Man to complete first marathon after overcoming childhood abuse and homelessness at 16
When Jake Baxter was 16 his stepfather told him to leave the house, and the teenager spent his first few nights afterwards sleeping on a park bench.
Being made homeless hadn't come as a surprise to Jake, as his stepdad had told him 'at every given chance' how much he hated him until it reached the point where he said: "When you're 16, I want you to put your key on the side and go."
Speaking to LADbible, Jake explained that back when he was 10 he was living in Blackpool with his mum, dad and two half-brothers, and he described his dad as 'a very nasty piece of work', which meant the family spent all their time walking on eggshells.
He remembered one time where he spilled some juice at breakfast and 'got a massive smack over my head' for it.
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If it wasn't Jake then it was his brothers, and he recounted how one of them was disabled and his dad 'would target him physically'.
A few years later they had moved to Rotherham with the man who would become Jake's stepdad.
He said he was 'terrified' of the man and though he was 'never physically harmful' to the teenager he was 'very aggressive, particularly with my mum'.
Eventually Jake was told he'd be expected to leave once he turned 16, and once that time came he was made homeless.
"No word of a lie when I was 16, he told me to go, he stuck to his word and my mum just kind of stood there. Now I look back, she was probably frightened," Jake told LADbible.
“He was very intimidating, so what he said he was going to do I had no doubts that he was going to do it. Maybe he thought he was being sort of morally superior by waiting till I was 16, I don't know.
"I was living on the streets, spent time on a park bench in a place called Clifton Park in Rotherham, that's where I spent my first few nights.
“Then eventually I went to a place called Rush House, which is like a youth hostel for the homeless. They really helped me, I got emergency accommodation and I ate from food banks and stuff, which wasn't very nice, but at least I was getting fed, at least I was getting housed and people were looking after me and not trying to take from me.
“I'm really thankful that I found Rush House."
Around this time Jake found his 'saviour' in the form of Rotherham College, which he says 'literally saved my life' as he embraced the performing arts.
He said: "I found joy in being somebody else, quite literally stepping into somebody else's life.
"At home, I was terrified. I was scared, I was worried what was going to happen. But at college I could be Macbeth, I could be this cool character, I could be Danny Zuko from Grease."
During this time he 'discovered that not everybody was out to get me', and was diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder and traits of borderline personality disorder.
In University by now, Jake was offered the choice between spending time on work experience and starting his own theatre company, he ultimately chose the latter and started Anti-Social Theatre.
From there they crafted short stories and monologues to perform with the aim of 'destigmatising controversial mental health disorders'.
"The whole point was to show that we are we are normal people that you know we are in there, we're under underneath the grief and underneath the anger and upset, we're just normal people trying to navigate the world like everybody else," Jake explained.
"And for that reason that we do deserve help, we do deserve support."
Now his next target is running the Manchester Marathon, set to take place later this month (27 April), and he's got his mum and a brother coming along to cheer him on.
His path to the marathon started a couple of years ago after he found he 'couldn't go up the stairs without my heartbeat going 10 to the dozen' and took up running.
Jake has managed to run a half-marathon before, putting up a time of one hour and 38 minutes which he reckons means he should complete a marathon in under four hours.
Now he's got the marathon in his sights and reckons everything he's been through has motivated him not to stop, saying he doesn't think 'the wall' exists for him because what he's been through 'is probably 10 times the feeling of hitting the wall'.
“I've hit the wall many times in life and I can hit it again. I can go through it again," Jake said.
“Somebody said to me that I'm going to end up just like my dad by the age of 30, meaning in prison. So those are the things that go through my head when it gets tough. If I stop now am I proving these people right?
“That I'm gonna be anything. I'm not gonna do anything. So those thoughts keep me going. So I'm going to do the marathon regardless, even if my leg falls off I'm hopping till the finish."
If you've been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence, contact Shelter via their webchat service or on 0808 800 4444. The line is open 8am-6pm Monday to Friday, excluding Bank Holidays.
Topics: Mental Health, Marathon, UK News, Health
Joe Harker