Thursday

20th February 2014

Today is not a good day, last night the nightmares returned once again. I am 56 years old now and yet that man is still haunting me. I was a kid when he abused me, and yet the nightmares continue. People say I should move on or I shouldn't live in the past. These people really should walk a mile in my shoes and see what I see or what I feel.
Got my daughter and my grandchildren visiting today, normally, they make me feel so much better, but not today. Yes I am smiling, yes I am playing with them as much as I can, being so restricted by the non-use of my arm and leg because of the stroke I suffered. 

27th February 2014

Last night was another bad night, damn nightmares, I hate them so much. How come I just can't get a handle on this PTSD and beat it. One day I think, I am finally getting there and then bam I feel like I have had a hammer hit me over the head, because there is all that crap back in my head.
I still have those stupid thoughts of suicide, it would be so easy to give in to them, maybe one day I just might, I have done so before. 
People, even family, don't understand PTSD, unless they've actually experienced it. I was told when I was first diagnosed, that the mind is like a bottle, it slowly fills up with all the bad things, you learn to control it, but then something happens to you and the bottle overflows, that is PTSD, you lose control of your life, your feelings, everything that is 'normal.' 
I was a London bus driver for a total of twenty five years, in those 25 years I also worked for National Express, a coach company. When I first started the job was fun, as much as a job could be, people used to give me birthday presents and Christmas presents, they even knew me by my first name and people used to talk to you. Nowadays all you get is abuse and attacked. I was attacked that is why I have PTSD it was the final straw for me after a lifetime of beatings, every type of abuse and I do mean every type from the person who was supposed to be my father as a kid. The bullying at school, then the abuse from so called work mates and on the buses, also being called a murderer after giving permission for my mothers life support to be turned on after a heart bypass operation went wrong, so much crap to be put up with and I am suffering for it now.   
People associate PTSD with the military, but no, anyone can get it if enough bad things happens to them.

Friday

14th February 2014 

Yesterday I went to town on my own, so what I hear you all say, well, I have developed agoraphobia, I have never felt fear like it. I would open our front door and this wave of fear would consume my whole body. I would hallucinate, I would see all matter of things. This might sound strange to anyone that hasn't had agoraphobia, but as I said in a previous post I also have post traumatic stress, which I guess contributed towards the hallucinations as I have quite bad flashbacks anyway.

People say to me, "move on" or "don't live in the past" I really wish I could move on and not live in the past. I am better than I was I have to say that, I have a family that have stuck by me and a wife that is my rock, she has been fantastic all through my illness, sometimes I wonder why she has stuck by me, I have asked her many times.

Here's a few entries from my diary .......

 25th May 2012

It seems like I keep missing out writing here, but this time it was for a reason. I didn't want to put myself in a position that I write something but as I write it I become worse again. I have tried my hardest to cope with not having anyone to talk to, with Richard gone I am finding things difficult, it seems like Margaret thinks that now he's gone I am all better but I am NOT. She ain't been too bad but at times I wish she would just shut the fuck up, she drives me mad. I actually made inquiries in getting a place of my own but was let down yet again. I need my space, something I haven't needed before, but being alone during the day gives me time to think and I have realized that being alone is good for me, I like the solitude at times, other times I hate it, can't make my mind up which is better.
I am still having suicidal thoughts some days worse than others, but I have learnt to cope with them unless they get too bad then it is difficult. I have been contacted by some people called right steps, it seems like a good place to start my recovery, it's local and it might just work, but we shall see. It was Summer's birthday yesterday, I actually went there, although I did have a couple of bad episodes it didn't actually spoil my day, I enjoyed my day and Summer is growing so damn fast, in fact too damn fast, but she is my angel, the one thing that has kept me going through all the bad episodes in my life.
28th May 2012

Today is my second day alone and I am beginning to realize that no matter how things are that Margaret doesn't give a shit about me, she says she does but I don't think so. I have tried a little experiment to she if she does, I have turned off my mobile, so far she has bbm my daughters have, but I haven't answered any of them, now if that was me me I would have tried phoning to see if I was okay on the home phone if not from my eldest daughters home phone then from a call box, but there has been nothing from any of them, just goes to show none of them care, I could be dead for all they know or even care, I wish I was dead and that isn't just 'coz I am writing here, I REALLY do, maybe if I stored my tablets again, now there is an idea.

18th July 2012

I haven't wrote here for a while as I have been trying to assess what I should do. I still to end everything, is that selfish? No it would make a change for me to think about me. But my eldest daughter is coming down in two days so I have decided to put everything on hold till she goes home in a month, at least I will see my new grandson for a little while. I am hating myself more and more each day, life is total crap, I am a total waste of space, a useless chunk of fat. It will all stop when I finally go to sleep forever.

24th December 2012

It's been a long time since I have written anything here and so much has happened. My life has finally taken a turn for the better, although saying that, I recently had a stroke down my left side, it was so scary. It happened on 30/11/2012, I did not even realize that I was having a stroke, I always thought that there would be pain, but no, I thought I wasn't going to walk again because my left was totally numb and I was unable to move it. But some good has come from having the stroke, Margaret has been wonderful. I don't know who was more scared, me or her and the girls.

My anxiety, PTSD and the depression has seemed to have taken a back seat since I have had the stroke and it's so nice to feel 'normal' for a while even though I can't walk properly and most of the time my hand is weak, but sometimes it all comes back, briefly but it does.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ xXx ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's strange how having a stroke actually made me feel normal, I was told by the docs that the brain takes over what is happening to me and which is worse. I guess I should have been thanking that organ in my head for at least doing that for me, but it only lasted a few weeks before I was back to all the crap that was dished out to me in the shape of my ptsd, depression and anxiety. 

