Hi I’m Paul, I am 25 years old and as you have probably read so far I was born with a very rare condition known as “congenital insensitivity to pain” which basically means I feel no pain, that however does not mean that I have no sense of touch because I do, I feel every thing else as anyone else would, with the exception of not having complete control over my body heat regulation and the not feeling pain, I am as quote “normal” as anyone else.

I live in a town called Dartford in Kent which is in England, not that far outside of London.

I spent most of my childhood life in a wheelchair due to the damage I inflicted upon my self as a result of not feeling pain, constantly putting my parents through hell, I would do things like jump down stairs because i would enjoy the attention i would receive after, and sometimes i would purposely injure myself by doing things like break my own fingers just to get my own way.

When a child feels no pain there is no negative side to injuries, all they understand is the attention they receive and the presents given to then during their stay in a hospital.

For me, the excitement and attention was enough for me to carry on injuring myself right through till i was old enough to understand just what damage I was doing to my self and the consequences I would suffer later in life and also what grief I was putting my parents through.

Now I’m an adult and I understand completely what I was putting my parents through as a child and live in constant regret because of the damage I did to my body. I now live with arthritis due to the amount of times I broke my bones as a child. My legs are considerably weaker than those of my friends and family, and as such, I was unable to do much in the way of sports at school. Today, I do still find myself in the hospital nowadays, but not due to damage inflicted on myself, but because of the damage I did as a child, my bones are weaker than normal so I can break a bone by doing the most ordinary of things. For example I broke my thigh bone about three years ago merely sleeping in my bed, it turns out I had a hairline fracture in my leg for many years that had not healed properly and due an infection in one of my toes brought on by a corn I was off my leg for a period of time to prevent the infection from getting worse. During  the time off my leg it had weakened by muscles which had been apparently supporting my bone and prevented the hairline fracture from getting worse.

I am only 5ft tall because of damage I did to the growth plates in my joints which has been a major source of anger and depression during my teenage years, I am glad to say that now I am over that era and although I would still very much like to be taller I no longer let it get me down (pardon the pun).

I have spent most of my working life in retail working for a British supermarket, never really knowing what I wanted to do, I have never realised that I am in a perfect position to give advice and help families that are going through what I did and what my parents did. I am now working with my long term friend Steven as we share the same condition and we are both eager to get this condition known more to the general public and to the medical side too but mainly to offer help to those who feel there is little, just as it was for our parents years ago.