Ian asks for your support with his therapy

Aim: living on benefits I am unable to afford the Psychotherapy that would be treat my PTSD

for 20+ years my ill mental-health has been misdiagnosed & mis-treated: in autumn 2023 a Psychotherapist suspected I had PTSD (Traumatic Stress) & NOT the Severe Emotional Personality Disorder I had been mis-diagnosed with & treated for in 2005.

NHS - PTSD overview

They recommended I receive EMDR treatment (that's Eye Movement Desensitising & Reprocessing). The therapy involves a patient identifying & recounting any traumatic experience to a therapist whilst distracting the patient's brain with either moving their eyes or tapping their torso/chest/shoulders. This allows the patient to safely remember the experience without either the process nor the experience causing any damaging distress or further trauma.

NHS - PTSD Treatment overview inc EMDR

The 15 sessions I received in 2024 were very successful. They went a long way to helping me process my trauma, & store it more safely in my long-term memory instead of it complicating my short-term memory & disrupting my understanding & reacting to new situations. Before this therapy my reactions, interactions & relationships were all confused, complicated & compounded by my immediately frightened misunderstanding & mis-reactions.

I was stuck in perpetual panic.

All the time I was constantly alert for criticism & castigation. I had been so frightened by events in my past that I expected all current & future events to frighten me equally as much. I was never relaxed, or happy, confident or calm. I usually reacted in a way that was surprising to others, & often affecting or upsetting to both others & especially myself.

Many of you, especially my friends of many years, & close family will now recognise those frequent occasions when I would become rude, or angry or upset, seemingly for no reason.

I am truly sorry for my actions that have impacted any of you during our time together, whether in person or in writing. I amfully aware of what I had done, but not aware of how or most importantly why my reactions had been the way they were.

PTSD responses you may recognise in my passed behaviour

Despite my GP's best efforts, we have not been able to treat my condition further. I am not cured. I am still stuck in perpetual panic. I still over-react to the slightest, simplest thing. I still fear I am pointless, useless, worthless.

my frequent FREEZE response

My local Mental HealthTrust will not assess, let alone diagnose me with PTSD, as that would mean acknowledging the previous mistake in 2005, & cost them more funding to treat me than they are prepared to spend. They simply tell my GP to prescribe a different medication (that is IF they respond to my GP's representations at all - they haven't to more than 50% of them) & ignore requests to even see me, talk to me, let alone treat me. I have been repeatedly advised to seek out & access my own EMDR / Psychotherapy. This I would gladly do if I could afford it. But I cannot.

sample EMDR therapy costs

IF each of you could see your way to funding ONE session of EMDR for me, I could arrange & complete a full course, & be possibly cured this year.
Potentially, I could start writing again. I could undertake training. I could look for work. I could start working & earning again. I could contribute to society, pay my bills, pay my taxes, go shopping for something other than food; visit YOU more often. I could live.
I have been stuck indoors far too much for far too long. & now I have answers, now I have therapy that works incisively for me; now I am so close to being well again.
But I cannot access it alone.
I cannot afford it on my own.
I need more help than I can afford to provide myself.

I know finances are tough these days. I know bills are increasing above inflation. I know groceries are costing more & more each week. I know fuel is expensive. I hear that raising children costs more now than I cost to raise. I try (perhaps too much) to live in the real world - well I have to pay my bills & I have to eat something other than grass! - and I do want to live: I haven't been living fully for 14 years now, since I graduated, as I haven't been able to work since 2015, I have had that many breakdowns, been on that many calls with crisis phone-lines that many nights, been under close observations 3 times in A&E... I owe it to my family to live, to my nephews, my friends, society. MYSELF.

yet even now writing this I do not feel worthy, or deserving of asking for your support, let alone receiving it. I do not feel ... worth your time reading this, let alone your money towards my therapy. And yet, I have to ask, as I have no other option left to me other than a lifetime on changing medications & anti-psychotics, & existing on ever-reducing Benefits.

Thank you for reading this much, this far. thank you for sticking with it & bearing with me.

Whether you choose (& it IS YOUR CHOICE) or not to part-fund my therapy, I am truly grateful to you for being in my life, being part of the experience, for the laughs & the jokes, the movies & parties, the drinks & the cakes, the chats, cigarettes, chardonnay & craic. I love you. always have. always will. x

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 29th July 2025 at 2:11pm