Welcome to My World

By Neil Gibson

This book was devised with a single intention: for people to understand
how the brain works.

Society, along with evolution, teaches us to rely mainly on the longterm
memory area of the brain, yet this can be the underlying cause of
many mental and physical problems. Welcome To My World has been
written in a deliberately simplistic way so that everyone can understand
it. Hopefully it might encourage you to question how you use your own
brain and challenge you to think in a very different way.

Whilst there are many books written by so-called experts about the
physiology and function of the brain, their authors rarely have personal
insight into how seemingly normal brain activity can impact negatively
on overall wellbeing, or how the brain can be re-trained with amazing
consequential benefi ts to health.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jun 20, 2013
• ISBN: 9781481796453

Neil Gibson

Neil Gibson is 46 years old and has lived his entire life with autism, although he only recently identified the cause of his problems after noticing worrying aspects of his daughter’s behaviour. This led him to research autism, amongst other closely-related conditions, and he quickly established a sound understanding of the basic workings of the brain, concluding that many of the physical and mental health issues society faces today are caused by our incorrect use of the various regions of our brain. Neil has made incredible personal progress over the last three years, using his newfound understanding of mental processes to eradicate the various seemingly unrelated health problems that he had previously faced. He recently married and has a 16-year-old daughter from his first marriage. He currently resides in Stoke-on-Trent, England.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

LET ME ENTERTAIN YOU

This way, Mr Gibson. Of course, you would have to do the work right at the start of the summer holiday, otherwise the paint fumes might linger and affect some of our children. We have quite a few asthmatics and… Ah, I see you are admiring our display on Chinese New Year. The Year of the Tiger, that’s what we’re in now. It looks a little bit like a dragon, doesn’t it? But actually that’s the way the Chinese do them. The children undertook all their own research, you know, and built this huge tiger themselves in after-school club to carry in a procession. Look, over here are some photos of them parading it through the estate… Mr Gibson? Mr Gibson—are you all right? Mr Gibson!

No, not all right. I couldn’t move. My legs had turned to jelly and a wave of hot nausea swept over me. Somewhere in the back of my head I knew I was supposed to answer, but I didn’t know what to say. Just keep quiet then, stay out of trouble. The grotesque dragon-tiger leered down at me, taunting. I chewed at the already sore skin around the ragged remains of my stumpy nails.

Neil Gibson!

I swallowed hard. Try not to panic. What, Miss?

"Don’t ‘What Miss’ me—I said, Neil Gibson."

"But Miss . . ." My head was swimming. I could hardly breathe. Please God, what am I supposed to say?

Mr Gibson, are you sure you’re okay? Can I get you a glass of water?

Is it the register? No wait . . . water . . .

Er, yes—I mean, actually, no thank you. I’ll be fine. Sorry, I came over a bit funny there. I’m just getting over a bug, you see.

I smiled lamely and, seeming satisfied with this explanation, the Head turned and trotted off brightly down the corridor.

Oh, I know, isn’t it terrible? We’ve had so many staff and kids off poorly with this summer cold thing, and it hangs around for ages, doesn’t it? Just let me know if you change your mind, by the way, there’s a water dispenser around the corner in the office. Now, here’s one of the classrooms that needs some sort of makeover. A bit of modernisation, I think.

Somehow I managed to persuade my legs to work again, and allowed myself to be ushered into a shabby yet gaudy and cluttered room. While she chattered on about magnolia paint and polyfilla, I surveyed the garish alphabet friezes and times tables posters. The sickly smell of plimsolls and play dough overwhelmed me. Nausea returned and I tried hard to fight it back. I had barely given a thought in recent years to my own schooldays, but now confused snippets of memories engulfed me, suffocating me, their treacherous undertow tearing away at my sanity. I need to get out. Now. Muttering something about sending a written quotation, and ignoring her protestations about showing me ‘the rest’, I turned and hurriedly walked away, back past the hideous, grinning dragon-tiger, breaking into a wobbly run as I neared the front door. Shit—it won’t open! Wait, Stupid, it’s just a security lock. Somewhere there’s a button. Heart pounding, my uncooperative fingers managed to connect with the switch and I fumbled my way out into the cold, fresh air, filling my lungs deeply with its reassuring coolness before jumping into the van and screeching out of the car park, flooring it recklessly along the narrow streets of the estate. It felt good, the way it used to.

