Mental health awareness week - now over 3 years since I wanted to end my life.

Four years ago, I was a man on the edge, literally, mentally and physically. I'd reached rock bottom in my life and had driven to Norwich city centre to distract myself.

I felt, and still do feel 4 years on, that I'd been hounded out of teaching - a job I did well for 27 years - by various colluding parties. That period of my life from 2013 to 2015 was the most painful.

I sank into clinical depression, mixed alcohol with medications, anything to block out the trauma that had happened to me and that so many parties contributed to, covertly and maliciously.

As a fighter, not a lover, I'd taken on a system and felt I couldn't win as ranks closed and FOI requests descended into redacted lies and smears about my good character.

I drove to Norwich to distract myself and momentarily on the 9th floor of John Lewis had considered chucking myself off. Now I didn't have some samaritan who talked to me then and saw me looking over the edge. I still don't think I'd have climbed over the ledge and fallen. But the idea of it was there. That was all. Suicidal ideation my counsellor called it. Thinking constantly about a way of escape. Death seemed to be a plan.

Now I didn't do it obviously or I wouldn't be sitting at home now, writing this. I was low, ironically, on that ninth floor, but not so lost that I left the pain for my wife, son and daughter.

I'm very open now about these struggles, my battle with depression and drink, counselling and therapy. I like to think that being open helps others.

My turning point came though when a letter from a barrister I'd employed to investigate the various smears landed through the door on 21st December 2016, saying all this smoke and mirrors fake allegations stemming from Chinese Whispers and people in power who should have behaved better, had been dropped. They weren't serious allegations at all, but serious enough for me to lose a career I'd enjoyed a long stint in. I'd had a year off work in limbo, waiting for closure.

I was exonerated. In writing. The colluders who'd smeared me, once challenged, once outside Norfolk, had to admit it was unicorn shit.

Now, I know that my heavy drinking during that 3 year period from 2013 to 2016, was a factor in my downfall, a huge contributor to depression and anxiety.

Back then, I drank binge nightly to blank out events that had happened to me at one pernicious school locally.

Two days before the letter landed, I was taken to the GPs by my wife and I was forced to stop drinking by my wife and GP on the 19th of December 2016 and haven't touched a drop since. I've never returned to a classroom either, not because I couldn't but because I found something else - writing.

That teaching door that had been locked and barred to me from 2013 to 2015 was now ajar, with certified clearance, inviting me to go back in, but I kicked it shut, in true Spaghetti Western style and chose another door - freelance.

I've been at writing, social media marketing and web design for almost four years now, and though the scab of the past remains and I used to pick away at it when drunk, it's become almost invisible four years on.

Now this is not a Brigette, Oleg plea for congratulation - it's from a man who was depressed, riddled with anxiety, who'd had his self esteem sledgehammered for three years, becoming well again.

Freelance freed me, choosing never to drink again and seeking better, more fulfilling employment helped. Trauma counselling, support groups and friends and family all made me better again.

If you're a man or woman, child or teenager struggling with depression, stress and anxiety, get help. I left it for years and wasted time and affected many others in my long spell in depression and I know now that if I were to suffer again, I'd get professional support.

Don't peer from the ninth floor of John Lewis, don't become a statistic and a painful memory for your family and friends, ask for help.

Speak out - and if you need a sympathetic ear from someone who has the T-shirt and full wardrobe for mental health problems, contact me. I'll listen and help.