This is a story about neurotoxicity...

What's happened to the left hand side of my face? My eyelid has drooped; my face is no longer symmetrical. Why do I have a facial tic? Why is my speech slow and slurred? Aren't these all symptoms of cognitive impairment; brain damage?

I decided to read back through some of my blog - I read from February through to June, when I was very unwell. I was surprised that a lot of it was gibberish - I thought that I had written with lucidity, but I had mis-remembered things.

As is so often the case with me, I dice with death and I dodge bullets. I'm still very sick, but I'm getting better. I'm going to make a full recovery. My speech is normal; my face doesn't tic and my eyelid no longer droops. The brain is a remarkable thing, but I do need to stop abusing my body.

A month ago I was livid; I was unbelievably angry. I was fighting for my income, my home and my liberty - I was fighting for my legal rights - and I was spitting venom; I was furious at being abused; mistreated; taken advantage of.

I re-read the lengthy blog post I wrote a month ago, which started OK, but then I got plunged into repetitive thoughts - you can tell that my brain was stuck on a loop and I repeated myself several times. It's surprising that I could express myself fairly well, given the circumstances. I imagine that it took me a long time to compose what I wrote, and I clearly struggled to remember what I'd written at the start, as I reached the end.

It's tempting to edit and airbrush history, but it's much more interesting to maintain a public record of exactly what I was thinking and feeling at a certain point in time. Inadvertently I also capture other details about my state of mind in the way in which I express myself.

I've now been writing for long enough to capture two periods of total abstinence from all mind-altering substances, including alcohol, caffeine and nicotine. I'm a lifelong non-smoker. I stopped drinking caffeinated beverages in 2013. During this particular period of abstinence, I've not drunk any alcohol for 35 consecutive days.

What's the net result of all this?

Nah, I'm only kidding... that was me when I was twenty years old. However, I'm sure there's been a marked improvement now that all the crap is out of my system.

A few friends spoke to me soon after I arrived on the psych ward. Although I sounded like my old self and I was in good spirits, my recovery was only just beginning - friends who see me and speak to me on a regular basis report that I'm much improved from how I was a month ago.

My hair, my skin, my nails, my teeth, my breath, my sweat and most importantly, my brain - all of these things are completely different, now that I'm not glugging gallons of booze and popping loads of pills.

I cringe with shame a little bit, to think that I made myself very exposed and vulnerable at a time when I was very unwell - the public got a little bit of a behind-the-scenes peek at me when I was extremely poorly. You can go digging in the archives, if it pleases you, or you can take my word for it: there's no surprises and there should be no pleasure in gawping at somebody when they're sick.

If we've not spoken for a while, I highly recommend that you get in contact and we actually speak on the phone - my email is nick@manicgrant.com. You might be very surprised to learn that your friend is in possession of most of his marbles, and not the raving lunatic that you might have guessed I would be, after such a traumatic couple of years.

Here's another one for the photo album, taken only seconds ago. My left eye is not yet 100% and I'm still suffering a lot of brain fog and other recovery-related problems - it'll be a month or two before I'm fighting fit. My face still tics when I'm stressed, but it's less pronounced.

I'm struggling with horrible anxiety, depression and confusion; memory problems. None of this is a surprise to me - it's to be expected, given what I've been through and I'm still going through.

I've got no idea what I'm really writing about, or what my purpose is now. Is this still the world's longest suicide note, or am I now campaigning to end the stigmatisation and discrimination that our less fortunate members of society must face: the mentally ill, alcoholics, drug addicts and homeless people... the dregs that nobody wants to touch with a bargepole. I know that I want to be the voice of the voiceless, although I know how clichéd that sounds.

I'm swimming through a fog of confusion, but I know I'm slowly getting better.

Tags: #mentalhealth #recovery