Back at home, my pounding heart gradually resuming its normal rhythm after the heady cocktail of panic and euphoria, I rummaged through my numerous music DVDs. Robbie Williams, Live at Knebworth Park. That should hit the spot. Funny how being back in a school affected me that way. Removing the shiny disc from its case, I held it so that it caught the late afternoon sunshine, playing shards of rainbow lights across the walls and ceiling. Aimlessly, I tilted the disc, directing the light around the clock, between the shelves, driving it faultlessly through the slalom of hanging ornaments and pictures, until I parked it beside the latest school photograph of Hayley, my fourteen-year-old daughter. I tipped the disc so the light reflected off her dark hair. She was beautiful, but the portrait made her look oh, so serious. Not traumatised though, not the way I knew I would be if I had to go to school every day. Her brown eyes locked with mine and I looked hard into them, through them, into her soul. Suppose she was feeling traumatised? Would it show? Would she tell me? Her primary school had voiced concerns about her shyness and her seemingly poor memory, had even tested her for dyslexia, but the tests proved negative. Now in secondary school she seemed to be doing well, but little signs were creeping in… upset about returning after holidays, and more recently even after weekends… Natalie and I had put it down to That Monday Morning Feeling, but suddenly I knew it was so much more. My God, she feels just like I did! She is fourteen years old, and I am allowing her to go through that on her own. I have to help her.

But how? What could I possibly do to help, when I had never even been able to help myself? Truth be known, I had never even tried. Well, that would all have to change, and change NOW.

My head thundered with torrents of disturbing and elusive thoughts which I couldn’t begin to catch as they cascaded through my consciousness, much less control. Mindlessly, I crammed the DVD into the player and switched it on. As the music washed over me, purging my brain of all those troubling real-world problems, I was there, right there at Knebworth, part of the pulsating crowd, entirely at one with Robbie’s performance. When the programme ended, I immediately started it over again, watching intently, full of wonder and admiration as the singer worked his excited audience, replaying the best bits over and over. Why can’t I be like Robbie? The funny thing was, I knew I could sing just as well as him, better in fact; yet I was just plain old Neil Gibson, painter and decorator, from Stoke-on-Trent. It wasn’t fair. Although it had to be said, I was a damn good painter and decorator—some might argue the best, the very best. Fast work, high standard. The best singer, the best painter. I smiled to myself. I don’t think there is anyone on earth who can do all the things I can. I am truly the greatest guy on the planet.

1976. Everything changed for a nine-year-old boy. Leaving her husband in Germany to complete the last few months of his term in the army, Mrs Mary Gibson and her two daughters and four sons travelled back to England, to a council house in her home town of Alsager, Cheshire. I, Neil, second-youngest of her children, started my new school, Excalibur County Primary.

Don’t worry if you can’t do it, just copy mine, my cousin Janice offered sweetly. Mrs Bryant had sat us together to help me settle in, and Janice was eager to do her very best for her new-found friend and family member. I accepted gratefully. School in Germany had consisted largely of playing ‘shops’ and, whilst this meant I was tremendously skilled at counting in German, I felt ill-equipped to handle the demands of my strange new environment. Fortunately Janice proved to be moderately clever, hence it seems I gave every outward appearance of coping admirably and avoided drawing unwanted attention to myself.

The days and weeks laboured on. Summer scorched in through the classroom window, concentrating the putrid aroma of school, which seemed to alternate between stewed cabbage and sweaty plimsolls. My father was still in Germany, and I saw little of Mum or my brothers and sisters, preferring to spend every free moment playing street-football with Kev Bennett and John Finney, despite them being in the year below me.

My eldest sister Susan announced that she was engaged to be married, and I was to be pageboy. I didn’t really understand what a pageboy was, even after it had been explained to me, but it sounded quite exciting, and something to look forward to. In school, Janice continued to cluck and fuss, ensuring I was protected from both the wrath of teachers and the attentions of other boys my own age.

Finally—the summer holidays. Long, hot days of freedom. More football with Kev and John.

One day has always especially stood out from around this time. I was on my way to the corner shop to pick up the newspapers when Kev came panting towards me, waving his rolled-up copy of the Sun.

Guess what, Neil? Go on—guess!

How can I guess, you prat? It could be anything! I grinned at him, but he wasn’t smiling back. In fact he looked shocked. A small knot of panic formed in my stomach. Whatever it was, it was serious.

Neil… Elvis is dead!

Who the fuck’s Elvis? I laughed, relieved, pleased with how grown-up I sounded using this expletive. I had never heard of him. But I could sense that Kev was almost in tears as he showed me the paper, his hand shaking as he leafed through its contents. Every page was full of pictures of this dodgy Elvis guy.

One day, to my surprise, my cousin Joanne knocked for me.

You wanna go to the cemetery?

You what?

Our Granddad’s there. And my Dad. I just thought you might like to see.

