Mental Health Discussion & Check-In Thread

Apologies in advance, this may be somewhat lengthy - weirdly, and for reasons that I can’t explain I feel like I can talk about this here and maybe find some answers, more so than I can posting anonymously on somewhere like Reddit.

I feel like I’m going a bit mental, but in a usually very calm but occasionally fairly spontaneous way. For brevity there will be bits missing, but I’ll see if I can give some context.

I was in the police for a number of years, as you can imagine regardless of what you think of your police service, you see some things. I’d begun to struggle a bit with the negativity of it all, but the breaking point was I had a run of things I went to, that, from having joined as a youngster from a good, loving upbringing, I think had a larger effect on my naive brain.

The first really big thing that happened, was a guy having a domestic with his wife, just a row, but he had fairly severe MH issues. The nature of their row meant no offences were committed. They were both tenants and as much as we suggested it, we couldn’t actually make anyone leave to cool off. As we got back in the car, my colleague said “they’re the sort that go on to kill each other one day”. Fast forward about 8 months, and we’re called there really early morning - he had jumped off the 8th floor balcony. We arrived first and as you can imagine an entire block of people watching from their own balconies. He wasn’t making it, trust me. However in the police you have to be shown to be making the effort, we tried CPR, and you won’t be shocked to know he didn’t make it. One year to the day later, different shift (evening this time) we’re called back. On arrival, rather than go to the back where an injured person has been seen, I climb 9 flights (lift was broke) to the flat we were told on route she was from. It was his girlfriend. She had gone to their friends upstairs, and whilst he was putting the kettle on, she jumped off his 9th floor balcony. Again, colleagues pointlessly tried first aid - useless. She had a shrine to him in her room over in the other block where they had moved her to post him taking his own life.

It affected me quite badly because what my brain couldn’t deal with was, we did 6 on, 4 off. It’s a year later, people were on leave, called for court, aid in London, events, you could be tied up at another call - yet somehow, I was on shift again a year to the day, free to respond, and got their first both times. So, the ‘fate’ of it, messed me up a bit. I think after that point I was headed downwards.

I got through another year or so, then I had… a bit of a week. As I say 6 on, 4 off. My run this week involved:

Monday: Car accident following another domestic where the male went out and got in his car half dressed and sped off into the country lanes with his shirt off, he’d been drinking - I went looking for him, very large single car accident, he didn’t have a seatbelt on and had rolled it, due to his position he had come half out of his window, and the car had rolled over on him - traffic investigation suggested three or four times. I got there first, it was….messy.

Tuesday: Nothing!

Wednesday: Called to a house. Recovering alcoholic had spent a few months clean, his wife had got so use to him being an alcoholic that his ‘new’ personality wasn’t for her, she said she didn’t recognise him anymore and told him she was off to bed, but the next day she would be packing her bags and leaving him. She woke to a clicking sound. He had hung himself using electrical cord wrapped round the blades of a ceiling fan, the clicking was the fan no longer being able to turn. I got their first.

Thursday: Called by a family at a hospital, baby had just been born. Dad had gone home to get the car seat as mum and baby were ready to come home. He had been ages, mums brother and dad had gone to the house to find him, not been able to and called us as all doors were locked from the inside and they couldn’t get in. You guessed it, I got there first. I was worried enough that I ended up crowbarring and bending up a corner of the garage door just to get inside the house, as I crawled in through the corner, I saw his feet. They weren’t touching the floor, he had hung himself from a rafter in the garage using his belt. A note on the kitchen side just said he was sorry and the baby was beautiful.

Friday: I probably should have mentioned, this all takes place in the winter months. Call from a neighbour, hasn’t seen the people next door and is worried because their boiler was broken and it had been snowing. Their landlord had been refusing to fix it. Turned up and of course out the door in eventually - mum had two little boys, due to the boiler being broken, they had filled the bath using a kettle and by the look of it had all climbed in together. Apparently, not warm enough, it looked like an electric heater had also been taken over and sat on the edge of the bath… you know the rest. Only benefit here? I got there second or third - I don’t remember at this point.

Saturday: I asked for a day as gaoler, all good.

It wasn’t long after this that I started feeling like I didn’t want to be around anymore, I was dreaming about all of these cases and in my dreams, I was replacing the people involved. It made me heavily depressed, and I began thinking about suicide. I love my family, so I struggled to want to do anything to myself, but I was VERY open to being involved in something that would make it happen FOR me.

