Mr Burns and my mental health battles because of him

This will be one of the most open blogs I will probably ever write but as its mental health awareness week I thought I would explain my past battles.

For those that know me now you probably see a confident man and that’s exactly what I am now but I have not always been.

But if we go back to my school days, Mayflower to be exact, one bus journey home to be even more exact and for the 1st time I was called Mr. Burns, this was my school nickname given to me by a girl who I can’t remember her name and it stuck with me for the remainder of my school life. I would pretend it would not bother me but deep down it did, it made me feel ugly and it made me hate my body and what it looked like. I was picked on by many people, one person in particular used to threaten me on a daily bases and the simple fact of the matter was until the name Mr.Burns he didn’t even talk to me, not all of a sudden he was threatening me, I am not going to say who it was as I would like to think they have grown up since and were probably only acting like that due to their own issues, but I won’t lie they scared me on a daily basis because quite frankly they could have done what they threatened. The only reason they didn’t is because although we were not close at senior school I went to junior school with some of his friends and they prevented it. If you know who you are then I honestly can’t say thank you enough.

For at least 4 years half the school knew me as Mr Burns and not Ross, this lead to low self-esteem and as I say I felt ugly, I thought no girl would ever look at me and this was why I tried so hard with girls. But even if a girl did like me I don’t think they would have ever said so because you would not be dating Ross, you would be dating Mr Burns. I am not saying that’s why they didn’t date me but I have no doubt it would have passed their thoughts.

Now I won’t say I was innocent, When someone joined the school and wasn’t popular I jumped at the chance of taking the abuse off me and helped lay it on them and for that I really am sorry, I tried years back to say sorry for what I and a few other did to someone in their music book and I never got a response and I don’t blame them but I am generally ashamed of doing what we did, so once again I am sorry for the abuse we wrote in your book. I did it to be popular with the class bully’s so I was no longer going to be bullied, this does not make it ok but that’s why I did it, I actually liked you as a person and thought you were extremely intelligent

When 6th form started a lot of the people who abused me left and so it did get better for me at school, I was still called Mr Burns by a few people but nowhere near as much as I was.

A few year later and working at Blockbuster I began to really like a girl, again I won’t name names but if you knew me 5 years ago you know who I am talking about, this girl had me wrapped around her little finger and I would have done anything for her and I did but she constantly put me down and my self-esteem was so low because of her, one day walking to Blockbuster I wanted to walk in front of a car because she made me feel that bad about myself. At this time I viewed her as my best friend, what best friend makes you want to walk in front of a car. Eventfully we become sex friends and that all we really used each other for, kind of ashamed to say we just saw each other as pieces of meat but that’s exactly what it was. We no longer talk.

If it wasn’t for all the above I would never have gone into a gym let along now be a freelance Personal Trainer. I was made to feel ugly and joined a gym to change that. I was never ugly though, no one is actually ugly, there is someone for everyone

Despite all of the above wherever it’s the girl on the bus, the school bully or the sex friend I have no grudges and I hope they are all happy and don’t have any issues still themselves, we all have demons but we can all overcome demons, if your life seems bad at the moment know that good times are always around the corner.

Look at me now and you have someone who has an amazing wife, son and dog, have a successful career doing what I love and all the above experiences made me the person I am today. Though every negative there is a positive, remember that. Everything I went through led me to where I am today and I love the person I am today strong physically and mentally, confident, successful in my career and a loving and caring husband to Danielle, Bobby and Loki.

The main point is we all have demons during life but we can overcome them, if anyone wants to talk then please just message me wherever we have spoken recently or not in 20 years I am always happy to help people overcome mental health problems

If you want to talk to someone else then Motivated Minds are a great place to go as well.