Nan’s house was almost opposite ours in the street, and she had pictures of Granddad on the mantelpiece. I didn’t know how long he had been dead—in truth I had never thought to ask. But John was in Rhyl for the week, and Kev was grounded for breaking his Mum’s kitchen window, so there was little else to do.

All right then.

While Joanne was busy arranging roses and leopard lilies in memory of her Dad, I crouched by Granddad’s headstone trying to imagine what the impeccably-dressed, smiling man in the photo might look like in his coffin. I guessed he would be a skeleton by now. How long after being buried, I wondered, does it take a body to decompose? I pictured a rotting corpse with jutting teeth and worms crawling in the eye sockets. Ah, but would there be worms though? Do coffins rot before bodies or do they last long enough to keep the worms out? Strange thoughts, I know, but this was how my mind worked. I became quite obsessed with the notion of death and decay, and frequently returned to the cemetery in the weeks that followed, sometimes with Joanne, sometimes alone. I could visualise the rows of stiff dead people in various stages of decomposition being squashed by the activities of life above.

The day of Susan’s wedding arrived, a day I had eagerly anticipated, not least because my Dad would be coming home from Germany for the occasion—indeed for good, his army duties now discharged. Everything progressed smoothly until the time came for photographs. I always disliked having my picture taken and nobody had told me this was part of the deal. I complained long and loud, avoiding as many shots as I could. I don’t know whether or not my non-compliance with the photographer was a contributory factor, but just as we were about to leave for the reception, my parents suddenly fell out quite spectacularly and my Dad stormed off. I couldn’t believe it—he’d hardly been back five minutes! I refused to get in the car with my brothers, meaning to go after him, but was bundled in anyway, protesting vociferously. When we arrived at the hall, I stubbornly declined to go in. Mum endeavoured to persuade me, but the harder she tried the more determined I became to boycott the event. Eventually she gave up and disappeared into the hall, leaving me standing alone outside, shaken and sobbing. In disgust, I ripped the stupid frills from the front of my silk shirt and ground them into the dirty concrete ramp with my painful, poncey shoes. After a few minutes my new brother-in-law Chris emerged and tried to talk me round, but I was having none of it, so he too went back inside. I decided to walk home, despite my blistered feet, fully expecting to find Dad there, but the place was empty. I waited up until I heard Mum’s key in the door, then shot up to bed and pretended to be asleep when my brothers burst in. I didn’t hear Dad come back, but he was there in the morning, although his face was like thunder, and he and Mum barely spoke. So I resumed my routine of going out early and returning home as late as possible. Luckily the weather remained warm and dry, and this was quite conducive to avoidance of home life.

I was almost pleased when school started again, but my relief was short-lived. Janice had taken up with a boy during the summer and was no longer interested in helping me with my work. My stupidity was now entirely public. Mr Taylor used to pick on individual children to stand up and answer questions or recite tables and of course I always got them wrong. Eventually he didn’t even bother to ask me any more. One day a cover teacher sent me outside to where the clock was to find out the time. I stood for ages peering up at the confusing features of the clock face, trying to figure it out. Eventually I could do nothing but return and confess in front of everyone that I had never learned to tell the time. I burned with embarrassment as the teacher scrutinised me with a puzzled look on her face while the rest of the class were in stitches. Then she laughed too and, shaking her head, sent another child to find out.

One lesson I really did enjoy was games. I loved football and athletics, and found them easy, although I didn’t have sufficient co-ordination for gymnastics. My greatest skill was running. Strangely though, I always hated Sports Day—I couldn’t bear the sensation of everyone looking at me. So I always ran my races in the middle, taking comfort in the anonymity. That is, until on one occasion during a relay race, with me as the last boy to run, the lad ahead of me on my team dropped the baton. Although we were trailing badly, a voice in my head willed me to run as hard and as fast as I could—there was just no way I could contend with finishing last. As I collected the baton, the other boys were so far in front of me that anything other than total defeat seemed impossible. But I put my head down and focused every last shred of energy I had into propelling myself forward. I didn’t look up until I crossed the finish line, only to find that I had won! Quite how I did it, I’ll never know. The other boys in my team all congratulated me and our teacher came over to say he couldn’t believe I achieved what I did after being so far behind. I was soon picked for the school football team playing centre forward, which I loved. That feeling when I scored was exactly the same as when I won my first race. Like an electric shock running the length of my body. I continued to practise by kicking about with my mates Kev and John after school as I still didn’t mix much with children of my own age.