Long story short, I end up in a fair bit of counselling - the type where a middle aged person nods at you and says “mmm” a lot without actually offering you answers. I became HUGELY socially awkward, withdrew from friends, I still do not like being around people, conversation, parties, family gatherings - my idea of hell. People speak about social anxiety, Asperger’s, autism, ADHD… but tbh, I don’t where one bit of what I feel starts and where the next begins anymore.

I had to go to the MH team and I left my job. They had a number of sessions with me, and said “possible bi polar” or “Severe depression with psychotic episodes” I’ve never really been told which stuck, but they put me on meds for psychosis and depression which I took for about 8 years. At which point, I felt I was in a better place, and didn’t need them anymore so I stopped taking them.

I should have mentioned, I was voluntarily unemployed for a couple of months whilst trying to get my head sorted - I didn’t claim any benefits, I did some creative bits of work and sold them for cash (painting etc) after two months, I got a job back at the bottom of a ladder and have been working up again since.

I occasionally have mood spikes. I occasionally have some very impulsive behaviours. Not gambling or harmful etc.

I have a job now where very occasionally I have to speak to large audiences, I manage to do it, usually with a piece of elastic round my hand to ping to kill the anxiety in bursts. I also plan large events which are attended by many people and last all day… and I don’t eat at them, as I feel like I can’t eat in front of people. My overthinking is INSANE. A small disagreement will trouble me for weeks and I will replay it all weekend in my head, re have conversations out loud, and beat myself up about it endlessly. I’m doing it currently, because a woman at work CONSTANTLY refers to anything the rest of us do as already having been done by the lady who used to work here and do my job. Anytime someone gets the faintest bit of praise “Oh Karen did that before a while ago you know” and I find it really belittling, as do a lot of the others on the team, I snapped a couple days ago and replied to an email saying exactly how I felt, and pointing out that she always asks for respect as the longest serving member of staff and I think it should be mutual and she knows to show more respect to others on the team. I think it’s… ruffled some feathers. I’m not in trouble, it’s fine on that sense. Now though I’ve spent the last two days going over and over and over and over it in my head and justifying it, or beating myself up for it. I do this with EVERYTHING and it is EXHAUSTING.

I feel like I’ve become a very irritable, angry, deeply dark inside human being, but weirdly, at work and when I need to with family, I can turn up and be sunshine and light and chatty and I’m essentially playing a character. I’ve got through job interviews previously by copying character traits of confident people on TV. Which leads me to now wonder… am I an absolute psychopath??

I have no idea what to do about my moods, behaviours, anxiety, overthinking, or any of it anymore. I’m functional daily without meds, and hold down a good, well paid job. I have absolutely zero idea what is wrong with me though and I’m not sure how to fix it.

Randomly, a Spurs forum seems a good place to chuck this, and it’s fair to say that bastarding season we just finished didn’t help either! I guess I wonder if I’m alone in this, or if I just sound very unwell.

Sorry, very long post!

Rafa87 said:

Apologies in advance, this may be somewhat lengthy - weirdly, and for reasons that I can’t explain I feel like I can talk about this here and maybe find some answers, more so than I can posting anonymously on somewhere like Reddit.

I feel like I’m going a bit mental, but in a usually very calm but occasionally fairly spontaneous way. For brevity there will be bits missing, but I’ll see if I can give some context.

I was in the police for a number of years, as you can imagine regardless of what you think of your police service, you see some things. I’d begun to struggle a bit with the negativity of it all, but the breaking point was I had a run of things I went to, that, from having joined as a youngster from a good, loving upbringing, I think had a larger effect on my naive brain.

The first really big thing that happened, was a guy having a domestic with his wife, just a row, but he had fairly severe MH issues. The nature of their row meant no offences were committed. They were both tenants and as much as we suggested it, we couldn’t actually make anyone leave to cool off. As we got back in the car, my colleague said “they’re the sort that go on to kill each other one day”. Fast forward about 8 months, and we’re called there really early morning - he had jumped off the 8th floor balcony. We arrived first and as you can imagine an entire block of people watching from their own balconies. He wasn’t making it, trust me. However in the police you have to be shown to be making the effort, we tried CPR, and you won’t be shocked to know he didn’t make it. One year to the day later, different shift (evening this time) we’re called back. On arrival, rather than go to the back where an injured person has been seen, I climb 9 flights (lift was broke) to the flat we were told on route she was from. It was his girlfriend. She had gone to their friends upstairs, and whilst he was putting the kettle on, she jumped off his 9th floor balcony. Again, colleagues pointlessly tried first aid - useless. She had a shrine to him in her room over in the other block where they had moved her to post him taking his own life.

