I think I will tell you about the first time I went to someone of a professional caliber about this problem. I just want to make sure you know that at the beginning I didn’t know I was dealing with D&A, I thought it was just anger issues.

The first person I spoke to about this was my GP. I booked an appointment because I thought if im going to do this I want to find the best route, so of to the appointment I go. On the way there im thinking about how its going to go. I thought Jesus im going to go in there he’s gunna ask me what’s wrong and im gunna say im angry all the time and me and my partner get into arguments and blah blah blah, you have read this already, and also he’s just gunna tell me not to get angry anymore and to man up. I mean im 24, my parents are in there 50s, so if they had any problems when they were growing up or in there 20s, 30s or even 40s that’s what they would have probably been told.

Then I had a scenario in my head that, that was all gunna happen but instead of him telling me to man up he would send me to anger management. When I thought of the phrase anger management I kept thinking off scenes from the Adam Sandler film. Which gave me a little giggle but it just wasn’t helping. I thought this is going to go really badly.

But it didn’t, I got into the GPs office and I was happy to know that it was a man, im not being sexist I just feel more comfortable speaking to a male about this sort of stuff than a female. Also if you American you are probably wondering why I don’t know who my GP is, one I had just moved into the area and two it is so hard to get an appointment with the same GP every time you need to go. Thats England for you.

Anyway we do all the nice small talk stuff to begin with, which I like because it lets me get a read on the person im talking to. He’s an older gentleman, balding with grey hair. Typical English GP. I’ll be honest with you I thought that he would just par me off like the first scenario I thought of. But no he asked me why I was there and I explained to him what had been going on and I let it out, I mean I thought I was gunna cry at one point and im an emotional repressed 24 year old man that hasn’t cried since his 14 year old Labrador died 2 years ago and before that I can’t remember.

He asked me a lot of questions, things like when do I tend to have a short fuse? what makes me angry? And then to the more serious stuff like have I ever tried to harm myself or harm others? Have I ever harmed myself or others? Have I ever thought and or attempted to take my own life? I reply with when I’m tired, small little things for example seeing that there is a really dirty hand towel in the bathroom and instead of just putting it in the wash and getting a clean one out I get angry and lose it. And to the rest of the questions I answered no.

After talking more about the things that made me tick, he gave me two options the first was a thing called Steps2Wellbeing, an NHS service that offers a number of different types of programmes to help deal with mental health issues and the other was nothing. The only option I had was Steps2Wellbeing. Well I thought I’m going to have to do something about it and if this is my only option then that’s settled.

The doctor then said “you will have to refer yourself”. Ooh god that’s the last thing I need. the thing is to get to the point where I was speaking to someone about it was a big thing to do anyway, it’s the hardest thing to do. Now I’ve got to refer myself. This will be interesting.