There were just two issues with games lessons which caused me some embarrassment. One was getting changed—it always took me so much longer than other children. The biggest problem of all was tying my shoelaces. No matter how hard I tried, it was a skill I just could not master. Also I had problems with dry skin on my lower legs, resulting in deep cracks appearing between my toes and on the soles of my feet which lasted for a couple of weeks at a time. Eventually I was prescribed some cream which, when applied liberally and covered with a rubber sock, softened the skin, and the condition finally subsided.

One afternoon, a couple of weeks after Susan’s wedding, I came home from school to be told by Dad that Mum had left and taken Yvonne with her. Left! Just like that! Stunned, I ran to my bedroom, sat bolt upright on the bed and tried to get my head round the enormity of what had just happened. Why didn’t she tell me she was going? Maybe it was my fault. Maybe she had tried to explain, but I wasn’t listening. But why didn’t she take me with her? She knew how much I hated this place. I hated Alsager, I hated school. I never wanted to come here in the first place. I was happy in Germany, why couldn’t we have stayed there? She wanted to come and live here, not me—now she had just upped and left me. I chewed at my nails, ripping them back until they bled, and blinked back the tears, determined not to cry. It would be okay—my brothers were still at home so I wouldn’t be alone. We fought a bit sometimes, but at least we got on, after a fashion. She would get in touch soon.

But day after long day, week on endless week, the time dragged on, oh so slowly. And no word from Mum. At first I missed her terribly, but the dull, nagging ache of our separation gradually faded until it seemed almost insignificant compared to the constant, twanging agony of coping with the ongoing pressures of school.

It felt as though the day would never come, but finally, painfully, I made it through to my very last day of primary school. You might imagine it would be memorable, but the events of that particular day just smudge into other murky recollections of Excalibur County Primary and are nothing remarkable in themselves. What I do remember, oh so clearly, is the exquisite liberty I experienced on the first day of the summer holidays. I am reluctant to use the old cliché of a weight being lifted from my shoulders, but I can think of no more apt expression to describe the relief and sense of freedom that swept over me. Even the air I breathed seemed somehow more invigorating and everything around me took on a new brightness and sharper definition. The world, which for the last two years had been my constant tormentor, now seemed like a new and exciting friend, in whose company I could achieve anything I wanted, even the seemingly impossible.

So summer passed as summers do, although that year was a real scorcher—the hottest on record. Dad had a new girlfriend called Brenda, and she seemed quite nice. In truth, I saw little of my family, as I was always out with my mates. I was excited about starting at my new school, as I figured this would be a clean slate, and I was feeling pretty invincible as I knew there would be no problems such as I had experienced at Excalibur. I can do this—I can do anything they ask of me. I am a great footballer, a great athlete. They are so lucky to have me! I would have been fine at primary had the lessons not been stupidly different from those in Germany. My only slight reservation was that Kev and John both had another year to go at Excalibur, so they wouldn’t be with me for moral support, should that be required—not that it would, of course—and Janice had barely spoken to me in the last year.

With a sudden painful jolt, I realised I was biting my nails and ripping the skin back past the quick, even further down than usual. Each of my fingers was raw and sore around stubby nails that resulted from a habit which had been with me for over thirty years. I noticed the Robbie Williams DVD had come to an end again. This time I took the disc out of the player, replaced it in its case and filed it carefully on the shelf with all the others. The dying rays of the sun fell on the bright crystal spines of my eclectic music collection. I scanned them, straining to see in the half-light, drawing comfort from the familiarity of their names. Each one had its own connotations, its own significance in my life. If I ever write my memoirs, I thought, I will name each section after a piece of music. There were so many that meant so much.

CHAPTER 2

HOLDING BACK THE YEARS

I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep. Outside, the night was mild and bright with an almost-full moon, and enough light fell through an open chink between the curtains for me to be able to see every feature of Natalie’s beautiful face and softly highlighted hair as she slept beside me. She looked peaceful and I envied her her inner serenity. My mind was still churning from the events of the day, which were at the same time both ordinary and extraordinary. It was as though something had changed inside me with that brief experience in a primary school, and I couldn’t quite pin down what it was. Again I thought of Hayley, having to go to school every day, maybe having to put up with agonies just like those I had endured. I began to see that in order to help her, I had to face up to everything in my life that had brought me to this place, everything that defined me, and no detail could be glossed over, however difficult it might be to revisit.

The first few weeks at Alsager Comprehensive School looked promising. There were plenty more opportunities to take part in sport. We could play football every break time and at lunchtimes I would train for cross country. I was soon asked to run for the school and it wasn’t long before I got noticed and was picked to represent Cheshire. I came third in my very first race at county level. When running, I always kept to the middle of the pack until I knew I was close to the end of the course, then I would take off and put everything into finishing as

Reviews for Welcome to My World

[Amy Gibson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Interesting to read about your own family x x x