‘I tried to kill myself when I was seven after stabbing someone with a rusty nail and being targeted by gangs’
William Robertson was just seven when he was pushed into a local gang and a life of violence that made him suicidal
WILLIAM Robertson was only seven years old when he first tried to kill himself in the bath in the council flat where he lived with his mum.
After being born into homelessness in Glasgow - he'd ended up in a gang and was so scared of the violence, drugs and alcohol abuse he faced on a daily basis that he tried to end it.
"Gangs would wait around my school and plenty of violence was put my way," he tells Sun Online.
"You’d run for your life as sometimes the weapons were deadly. I lost many battles and have many scars to show for it."
William, now 32, says while he now understands there was a way out, at the time he felt powerless to change his life.
As part of The Sun's You're Not Alone suicide prevention campaign, William is speaking out about his childhood suicide attempts as rates of young people killing themselves soar - with a 70 per cent rise in suicide among under 19s in England and Wales over the last seven years.
'I was hit with bottles and bricks - and stabbed a gang rival with a rusty nail'
William spent his first two years of life in grotty temporary housing - where cruel thugs stole his pram.
His parents were given a council house when he was two, and his mum worked several jobs to keep up with payments - leaving William with with nothing to do but play on the streets alone.
With no-one else to hang around with, it wasn't long before he fell in with a local gang who targeted young kids on the city's streets.
"I was fighting a lot. My youth was all fighting and violence. I was hit with bottles, bricks, you name it.
"In retaliation, I stabbed someone with a rusty nail when I was eight. I was always going down the road of violence,” he says.
After surviving his first suicide attempt, William's situation got worse.
By his early teens, William was drinking and taking drugs - including cannabis, ecstasy, cocaine and speed - and soon found himself kicked out of school for fighting and gang-related violence.
"I would run into gangs or pubs to fight with large groups and would be chased with hatchets or swords on a daily basis.
"I didn't care if I lived or died back then, but didn't have the courage to hang myself and that was the only thing that scared me."
YOU'RE NOT ALONE
EVERY 90 minutes in the UK a life is lost - to suicide.
It doesn't discriminate, touching the lives of people in every corner of society - from the homeless and unemployed to builders and doctors, reality stars and footballers.
It's the biggest killer of people under the age of 35, more deadly than cancer and car crashes. And men are three times more likely to take their own life than women.
Yet, it's rarely spoken of, a taboo that threatens to continue its deadly rampage unless we all stop and take notice, now.
That is why The Sun has launched the You're Not Alone campaign. To remind anyone facing a tough time, grappling with mental illness or feeling like there's nowhere left to turn, that there is hope.
The aim is that by sharing practical advice, raising awareness and breaking down the barriers people face when talking about their mental health, we can all do our bit to help save lives.
Let's all vow to ask for help when we need it, and listen out for others. You're Not Alone.
For a list of support services available, please see the Where To Get Help box below.
He witnessed and was involved in "many terrible things", he says, including someone jumping out of a car and stabbing him in the back of the head in a revenge attack that was a case of mistaken identity.
"You are who you hang around with in this life," William openly admits. "Prison was always going to happen."
He was first jailed in the early noughties for serious assault but the worst was yet to come.
'A work night out ended up in a prison sentence'
"I'd met a girl, got a good job in sales and settled, moving away from my gang-style life. But, I met old pals while on a work night out in 2005 and decided to go to Newcastle with them and messed up.
"We got off the train at Dumfries and I was done with around five assaults and breach of the peace following an altercation in Jumpin Jaks nightclub.
"My mate was kissing a boy’s sister and they all got into a debate."
William broke someone's nose by punching them and was given four years cut down to 32 months for pleading guilty early.
But his behaviour inside was erratic. He was involved in prison riots and the violence that he was used to on the outside simply wasn’t going to stop behind bars.
He says that if someone made a threat towards him, he would "give action and never held back".
