“The most beautiful things in the world
cannot be seen or touched.
They are felt with the heart.”
The Little Prince, Saint-Exupéry.
Brilliant!
And I thought this was appropriate because
I had a heart.
I got into a temper one morning
about something that really just made me feel explosive.
And in that moment I started getting huge pains in my chest.
They said, at the clinic, that I’d ruptured the outside of my heart.
And the doctor, he noticed that it was an emotional heart attack.
He said to me those words... ‘emotional heart attack’.
I’ve had a temper tantrum that’s caused a tattoo on my heart.
And it just goes to show to other people
who are having those tantrums,
you might not have the strength in your heart right now to deal with it.
But wait, it might get worse.
So don’t lose your temper if you can.
There are other ways of dealing with issues you know.
After the last video we did
and seeing how many people looked at it and reading the comments,
I did think that I gave the perception that
my life has been idyllic from the start to the end.
But that little piece of my life is not what I’m all about.
It’s what I’ve become.
The journey to what I’ve become
has been tumultuous.
It has been fraught with hardships.
From a very young age
I found myself being quite different from everybody else.
And not understanding exactly why.
And then at 17, I ended up institutionalised
with bipolar disorder, which hadn’t been termed yet.
It was called manic depression then.
It’s very difficult to describe
what you’re going through when you suffer from bipolar disorder.
I described it as sitting in a dark pit
with a black umbrella above your head.
I was getting no help from anybody around me.
And the pit was getting deeper and deeper.
And when you are not having the highs and only the lows,
and you stay in that pit for a long period of time
you start looking for exits.
And the exit would have been to not be around at all.
Which at the age of 35, led me to a suicide attempt
by sucking on a gas bottle, taking pills
and wrapping a blanket around my head
with my mouth attached to the pipe.
I was dead in my mind.
I’d made up my mind to die.
And when I woke up in hospital,
I broke down and just cried.
It wasn’t because I was glad I’d survived.
It was because I was sad I didn’t,
because of what I did.
Now all of a sudden you’re around.
And around you are the people that you’ve hurt.
And that was the biggest downfall of the whole attempt,
was what I did to the people that I loved
and the people that actually loved me.
That still hurts me today. I still think about it.
I love my family very much.
They don’t know how much... how much I think of them.
I don’t say it enough... I love you... to my family
or to my nieces or my nephews.
I don’t think I’ve ever said that.
But now they know, so don’t edit that one out.
If you survive something that you feel you shouldn’t have,
then you feel that you have received a gift.
This part of my life is a gift.
And I’m using that opportunity now
to elevate other people’s lives, where I can.
I feel that if I only thought about myself and my own wellbeing,
I would slump back into the space that I was in.
Depression and bipolar disorder are very insular and selfish.
I think a lot of people get cross with me for saying it’s selfish,
but that is exactly what it is.
I suffer from it, I know.
What you’ve got to do
is just try and give of yourself to somebody.
And experience the joy that you will receive by giving.
It takes your mind off yourself.
I see a smile on somebody’s face that I’m nice to,
that makes me happy.
Seeing you happy makes me happy now.
Being able to embrace happiness has been a journey.
It’s not been easy.
It’s been very, very, very difficult.
I almost lost it. I almost didn’t get there.
I was almost successful with my attempt at suicide.
But I’m grateful that that never happened.
And it was for many, many years and through much help
that I got to the stage where I can say I’m now happy.
I am glad I have life.
I’m glad I never succeeded.
My message to people that suffer from bipolar disorder
is that there is hope.
There is hope. There is light.
And you can get through it.
It’s not as though you need to suffer in silence.
You can speak about it.
And you can be heard, and you can be healed.
For the first time in my life
I am happy.... I’m very happy...
very happy.
I’m trying to find a reason not to be happy...
for the first time in my life.
I’m at peace.
I’ve conquered my demons.
I’m a happy chappie now.
For the first time I’m very happy with my life...
with my life... as it is.
It will never be taken for granted.