Acerca de

In my early years I had a very fortunate life where we lived in an amazing house, big garden, fields and woods around us and my grandparents farm.  Life should be pretty great, but things we never quite right

 

We used to have new cars, foreign holiday and all the things you associate with having wealth, however, one of my strongest memories of childhood is that my dad worked incredibly hard but I would walk home from the school bus every day and wonder if there would be a for sale sign up or worse the house was sold without anyone saying anything as we didn’t talk about those sorts of things.

I couldn’t tell you why, but I assume I overheard conversations I probably shouldn’t have.

 

Teenage years weren’t much better as I had a small group of friend but living in a small village I often didn’t get much chance to socialise with the cool kids, so when I had the chance I’d really try to show off and try too hard.

 

I did a lot of sport and did ok, never picked first but not last. 

 

However, I went through cubs, scouts and Army Cadets and found I was excellent a problem solving and leadership

 

As I started working, I was incredibly driven, always focused on the path to a pay raise and promotion, always looking for a new job that would give me that status I needed but also the security I craved.

 

I was never flush with the cash, quite the opposite in most respects, I’d stash money away in low/no interest accounts for emergencies but then also splurge on cars, showing off to friends and stuff I didn’t really need

 

Work started going well and then really well.  I started traveling extensively and I loved to tell people how I was flying business class to Australia on a flight with Shane Warne after the 2008 ashes, or LA, sat next to Martin Freeman, San Francisco over 30 times, going to Paris for the day, sat across from one of the Bee Gees.

 

However, all the time I was slipping away and didn’t notice. I’d been enjoying all the free booze, dinners out, and becoming numb to the experiences, but more concerning I was not coping well.

 

I had food poisoning or just really bad stomach from rich food, lack of sleep etc. and this started to give me anxiety about needing the toilet when out.  So I problem solved, don’t go out, only go places with toilets, say no to stuff, but I still NEEDED to travel for work, so I started taking Imodium regardless of how I felt, although I guess my mind kept telling me I needed the toilet anyway.

 

I’d go to amazing places and only see the hotel room and office, I’d make every excuse not to do events or evenings out, or I’d load myself up with Imodium and have a terrible time as I’d just be in a constant state of panic

 

We’re now back to wedding timelines, just before my wife came down the aisle, I was in the toilet AGAIN and popping another Imodium, so I was on drugs for my wedding but not the fun ones.

​

I enjoyed the day but now how I would have liked it.  We went to Cancun on honeymoon and I avoided as much as I could, and we did way less, I even took my work laptop to keep up with issues.

 

They boys came along over the following years and I was just treading water, promotions, bonuses, pay raises but it was still never enough

 

Then sat on a Virgin Atlantic to San Fran, with a glass of champagne in hand, I’d decided that getting drunk pre-flight was the best route, I was panicking about toilets and..

 

Then I triggered again

 

I text my wife, while in the toilet again, “I can’t go on like this” saying I needed to deal with my issues

 

I then text again before we took off as that text is not worded very well to reduce worry when I would be on flight safe for the next 12 hours and she’d be pacing the hall