Where Do I Begin?

According to my primary school teacher, all stories have a beginning, a middle and an end.  With hindsight, she was stating the obvious somewhat, but if we apply that thinking then this is the beginning.  This is the background to the story.  Over the next few articles, I'll be discussing the various stages of stress and depression, but firstly I want to give a bit of background on myself.
It's not a tale of a broken home, a troubled childhood or a life of crime (I did nick a pack of Chewits from the local corner shop, but no charges were ever made), just a case of me painting a picture of where I was at when I first displayed symptoms of stress.

I come from a tiny village in Kent.  So tiny that my aforementioned primary school had 6 pupils in each year! I passed my 11+ and went to a considerably larger Grammar School - the absurdly named Sir Joseph Williamson's Mathematical School for Boys.  I was a quiet lad and an only child, so being suddenly surrounded by 1000 other kids was a bit overwhelming. Nonetheless, I enjoyed my school days. I was neither a bully or bullied, I was academically average, but my main strength was that I was a very talented cricketer.

In fact, my sole ambition in life was to become a professional cricketer.  I spent most of my spare time either playing or watching cricket.  I was a regular visitor to Kent cricket matches and represented the county at under 13, 15 and 17 levels, as well as playing for both the school and a local Kent league team.  Sadly, I wasn't quite good enough to make it as a pro - I had a trial but didn't get in.  I was disappointed but not bitter, if truth be told I was never quite good enough to make it.  I was a very effective player at my level but not quite good enough to make the jump up.  So instead of wearing white for a living, I went to university in Birmingham.

Not Birmingham University though, I went to UCE.  Although, if anyone asked, I just said I went to University in Birmingham.  It sounded better that way.  I loved University, I didn't learn much academically but it was great life training.  I made some friends for life, and eventually ended up staying in Birmingham after I finished my degree.

Unfortunately, this meant that I had to get a job.  I had no real career dream anymore, but I did want to work in a job that I enjoyed and paid well.  So I signed up with an agency, and a couple of weeks later they got me an interview with a large multinational company.  I would only be working in the call centre, but I had was pretty sure I'd be working my way up the ladder soon enough.

So far so good I guess. That's the background to my story.  It's not massively different from the first 21 years of a lot of people's lives.  I only tell it so when I do get to the "middle" of my journey, there's some context to my story.  At this stage, I had no symptoms of stress and was a perfectly healthy 21 year old, who drank too much, couldn't cook and watched far too much football.