It affected me quite badly because what my brain couldn’t deal with was, we did 6 on, 4 off. It’s a year later, people were on leave, called for court, aid in London, events, you could be tied up at another call - yet somehow, I was on shift again a year to the day, free to respond, and got their first both times. So, the ‘fate’ of it, messed me up a bit. I think after that point I was headed downwards.

I got through another year or so, then I had… a bit of a week. As I say 6 on, 4 off. My run this week involved:

Monday: Car accident following another domestic where the male went out and got in his car half dressed and sped off into the country lanes with his shirt off, he’d been drinking - I went looking for him, very large single car accident, he didn’t have a seatbelt on and had rolled it, due to his position he had come half out of his window, and the car had rolled over on him - traffic investigation suggested three or four times. I got there first, it was….messy.

Tuesday: Nothing!

Wednesday: Called to a house. Recovering alcoholic had spent a few months clean, his wife had got so use to him being an alcoholic that his ‘new’ personality wasn’t for her, she said she didn’t recognise him anymore and told him she was off to bed, but the next day she would be packing her bags and leaving him. She woke to a clicking sound. He had hung himself using electrical cord wrapped round the blades of a ceiling fan, the clicking was the fan no longer being able to turn. I got their first.

Thursday: Called by a family at a hospital, baby had just been born. Dad had gone home to get the car seat as mum and baby were ready to come home. He had been ages, mums brother and dad had gone to the house to find him, not been able to and called us as all doors were locked from the inside and they couldn’t get in. You guessed it, I got there first. I was worried enough that I ended up crowbarring and bending up a corner of the garage door just to get inside the house, as I crawled in through the corner, I saw his feet. They weren’t touching the floor, he had hung himself from a rafter in the garage using his belt. A note on the kitchen side just said he was sorry and the baby was beautiful.

Friday: I probably should have mentioned, this all takes place in the winter months. Call from a neighbour, hasn’t seen the people next door and is worried because their boiler was broken and it had been snowing. Their landlord had been refusing to fix it. Turned up and of course out the door in eventually - mum had two little boys, due to the boiler being broken, they had filled the bath using a kettle and by the look of it had all climbed in together. Apparently, not warm enough, it looked like an electric heater had also been taken over and sat on the edge of the bath… you know the rest. Only benefit here? I got there second or third - I don’t remember at this point.

Saturday: I asked for a day as gaoler, all good.

It wasn’t long after this that I started feeling like I didn’t want to be around anymore, I was dreaming about all of these cases and in my dreams, I was replacing the people involved. It made me heavily depressed, and I began thinking about suicide. I love my family, so I struggled to want to do anything to myself, but I was VERY open to being involved in something that would make it happen FOR me.

Long story short, I end up in a fair bit of counselling - the type where a middle aged person nods at you and says “mmm” a lot without actually offering you answers. I became HUGELY socially awkward, withdrew from friends, I still do not like being around people, conversation, parties, family gatherings - my idea of hell. People speak about social anxiety, Asperger’s, autism, ADHD… but tbh, I don’t where one bit of what I feel starts and where the next begins anymore.

I had to go to the MH team and I left my job. They had a number of sessions with me, and said “possible bi polar” or “Severe depression with psychotic episodes” I’ve never really been told which stuck, but they put me on meds for psychosis and depression which I took for about 8 years. At which point, I felt I was in a better place, and didn’t need them anymore so I stopped taking them.

I should have mentioned, I was voluntarily unemployed for a couple of months whilst trying to get my head sorted - I didn’t claim any benefits, I did some creative bits of work and sold them for cash (painting etc) after two months, I got a job back at the bottom of a ladder and have been working up again since.

I occasionally have mood spikes. I occasionally have some very impulsive behaviours. Not gambling or harmful etc.

