A Dying of the Light

About Paul Hammond

MEET THE AUTHOR Self-motivated educated to degree level highly respected and passionate about life. Formerly a successful entrepreneur in many fields such as wildlife conservation and sports. This author also celebrated an incredible 35 years on stage as a professional DJ/Compere' winning seven national awards during the nostalgic everchanging decades of the 70's 80's 90's. For many years he has written short stories humorous novels and modern poetry whilst successfully publishing several titles the last making the bestsellers list. In his own time he also designed and developed unique humanitarian / disability / environmental projects. Already suffering from overwork and depression he became seriously ill whilst working in the incredibly hostile environment of the Horn of Africa famine crisis during 2011-13. His true-life experiences there were of terrible hardship deprivation extreme poverty against a backdrop of racism violence corruption and intimidation. Traumatised unable to cope; his life threatened he returned to the UK in December 2013 suffering from Severe PTSD. Since then he has endured five years of mental health abuse and psychological trauma. Already struggling with the loss of his career and business as well as the nightmarish effects of Africa he was soon victimised by an uncaring financial institution and evicted from his home of eleven years shortly after. Driven to attempt suicide it was months before he in desperation sought medical help from the NHS and Well Being crisis care teams. For years he has struggled with the overwhelming debilitation of this unseen illness whilst campaigning for his rights justice and disability benefits a result of the current hostile political environment towards Mental Health Disability. These past four years have continued to compound the effects of his PTSD. With reduced NHS funding and government cutbacks this has meant limited access to counselling support and remedial therapy. He has had to endure living on the most basic quality of life due to restrictions and delay on PIP benefits; more so when a definite worsening of his illness was met with ridicule at a second ATOS assessment resulting wrongly in his disability allowance being slashed. What should have been at least one happy point in his life the arrival of his fiancee from Kenya soon turned into the worst nightmare imaginable. Shortly after getting married it became evident to many that she had only come into his life to obtain a British work permit/visa. Following several months of manipulative controlled abuse against him she left to live with other relatives as his concerned family stepped in. A complete breakdown added to his downward slide towards suicide at which time the NHS recovery team and Waveney Domestic Abuse took immediate measures to assist. It took almost a year to stabilise his condition with the help of additional counselling medication and close support. He was living on a knife edge hyper-sensitised exhausted in turmoil and unable to cope with events. When it seemed that things could not get any worse they did. An ongoing publicity campaign about the harrowing events in Kenya meant that he was soon targeted by criminal elements named in the corruption overseas. In a space of four months he received a total of 92 malicious degrading and racist emails including several detailed direct threats on his life. Police intervened immediately and victim support joined the counselling teams working with him. Nevertheless he became deeply withdrawn living in one room of his house unable to cope permanently on the verge of suicide and overwhelmed by the terrors of the night. Family and friends have rallied to support him whilst the recovery team counsellors and other help groups continue to monitor evaluate and assist. Throughout these past years he has kept a diary of every day events medical logs personalised thoughts emotions details of everything affecting his life and condition. He has written every day via his Facebook page about his true-life experiences and regularly written lengthy stories about Living With PTSD. These stories have been shared with up to 100 local regional national media sources crucial support groups such as MIND HEADS TOGETHER MP's and government offices as his way of supporting the ongoing campaign for recognition of Mental Health Disability. Now as a long term 'victim' of Complex PTSD with the encouragement of enthusiastic supporters he has chosen to utilise his visual emotional and thought provoking literary skills to more actively campaign / fundraise for Mental Health Awareness. This will be his autobiography the story of his rise to success his incredible journey along the way the vivid and harrowing experiences in the slums of Kenya. He speaks in great depth about the last five years living with severe Mental Health Trauma coping with a discriminatory system a former abusive partner years of threat intimidation and a comprehensive lack of understanding from a system that did not recognise or understand Mental Health Disability. In writing this often heart-breaking and emotive story of his life the author seeks to continue his long-term campaign to raise awareness seek legislative change and provide funding for those with such life changing disabilities.