My Story

MY STORY

This is my story, about how I went from a severely depressed addict, to happy, fulfilled and in control of my addictions and mental health!

Overview

As you probably already know, my name is Jay Ellis and before I get into it, I just want to say, my journey isn’t that remarkable or amazing, and no one will be making a film about my life anytime soon, but I can tell you how I turned my life around!

As I was a waste of space for almost ten years, I drank and took drugs most days, I suffered from depression but had no idea, I’d stolen from most of my family and friends and to be honest I was a horrible person. However, over the last few years, I’ve managed to take control of my life, I’ve been sober for over 2 years, I’m in the best place physically and mentally I’ve ever been and I actually like who I am, and my life is pretty fucking good!

Where it all began...

Like with nearly every single person who’s fucked up in one way or another, it all stems from some childhood or teenage trauma. For me, there were multiple things that happened during my childhood and teenage years, but it all started when my parents got divorced when I was around 3. And, all I’ll say is it was a very messy divorce, which lasted nearly 10 years, and there were issues with new partners and all that jazz!

Now I’m not going to go into too much detail on what happened, as I have a very good relationship with both my parents now and to be honest without them and my sister, I doubt I’d be alive. Also, they tried their best with the tools they had and had their own issues and past traumas to deal with. But, it does make you realise that childhood trauma is a very difficult cycle to break, as unconsciously or not, it will always affect the next generation in some way or another. Unfortunately, it’s normally in a negative way, but it can also happen in a positive way!

Anyway, I don’t actually remember ever being happy as a kid, I’m sure there were moments when I was but I mainly have unhappy memories. As well, I was very introverted and innocent (or as some would describe shy and nervous), and I very much just enjoyed playing sports and video games.

However, it was around the age of 14/15 when things started to go pear-shaped. Now, I didn’t initially start drinking and taking drugs to escape how unhappy I was, as I obviously had no idea how it would make me feel. The actual reason, which is very embarrassing, is that I thought it made me cool. As I said, I was a very innocent kid, who probably didn’t fully hit puberty until I was around 14/15. So, as you can imagine I felt very insecure about everything, and I had all the baggage from my childhood. Therefore, I came up with possibly one of the most stupid fucking ideas I ever had and decided that to prove to the world that I was a ‘man’ and that I was ‘grown up’ I needed to start drinking and taking drugs!

Unfortunately, this kickstarted a ten-year battle with alcohol and drug addiction and made all of my mental health issues from a child a million times worse.

The worst years of my life (Part 1)

Between the age of 15 and 24, my life was a mess. It was during this time that I developed an addiction to anxiety medication, alcohol and cocaine, attempted to take my own life and and hit rock bottom.

I think it’s also important to mention that most people have a very stereotypical perception of what a drug addict is, and if you are to use this as a benchmark, then I definitely wasn’t that and it’s why you’ll often hear me refer to myself as a borderline addict. But, to be honest, I displayed many traits of an addict, I would do anything I could to fund my habits, even if that meant stealing, scamming people or selling drugs. I was also in complete denial that my drinking or drug habits were an issue, and would get very aggressive and defensive if anyone questioned it. It also got so bad at one stage that I wouldn’t be able to leave the house or even my bed for 3 or 4 days.

It all started off with Methedrone (Mcat / Meow) when I was around 16, I experimented with other drugs before that, but this was the first substance I had an issue with. For around 2 years, most weekends I’d take Mcat and at the time I was a kid, so I had no money. This led me to do a lot of things I’m not proud of, like robbing and stealing from a lot of people, some of them my friends and family.

The worst years of my life (Part 1 continued)

Like I mentioned in the previous section, I thought drinking and taking drugs made me cool, and it was also at this time that I tried to protect myself further and prevent anyone from seeing the real me, which was a vulnerable insecure kid battling mental health issues. To do this I created a new persona and acted like a ‘roadman’ which is also very embarrassing. Also, to give you some context I come from a very white middle classed family and grew up in a village, so as you can imagine I was a walking contradiction. This is one of the most shameful and embarrassing periods of my life because it lasted a fucking long time… until I was around 23!

However, I actually managed to sort myself out for a short period of time before I turned 18 and stopped taking most drugs and just smoked a lot of weed (which I don’t actually classify as a drug). But, things took a severe turn for the worst when I went to university.

The worst years of my life (Part 2)

The four years I was at university were the darkest and worst days of my life. This is where I really developed an issue with substances and was a complete mess. It’s also where I started selling a lot of drugs to fund my habits and became a very nasty person.

Looking back on it, I was nowhere near ready or mature enough to live on my own, and I also went to university for all the wrong reasons. I went there to escape the small town I grew up in (which actually did have some benefits) and to go out partying. I actually chose the university I went to for the nightlife and not because it was a good university to go to.