I have a job now where very occasionally I have to speak to large audiences, I manage to do it, usually with a piece of elastic round my hand to ping to kill the anxiety in bursts. I also plan large events which are attended by many people and last all day… and I don’t eat at them, as I feel like I can’t eat in front of people. My overthinking is INSANE. A small disagreement will trouble me for weeks and I will replay it all weekend in my head, re have conversations out loud, and beat myself up about it endlessly. I’m doing it currently, because a woman at work CONSTANTLY refers to anything the rest of us do as already having been done by the lady who used to work here and do my job. Anytime someone gets the faintest bit of praise “Oh Karen did that before a while ago you know” and I find it really belittling, as do a lot of the others on the team, I snapped a couple days ago and replied to an email saying exactly how I felt, and pointing out that she always asks for respect as the longest serving member of staff and I think it should be mutual and she knows to show more respect to others on the team. I think it’s… ruffled some feathers. I’m not in trouble, it’s fine on that sense. Now though I’ve spent the last two days going over and over and over and over it in my head and justifying it, or beating myself up for it. I do this with EVERYTHING and it is EXHAUSTING.

I feel like I’ve become a very irritable, angry, deeply dark inside human being, but weirdly, at work and when I need to with family, I can turn up and be sunshine and light and chatty and I’m essentially playing a character. I’ve got through job interviews previously by copying character traits of confident people on TV. Which leads me to now wonder… am I an absolute psychopath??

I have no idea what to do about my moods, behaviours, anxiety, overthinking, or any of it anymore. I’m functional daily without meds, and hold down a good, well paid job. I have absolutely zero idea what is wrong with me though and I’m not sure how to fix it.

Randomly, a Spurs forum seems a good place to chuck this, and it’s fair to say that bastarding season we just finished didn’t help either! I guess I wonder if I’m alone in this, or if I just sound very unwell.

Sorry, very long post!

Click to expand...

Check PMs mate

Rafa87 said:

Apologies in advance, this may be somewhat lengthy - weirdly, and for reasons that I can’t explain I feel like I can talk about this here and maybe find some answers, more so than I can posting anonymously on somewhere like Reddit.

I feel like I’m going a bit mental, but in a usually very calm but occasionally fairly spontaneous way. For brevity there will be bits missing, but I’ll see if I can give some context.

I was in the police for a number of years, as you can imagine regardless of what you think of your police service, you see some things. I’d begun to struggle a bit with the negativity of it all, but the breaking point was I had a run of things I went to, that, from having joined as a youngster from a good, loving upbringing, I think had a larger effect on my naive brain.

The first really big thing that happened, was a guy having a domestic with his wife, just a row, but he had fairly severe MH issues. The nature of their row meant no offences were committed. They were both tenants and as much as we suggested it, we couldn’t actually make anyone leave to cool off. As we got back in the car, my colleague said “they’re the sort that go on to kill each other one day”. Fast forward about 8 months, and we’re called there really early morning - he had jumped off the 8th floor balcony. We arrived first and as you can imagine an entire block of people watching from their own balconies. He wasn’t making it, trust me. However in the police you have to be shown to be making the effort, we tried CPR, and you won’t be shocked to know he didn’t make it. One year to the day later, different shift (evening this time) we’re called back. On arrival, rather than go to the back where an injured person has been seen, I climb 9 flights (lift was broke) to the flat we were told on route she was from. It was his girlfriend. She had gone to their friends upstairs, and whilst he was putting the kettle on, she jumped off his 9th floor balcony. Again, colleagues pointlessly tried first aid - useless. She had a shrine to him in her room over in the other block where they had moved her to post him taking his own life.

It affected me quite badly because what my brain couldn’t deal with was, we did 6 on, 4 off. It’s a year later, people were on leave, called for court, aid in London, events, you could be tied up at another call - yet somehow, I was on shift again a year to the day, free to respond, and got their first both times. So, the ‘fate’ of it, messed me up a bit. I think after that point I was headed downwards.

I got through another year or so, then I had… a bit of a week. As I say 6 on, 4 off. My run this week involved:

Monday: Car accident following another domestic where the male went out and got in his car half dressed and sped off into the country lanes with his shirt off, he’d been drinking - I went looking for him, very large single car accident, he didn’t have a seatbelt on and had rolled it, due to his position he had come half out of his window, and the car had rolled over on him - traffic investigation suggested three or four times. I got there first, it was….messy.

Tuesday: Nothing!

