The suggestion by Professor [name] was to have a one to one with a psychologist. She didn’t think I’d benefit from a team thing where we’d all sit round in a circle I think I needed one to one.
And I went and met this psychologist and we basically stripped down why I was depressed and we basically, you know, we went through all the problems in my life. Well the anger about the operation. Did I, you know, had to let go that I wanted to go and see the surgeon. I wanted him to, I wanted answers. I wanted him to tell him why, tell me why that he had done all this and why he had made these mistakes. And she, you know, we sort of broke everything down even to my family life to what things annoyed me at home and what things got in my way, you know, and how we had to deal with like [wife]’s mother was ill at the time. So we had to deal with, you know, that [wife], you know we had to deal with that and I had to deal with it better because I felt as if [wife] was rushing off to see to her mother when I was ill. You know and all this sort of problems I had. And basically it was there where I got the strength back if you like. And basically to regain control and you know calm me.
It was all down to this osteoporosis. It’s, you know, these mental health feelings and so it didn’t just affect my body it affected everything, you know. It’s a lifestyle change that really. It, it especially having a disease like this at my age I think, I think it’s knowing that you have to deal with something. I think we’re all trained to think we have an illness and two weeks later we’ll be better. We take a tablet and it will go away and when it doesn’t go away after so long you... It’s difficult for your carer because your carer is dealing with something that’s that she’s got to answer to and, and it’s awful for her because, you know, it’s not going to go away. So you have to look at it, you have to learn to manage that situation and think, ‘Well I’m not going to get better but I can do this, I can do that. I could, you know, what makes you happy.’ And then I just literally wrote on a piece of paper what, what made me happy.
And this is where the NOS doing the ambassador work for them and talking to groups of people was a blessing in disguise because after I came out the other side of the depression all of a sudden I was strong enough to think, well my life’s empty and they’re asking me to do these things so yeah we could put the two things together and it could work. And it involves me driving the car to different parts of the country which I love doing. I love driving. I used to do it in my job so it’s very similar to my job. I go out and I meet people and then win them over and tell them my story and go away feeling happy. And, and that’s how I’d describe my NOS work. And in the meantime it raises money and it raises awareness. So it, everybody’s, it’s a win/win. So that’s the therapy, that’s my therapy if you like. But it was, this, it was something like probably six to twelve months of going every month to see the, you know this psycho, psychologist and then her finally saying, ‘Well I think you’ve coped with it now. I think you’ve, you know.’
