This is a story about the past year...

As I searched for an image that aptly represented the last year, I realised that I would struggle to find one. Should I use a photo of fireworks over London taken from my balcony? Should I use one from one of my visits to hospital? Should I use a photo that represents something abstract: addiction, travel, work, recovery or something else? Should I use a photo that reminds me where I was a year ago versus where I am today?

I've selected this picture from a psych ward. The tree is supposed to be decorated with leaves which have a handwritten message from patients who have successfully recovered and left the ward. There aren't many leaves on the tree.

I'm regularly criticised for being deliberately glum. Perhaps my negativity is a choice. Perhaps I wouldn't be so stressed, anxious and depressed, if only I decided to be fit, healthy and happy instead. Perhaps I could also decide that I'm a millionaire too, while I'm at it.

I should be happy that I survived 2017. The odds certainly weren't in my favour. Whether it was kidney failure, addiction or suicide that claimed my life, there was sure to be something that was going to kill me. I should be happy to have made it through another year, shouldn't I?

What about prospects? I start 2018 with friends, living with a family, with a roof over my head, with a job. Looking at the hard numbers, things look rosy: I earn a lot and it'll take less than a year to replenish my finances. Most people would be chuffed to bits to have the opportunities that I have.

Tonight will be my 5th night without sleeping pills and my 3rd without painkillers, having partially relapsed because the pills were helping me with stress and anxiety. I enter the New Year relatively free from drugs, medications and other substance abuse problems. Of course, I will drink. I will probably drink for the whole of 2018. I have no intention of becoming teetotal, although I do need to reduce the amount I drink.

The list of New Year's resolutions that other people are begging to make for me is endless: join a gym, do some volunteering, eat more kale, do yoga, smile, pet a dog, kiss a baby, punch the sun etc. etc.

It might seem like I'm bloody minded - intent on being miserable - but really, I'm not. It might seem like I'm ungrateful, but again, I'm not.

2017 has been what it's been. It's been a hell of a ride. I'm content just to say that I've survived it and that I have no intention of a repeat, given the choice.

Tags: #addiction #hospital #depression

This is a story about living out of a suitcase...

This is my life now. Spreading mustard and mayonaise onto long-life bread with a shoehorn, placing sweaty pre-cut cheese squares in-between the slices and chowing down on a hotel-room made sandwich, while swigging from a can of strong European lager. This is the life of a business traveller who can't really afford the expenses - I'm faking it until I make it. I'd be sleeping in my car... if I had a car.

It'd be fairly easy to look back on the journey that started with near-certainty that I was going to get sued for non-payment of rent, whilst also being evicted... of course, I had no money. I still don't have any money. I have negative money. I have negative negative LOTS OF DEBT MONEY. When I get paid, things won't be so bad. When I've been paid for a few months, things will look positively rosy. "That wasn't so bad" you'll say. You're wrong. It was bad.

Things are often a lot easier said than done.

A lot of the experiences in my life have been awful at the time, but later on I've been able to laugh about the dire straits I was in. In fact, the only way I've been able to come to terms with some ridiculous stuff I've been through is to tell my hair-raising tales of near-death experiences and destruction to the world. You might think that I glorify events of the past, or wear bad stuff as a badge of honour. That's not true, but what am I supposed to do with all those negative experiences? Am I supposed to walk around with a glum face and tell everybody how terrible I am? Am I only alive to serve as a living reminder to people that they shouldn't make bad choices like I did?

Choices.

Yes. Do you really believe in free will? I imagine that you believe in Santa Claus too. There's no free will. Our choices are always heavily biased. We're cornered and coerced. Would I have gone back to IT consulting for an investment bank in London if I wasn't flat broke? Am I making free will choices, or am I just doing what I've got to do to survive?

Survival.

My version of survival probably looks pretty ridiculous to you. The kind of money that's going to be coming my way soon is pretty obscene - banks pay very well. So, does that mean that I'm not surviving? Am I actually completely fine and dandy? I'm just making a fuss about nothing, right? In fact, if you saw the numbers, you might be angered; you might conclude that I've been fine all along... nothing to worry about and never in any danger.

A friend often challenges me on why I would keep myself on the endangered species list. Why would I continue to advertise my distress? Surely I'm safe and secure now. Well, how long ago was it that I was made homeless, jobless, having some dealings with the police, locked up on a psych ward and facing certain bankruptcy with mountainous debts?

So, I got a job. I worked that job. I did a good job. Money is on the way now. Case closed?

Actually, can you imagine how stressful it was to have to hit the ground running and pretend like I've got my shit together all of a sudden? Just because I'm pretty damn good at acting like I'm a cool customer and I can handle anything that life throws at me, the reality is that my inner monologue goes pretty much like this: "shit! shit! shit! everything's on fire! everything's too hard! it'll never work! everything's ruined and it'll never be fixed! it's too hard! I can't do it!".

Of course, a lot of people find new countries, new cities, new jobs, new work colleagues, new offices, new challenges, new accommodation and the stress of the unfamiliarity of circumstances, to make them very anxious. I'm not the only one who feels stressed and anxious when taken out of my comfort zone. I'm not the first person ever to have butterflies in their tummy about a new job.

Ha ha.