Wednesday: Called to a house. Recovering alcoholic had spent a few months clean, his wife had got so use to him being an alcoholic that his ‘new’ personality wasn’t for her, she said she didn’t recognise him anymore and told him she was off to bed, but the next day she would be packing her bags and leaving him. She woke to a clicking sound. He had hung himself using electrical cord wrapped round the blades of a ceiling fan, the clicking was the fan no longer being able to turn. I got their first.

Thursday: Called by a family at a hospital, baby had just been born. Dad had gone home to get the car seat as mum and baby were ready to come home. He had been ages, mums brother and dad had gone to the house to find him, not been able to and called us as all doors were locked from the inside and they couldn’t get in. You guessed it, I got there first. I was worried enough that I ended up crowbarring and bending up a corner of the garage door just to get inside the house, as I crawled in through the corner, I saw his feet. They weren’t touching the floor, he had hung himself from a rafter in the garage using his belt. A note on the kitchen side just said he was sorry and the baby was beautiful.

Friday: I probably should have mentioned, this all takes place in the winter months. Call from a neighbour, hasn’t seen the people next door and is worried because their boiler was broken and it had been snowing. Their landlord had been refusing to fix it. Turned up and of course out the door in eventually - mum had two little boys, due to the boiler being broken, they had filled the bath using a kettle and by the look of it had all climbed in together. Apparently, not warm enough, it looked like an electric heater had also been taken over and sat on the edge of the bath… you know the rest. Only benefit here? I got there second or third - I don’t remember at this point.

Saturday: I asked for a day as gaoler, all good.

It wasn’t long after this that I started feeling like I didn’t want to be around anymore, I was dreaming about all of these cases and in my dreams, I was replacing the people involved. It made me heavily depressed, and I began thinking about suicide. I love my family, so I struggled to want to do anything to myself, but I was VERY open to being involved in something that would make it happen FOR me.

Long story short, I end up in a fair bit of counselling - the type where a middle aged person nods at you and says “mmm” a lot without actually offering you answers. I became HUGELY socially awkward, withdrew from friends, I still do not like being around people, conversation, parties, family gatherings - my idea of hell. People speak about social anxiety, Asperger’s, autism, ADHD… but tbh, I don’t where one bit of what I feel starts and where the next begins anymore.

I had to go to the MH team and I left my job. They had a number of sessions with me, and said “possible bi polar” or “Severe depression with psychotic episodes” I’ve never really been told which stuck, but they put me on meds for psychosis and depression which I took for about 8 years. At which point, I felt I was in a better place, and didn’t need them anymore so I stopped taking them.

I should have mentioned, I was voluntarily unemployed for a couple of months whilst trying to get my head sorted - I didn’t claim any benefits, I did some creative bits of work and sold them for cash (painting etc) after two months, I got a job back at the bottom of a ladder and have been working up again since.

I occasionally have mood spikes. I occasionally have some very impulsive behaviours. Not gambling or harmful etc.

I have a job now where very occasionally I have to speak to large audiences, I manage to do it, usually with a piece of elastic round my hand to ping to kill the anxiety in bursts. I also plan large events which are attended by many people and last all day… and I don’t eat at them, as I feel like I can’t eat in front of people. My overthinking is INSANE. A small disagreement will trouble me for weeks and I will replay it all weekend in my head, re have conversations out loud, and beat myself up about it endlessly. I’m doing it currently, because a woman at work CONSTANTLY refers to anything the rest of us do as already having been done by the lady who used to work here and do my job. Anytime someone gets the faintest bit of praise “Oh Karen did that before a while ago you know” and I find it really belittling, as do a lot of the others on the team, I snapped a couple days ago and replied to an email saying exactly how I felt, and pointing out that she always asks for respect as the longest serving member of staff and I think it should be mutual and she knows to show more respect to others on the team. I think it’s… ruffled some feathers. I’m not in trouble, it’s fine on that sense. Now though I’ve spent the last two days going over and over and over and over it in my head and justifying it, or beating myself up for it. I do this with EVERYTHING and it is EXHAUSTING.

I feel like I’ve become a very irritable, angry, deeply dark inside human being, but weirdly, at work and when I need to with family, I can turn up and be sunshine and light and chatty and I’m essentially playing a character. I’ve got through job interviews previously by copying character traits of confident people on TV. Which leads me to now wonder… am I an absolute psychopath??

