Thread by @ibroxrocks

If I may beg your indulgence, a thread:

Been trying to work out why I’m so angry at the Gazza snub. I mean, genuinely, personally offended. After all, there’s a litany of Scottish Football v Rangers shite over the years. So why this one?

As some of you may know, I had a lot of ‘issues’. Drink, drugs, usual WoS stuff. Certainly not unique. I’d never understood what it was till I got sober. I was ahown that I’d always felt...odd. Sad. Not quite right.

So I tried to cover it up with an outsize, substance-fuelled ‘personality’. I absolutely fucking despised myself, and my behaviour, but every time the feelings closed in, I’d elward them off by getting ‘fullay it’. I was a Scottish male, after all.

‘Gie yersel a shake’. ‘What have I got to be depressed about?’ All that. And so it continued, year after miserable fucking year. Until it couldn’t. Luckily, thanks to an amazing support system of friends and family, I got through it. Many don’t. I’ve been to their funerals.

Now, I’ve realised that, for some reason, I’m not wired right. That’s okay though. With treatment, medication and - and this is key - the ability to talk about, I’ll be fine. What a great thing it is to be able to say that. But I had to accept there’s no cure. It’s who I am.

So for people to use someone’s memtal health - someone like me and, I suspect, many of you - to deny them, to ostracise them, to humiliate them - fucking burns me up. It’s not the country I want to be proud of. It’s barbaric, it’s backwards and it needs called out.

Paul Gascoigne is a flawed man. But so is the one who stares back at me in the mirror. I have no right to judge him. I have a duty to support him. It’s basic humanity. It’s not about him. It’s about who WE want to be.

So, to finish this rant: this shameful act embarrasses all of us as it sets a precedent that cruelty towards mental health sufferers is okay ‘so long as you don’t like them’. Well it fucking isn’t. And decent people need to say that.

Thank you for listening and I hope you all have a good day. Remember everyone is fighting a battle you might not be able to see.

Lovenkisses, D