I have Post traumatic stress disorder.  When I speak to people and tell them I have PTSD, their usual response is “Oh, have you been in the army?”  I haven’t.  I wish I could say I developed this condition through a far more heroic way of life, but I can’t.

The truth is I had a Protectomy a few years ago to turn me into a Barbie Butt and never truly recovered.

My downward spiral through mental health started that day, of course I didn’t know that at the time.  I went from being pretty active to being in constant pain from the scaring around my spine. As someone that had always worked in the construction industry I couldn’t get my head around the idea that of all the body parts I could have lost my bum hole was the one to go!

The last few years have been incredibly tough for me and my family. I have slowly, gradually, progressively gone from being an extrovert, a joker, the quintessential ‘life-and-soul’ to a prisoner of my own making. Steadily making one bad choice after another. I wore the mask of normality to the outside world but behind closed doors, when I got home with those who really knew me, the deterioration had well and truly started.

Looking back now I can recognise the signs, but I didn’t do anything about it.  I didn’t go to the doctors as I’d lost faith in them and anyway, I wasn’t mentally ill.  That’s what other people have.  I was wrong.  Very wrong.  I urge anyone in a similar position not to follow suit.  Talk to someone, they’ll listen.  Talk to the professionals, there’s no shame in it. I’m currently seeking help before i loose more than I already have.

No matter how often I tell this story I feel very weak.  I didn’t lose a limb fighting for my country in a foreign field; I just became ill.  I know people live with a Barbie Butt for many years without it causing them too many problems but, for me, it changed my life.

Medical PTSD