I have no idea what to do about my moods, behaviours, anxiety, overthinking, or any of it anymore. I’m functional daily without meds, and hold down a good, well paid job. I have absolutely zero idea what is wrong with me though and I’m not sure how to fix it.

Randomly, a Spurs forum seems a good place to chuck this, and it’s fair to say that bastarding season we just finished didn’t help either! I guess I wonder if I’m alone in this, or if I just sound very unwell.

Sorry, very long post!

Click to expand...

I must say for starters....you have put me off being a police officer in one post...chapeau to you and the service you provide (provided).

Very brave of you to divulge such issues on a football forum...but your judgement is sound....we are a caring bunch in here.

Did you consider yourself of sound mind before your police job?

thfcsteff said:

Check PMs mate

Click to expand...

Thank you mate, just having a Google of some of the bits you mention, then I’ll come back to you

ricky2tricky4city said:

I must say for starters....you have put me off being a police officer in one post...chapeau to you and the service you provide (provided).

Very brave of you to divulge such issues on a football forum...but your judgement is sound....we are a caring bunch in here.

Did you consider yourself of sound mind before your police job?

Click to expand...

As much as any 19 year old could be I guess. Since I left I’ve often said that as well as a maximum age to be a police officer, there should be a minimum as well, as in rather than saying you’re good to go at 18 (I joined at 19) I think people perhaps need to get to 25 first, a few years out of college or Uni or whatever, just a bit of life experience, as much as even 25 isn’t a huge amount, you aren’t a teenager anymore.

Rafa87 said:

I have a job now where very occasionally I have to speak to large audiences, I manage to do it, usually with a piece of elastic round my hand to ping to kill the anxiety in bursts. I also plan large events which are attended by many people and last all day… and I don’t eat at them, as I feel like I can’t eat in front of people. My overthinking is INSANE. A small disagreement will trouble me for weeks and I will replay it all weekend in my head, re have conversations out loud, and beat myself up about it endlessly. I’m doing it currently, because a woman at work CONSTANTLY refers to anything the rest of us do as already having been done by the lady who used to work here and do my job. Anytime someone gets the faintest bit of praise “Oh Karen did that before a while ago you know” and I find it really belittling, as do a lot of the others on the team, I snapped a couple days ago and replied to an email saying exactly how I felt, and pointing out that she always asks for respect as the longest serving member of staff and I think it should be mutual and she knows to show more respect to others on the team. I think it’s… ruffled some feathers. I’m not in trouble, it’s fine on that sense. Now though I’ve spent the last two days going over and over and over and over it in my head and justifying it, or beating myself up for it. I do this with EVERYTHING and it is EXHAUSTING.

I feel like I’ve become a very irritable, angry, deeply dark inside human being, but weirdly, at work and when I need to with family, I can turn up and be sunshine and light and chatty and I’m essentially playing a character. I’ve got through job interviews previously by copying character traits of confident people on TV. Which leads me to now wonder… am I an absolute psychopath??

I have no idea what to do about my moods, behaviours, anxiety, overthinking, or any of it anymore. I’m functional daily without meds, and hold down a good, well paid job. I have absolutely zero idea what is wrong with me though and I’m not sure how to fix it.

Randomly, a Spurs forum seems a good place to chuck this, and it’s fair to say that bastarding season we just finished didn’t help either! I guess I wonder if I’m alone in this, or if I just sound very unwell.

Sorry, very long post!

Click to expand...

Mate, firstly hats off for opening up so much, takes alot, I hope that just in doing so means a weight is off, even if its small.

The bolded part hit me as this is me, in a nutshell. Not to be arrogant but I have been in my industry for 20 odd years and am fairly well known to it, seen as a thought leader and talented at my job, but I, even not sit here with massive imposter syndrome. I can talk 1 - 1 all day about things workwise and get things done, but in a group I get the feeling I don't belong. Its been debilitating to an extent until the last couple of years where something clicked in me, I think from being my own boss now where I don't care. But honestly crowd talking, event planning, eating in front of others and other thinking......yeh thats me

My biggest I would say MH issue now is anxiety to how fast the world moves day to day, I just feel like I can't keep up at times, everything seems in a rush, someone told me thats a sign of ADHD, I have days where I am really on and others where brain fog hits and I cant even formulate a simple email reply.