My first year was the worst by far, and it was during this year that I tried to take my own life. I took 40 MSJ’s which are a knock-off version of diazepam with the intention of going to sleep and not waking up. What saved my life was the fact that I had a very strong tolerance to them as I’d take multiple every day and they weren’t as strong as the prescription version.

The worst years of my life (Part 2 continued)

I just got consumed by uni life, and I lived in halls which were notorious for parties and drugs. I would go on sessions for 4 or 5 days with little or no sleep, taking any form of substance I could get my hands on. I almost wore it as a badge of honour and was proud of the amount of drugs I could take. I think looking back, I was just doing anything I could to escape my reality and forget how I truly felt. I also got disgustingly skinny during this time and was around 9 stone and when I returned home for the summer I looked ill!

The other three years weren’t as bad but I still drank and took drugs most days, and my mental health got worse and worse. I was stuck in a vicious cycle, of drinking and taking drugs to escape my reality, only to hate myself for always drinking and taking drugs… so I would then drink and take more drugs to forget this… logical I know! Looking back it’s pretty obvious to tell that I was severely depressed, however, I just had absolutely no idea! You'll also be able to see from the images I gained a lot of weight, mainly from drinking so much!

I hope you enjoy some of these images and can see how much of a mess I was. At the bottom of the page I’ll show a full comparison of what I used to look like and what I look like now, to prove to you that change is possible!

My Journey

My journey to taking control of my life didn’t actually begin straight after I finished university. It actually began when I was in Canada, once I realised that I was the issue and that I needed to confront the demons that I’d been suppressing for nearly 15 years. Canada was the turning point because I’d moved there to try and run away from all of my problems, addictions and mental health issues, but unsurprisingly they were still there!

Anyway, once I was back in the UK, I had a lot of hard fucking truths to face, and this was the start of my journey.

The first thing I had to focus on was my mental health, and finally, accept that I wasn’t ok, and I hadn’t been for a long time. I also had fuck all knowledge about mental health issues, but eventually, through educating myself I started to understand that I’d been suffering from depression for over a decade. Finally understanding and talking about how I’d been feeling felt like a huge weight had been lifted. And through counselling and going on anti-depressants I finally started to be able to manage my mental health.

Once my mental health was under control and in a much better place, it prompted me to start questioning a lot of things that I believed and thought I valued. It’s also important to note that at this point I wasn’t back living in the small town I grew up, as I didn’t want to go back into this environment as I knew it would be much harder to change. And this was probably one of the best decisions I ever made! As a result of this, I actually managed to stop taking drugs so frequently, as I’d removed myself from the environment, however, it actually led to me drinking a lot more!

Even with my drinking becoming an issue, I was still able to reflect and start to realise what was actually important to me. I needed to prove to myself that I wasn’t a waste of space and that I was actually capable of achieving things. I also needed to overcome the limiting belief that I was a failure and this was the start of a massive mindset change for me.

This led me to focus my energy on starting a career and excelling at that. This was so important to begin with as it gave me a purpose and something to work towards. It enabled me to channel my energy into something positive and start proving to myself that I wasn’t this drug addict waste of space that I’d been for nearly a decade!

Whilst focusing on my career, I also started educating myself on how best to manage my money and start becoming financially secure. It should be no surprise, but it’s very hard to be financially stable when you have a drug problem…

Over the next two years, I focused on improving all four of these elements and trying to learn and develop as much as possible. And I’m not going to lie, there were a lot of very low difficult moments but there were also a lot of positive moments, as slowly but surely I started to create a new version of myself which I actually liked. It’s funny, my sister and I have a joke that it was over this time that I actually became a human being again.

All of this was great and after two years the drug addict dickhead I’d been for a decade started to become a distant memory. However, there was still one thing that kept pulling me back to this person…. Alcohol.

Alcohol still had a massive hold over me, once I start drinking I can’t stop and it brought out the old version of me and to be honest I’d been lying to myself for a long time, not accepting that my drinking habits were an issue when it’d actually been the main issue all along! I’d been using alcohol to suppress my feelings and emotions, and I only ever took drugs when I’d been drinking and it was the final piece of the puzzle.

Once I finally admitted and accepted that I needed to stop drinking, everything started to come together. It’s no surprise that the first year of being sober has been the best year of my life so far, I moved to London, got a girlfriend and am in the best place physically and mentally I’ve ever been. And this is what prompted me to want to help other people struggling with addiction and mental health issues.

Like I said at the start of my story, my journey isn’t that amazing or remarkable, if anything it's actually pretty text book. A young man who doesn’t want to open up and talk about his mental health or admit that he’s not ok, so he starts drinking and taking drugs to suppress this, but actually starts getting addicted to the escapism the substance provides, and he starts to fall down a dark slippery slope of addiction and his mental health continues to get worse and worse.

However, I know first hand how difficult it can be to overcome addiction and your mental health struggles. That's why I created this platform to share my own experiences and help other people start living a better life, because everyone can achieve this if they have the right help and support!