Roland Jones, 48, mental health worker

It all started to go wrong following a spinal injury when I was in the fire service. I was 35 and spent the next few years trying to prove I was capable of keeping a job - trying to be better than anyone else, in other words trying to be the indispensable man. It led to perfectionism and obsessive compulsive behaviour. I would check things again and again ...and again.

The children were growing up around me but I wasn’t part of it. I wasn’t able to handle simple things like paying the bills; I couldn’t tell anyone because of the shame. My wife will tell you I cried for three weeks continually. Then on February 7th I thought “that’s it, I’m a burden to everyone.” I bought a bottle of spirits and some pain killers and took the train to Conway. I intended to finish myself off but while I made a good job with the bottle I didn’t do much with the tablets.

When my wife came to find me the first thing she said was “Is it something I’ve done?” That hurt a lot. When the psychologist saw me he said it was trauma and I believed him. Back at work I seemed to put myself back together again; the fire service didn’t know I had a mental health problem because I didn’t know myself. Life just felt very uncomfortable.

When I eventually left the fire service in 1992 I planned to make wooden toys in my shed in the garden but then it was broken into and all my tools were stolen. My self-esteem was rock bottom. Rank and position provides you with a niche in life and when that’s taken away you have nothing. People are judged by what they do so suddenly I was nobody.

One day I was tidying the house and getting ready for some exchange students when I sat down on the carpet and cried my eyes out. I just kept saying “I don’t know what to do”. So my wife called the doctor and I spent the next nine weeks as a voluntary patient in the psychiatric hospital. Eventually I came to the Fountain Project as a volunteer and now I have a job there. We all live with and manage mental illness. When we have our down days we support each other.

My wife has been amazing. She had to deal with doctors, lawyers, tribunals, insurance companies, as well as bringing up three children and doing a job. I doubt I’d have survived without her.

Good friends will be good friends no matter what happens, but there are others who shy away from the fact you’ve got a mental illness. It boils down to whether they were friends after all. If you tell them you’ve got a spinal injury they’ll listen, but talk about depression and they switch off.

When I came out of hospital I realised that a person who hasn’t made a mistake has made nothing. Before if I’d cut a bit of wood wrong I’d give up; now I go back and measure again. I realised problems could be put right. In outside relationships it meant admitting to mistakes. Honesty with yourself and others is a primary factor to getting better.

FACT: In a survey by Mind in 2001, 62% of respondents said that the main barrier to recovering from mental health problems was the attitude of the general public. (Mind, 2001)

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