Chris says he had a regular childhood however his father did leave when he was only five years old and this is something that has always been at the back of his mind bothering him.
In the last year of school he was wrongly diagnosed with lymph node cancer, he was very very ill in and out of hospital, on his 16th birthday his mum and step dad were told it was glandular fever.
He still managed to pass all of his exams with grades C and above and was offered a place in sixth form however he didn’t really appreciate it and got kicked out. Chris had a few jobs, got kicked out of home a couple of times, as he describes it, ‘I was a bit of a scally.’ Then one evening he was in a car crash with a friend, they had written of the car of that belonged to his friends mum, he was delivered back home by the police which is when his mum dared him to join the army, so he did, just because he knew she didn’t really mean it. However it was the best thing he ever did.
Shortly after completing his training h was sent to Germany for three years. It was the best three years where he worked hard and played hard. While stationed there he was deployed to both Bosnia and Iraq.
Chris got married very young in a whirlwinds typical military style romance. His first daughter was born premature with lots of issues, thankfully she survived and is fine now but his wife suffered post natal depression the whole situation was hard on them both. Chris admits that he hadn’t grown up himself when all of that happened. A second daughter came along but money worries and the day to day grind of a military lifestyle ultimately drove them apart. The divorce was when Chris really noticed for the first time that he was going backwards, he didn’t want to see anyone, or interact at all and then he turned to alcohol as a coping mechanism.
A friend went through a similar break up not long after Chris went through his, he and some other mates rallied around their friend but he got posted away by the army. Tragically this friend killed himself a couple of weeks after arriving at his new posting. Chris was inconsolable and felt a lot of anger towards the army. This was the beginning of the end of his army career. The relief of making the decision to leave gave Chris a temporary boost however when it came to actually walking out the gates he’d not got anything planned for the future. He ended up out in Afghanistan doing close protection. His working days kept him busy but overall he became isolated and this began to really take its toll and drive his mental health down. He would argue with his then girlfriend over facetime and take out his frustrations on her. One evening they had a particularly heated argument and Chris found himself crying, which was beyond unusual for him as he had been told as a kid that he needed to show more emotion. He reached for his pistol and pointed it at himself. Thankfully in that moment he didn’t pull the trigger, he did however start making a plan to go back to the UK and start over again, even though he didn’t really feel like he had anything worth going back to. Despite his girlfriend and daughters he really didn’t feel any joy.
He moved back to his home town of Leeds and found a job however the emotions that remained un dealt with were always at the back of his mind bottled up, the smallest irrational thing would make him flash (get really angry) he soon realised that he couldn’t carry on like that and sought help, he was referred to a charity called Save our Soldier. He had already had two counselling sessions after his first daughter was born prematurely but it wasn’t for him, it actually made him feel worse. Save our Soldier helped him learn some Cognitive Behavioural Therapy techniques, breathing and visualisation.
As part of his healing Chris also started a blog to try and help others speak out about their own mental health issues. He now channels his energy into charity challenges raising money for some great organisations such a Front line child.
You can follow Chris on twitter @justchriskelly.
Негізгі бет Chris Kelly - I was so low I considered shooting myself
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