My Personal Experience

1
My Personal Experience

• By
• Terry Tuffs

2
Introduction

• This is a condensed story of my experiences of
  becoming unwell.
• My name is Terry Tuffs.

3
In The Beginning

• I was brought up in quite a closed family.
• Meeting few other friends.
• My father always new best and undermined my
  confidence.
• Throughout my school days I was very insecure and
  lacking in confidence.

4
Moving on

• I then trained to be a motor vehicle Technician.
• Spent 26 years at this.
• Never felt that I was doing the right thing.
• Stress and Anxiety steadily increased and
  confidence declined.

5
Leading To

• Acute anxiety
• Depression
• Feeling Trapped
• In a dark room with no exit
• Unable to cope with even minor problems.
• Frustration
• Anger
• Guilt

6
Leading To

• Psychosomatic aches and pains, which in turn
  increase stress and anxiety.
• Distress to my wife and children. Which again
  increases the problem.
• Thinking that everyone would be better off
  without me around.

7
Leading To

• Asking for help from Dr, and wife no one seemed
  to be able to help.
• Eventually using a modelling scalpel to start
  cutting myself.
• And then a walk to the local railway line sitting
  by the edge of the track waiting for the next
  express to come along.

8
Road to Recovery

• Having to find my own help at a local MIND where
  I had counselling.
• They had a drop in facility with excellent staff
  who really cared and wanted to help me to move
  on.
• I took anger and stress management courses
• Gradually they helped me to learn about me.

9
Road to Recovery

• Led me to Argyll where I now feel at home.
• I still have all those same feelings as I
  described at the beginning, but I now know what
  is happening and have learned to manage them
  better.

10
Next Steps

• I intend to carry on trying to help people with
  mental health problems as this also helps me.
• At the beginning I said I did not feel I was
  doing the right thing, well now I now what that
  is.
• To help those less able to have a better life,
  they have a right to that.

11
Lastly

• The experiences I went through were to me
  horrific, it still frightens me to think about
  what could have happened.
• Also I would never want to put my wife through
  that again.

12

• Thank you for your time I hope this was of some
  interest
• I will gladly speak to anyone in private if this
  has affected you in any way