| Neil |
 "I think everyone’s always thought I was pretty lucky – good at sport, loads of friends and all that. Trouble was, I could never talk to anyone about my lack of self-confidence..."
I was popular at school and University and when I started work in advertising I found I got on well with everyone there, too. I got to meet the clients early on because everyone knew I could be trusted to turn on the charm and say the right thing at the right time, as well as knowing what I was doing from a professional point of view. Particularly if there was a difficult client, the cry was always “Send for Neil!” For some reason I felt I always had to be the one who had to fill the awkward gaps in a conversation, be the first at the bar to buy a round of drinks, that sort of thing. If we had a karaoke night in the office, guess who was expected to be the first to go! What nobody ever realised was that I had to make a huge effort all the time to be like that. It didn’t come naturally to me but because my mum and dad had a pretty stormy relationship I’d always been the one who had to keep the peace at home, otherwise things would go pear-shaped. I got into the habit of trying to keep everyone happy at the same time, which I thought was quite normal, not realising the long-term effect it was having on me. Of course, eventually it all caught up with me. I started to get blinding headaches and diarrhoea and every doctor I went to told me there was nothing wrong, I was a young man, perfectly healthy and the symptoms would go away if I just learned how to relax. I started to drink more to help me cope and I suppose luckily in some ways things got out of control quite quickly, because I found that I could only function properly with a drink and that was the point at which I knew I had to look for proper help. My doctor recommended me to Relaxation for Living and gradually, week by week, I started to put two and two together and realise the pressures I had been putting myself under for years. At every challenge, where I was having to prove myself to be in control of what was going on around me, I was clenching my fists and my thigh muscles and the tension that created was giving me the headaches and making me hyperventilate – hence the diarrhoea. I’m much better now, although it’s difficult making myself take more of a back seat and let others take over and not easy to explain to them what’s going on, either. But I sleep better and really feel I’m on the road to getting my life back.
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