Sam’s story

Trigger Warning- Emotional Abuse, Self Harm

I had a lot of self confidence issues throughout my teenage years, mainly due to bullying at school. I was quite big so I was the victim of the usual fat jokes. And I would say that this was where my depression stemmed from.

I struggled to make friends, and the few relationships I had formed I struggled to keep. And this meant that I didn’t look after myself at all. After school, when I was out in the “real world” I found it was different. You don’t get many adults come up to you making fat jokes.

Everything was okay until I got with my son’s Mum. (A bit of background information, I have two kids who I love dearly, a son and a daughter- both with different Mum’s).

At the beginning of us, everything was good. Until she started trying to put me down because of my weight, how I looked, the way people viewed me. All of it. All of my depression and anxiety came back at full force at this point. And she knew, that was the worst part, that she knew.

She knew she was making me feel like that. Yet she continued to just put me down, time after time. And I never spoke to anyone.

My biggest issue was that I never spoke to anyone and that was why I took everything out on my daughters mother when we got together.

Within my relationship with my daughters mum, it all came out in her direction and she really didn’t deserve it. She understood but she never tried to help.

Towards the end of our relationship she too became verbally and emotionally abusive- mainly by telling me I was mentally unstable (constantly).

We split up last August and since then I’ve had such bad spirals of depression and anxiety. These days it doesn’t affect me much, but before it stopped me going to work, getting out of bed, looking after myself.

I’ve always looked after my kids. They have always been my priority and everything else got pushed to the back when it comes to them. Yet once it came to the weekend when I was by myself everything would come out.

And this was when I found myself self harming.

I’d self harmed in the past, in my teenage years, but nothing until after my breakup with my daughters mum.

These days, I actually talk to people about what’s going on. Or, at least, I try to. Because in my experience, keeping everything locked inside and surprising it didn’t help anyone.

Sam didn’t leave an Instagram- however the message here is that you should always talk to people. That you should let people in instead of just shutting them out. If you would like to see more about how Sam’s family were affected by his disorder- feel free to look at the ‘family’ page and find that part of his story there.