Before going to treatment in August 2005, I had never thought my life today could be how it is. I had spent 10 years in and out of psychiatric hospitals, for suicide attempts, self-harm and occasionally over doing illicit drugs. I became a well-known psychiatric patient, and over the years I had managed to be labelled with 5 diagnoses. The professionals had given up trying to help, as I was hell bent on killing myself. I came very close many times and looking back, I know it’s a miracle I am alive today and what’s more have regained full health in mind and body. The only reminder I have daily when I wake are the scars I have. In a way I can see how bad it got when I feel a little ropy, without the need to jog my memory, before getting to a meeting or picking up the phone.

I hadn’t used a phone for many years except to close family members and friends. I had shut down to everyone and found it very difficult to communicate, even to my closest family members. My communication to professional bodies was through letters and my mother speaking on my behalf, I imagine this is how people knew I was still functioning o.k.

I never left the house unless accompanied, although when I took illicit drugs or alcohol, it was a very different life. I was very streetwise and felt so confident I was God, untouchable are the words that come to mind. My body soon ended up in meltdown through the sheer volume of drugs, alcohol and pharmaceutical medications I consumed and was back in hibernation on my scripts, living in fear, self destructive behaviour and once again repetitive suicide attempts.

I believed that one day the psychiatrists would find the right medication and diagnosis so I could become a ‘normal’ person, able to live like others. For 10 years I believed I got sober and clean for periods of time to find that the past 13 years of different experiences, I had never been clean. I had no understanding of total abstinence, and even if I had, I knew nothing of a solution.

Prescriptions were going to work when the right drug was administered, despite the fact I’d gone through just about every pharmaceutical drug there is. I learnt how to behave in psychiatric hospitals and pulled it off very well, rocking in chairs, and pacing up and down the corridor for hours at a time, I got the medications that were going to be the one that worked this time!

Just before going into treatment in 2005, I went on a major drink and drug bender; I was 16 stone before this, through overeating. Once I started drinking and using, I stopped eating, this is what I did when I was 13, I starved to feel better. My anorexia was back, it took a different angle when I arrived in treatment and I became bulimic.

In treatment, I was taken off all my medications and taken through the 12 step recovery program. It was difficult for me to put my diagnoses to one side and re-evaluate who I was, and how I came to have these diagnoses. I couldn’t see I had a problem. As illicit drugs and alcohol weren’t always there, o.k. prescriptions, self harm and obsessive rituals, (of which I had instigated, I just forgot that I was acting over the years), but I couldn’t see I was an addict. The fact is if you had something that would make me feel better and escape from life I wanted it, I couldn’t live life on life’s terms from a young age, and over the years had lost all reality.

I am now an equal in society and have a life back, I do not have the need to manipulate doctors to get what I want and can be myself. I am proud to say, I don’t have 5 diagnoses anymore. I am an addict, who follows the 12 step program to the best of my ability. I bear no resemblance to the person that walked into treatment just under a year ago. I no longer hide under baggy clothes, with my cap pulled as far down as possible, hoody up and stitches in my arms or legs, not washing or cleaning my teeth. I do not need to hide away, I have no secrets; I can hold my head high and look people in the eyes. I am no longer suicidal believing death is the better option. This is all quite the opposite. At times it was difficult, and it still can be hard, no one said it was going to be easy, the difficult times were worth it, having the life I have today. I have a daily reprieve and enjoy each day and challenge as it arises. My God has done for me what I could not do for myself; I am a truly grateful recovering addict, happy, joyous and free.

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