I went through some of the similar experiences that you did as a child, but now I have learned that it was mostly me putting myself in those situations. I think, and if you believe (not trying to push any religion) that God has a purpose for it, and I am still trying to find what it is.

Then I’m told to go and see one of the teachers. I’m told (in just about the most humiliating way possible) that I won’t be going on the trip. I don’t understand. I got my money in before most people did so there must have been space for me on the trip. I ask for a reason. None is given and, even though I’m young and I could have got the wrong end of the stick, I do sense an element of them enjoying making me feel this bad. As if making me feel bad has really made their day. I burst into tears and get quite upset. My parents complain but they are offered no reason or explanation either.

My friends went on the trip and, the following year, my sister went on the trip so I got to hear all about the trip but I didn’t get to go. Now, there will be some who may say: perhaps you were a disruptive pupil and they didn’t want to take you because of that. Well, firstly, I wasn’t a disruptive pupil and secondly, if that was their reason then why didn’t they say that?

Unfortunately, this was just the start of the “let’s have fun making Martin feel awful about himself” game. So much more humiliation, isolation and emotional bullying to follow. It was a daily struggle which usually began with me being in floods of tears and ended with me running home in floods of tears. I fought for so long with a strength I wouldn’t understand until much later in my life. But I couldn’t fight forever. I tried getting out and, one day, I walked out of the school gates and headed up the road. I was so scared but I knew that whatever was beyond the horizon had to be better than what I’d left behind me. Eventually, the school sent my sister after me and spent the rest of the time laughing about the incident. If I wasn’t wrong as a person than I was a figure of fun.

People have gone through far worse and, perhaps, I’m a little over sensitive to things. But it’s hard to not get a complex about yourself when you go through that kind of thing. I never really took on the negative beliefs and perceptions about myself that had been given to me. Something protected me. Something I am only just beginning to understand. But I was certainly encouraged to think of myself as being “ugly, disgusting, wrong as a person, an outcast, a figure of fun…” the list goes on.

As a child, I just sort of assumed that I’d one day end up happily married and living in a nice house with a dog….you know, the things kids imagine will be their futures if they don’t happen to want to be footballers when they grow up. Going through those things as a child shattered that vision of my future and left me terrified that I would end up alone, that I was ugly and unloveable. It took me a very long time to realise that the opinions of disgraces to their profession and disgraces to the gene pool don’t and shouldn’t matter.

I couldn’t get rid of the negative stuff I’d been given. But I could hold it in place and create a stalemate. It meant I would carry it with me as emotional baggage but it also meant it wouldn’t be able to inform my life. It would sit as the things I would fear might be true but it wouldn’t sit as the foundation of my beliefs about myself. Unfortunately, I’m a man who hedges his bets. The worst thing I did back then was to “cloak” my authentic self. Just in case those horrible people were right. I never pretended to be anyone or anything I wasn’t. What you saw was still what you got but I still cloaked my authentic self. You’d see some of it and glimpses of it but you’d never really see the whole of it.

The negative stuff worked out that joining forces was a good idea so they merged to form a depression that became my constant companion. Never informing my life but always the face pressed against the window of my life looking in. I lost touch with the celebration of who I am that is my authentic self. Amazing people loved me and love me and positive things happened in my life. Every now and then, one of the negative perceptions would give up the ghost and it would cause me physical pain as it left.

The negative stuff had never given up the aim of getting inside and taking over and I began to fear that losing all the negative stuff would mean losing myself. Because that’s what my authentic self is. A self without the negative stuff that I’ve carried for so long. A self comfortable and happy with himself. Even a self who loves himself in a non arrogant way. I feared my authentic self. Release that and I’d be amazingly powerful and vulnerable at the same time. What if, by releasing the authentic self, I became someone I didn’t like? What if people found the power of the authentic self too intense and I ended up alone?

Sometimes, I tried not to let the love of others in because I knew full well that doing so would call to my authentic self. People who love me told me they wished I could see myself the way they saw me.

Confidence is another issue and I’ve managed to create self esteem in the past. But it’s often been like holding onto a bird intent on flight. It didn’t last that long. But now, self esteem is holding and it’s calling to the authentic self. Good things from the past are finally being celebrated the way they should have been all long: as being at least partly because of me. There’s a way to go yet and the battle is getting nasty with the depression scared and ready to use anything to hold on. But to be free of the negative stuff. This isn’t about making sure bad things never happen again in my life. This is about releasing and accepting who I am so I’m better able to deal with any bad things that might happen.

If it’s not too much of an arrogance to make such a request can I say this: I think the release/return of my authentic self could use a bit of a fanfare and I’d love it if that fanfare came in the form of other people celebrating and accepting themselves.

In our differences, we shall find our common bond.