I hope sincerely you are well mate, not that it should matter but you are a poster on here I enjoy, if ever you need to shout in private my PMs are open

BTW, I cut your message down in reply because of this, not me being rude hahaha

Rafa87 said:

Thank you mate, just having a Google of some of the bits you mention, then I’ll come back to you



As much as any 19 year old could be I guess. Since I left I’ve often said that as well as a maximum age to be a police officer, there should be a minimum as well, as in rather than saying you’re good to go at 18 (I joined at 19) I think people perhaps need to get to 25 first, a few years out of college or Uni or whatever, just a bit of life experience, as much as even 25 isn’t a huge amount, you aren’t a teenager anymore.

Click to expand...

I think given what you posted previously and thinking of my own goodself at 18/19... you're 100% right, and furthermore I can't see any reasoning why anyone, including the Police force, would think any different.

Rafa87 said:

Apologies in advance, this may be somewhat lengthy - weirdly, and for reasons that I can’t explain I feel like I can talk about this here and maybe find some answers, more so than I can posting anonymously on somewhere like Reddit.

I feel like I’m going a bit mental, but in a usually very calm but occasionally fairly spontaneous way. For brevity there will be bits missing, but I’ll see if I can give some context.

I was in the police for a number of years, as you can imagine regardless of what you think of your police service, you see some things. I’d begun to struggle a bit with the negativity of it all, but the breaking point was I had a run of things I went to, that, from having joined as a youngster from a good, loving upbringing, I think had a larger effect on my naive brain.

The first really big thing that happened, was a guy having a domestic with his wife, just a row, but he had fairly severe MH issues. The nature of their row meant no offences were committed. They were both tenants and as much as we suggested it, we couldn’t actually make anyone leave to cool off. As we got back in the car, my colleague said “they’re the sort that go on to kill each other one day”. Fast forward about 8 months, and we’re called there really early morning - he had jumped off the 8th floor balcony. We arrived first and as you can imagine an entire block of people watching from their own balconies. He wasn’t making it, trust me. However in the police you have to be shown to be making the effort, we tried CPR, and you won’t be shocked to know he didn’t make it. One year to the day later, different shift (evening this time) we’re called back. On arrival, rather than go to the back where an injured person has been seen, I climb 9 flights (lift was broke) to the flat we were told on route she was from. It was his girlfriend. She had gone to their friends upstairs, and whilst he was putting the kettle on, she jumped off his 9th floor balcony. Again, colleagues pointlessly tried first aid - useless. She had a shrine to him in her room over in the other block where they had moved her to post him taking his own life.

It affected me quite badly because what my brain couldn’t deal with was, we did 6 on, 4 off. It’s a year later, people were on leave, called for court, aid in London, events, you could be tied up at another call - yet somehow, I was on shift again a year to the day, free to respond, and got their first both times. So, the ‘fate’ of it, messed me up a bit. I think after that point I was headed downwards.

I got through another year or so, then I had… a bit of a week. As I say 6 on, 4 off. My run this week involved:

Monday: Car accident following another domestic where the male went out and got in his car half dressed and sped off into the country lanes with his shirt off, he’d been drinking - I went looking for him, very large single car accident, he didn’t have a seatbelt on and had rolled it, due to his position he had come half out of his window, and the car had rolled over on him - traffic investigation suggested three or four times. I got there first, it was….messy.

Tuesday: Nothing!

Wednesday: Called to a house. Recovering alcoholic had spent a few months clean, his wife had got so use to him being an alcoholic that his ‘new’ personality wasn’t for her, she said she didn’t recognise him anymore and told him she was off to bed, but the next day she would be packing her bags and leaving him. She woke to a clicking sound. He had hung himself using electrical cord wrapped round the blades of a ceiling fan, the clicking was the fan no longer being able to turn. I got their first.

Thursday: Called by a family at a hospital, baby had just been born. Dad had gone home to get the car seat as mum and baby were ready to come home. He had been ages, mums brother and dad had gone to the house to find him, not been able to and called us as all doors were locked from the inside and they couldn’t get in. You guessed it, I got there first. I was worried enough that I ended up crowbarring and bending up a corner of the garage door just to get inside the house, as I crawled in through the corner, I saw his feet. They weren’t touching the floor, he had hung himself from a rafter in the garage using his belt. A note on the kitchen side just said he was sorry and the baby was beautiful.

