A drive to feel

“I’d give anything to be different than what i am” admits alex while looking down at his hands. Telling his story makes alex quite shaky he confesses while slouching on the bed . after all dealing with our emotions is never an easy task , but for alex it’s a little bit more than that. His pornaddiction , among other issues, created an overall muteness of his feellings intervalled by emotional breakdowns caused primarly by drugs . The abscence of communication with his parents, since he was a child, transformed the emotional numbness into a wall that is now hard to break.
Alex’s nervousness is almost palpable as he enters the room on a chilly Monday evening. He walks in the small halls of residence room with a falsely confident stride.The oversized military jacket, the zebra foulard and the champaign dyed color hair immediately catches the eye and gives off an eccetric look, while his soft and gentle features, (rosey cheaks)his fair complexion and light blue eyes reveal the secret of a little boy.
The same little boy who didn’t have a careless and happy childhood because of an addiction to porn which started at the early age of 11, but now that he’s 18 and sees it all more clearly. Among others things , Alex blames the internet and not having parental supervision while using it at such an early age. “ i think my parents knew, they must have known”. although, later on he says in one big sigh “ i can only blame myself”.
He regrets complaining so much to his parents about being bullied at school “i was just an attention seeking kid , i guess” . his parents moved him to a new school where alex felt lost without his friends. “Peolple treated me like shit, i nearly killed myself in year 5”.
Fourteen hit alex like a bullet. His father’s affair complicated even more the never smooth family dynamics. Talking about his parents he says “ i don’t think they like me very much, my mother hates all men and i guess she’angry for me turning into one ”. Recently while talking to his mom about his issues she said to be disgusted and feels that she failed as a mother, he says with openwide eyes while touching his face.
His father’s sense of guilt , towards the family became a heavy burden in his reationship with alex. Communication among the two became impossible. “ Even when he found a considerable porn stack he did nothing except making my guilt worse”, a sensation of guilt which was probably already within alex. Lately they had “a good coversation”.
While completely shutting down his feelings, porn became central to alex’s life.Everything in his life became secondary to porn.Even having a “working” relationship was impossible. Fear does play a key element in his life as alex declares. Fear of confronting others, difficult situations, but most of all himself. “I don’t like being alone because i start thinking” he says.
In seek of respect and acceptance he put out a persona which soon became a “popular party animal that went with everything that moved” he says. He was finally accepted in the new school, but was lonlier than ever because his feelings and his morals were supressed.
Drugs and alcohol became an easy escape which caused exasperated emotional issues and mental instability. “being able to cry was fantastic” he adds .Alex never thought of them as a true addiction although he’s worried about becoming dependant on ecstasy because of the sensations of empathy,love and walking through fire it gives him, hesays “times with ecstasy have been the most beautiful experiences of my life”.
Asking for counselling, at the age of 16, made alex feel extremely unconfortable and humilated. “It’s admitting to have a weakness, i want peolpe to respect me and see me as strong all the time” he says. later on melancholicly he admits “i would like to have some pride in myself” .
Coming to university and moving away from home represented a new start and he quit the porn but quickly realized that he underestimated the difficulty that it brought with it. Alex felt alone and scared, “without porn I didn’t know who i was”. So he jumped back into the well known compulsory routine.
Because the addiction to porn represents an everyday battle he doesn’t think much about his future and admits to having no aspirations other than falling in love. Alex has been in a good mood for a couple of days now. He cut the cable on his Internet connection.“ I am not dealing with this anymore” and now he is in a “semi-working” relationship as he defines it. He describes quittting porn as unsettling and “the hardest thing i’ve done in my life”

the names in this article have been changed for privacy purposes

Bank bureaucracy stole £ 1,500 from student's account

One thousand five hundred pounds disappeared out of a student bank account after his bank card was cloned around October twenty first. The situation remains unresolved due to bank bureaucracy.
Saman Ebrahim,20 from Yorkshire,is a client at Abbey bank. Currently, he lives in Halls of residence at University of Westminster.He noticed the money missing from his account november 7th, after his mother sent him a bank statement.Since then he pointlessly tried blocking his account.
Mr.Ebrahim tried calling the bank over the weekend,but the bank was either too busy or closed. He says "I wasted a bunch of time and money trying to call them".On Monday he went to Abbey's branch in Harrow,where he currently lives.The clerk told him to complete a dispute claim while she would block the card.
The dispute claim was delivered in a branch in central London where he was told not only that his acount was still opened,but that to change it or close it he needed a reference number from the fraud office. By then £ 1,300 were taken out of his account.
At the bank Mr.Ebrahim spent 20 minutes on the phone, being diverted between the variuos offices.After that the clerk infomerd him it will take 6 weeks for them to complete the investigation. Mr. Ebrahim affirms disappointed"found out i couldn't block my card anyway at the end of it all".
First illegal transaction was made at Domino's Pizza in Halifax.This was Mr.Ebrahim's former residence before moving to Westminster's University halls of residence on september 17th.He says "judjing the evidence someone stole bank details from my house".
Since Mr. Ebrahim does not have an overdraft.Therefore while, the money continues to be stolen the bank is charging him for having a negative account. Bank states that Mr.Ebrahim will be reimbursed 'eventually'.
Mr.Ebrahim is facing serious problems due to this incident. As money cannot be dispersed into the account it will be transfered via post.This system is not reliable. Hence he will be able to receive lean quantities of money.