A Look in the Mirror

So Apple have just brought out a phone where you stare at the screen and it recognised your face and then opens up a world of everything.

Social media, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat the list goes on, places where we don’t really know anyone and nobody knows us. It opens games, emails, business, spreadsheets, maps, holiday countdown, texts, pictures, memories and so much more! Your phone just looked at your face and opened up so much!

Bizarrely we are happy for this to happen yet as I have found during most of my life is I would stare into a mirror (bigger than a phone but way cheaper!) and be unable to open up to anything! It all crashed and burned and needed a full reboot!

I’m so proud to be part of this new project and I suppose it only polite to introduce my myself. My name is Ian. I work in showbiz under the name of “Roycey” with and for the biggest stars in the world but that’s really unimportant. What’s important is I was sexually abused as a kid, bullied, beaten, lost two best friends, one to suicide and a brother who was just past his 18^th birthday. I found substances and hell, to deal with life, came close to suicide three times, lost a family, friends, business, home, dignity and spirit. Why? I looked in the mirror and couldn’t open me up! I needed a new battery, an upgrade and a better charger!

A few years ago I decided to look in the mirror and start having a conversation about a person I know very well, Me! It was either that or a leap off the end of the platform in front of the fast train of my local train station. I was lost, I was in so much pain, lonely, desperate and at my lowest in life. I was hopeless. Thank goodness I didn’t because I could never share my experience and hope with you. So welcome to my open heart, truth and experience, I’ve also be known to be a bit funny, in fact as I stood at the end of the platform waiting for the fast train and walked away the announcement came over the tannoy “Due to industrial action…..” Sometimes the stuff that annoys us so much can actually turn into a positive!

Today I look into a mirror and see Me, not an app, a social media site, a memory, a posting.  I see me in the “Now” and its free! It took hard work and many dark days but it’s Me, floored, imperfect, slightly mad, very clumsy, quiet sometimes and alone in my head but its me! I love me today and it took over 40 years to get to that place! You know what, I have taken a long time to realise it’s ok not to be ok, it’s ok to be sad sometimes, depressed, alone, in pain, desperate, cry (yes men that’s ok!) and frightened! What’s not ok is to not talk about it.  Trust me I speak from experience, that’s the killer hence why I am proud to be part of this and share my life, experience and hope it may help even one of you. Just one is enough… what a privilege.

Welcome to my world, my head and my heart, look in the mirror you will see me and my open heart and just for you.

As I write over the coming weeks it may not seem relevant to the ethos of this fantastic website and message and it may not even carry any weight but (there is always a but) please re-read my first few paragraphs as the man who writes now was lost, seconds from taking his own life and the lowest point in life. That as I write going forward is the foundation that builds this house, this message, this journey, this share with you.

Some days and weeks you will think “This is pathetic and not inspiring or helpful at all!” All I ask is you return to this first posting. Why? Because I believe that living in my past to help others is counterproductive for both you and me! I will use my experience in the now, and to be honest, if you ask my friends who will tell you my life is anything but dull!

We are about to go on a journey together, you’ll get all of me, I tend not to do anything by halves. This has been both a great thing and a devastating thing in my life but it makes me who am. Nobody is perfect, life is hard, I talk about my mental health and my struggles are real but and its a huge but, everyone, is going through the same at some degree, some greater than others but we all are and that really does make it ok to not be ok at any time.

Gratitude is attitude and I try every day to look at the positives in my life, in fact I make a list (I do love a list, in fact I always add something to it I’ve already done so I can cross it off!) I’ve got a roof over my head, food, an incredible daughter, I’m working, I am reasonably healthy although not ready for a marathon! And more importantly the fast train arrived and I got on it not under it.

Life is so wonderful and I can’t wait to share it with you. Together we can, alone we can’t.

Grab my virtual hug and know we’ve got this thing called life!