'Once more into the valley of death........'

that the DWP can partner with you to help you.

?Umm, I doubt very much that the DWP would turn over, give me a hug and want to help me.

I'm only going through this fiasco once more to keep everyone quiet - my wife has agreed to let it be if I fail again.

I was just trying to be supportive Les, as I know how much you've been done over in the past.

I do wish you the best of luck.

It's not a question of what I would like to be but who I actually am.

In a way you have partly hit the nail on the head. My personality up until 1995 was as you say, easy going, relaxed and worked better under stress. People that I knew used to comment on the fact that I always remained calm under duress.

?Following the incident in December 1995, I spent many years trying to find out who I was, continually telling all at the Mental Health Day Service that I no longer recognise the person I had become. I have become violent for no real reason (hence why I spent many weeks under section in a secure unit). Eventually I was diagnosed eventually with a damaged frontal lobe due to some idiot thinking that the back of my head was a baseball.

?Only over the past few years I have been told that due to the damage it has affected/changed/altered my personality as well as causing short term memory problems (now diagnosed as Early Onset Dementia), short span of attention, difficulty in planning as well as poor motivation.

?Yes I would love to get back to what I was before - I don't particulary like who I have become. I was once told by a psychiatrist that the way I am is that I am still as intelligent but now think far too much about every little problem or perceived problem. He was quite candid when he said that ??I could drive myself ill because I fought every day to be what I was.

?I do hope that your comments were made in good faith as you have actually touched a raw nerve.

Thanks Mike, no need to apologise. I wasn't too sure of your reasons for making that post but I did give you the benefit of the doubt.

?All of what I said I normally keep it to myself - telling someone that I now have a totally different personality is still hard for me to accept. I never discuss it with anyone in any detail how it has left me - makes me sound like a nutcase! Besides which people tend to assume that I probably talk to the other one (which I don't).

?It's simply that my brain does not function in the same way anymore - utter frustrating.

 

Your father sounds Iike quite a character.  How anybody could treat their own child like that is beyond me. 

Hi elizabeth186,

Both my parents were cruel to me, my mother mentally (I still bear the scars today) and my father physically.

My earliest recollection was at 4 years of age. My father sent me to the corner shop for groceries, a child with money for the first time I foolishly bought a sweet for a farthing. When I gave back the change my father noticed it was a farthing short, when questioned I could recognise the anger in his voice and I lied that I knew nothing of it.

He went to the shop and the shopkeeper notified my father of my purchase.

When he came back he took me upstairs, threw me face down on the bed, took off his belt and beat me black and blue.

That was the first of many years of belting, beatings, kicks and punches, until at the age of fourteen I started laughing because it didn't hurt any longer, he never beat me again.

This is just a minute part of my mental problems that haunt me to this day, I am now 66 years old, time doesn't heal.

Mike.

What you experienced was not abnormal in that era. I too had beatings from my father but the worst was the complete lack of love and affection within the home. I can never remember being told that I was loved, I don't remember any cuddles as a child - it was a loveless and cold upbringing.

?As I got older the beatings turned into fist fights. On one occasion when I was 17 I came home later than expected. Father had a go at me and to cut the story short he cracked me across the face so hard that I went flying backwards and hit the stair rail post breaking it.

?I left home shortly afterwards and dossed down wherever I could spending some nights sleeping in my old 1961 Mini.

?What happened in that era on how children were punished and brought up wold never happen today - well not without the parents being charged with assault/cruelty - but then it was normal. I'm 68 and don't let that part of my life affect me - it's not worth it.

 

Hi les,

I hd locked all of that away in a safety deposit box deep in my brain.

It was next to the other boxes of sexual abuse and mental cruelty.

Unfortunately they all opened when I had my breakdown recently.

What I also remember is that none of the neighbours, who could hear my screams and crying, came to see what was going on.

None of my school mates had these episodes. None of my cousins were ever beaten.

It stays with you and shapes your life. No one bullied me at school, and I used to stand up to the bullies for my school friends.

When I had my own children in the early 70's I was always aware of how I should keep them in check.

Buried yes, forgotten, never.

Mike.

I totally agree, buried but never ever forgotten.