“I don’t regret my violence,” he insists. “I never took part in the worst things I witnessed, and I survived and fought because I had to."
'I told cops to just shoot me'
When he finished his sentence in 2008, his childhood suicidal thoughts re-emerged and he fell back in with people who, he says, led him down a drug-related road and unhealthy path.
“I lost myself, partying and prison were all I knew," he says.
"I took all my money, took out loans and five different credit cards and got wasted. I booked a lads’ holiday to Greece with no intention of coming back."
Having decided to make it a holiday of a lifetime to end his life on, William says during the trip: “I was delusional and ripping up money.
"I wasn’t violent but I was taking drugs and not sleeping. I just wouldn’t calm down and paranoia had kicked in. It was a tough time.”
As he spiralled out of control, his friends called security and an ambulance to get him help.
“I was sectioned and just wouldn’t calm down, even when guns were pointed at me, I just told the hospital security to shoot me.
"I ended up being tasered and injected with medication to put me to sleep. I needed help that nobody could provide."
William was locked away in a padded cell before being transferred to a ward where he could be visited by his family after two weeks.
He would spend another three weeks in hospital before being sedated for a flight back to Glasgow.
WHERE TO GET HELP
If you, or anyone you know, needs help dealing with mental health problems, the following organisations provide support:
- CALM, , 0800 585 858
- Heads Together,
- Hector's House,
- Mind, , 0300 123 3393
- Papyrus,, 0800 068 41 41
- Samaritans, , 116 123
When he arrived home, he was interviewed in Leverndale Hospital where he was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder - which can cause symptoms of psychosis similar to schizophrenia and mood swings associated with bipolar.
"When I got labelled with my mental health disorder, my girlfriend immediately left me and the parents of some of my friends asked me to stop visiting.
"I put on weight because of the high doses of medication. I was always sleeping and was at a low point."
After years of violence and mental health problems, William got a new girlfriend and welcomed his first child, Ava-Jane, in January 2013.
“At 6.29pm on January 30 2013, I decided to raise my standards. I took my daughter's birth as a chance to reinvent myself," he says.
'I had to grow up when my daughter was born'
"I was over 19 stone but decided to do my first marathon and that I was going to live by example."
For his first marathon in Blackpool in 2013, he completed the 26.2-mile course in four hours and 53 minutes and has gone on to run many marathons, getting his weight down to 13 stone and his personal best down to to two hours and 55 minutes.
He's even taken up ultra-marathons - running 100-mile races over the course of 24 hours - with third being his best place finish - and raising money along the way.
While he has split from Ava-Jane's mum, he sees his daughter regularly. He's quit drugs and gambling and now only has a beer with a meal once every few months.
"Nights out and groups don’t interest me at all," he says.
"Looking back, my old life was about survival, just learning to stand up for myself and make sure I wasn’t done in. Back then, the party lifestyle was all about the human need of significance because girls would rather go with a criminal back then as they wanted a confident guy.
“Now I am responsible for setting an example and setting good habits for my daughter. I’m single and when I spend time with her I turn all my devices off, so we can have fun.
"We go to the zoo, for morning runs, swimming, galleries and days out on boats.”
"I don’t hide anything from my daughter. I say to her every master was once a disaster.”
William now works as a public speaker and life coach, after putting himself through the Open University and writing a book about his experience.
He says he looks back at his old life now and laughs. “I grew up,” he says.
"If I was to give advice to others in a crisis, it would simply be don’t go back to the people, places or things that damaged you.
“Raise your own standards, set a new sail and captain your own ship in a direction of your choice into the future as some of the best days of your life haven’t even happened yet.
"When you change inside, everything on the outside will change for you. Don’t run from your pain, use it as fuel to push you to great things.”
William is currently working with Scottish Rural University College to inspire change through a health campaign called ‘Destination Wellbeing’. His book based on his journey is titled Smile Every Mile.