George, yellow Labrador guide dog puppy

Tuesday

11th February 2014

A few days have passed since that first entry. My life has been a real challenge at times. People always associate post traumatic stress with the military, it is not always the case. My post traumatic stress started as a kid, when, everyday I was beaten with whatever my so-called father had to hand at the time, if he had nothing to hand then it was his fists. I was so scared everyday, I really did not have any other emotions to show, except fear, and if I did show any emotion, like crying when I got a beating, I got another beating as it was wrong for a man to cry, that is what he used to say.  
Christmas was always a bad time for me, that is why I really do hate that time of year. Every Christmas up to the age of thirteen I had bronchitis, one year I had pneumonia on top of the bronchitis, so I was really ill, but there is a couple of Christmases that spring to mind. One was in 1968, I had my usual bronchitis and had to stay out of the way in my room so I didn't spread any germs or so I didn't make any noise to disturb him.
My mother came upstairs and said, "do you want to come downstairs for your dinner?" 
I got excited as any kid would have done. Getting to the table I sat at the opposite my father. The table was made out of solid oak and big enough to seat eight.
As I ate my dinner, but because of my blocked nose I had to eat with my mouth open, trying very hard to take breaths then having a chew on my food.
My father had had enough, he lifted his end of table and throwing it on top of me, the chair I was sitting on broke under the weight. He came round to my end and lifted the table, taking hold of my clothes he pulls me out, then with he fist smashed me several times in the face. After the beating he carries me to the bottom of the stairs and threw me up the stairs, I didn't touch a single step.

These beatings were a regular thing, near every day I got a beating for one thing or another. 

Thursday

6th February 2014


I thought I would start writing a blog about my life with complex post traumatic stress. I have had this for a long time now and as such I know what it feels like and to be totally blunt it is crap. 
I will include pages from my diary, some are good, some not so good ....

11th May 2009
Today I have found that all my work on my Diary has been corrupted, most probably my own fault by trying to copy it from the Note Tab to here, I have had a really shitty day all round so I am not in the best of moods. First, I had a row with some bitch over the tumble dryer, it has gone wrong with the same fault four times in four months and I was totally peeved at this, then I went to see my councilor, but there was a bad mix up with my appointment, so I didn't get to see her, after that I caught a bus to go to Waterloo train station and the driver so darn stroppy, but as soon as he realized I was staff he done as I asked and let me off the bus, I got home and thought I'd write here in my Diary and found it totally corrupt, I tried to delete it from Note Tab yesterday but it didn't work so I guess it was my fault.
I can't remember all that I wrote before but there was seven pages and it has all gone, jeez, how am I keeping so darn calm? I would normally be tearing my hair out at the roots.
Tanya is my counselor and it was her idea to write this diary but I am going to have to restart it now.
So I am now going to write a bit about me......
So I was told by my mother, I was the result of my father raping my mother, when I was born my father wanted a little girl and I was treated like dirt by him.
Apparently I was left outside in my pram and was never looked at if I cried, he tried to drown me in the bath, so much so that I have been scared of water all my life, he beat most days, I went to school with welts across my back from being hit with his walking stick or a coat hanger or even a broom handle and fists.
He stabbed me one day because I got in the way when he was having a go at my mother, he brought home from his works, he was laboratory technician for Beechams, some arsenic, luckily mum knew the smell, it smells like almonds and she knew she never had any almond essence for her cooking so he failed in his attempt.
Then when mum left home the beatings got worse and he started to drink, big time, it was then the sexual abuse started, he made do things that I cannot even write here because they upset me so much, I was finally taken into care at the age of thirteen, so the judge said, “for my own protection” but I had been naughty also and got into trouble with the police by taking people's money from their homes, I stayed in care until I was eighteen, when my mother and her new man, Gerry, agreed to look after me.
I was reasonably happy back then but still had thoughts of my father and all he done.
Not too long ago mum died, 16th December 2004, I feel it was my fault she died even to this day, I persuaded her to have a heart bypass and it went so wrong, the vein that took from her leg and grafted onto her heart came away after a minor heart attack and the veins in her neck burst, stopping the flow of blood to the brain, she was dead and it was my fault, no-one else was to blame, my so called family blamed me and I was threatened with violence if I went to the funeral, I was called a murderer by my so called family and I was texted from my mothers phone a number of times accusing of everything, I know it wasn't him though.
I joined London united back in November 2004 and I was only with the company for a few weeks when mum died and my manager gave me three weeks off without even asking, I have a few problems since being back on the buses but on October last year I was attacked at Raynes Park and it started me to crack up. I started to do things while I was asleep, or so I thought, I had goes at Margaret, I even hit her while I was asleep and I had no recollection of it, then I felt awful as she told me that I had been doing things in my sleep since she had been with me, but she had never told me anything, that I can remember anyway, because my memory of things is terrible it is like I am two people, one that is nice and one that is nasty, a bit like a Jekyll and Hyde character, only difference is that I don't change into a monster.

My partner told me though that I have got worse since mum died, I have also had goes at my daughter and her other half, the worse was at Christmas when my daughter lost her baby, I was so nasty to her that I will never forgive myself, even though she has forgiven me but only because I am getting help via my councilor and my Doctor.

This is when I started my diary, since then so much has happened so I will leave it there for now.