Friday: I probably should have mentioned, this all takes place in the winter months. Call from a neighbour, hasn’t seen the people next door and is worried because their boiler was broken and it had been snowing. Their landlord had been refusing to fix it. Turned up and of course out the door in eventually - mum had two little boys, due to the boiler being broken, they had filled the bath using a kettle and by the look of it had all climbed in together. Apparently, not warm enough, it looked like an electric heater had also been taken over and sat on the edge of the bath… you know the rest. Only benefit here? I got there second or third - I don’t remember at this point.

Saturday: I asked for a day as gaoler, all good.

It wasn’t long after this that I started feeling like I didn’t want to be around anymore, I was dreaming about all of these cases and in my dreams, I was replacing the people involved. It made me heavily depressed, and I began thinking about suicide. I love my family, so I struggled to want to do anything to myself, but I was VERY open to being involved in something that would make it happen FOR me.

Long story short, I end up in a fair bit of counselling - the type where a middle aged person nods at you and says “mmm” a lot without actually offering you answers. I became HUGELY socially awkward, withdrew from friends, I still do not like being around people, conversation, parties, family gatherings - my idea of hell. People speak about social anxiety, Asperger’s, autism, ADHD… but tbh, I don’t where one bit of what I feel starts and where the next begins anymore.

I had to go to the MH team and I left my job. They had a number of sessions with me, and said “possible bi polar” or “Severe depression with psychotic episodes” I’ve never really been told which stuck, but they put me on meds for psychosis and depression which I took for about 8 years. At which point, I felt I was in a better place, and didn’t need them anymore so I stopped taking them.

I should have mentioned, I was voluntarily unemployed for a couple of months whilst trying to get my head sorted - I didn’t claim any benefits, I did some creative bits of work and sold them for cash (painting etc) after two months, I got a job back at the bottom of a ladder and have been working up again since.

I occasionally have mood spikes. I occasionally have some very impulsive behaviours. Not gambling or harmful etc.

I have a job now where very occasionally I have to speak to large audiences, I manage to do it, usually with a piece of elastic round my hand to ping to kill the anxiety in bursts. I also plan large events which are attended by many people and last all day… and I don’t eat at them, as I feel like I can’t eat in front of people. My overthinking is INSANE. A small disagreement will trouble me for weeks and I will replay it all weekend in my head, re have conversations out loud, and beat myself up about it endlessly. I’m doing it currently, because a woman at work CONSTANTLY refers to anything the rest of us do as already having been done by the lady who used to work here and do my job. Anytime someone gets the faintest bit of praise “Oh Karen did that before a while ago you know” and I find it really belittling, as do a lot of the others on the team, I snapped a couple days ago and replied to an email saying exactly how I felt, and pointing out that she always asks for respect as the longest serving member of staff and I think it should be mutual and she knows to show more respect to others on the team. I think it’s… ruffled some feathers. I’m not in trouble, it’s fine on that sense. Now though I’ve spent the last two days going over and over and over and over it in my head and justifying it, or beating myself up for it. I do this with EVERYTHING and it is EXHAUSTING.

I feel like I’ve become a very irritable, angry, deeply dark inside human being, but weirdly, at work and when I need to with family, I can turn up and be sunshine and light and chatty and I’m essentially playing a character. I’ve got through job interviews previously by copying character traits of confident people on TV. Which leads me to now wonder… am I an absolute psychopath??

I have no idea what to do about my moods, behaviours, anxiety, overthinking, or any of it anymore. I’m functional daily without meds, and hold down a good, well paid job. I have absolutely zero idea what is wrong with me though and I’m not sure how to fix it.

Randomly, a Spurs forum seems a good place to chuck this, and it’s fair to say that bastarding season we just finished didn’t help either! I guess I wonder if I’m alone in this, or if I just sound very unwell.

Sorry, very long post!

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A psychopath is someone without empathy, which you clearly are not. I'd argue you'd need to be a psychopath to not be phased by what you've seen. It would definitely send me nuts seeing that.

As others have said already, hats off to you for having the courage to speak to a random bunch of strangers on a football forum (although from my own personal experiences I know there’s some really good, caring people here) and deciding to take on a job that quite frankly, most people just couldn’t cope with. Have you been checked for ptsd? I’d be amazed if that’s not contributing to what you’ve gone through post leaving the job.

All the best, my dm’s are always open if you need a chat