Lowline/Male/80

My story would be far too lengthy for the space available here. However, I shall attempt a condensed version.

Born in 1922 in a small coal mining town in Scotland, the eldest son of a collier, I knew from an early age, that I was different to other kids. I had mood swings which were frightening and had recurring nightmares about which I confided in nobody. Scholastically, I suppose I could be described as almost brilliant but there was no money to pursue any professional career.

Left school at the age of fourteen and moved with my family to an industrial area in England. Worked in engineering as an apprentice until the outbreak of W.W.2. when I enlisted in the Royal Navy for the duration of hostilities.

For most of my life up till then I had suffered severely from anxiety, digestive disorders and other vague feelings of general unwellness plus the mood swings of my earlier years. Visits to doctors always failed to detect any physical reason for my symptoms. Even the strict medical examination by Naval doctors showed me to be perfectly fit and well.

During my years in the service I served in many different theatres of the war and I began to have what one might call a death wish---sort of idealising death. These feelings had nothing to do with the war itself and I have continued to have the same type of feelings during the course of my life, at times stronger than other times.

I married early in 1944 and was finally discharged at the end of 1945. Settling back into civilian life I found to be extremely stressful and at the time of one crisis I made my first attempt at suicide which was unsuccessful or I would not be writing this but thoughts of it were never far from my mind. I seemed to live with permanent feelings of unwellness.

I emigrated to Australia with my wife and a family of three young daughters about 50 years ago and pursued my work in engineering for a few years. The mood changes continued along with all the other symptoms of general unwellness and I tired of seeing doctor after doctor and finding no reason for my condition. Often I was haunted by the thought that I was losing my sanity.

Towards the end of the 1950's I was enticed into a life in the business side of engineering by an Australia wide company of which I eventually became the C.E.O. With the position came the necessity for a deal of overseas travel and I took advantage of this to consult various doctors and specialists about my health problems. I was completely unsuccessful in my search for an answer and I continued to contemplate suicide, at various times actually planning how to do it with the least repercussions to my family.

Finally, near the end of 1973 I believed that I was having a nervous breakdown and felt forced to resign from my position. At that time I was REALLY suicidal. How I survived I do not know to this day. For the sake of brevity I will just say that in the 1975 I finally consulted a strange GP who, after a lengthy consultation, unhesitatingly diagnosed me as a "very sick man" and that I was and had been for most of my life, been suffering from the "dreadful disease of Manic Depression and immediately prescribed antidepressant treatment, stating that it would be a very long time before I was really well if I ever became fully well.