John saddles up to help ‘life-changing’ cafe
A MAN who makes a 60-mile round trip every week to visit a wellbeing cafe says it has ‘changed his life’.
John Skelton, from Macclesfield, has suffered with mental health issues since he as aged 20 and visits Complete Kindness in Tyldesley, near Wigan, on a weekly basis.
And as a thank you he is planning to make the journey via bike and collect sponsorship for the cafe.
John said: “People always ask why I always come over from Macclesfield, we don’t really have anything over this way and everyone at the cafe has been very welcoming.
“People here think I’m mad for travelling all that way.
“They’ve been so kind to me and in the six short months I’ve been going over, they’ve noticed such a significant difference in me.
“They’ve made me feel part of their community. As it’s coming up to their first birthday, I thought I want to give something back. I wanted to do something with the cycling.
“I love a challenge and over the course of 18 months I have really built up cycling. Cycling is the cornerstone of my mental health and my thinking time.”
John was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) in 1985 and says he didn’t know he was suffering with the condition for years.
He said his parents brought him over to a local mental health hospital, but he refused to talk openly to the psychiatrist.
In what he calls his ‘nuclear missile moment’, John said the psychiatrist told him he would have to ‘section him’ unless he told him what was going on.
John said: “In that moment, everything came out and I was treated for OCD but I’ve gone through stressful and depressing times, even in recent times.
“But over the years
I’ve built up skills to deal with it, with the help of the cafe and a life coach. Without them I wouldn’t be where I am today.
“I’m quite happy to talk to people about my experiences, one of the problems was that I never used to.
“Doctors are great people but there is nothing better than talking to someone who has been through it and come out the other side.
“My situation got worse when I bottled my emotions and back then in the 80s you were outcast immediately when dealing with mental health issues.”