My name is David Holloway, I am a 32 year old Anglo-Indian, who first became ill at 16 after I was exposed to solvents on a school work experience job, in a laboratory where there was no air-ventilation. I suffered a complete mental breakdown after 6 weeks there, and was admitted into hospital and diagnosed with clinical depression. I also began to thought block, where I would suppress every thought I was having because I feared that I was dying, and I believed that I could hear other people’s thoughts. I suffered brain damage and this resulted in a type of retardation that seemed to rob me of my higher level thinking. I’ve watched programs on television with young adults who have had brain damage after an accident, such as falling from a height and hitting their head, and my life was exactly like that for 3 years until college. At college I regained my mental power of problem solving, but I was not fully able to understand fairly complex concepts such as the potential difference between an anode and a cathode inside a battery. My course in engineering was very hard work, but I successfully gained my Btec national diploma in engineering.