Paul Tidiman's story

Hi. OK… As best I can… At 16 years old, while on holiday with friends at Clacton, Essex, I jumped in the pool and had a massive head pain. Headache – I thought, ‘Weird’. Got out and it was gone… I thought nothing of it. I jumped back in and my head exploded… I screamed underwater. It was unbearable, like a kango inside.

I got out feeling sick, woozy and ill as hell. I started walking to the caravan… My vision went. I was lucky I had focused on the caravan. I kept walking towards it… All I could see was lines like a TV set when closing down years ago… Lines of nothing.

Deaf and blind

I went deaf; I was screaming help but I could not hear myself – my own voice, nothing. Somehow I got in the van. I was at the table and found something heavy, an ashtray. I can remember smashing it at the window, screaming help but I couldn’t hear or see anything. I was totally blind, deaf and in uncontrollable pain.

Help came – I was driven to Clacton Hospital, where luckily a doctor from Colchester Hospital was concerned and had me shipped to there. Then I don’t remember anything except people with masks. Injections every, well, I don’t know. A spinal tap was put in my back and I drifted in and out of consciousness.

Coma for about three months, they said. First thing I remember was I woke up in a wheelchair in a garden outside a ward somewhere, and didn’t know where I was, who I was. I just remember the trees blowing and the sun… I was like a zombie. Slow, lethargic and weak. I certainly did not feel like me.

Moments of unreality

I was told by my parents that I was not the same person after. Things changed at 16 – it’s a weird time anyway, I suppose. But I sort of carried on. I’ve struggled all my life with confusion, mood swings, memory loss, mental illness, anger outbursts and depression – yeah it’s been a real laugh… lol.

I have moments of unreality; personality changes about as stable as a nuclear reactor about to blow. I have lost friends, partners, jobs, and seem to move on as if these parts of my life never existed… Battling with a memory that remembers sometimes.

It sucks. I live day by day. The way I look at it is, if I wake up breathing, I’ve had a result. No aftercare, no apparent interest in why I was coming across as mad. Sectioned many times for behaviour problems. It’s not an easy way to live.

It was only after hearing about John Lydon from the Sex Pistols that I remembered I had it and then found this site. I’m very tired, exhausted. My heart goes out to all who have had this. OK, I’m not dead… But the days when I wish I was are plentiful. This disease can really mess you up.

So that’s my pennies’ worth. I suffer every day, but I play the blues, so I carry on with a big cross to bear. I even make up the damn songs as I go. I can’t remember what key it’s in, and I’ve played the song a thousand times.

So any help would really be appreciated. It affects the head, the heart and your feelings for others. I’m hard, I cry, I get confused – my life is a turmoil of despair happiness. Tears, loss, laughter and bloody annoyingly frustrating. I live with a different me nearly every day… Still, it’s not boring.

Good luck everyone and do the best you can. I do, every day. Paul.

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