“I was talking to my probation officer one day and I weren’t in the best of moods. He was asking me about what’s the matter and stuff like that, so I explained to him I’m just bored all the time and I just had too much time on my hands because I just didn’t do anything all day, just say by myself most of the time and I was in temporary accommodation at the time, living in a hotel room. It was very stressful and again there was nothing to do, so he suggested coming to this place.
I was doing a lot of cocaine and it got really bad, but I haven’t … this month it’ll be eight months since I last touched it. So yeah, I’m quite happy about that. […] I’d get paid one day and the next day all my money would be gone. I was doing that for not ages, but I stopped doing it just before it got into a really bad habit, but again, I was still spending a lot of money on it that could’ve been spent on way better things […] Yeah, to be honest, I don’t want to go back to it …
When I first started coming here, I wouldn’t eat anything. It’s just the anxiety, I guess. For some reason … even if I felt hungry, even if I tried chewing and that, I just couldn’t swallow it. I don’t know what it was. I can’t even fully explain it myself because I don’t know why it is that I’m like that. I guess in a way it might’ve been a little bit overwhelming with all the people there that I didn’t know. The first few weeks I was coming here, when we was outside for lunch and that, I couldn’t eat food in front of anyone because I was like that anxious, but that changed a lot from then to now.
Most days I was just sat down doing … like I said earlier, just sat down doing nothing and staring at the same four walls all the time. If I weren’t doing that I was with my missus and me and her were just arguing all the time. So, I just shut myself off, stopped really talking to anyone for a bit. Yeah, I just weren’t doing anything. It was making me depressed. I was getting really suicidal. Things were getting really bad.
But yeah, since I’ve started coming out here, it’s just made me feel a lot more positive, made me feel a lot better about myself because when I start doing something, I’m always getting told that I’m doing a good job. If you’re not doing something perfect, then it doesn’t matter too much, they’ll just show you how to do it again. It’s just nice to be appreciated because I feel like I’ve not had that enough or I’ve not really been appreciated with anything that I’ve been doing. Since I’ve started coming out here, I’m like actually I’m not such a waste of oxygen as I thought I am, I am actually a decent lad like. I weren’t even thinking that when I first came here. It gave me a good confidence boost, I guess.
I guess it’s just nice how we just all sit together innit, just all having a chat. There is like … again, I’ve had people mention it a few times, it is like a sense of family in a way. It’s just a nice way to have a lunch. Do you know what I mean? We’re just all sat together, all having a chat. Yeah, and cooking the food as well with Mikey, they’re always telling us done really well. Like again, everyone usually finishes their plate and then half of ‘em go back for more. So again, we’re obviously doing something right. Don’t really know what else to say to be honest. Yeah.
I enjoy cooking. I get on really well with Mikey and it always makes me happy when everyone likes the food. Also, like Mikey knows what he’s doing in the kitchen as well, like there some things that he’s teaching me as well that I’m picking up on. Again, he’ll teach me something and I can go home and think right, I’ll do this when I’m cooking something next time. Do you know what I mean? It seems like with cooking it’s easy to improve of just knowing little bits. The more little bits that you know, the more you’re gonna improve on what you’re doing, but it’s not like everyone’s gonna be perfect all the time, there’s always gonna be the little thing that you get wrong every now and then.
It’s definitely helped quite a lot, yeah. I’m a lot more calm now. I used to be very … like literally just before I started coming here, I was very erratic, like the smallest things used to get to me. Like even when I first started coming here and I was getting the bus here, the bus would be like 20 minutes late sometimes and I was proper angry about it … what the hell are these bus drivers doing? Then like even today my bus was literally an hour late and after I got here today it was just like I’m here now. That’s a big difference in the way that I feel in such a short period of time. I used to kick right off if my bus was late. Now it’s just like my bus is late, ok, just keep checking the time, look down the road, check the time, oh it’s an hour, there you go, here’s the bus, get on, get in, have a coffee, fine.”
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