I've suffered on and off with mental health issues for years. I live in the UK, and I'm 28. Have a kid, too. See them half of every week :)
When I split up with my child's mother in 2013 I had a few issues but I put it down to situational, even though it didn't feel like that at the time. I left my engineering apprenticeship and decided to go into what I've always wanted to - the police. I became a Special Constable in 2015 and started a related degree, I loved the job because I love helping people, making people feel safer.
Things were looking up - in 2018 I went abroad as part of the Erasmus+ experience, spent 4 months living there. Best time of my life. Came home, and it seems then like things were on the down. I had to take a gap year from university (from 2018-2019) because I was in my overdraft considerably, and working at a supermarket just fucked me up - i got put on the worst job ever, the 'waste', and it was only me doing it so every time i would get covered in mouldy slime, and cut myself on broken glass.
In 2019 I started hanging out with my cousin, she did reviews of theatre and plays for the local paper and I tagged along as her free pass. She was with a super nice guy, 10 year relationship. Me and her started hanging out more and more, 4 hour phone-calls etc, we became best friends very quickly. We did everything together, played sports, drunk, went for walks, etc. and we confided in each other about everything. She told me she didn't love her boyfriend, I advised her to work on it, and when she made the call to end it, I guided her through it. About this time, we started questioning whether we were having feelings which were beyond 'normal' feelings. The chemistry was intense, it was like she'd filled a hole.
After they broke up, we got drunk together and kissed. It didn't feel weird, it didn't feel wrong. We talked about it at length, about the social stigma, about the effect on our family, about the effect on her ex. We kept hanging out and we fell in love, so we decided to get together. It's a good time to mention she has OCD, which seriously amplified any worrisome feelings she had. Our family were super okay with it, then acknowledged it would be difficult but said they would support us because morally it wasn't wrong. We would just have to be careful with kids, which we already spoke about and knew the risks and the drawbacks.
Around this time, multiple things started happening. I had to go off work with stress and depression, and got placed on sertraline. Had 2 weeks off, didn't want longer because I didn't want to get too far out of a routine. My cousin supported me through this.
Through this, my childs mother decided she wanted to move to Scotland with our child, and started threatening court action. This got me further down too.
My mother then got diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, which is a terminal cancer for the uninitiated. She started chemotherapy, and caught an infection which nearly killed her, in the hospital the doctors said we needed to prepare for the worst.
I started my 3rd year of university in September, my dissertation year.
My cousins ex boyfriend then found out, and kicked off in October, ish. She left me when we were visiting my mum in hospital a week later. We tried to see each other on and off but her ex persuaded her to go to relationship therapy sessions, whilst we were still together. She then blocked me on everything.
My grandma got diagnosed with Alzheimers, and is now in a home.
And to top it off, our dog will need putting down soon because he is old.
I feel numb, and alone, and I am failing university, I'm getting so angry at everything, at my child, at my cousin, at my mum.
I've tried committing suicide multiple times, but I can't go through with it. But I feel myself slowly tipping towards the edge.
Sorry, guys. I hope that there's no judgement here.
When I split up with my child's mother in 2013 I had a few issues but I put it down to situational, even though it didn't feel like that at the time. I left my engineering apprenticeship and decided to go into what I've always wanted to - the police. I became a Special Constable in 2015 and started a related degree, I loved the job because I love helping people, making people feel safer.
Things were looking up - in 2018 I went abroad as part of the Erasmus+ experience, spent 4 months living there. Best time of my life. Came home, and it seems then like things were on the down. I had to take a gap year from university (from 2018-2019) because I was in my overdraft considerably, and working at a supermarket just fucked me up - i got put on the worst job ever, the 'waste', and it was only me doing it so every time i would get covered in mouldy slime, and cut myself on broken glass.
In 2019 I started hanging out with my cousin, she did reviews of theatre and plays for the local paper and I tagged along as her free pass. She was with a super nice guy, 10 year relationship. Me and her started hanging out more and more, 4 hour phone-calls etc, we became best friends very quickly. We did everything together, played sports, drunk, went for walks, etc. and we confided in each other about everything. She told me she didn't love her boyfriend, I advised her to work on it, and when she made the call to end it, I guided her through it. About this time, we started questioning whether we were having feelings which were beyond 'normal' feelings. The chemistry was intense, it was like she'd filled a hole.
After they broke up, we got drunk together and kissed. It didn't feel weird, it didn't feel wrong. We talked about it at length, about the social stigma, about the effect on our family, about the effect on her ex. We kept hanging out and we fell in love, so we decided to get together. It's a good time to mention she has OCD, which seriously amplified any worrisome feelings she had. Our family were super okay with it, then acknowledged it would be difficult but said they would support us because morally it wasn't wrong. We would just have to be careful with kids, which we already spoke about and knew the risks and the drawbacks.
Around this time, multiple things started happening. I had to go off work with stress and depression, and got placed on sertraline. Had 2 weeks off, didn't want longer because I didn't want to get too far out of a routine. My cousin supported me through this.
Through this, my childs mother decided she wanted to move to Scotland with our child, and started threatening court action. This got me further down too.
My mother then got diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, which is a terminal cancer for the uninitiated. She started chemotherapy, and caught an infection which nearly killed her, in the hospital the doctors said we needed to prepare for the worst.
I started my 3rd year of university in September, my dissertation year.
My cousins ex boyfriend then found out, and kicked off in October, ish. She left me when we were visiting my mum in hospital a week later. We tried to see each other on and off but her ex persuaded her to go to relationship therapy sessions, whilst we were still together. She then blocked me on everything.
My grandma got diagnosed with Alzheimers, and is now in a home.
And to top it off, our dog will need putting down soon because he is old.
I feel numb, and alone, and I am failing university, I'm getting so angry at everything, at my child, at my cousin, at my mum.
I've tried committing suicide multiple times, but I can't go through with it. But I feel myself slowly tipping towards the edge.
Sorry, guys. I hope that there's no judgement here.
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