I am a 29 year old single dad to a 10 year old. For as far back as I can remember I’ve always felt not part of the crowd, not what the masses would regard as ‘normal.’ In my local area I’m a very popular lad but I haven’t got many friends at all and not one that I can call a close friend. I’ve always put off getting my mental health checked because where I use to drink and smoke weed a lot throughout my teenage years and early to mid 20’s and what with all the stresses that come with being a single parent I always put my ‘not normalness’ down to that. Some days I’m hyper as anything and will talk to everybody I see but then some other days I stay hidden from the world, curtains drawn, hiding under a blanket with my anxiety hitting a peak and feeling like the whole world is watching me, scrutinizing me that sort of.thing. Then last year after talking to someone in November I decided to get in contact with a group of therapists to try and treat this cuz it just seems to get more and more intense as I get older. I originally got in contact with therapist just to try and treat anxiety, social anxiety and had around 10 CBT sessions over the phone before I got a little paranoid thinking people were coming to my home to kill me, I wouldn’t leave the house cuz I thought there were people out to get me but when I would go out I told the therapist I intended to carry a knife out for protection and as soon as I told him that he referred me to mental health specialists in my area with care co-ordinator and all sorts. What they then done was prescribe me some medication and put me on CBT for psychosis which I’m still yet to find out when that is due to start. The meds they had me on at first was just setraline but all these done was make me lose sleep. After bringing this up with them and with me not wanting to go near any kind of benzos (as I know for sure I’d end up addicted to them) they prescribed some zopiclone. These tho, I was practically doing the whole box on the first day of getting them, I can’t remember a thing when I was taking them but I know for sure they didn’t help me sleep at all. Just got me out of my head lol so I told them that these weren’t working either so they chucked me on an anti-psychotic called levomapromzine but these don’t make me feel any different mentally. I’ve been seeing a therapist for the past few months now and it has been helping me.