My Story

From a person in desperate need of help now providing support and guidance back to the community.

My name is Michael Cullen aka SpeedoMick. Today I am part of something that has given me back my self-respect, my confidence, my humility, and my sense of belonging back to me. “The Speedo Mick Foundation” is a Registered Charity giving back to the community that needs help and support and today myself and our team can offer this support.

It has not always been this way for me. For a long time, I needed that very same help and support that I am now offering to others. I have been the homeless person you see in the shop doorway, the addict, the alcoholic, the hopeless case that had made so many bad decisions that there was surely no way back.

"I made these terrible decisions in my life in order to block out the pain I was feeling inside..."

I could not see any way out. I had become isolated from society and left to my own devices I made things much worse. I was no longer a part of my family, and I had nothing to contribute to my community. I made these terrible decisions in my life to block out the pain I was feeling inside and as a result I took no responsibility and I blamed everybody else for the position I found myself in. I was so entrenched in my self-destructive behaviour patterns that I had lost sight of the compassionate loving caring person I always hoped I’d be.

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Dontate

I had mostly been given up on by my community and by my family and my friends. Not because they didn’t want to help but because they had tried to help me so many times without success so in the end it just seemed futile to try. I had to accept help from others, the power was in my hands and the decision had to be made by me to first of all except that I needed help to reach deep inside to find the flicker of hope that was left and I could return and become the man I longed to be and to fulfil my ambition to once again be a part of my loving family and a productive member of my community and society as a whole.

As a child I was never given guidance very much and I was off the rails from a very young age and in fact actively encouraged to be a naughty child by my peers and all the grown-ups around me. I was only too happy to oblige with my bad behaviour as this was the way I received my attention. I carried this behaviour on through to my adult life hence I made some bad decisions, decisions that cost me my home my family and my friends, not to mention my dignity and pride.