the-full-story-in-my-own-words.txt

There's no easy way to start something like this. Maybe that's the point. Life doesn't come with an instruction manual, especially when your brain's wired differently, your childhood leaves more questions than answers, and the world keeps telling you to man up instead of speak out.

Years ago I made decisions I'm not proud of. Some were born of sheer desperation. No money, no food, no electric, and no idea how to ask for help. I thought that as a man, especially a northern bloke, I had to carry all of it, fix everything for everyone else, and just keep cracking on. That mindset nearly destroyed me.

Behind the scenes I was fighting things I had no name for and no tools to manage. I was diagnosed bipolar in 2012 and finally diagnosed with ADHD in 2025, though anyone who knew me could have told you about that one a lot sooner. Generalised anxiety I've carried my whole life. A lot of it traces back to trauma and abuse I never dealt with. On top of all that, since 2006 I've had nineteen operations on my ears for cholesteatoma, so a good chunk of those years I was in physical pain as well as the storm going on in my head. No self-awareness, no emotional grounding, no real support network. What followed was years of poor decisions, repeated ones. The same mistakes on a loop. React, burn out, implode, again.

I hurt myself more times than I can count. Self-harm, overdoses, and more than one attempt to end it. Not because I didn't care, but because I didn't know how to cope, and for a long time I didn't think I deserved any better.

Prison was the worst thing that ever happened to me, and the hard truth is it wasn't the fraud that put me there. It was me. The sentence I got for the fraud was a community order, unpaid work and probation, and I should have just put my head down and done it. But I was holding down a full time job on a single household income, co-parenting a toddler, and reporting for probation and community service on top of all of it. I was drowning, and I was masking the whole lot with anger, because back then that was the only tool I had.

One day we were digging a hole in pissing rain, the ground slippery and unsafe, and I couldn't think straight for worrying about it. I blew up at the supervisor and told him exactly what I thought of him. He was a piece of work, but that isn't the point. I should have kept it in and I didn't. So I breached, got resentenced for the breach and the fraud together, and a community order turned into a cell. Nobody put me there but me.

I lost time with my kids I'll never get back. But it was also the turning point. The moment I finally said enough, I can't keep living like this.

That's when it started to shift. Swindon and Gloucester Mind did more for me than the NHS managed in thirteen years of spinning in circles. They helped me understand myself. That my just crack on attitude was masking years of trauma. That my hyper protective streak wasn't strength, it was survival. That I wasn't broken, I just needed help, structure, and a few people who wouldn't give up on me.

I'm still that protective person. Still fiercely loyal. Still a work in progress, and I say that with no shame. I've put in a lot of graft to become who I am now, as a dad, a business owner, and a bloke who's finally stopped running from himself. I'm still learning. Still getting it wrong now and then. Still catching myself slipping into old habits and pulling myself back out.

I get angry quickly. I'm blunt, gobby even. No filter, and yeah, sometimes that comes off as rude. But I never mean to hurt anyone. I say things how I see them. It took me years to even recognise that in myself, let alone work on it. But I am, every single day.

I know I'm intelligent. I know I'm bloody good at what I do. But when I get overwhelmed, by the noise, the deadlines, the pressure to keep everything moving, I lose my focus. And that's when people who don't know me reach for my past and use it as a stick to beat me with. Like that's the whole story. Like that's all I'll ever be.

It isn't.

I've built a life that means something. I've earned trust, sometimes the hard way. And I've learned it's alright to say I need help, even when admitting it feels like pulling your own teeth out. Especially as a man. Especially when you've spent years pretending everything's fine.

And when the world gets too loud, I find comfort in the stuff people love to scoff at. Collecting Power Rangers, building LEGO, Funko Pops and Loungefly bags. Honestly? I don't give a fuck what anyone thinks. They bring me joy, and after everything, I'll take joy where I can find it.

If you're going through something similar, please reach out. You're not alone. I'm always happy to answer questions, to talk openly about what I've been through, or just to listen. There's strength in speaking up and no shame in asking for help.

As for the ones stirring this up: I see it for what it is. It isn't justice, it's clout. Making themselves look bigger, making money, controlling a narrative. And here's the thing. The loudest voices in this have chapters of their own they'd rather you never opened. I'm not going to open them. I know exactly what it feels like to have your worst mistake waved around like it's the whole book, and I won't do that to another human being. That, right there, is the difference between them and me now.

This isn't a sympathy post. I don't want pity. This is ownership. Raw, messy, ongoing ownership.

I'm not the man I was. I'm not perfect either. But I'm here, and I'm still going. I've chosen who I want to be, and I keep choosing it, every single day.

So if you're sat there waiting for me to fall again, grab a chair, pack a lunch, and get comfy.

You'll be waiting a bloody long time.

Richard Copestake