Depression Understood Forums

I was a happy child. I had friends and was like any other kid... so there is not too much to tell there.

When I was around 10 I knew there was something different about me. On a shopping trip with my family I noticed a sculpture of a nude man holding up the awning to a shopping centre. I was intrested, but at that age I didn't put two and two together.

At 12 I moved up to high school which most people would find stressful, but I enjoyed the new start. I was generally happy there. About a week or two in something happened that caused me some angst. i was sat in the canteen by myself when an old school friend and his new friend sat a few tables away - upon noticing me the new friend (lets call him 'Bob) asked me over to sit with them. I felt something for him that I didn't expect... he was cute and blond.

School happened. I made lots of new friends who ended up living quite far from me so outside of school we talked online or done stuff at weekends. Bob wasn't a close friend, I guess I made sure he wasn't on purpose. I remember seeing him kiss his girlfriend at a school dance and being very jealous!

It was in these early years of AOL I found online chat, and an LGBT youth room. I worked out that I was gay or at least bi. It was after a ong night of chat my mum actually found out where I was going online, so AOL outed me. My mu has always though it was a phase... a very long phase now!

In my fifth year at high school I struck gold when I was assigned a seat in maths next to Bob. Needless to say my grade sucked! I started going ice skating with a bunch of friends (and Bob) on Saturdays - it was the best day of my week.

I had a couple of girlfriends when I was at high school - really just to fit in. I never came out at school, but most people (in the later years) knew I was gay.

Up until my depression & anxiety got bad I stayed in touch with Bob. He knows everything, but alas he, the last time I hear, was engaged to a girl. He claimed he knew I liked him.

I went to uni, where I was never in the closet. It was a good few years - probably the happiest of my life. I made friends and travelled fell in love and had my heart broken.

After I graduated I had a few jobs, but ended up travelling again - I spent over a year in the US. Again, this was one of the best times of my life. I met amazing people and really became who I was and wanted to be.

I came back to the UK and completed a post graduate degree to let me teach. I found work as a substitute and short term contracts and enjoyed what I was doing - I was even pretty good at it. This is where things went down hill.

Maliciously and without knowing why a parent made an accusation against e. I don't know if it was because she didn't like me or perhaps even if it was because of my sexuality. I won't go into the accusation but it wasn't nice. This really hit me hard.

I lost everything, confidence, job, finances, happiness - everything.

I cant remember too much about what happened and when, but I was prescribed vallium and was pretty close to killing myself (a number of times). I guess that I never did anything because of the effort it would have taken.

I frequently had horrific nightmares, but when I woke I was terrified but had no idea what off.

Things were bad and didn't get much better for a long time. I remember describing to someone that it felt like I was covered in a thick, black goo that when you tried to take it off it just got worse. I was screaming on the inside but nobody could hear. I was medicated and seen a counsellor and slowly things improved, to where I am now. I'm still not the person I was.

Recently I have suffered from anxiety and waves of emptiness - which I don't like... which is why I found here.

Ultimately, someone with an unknown motive has stolen 6 years of my life.

Welcome,

I've had the same thing happen in my life a couple of times.

I had a substitute teaching job that I thought would turn into a full time gig if I could pull it off. I had one young man who would never cooperate in class, and whose parent's never called me back. For example the young man refused to bring a pencil to class, and made a big deal of breaking the pencils students or I loaned him. I looked up what to do about the problem online and someone suggested crayons. I moved the young man to the front row, and told the class that anyone who did not have a pencil would have to borrow crayons from me, one crayon per class. I had to sweep up the kid's broken crayons and clean his desk after each class, but the control made a difference to other kids in the class. One day I was walking outside on break and saw the kid's mom pick him up. I told her about the problems I was having with her son and that I would really appreciate if she and her husband could meet with me. The kid told his mom that I was humiliating him in class by "making him write with crayons", and that I was stalking him in the halls. The mom called the superintendent, who called the principal, who called the vice principal, who told me I was let go. After that I decided I cared to much to be a teacher.

When I read your post I thought about a biography I read last year:
"The Invention of Nature" by Andrea Wulf about Alexander von Humboldt.

The book is about great dreams and deeds, and how hard it is for the best of us to turn one into the other.