drivers can’t see a motor bike, what chance do they stand of seeing a stick insect on a vehicle that’s three times the width smaller?  “Come on Jocasta; let’s take the kids on the suicide run to school!”  “Won’t it be dangerous darling?”  “No, no, no, no.  We have our Day-Glo coloured helmets, which make us look like helmets, making us readily visible and don’t for get the all important arm and knee pads!  Fuck it, let’s talk the dog!”  Yeah, section the lot of ‘em I say…

 

You saw the advert and you thought; I fancy some of that.  So you lay out a small fortune for the flight without a worry or a fret.  And why would you?

Well, it’s not until you’re on the plane you discover just what could go wrong and how to deal with the situation.  Oh yeah, the airline have got you and your money now.  Not only that there’s nothing you can do because you’re strapped in and by this time and half way down the runway.  The demonstration begins.

“Ladies and gentlemen in the event of a…”  I mean what’s the point?  Everyone’s going to panic in their own language aren’t they!  And don’t get duped into thinking that arm waving is to point you in the direction of the exits in the event of a crash, oh no.  That’s just stewardess is giving the passengers their Last Rites just in case. 

Also the debate continues over where is the safest place to sit on the ‘big metal bird’ in the event that 80,000 tons of holiday transport falls out of the sky – and, assuming the crash position, cushion in the lap, head down. 

Well I don’t think it really matters.  All you’ve got to ask yourself is – would you rather be smashed into a mountain side or hit the sea at a high velocity?  Again, none of this is mentioned during the booking of your holiday!  I mean really, what is the point of putting your head in lap when a mountain top hones into view?  You might as well sign up for an online tapping dancing course and start practising in the aisle.  No, the only reason to place your head in your lap at 20,000 feet, heading for a mountain is so you can kiss your arse goodbye.

Now, I’ve got to take the air safety body to task about landing in the sea, should you survive the fall and don’t end up entombed at the bottom of the briny.  You’ve just dropped out of the sky at an alarming rate, and presuming you haven’t had a heart attack on the way down, you and few others are now floating around in shark infested water, with your Day-Glo orange life-jacket on. 

And what have been given to attract attention to your whereabouts?  A frickin’ Christmas cracker whistle!  If they can’t spot an object as big as a plane, how the hell is any rescue party going to hear a poxy whistle in the middle of the Indian Ocean!

So, in summing up, here are my proposals for better safety in the air and some important information for all of you would-be passengers out there.  The best place to sit is on top of the black box.  Why – because it’s always found no matter where it is!  Next, the black box is water proof, fire proof and bomb proof, which leaves it virtually indestructible, save a crash landing on the sun.  So why don’t they make the planes out of the same material?  Honestly, how hard is it?

 

Now you might think having $5.9 billion in the bank might make a 76 year old playboy lackadaisical.  Well I’ve looked into it and it’s not that, it’s the below…

…Yes, if you hold significant shares in three national television stations which cover half of the national sector, have a vested interest in sport, newspapers, cinema, finance, banking and insurance, and have your fingers in the pie of the leading Italian advertising agency, that might do it.  If not, owning a controlling stake in the largest Italian publishing house, would seal your fate when you start losing it.  I give you the former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Call me old fashioned but, you could fall into the trap of believing your own press.  The guy has a history of court cases behind him and yet somehow he’s still managed to avoid a jail sentence.  Hopefully this is about to change.  Along with his general complacency he gradually lost the art of diplomacy and made a number of spectacular public blunders.  Please note: expletive care of the Italian twit.

In 2003, Berlusconi suggested that the German SPD MEP Martin Schulz, who had criticised his domestic policies, would be the perfect candidate to play a Nazi concentration camp guard – ooops!  And he back this up during an interview with Nicholas Farrell, the then editor of the Spectator, by proclaiming that Mussolini had been a benign dictator who didn’t murder his opponents just simply sent them away ‘on holiday’!

Moving on, in 2006, Berlusconi alleged that Chinese communists under Mao Zedong had ‘boiled children to fertilize the fields.’  And in 2010, after being accused again of involvement in juvenile prostitution, he put forward his defense saying, it’s better to be fond of pretty girls than to be gay.  Not content with angering the entire gay community he had a pop at Angela Merkel – describing her as an “unfuckable lard-arse,” which is fine if your phone hasn’t   been tapped.  Sadly for the silver tongued cavalier, his was.  Way to go Silvio!

My personal favourites out of the plethora of disastrous Berlusconi PR gaffes couldn’t have been bettered by Prince Philip.  Picture the scene. 

You lived in L‘Aquila, where you had a house, a livelihood and a community spirit.  That was until an earthquake decimated the area.  Now you’re minus a house, a job and you may have lost some your relatives or friends in the disaster.  What consoling piece of advice did soppy bollocks impart to the locals living in tents, prior to asking a councilor if he can fondle her?  He suggested that the homeless should view their experience as a camping weekend!  Like I said – what an arse…