Client Story: Hero

One of our clients, Mark, has written a story about his struggle overcoming his condition. He was previously a drama teacher, and so a little flair was in order! This was a treat to read, and we wish Mark nothing but the very best in the future.

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Hero?

The Trojan War lasted for ten years. When it was over, the Greek warrior and general, Odysseus, set off to make his way home to Ithaca. It should have been a journey of a couple of weeks.

It took him another ten years. He was beset by storms, monsters, witches and malevolent gods.

At one point he was in touching distance of home, but was thwarted once again by cruel fate, and was sent years off course once more.

In no way am I equal to this mighty Greek, but I sometimes reflect that I, too, have endured my own Odyssey, fighting awful monsters, feeling that I had almost made it, but then dashed and disappointed. I have spent long, soul destroying ages, bewitched, becalmed, motionless, impotent, inert.

I have been dogged by depression since I was a child. I managed to forge a life, and, incredibly, it seems to me now, had two ‘Professional’ careers, interspersed with several other jobs along the way, including cook, and cleaning bird cages. It was the redundancy process at the end of all this that finally resulted in a terrible breakdown- an implosion- that cast me adrift, and I found myself Lost At Sea.

Odysseus did have one ally- a goddess who tried her best to help him face up to the wicked strokes of fate that befell him. Well, I had my own goddess, who has stuck with me through all of my most demoralising and desperate times. I cannot thank June (and ENABLE) enough for not giving up on me, encouraging and supporting me, and finally guiding me onto firm ground.

Here I am, then, at an end- yet my voyage has gone all the way round back to a beginning!

A new set of adventures to navigate.  A future, a horizon.

Our despairing Odysseus never gave up. He made it. A true Hero. I am living proof that this does not only happen in Greek myths, because I made it- so I must be a Hero, too.