I want to show you some of my scars. I got this one when I was four and I fell inside an old double decker bus...5 stitches and lots of blood...

...this one was a cool scar I got when I was about twelve. I was trying to cut a plastic soccer figure, which I got in a Kellogg's box, from its frame. The knife slipped...oops! 4 stiches and lots of blood...and I fainted!

This is my coolest scar. I got it in July 2019 when I had my hemicolectomy due to difficult pre-cancerous polyps. No stiches to save and never saw the blood.

We all have visible war-wounds but many of us have wounds which aren't as obvious and aren't as easy to explain. I grew up in a house with an alcoholic parent. This has caused me my most difficult scars.

My nervous tics started when I was very young...shaking my head incessantly...then eye blinking. In my teens I added in nasal twitching, teeth grinding and guttural tics, as well as some shoulder ones. This all led to stammering and my self-esteem plummeted. I felt useless.

Obsessive compulsion began when I was 17. It started with repeating car number plates in my head...incessant counting of county totals! Over the following years, I found myself having to read and spell road signs (to the rhythm of my tics) before I could pass them...

...and by the time I was 22, riding on my moped became difficult as I had to slow down for approaching road signs and ride with my eyes closed half the time! I also had dropped out of three colleges by then. I got help and the next year I passed my prelim nursing exams.

That was 34 years ago and I have gotten married, had 4 wonderful daughters, am a grandfather, have had/am having a great career and looking forward to the coming years, but the tics, the obsessive compulsion and the voice in my head that says 'you're useless' are always there...

I live with them every day: the running text on the ticker in the train; the subtitles of the continental Netflix series I watch. When I am not thinking, I fall back into old ways. These are just some of the less visible scars a that make me who I am.

They are part of me, but they don't control me any more. I know I am not alone in this and we all need to feel that we can talk because mental health does matter.