If only it was just a new job. Try plucking homeless unemployed bankrupt drug addicts who are known to the police, up from locked psych wards, giving them a scrub down, putting them in a suit and plonking them at a desk in another country. See how many times that works out for you.

To top it all off, there is the ever-present danger - and there still is - that I'll run out of money before that first payment lands in my bank account. If you think it's just a case of budgeting you're an idiot. You can't budget if the numbers just don't add up - sometimes there just isn't enough money to pay for everything. Sometimes, you can't afford to go to work, because you can't afford to get there. Catch 22.

If you think that I'm not a representative example, you're right. Most people will fall at one of the many hurdles. Most people would find themselves marginalised and excluded and blacklisted and without a hope of ever recovering their poise; hope of ever returning to normal life. You're right. I'm not most people. I'm not special though. I'm not different.

I cashed in one of my "get out of jail free" cards. I don't have any aces left up my sleeve. I've called in pretty much every favour. I had help, of course. People don't survive without help.

Arguably I wasn't a very worthy cause to help. Arguably, I'm arrogant and ungrateful; I credit myself where no credit is due - surely the situation I find myself in today is entirely thanks to other people, and I'm just a passenger... I've been gifted everything I've got from generous people; I haven't worked a day in my life.

To a large extent, I agree that luck and other people's generosity are the main factors in my life. So what? Would you prefer me dead?

Of course, I question my utility; I question the value of my productive output. I'm not rescuing children from burning orphanages after all, am I? Isn't it about time that I built a school in Africa or distributed food and clean water in some war-torn area flooded with refugees? With all my software development expertise, why haven't I created an app that cures cancer, or programmed a supercomputer to find the solution to world hunger? Isn't it about time that I stopped being so pleased with myself and did something to help other people? Isn't it high time that I stopped being so selfish and self-centred?

Easier said than done.

Take a look around. OK so your friend Sharon did a fun run that raised a lot of money for spastics, but she went on and on about it A LOT, going on about how fucking amazing she is for having done that, didn't she? Those 30 minutes that she spent puffing and panting, running around the school sports field hasn't changed anything has it? Did that rock concert that you went to succeed in ending poverty? That's right... you were really philanthropic, by going to see those bands play. How wonderful of you.

So many of us say "I'd like to do more, but I'm struggling myself". It's true, people really are struggling to find the time and the money to get through ordinary life, let alone perform selfless self-sacrificing philanthropic amazing acts of charity. There isn't a culture of helping each other. We mainly eye each other up suspiciously: are our peers getting more money than us? Why does SHE have a bigger house than me? Why are THEY getting a new car this year?

It's pretty easy to take a superficial glance at a person and say "WHY ARE YOU JUST SITTING THERE? GET UP AND DO SOMETHING". We've got all the solutions to other people's problems, haven't we? Isn't it the easiest thing in the world, solving other people's problems? If only people would listen, right?

I am thinking about changing my alarmist "suicide note" blog title to simply read this: addict.

I want people to stigmatise me. I want people to jump to the wrong conclusions. I want everybody who thinks they've got an easy answer to come forward and 'save' me from myself. "Have you tried not taking drugs?" being one amazing suggestion that I'd never thought of before.

I've failed to wean myself off sleeping pills. I've failed to stay off the pregabalin - painkillers - that I worked so hard to quit. I started drinking again, and I've been drinking a whole bottle of wine every night. I'm an addict, even though you might take a lazy glance at my life and conclude that I'm perfectly fine.

As I journey back to Wales for a Christmas break, having completed a nervy few weeks back at work, you could be forgiven for thinking that my life's back on track. Talking to me, you'd think that I've overcome all those obstacles that would normally cause a person to stumble and trip - a mentally ill homeless junkie bankrupt known-to-the-police type person. You'd be forgiven for thinking I'm normal. You'd be forgiven for thinking I'm just like you.

I am normal.

I am an addict.

Surely this is cognitive dissonance. Addicts aren't normal, right? Well, how's about this one: I don't even abuse substances. Why on earth would I label myself as an addict? Surely I've won? Surely I've broken free from everything that threatened to destroy me? Why would I want to publicly wear the most awful label that we can give to a person?

I'm not going to write a world-changing app. If apps had the capacity to change the world for the better, they'd have done it. I'm not going to start a world-changing charity. If charity had the capacity to change the world for the better, it'd have succeeded.

So am I giving up?

Am I putting on my oxygen mask before helping others?

The answer is neither. I'm not doing either of those things. I neither accept that the world's fucked and there's nothing I can do about it, nor do I believe that I have to help myself before helping others. It's true that my situation was unbearable, and it will continue to be unbearable for some time. I'm going through some awful stuff, even if you think my life is blessed and I live a charmed existence.

There's a family in Wales who've helped me. They've seen me during periods when it appears to them like I'm not helping myself. They've torn their hair out with frustration that I've been stubborn at times, when there's been obvious solutions that have been right there, just waiting for me to reach out and grab them. The whole world's problems could be solved overnight if only people would listen, right? Simple. Things are really simple, right?

The asceticism of my life - making my own sandwiches in a hotel room - seems like an obvious solution to a problem to you. No knife to spread the mayonaise on the bread? No worries, here's another solution for you...

However, if you have to actually live with a person while they go through the millions of trials and tribulations in their life, then you start to get a sense that things are not as simple as they appear at first. The case of getting my passport back from a bank in Manchester being a particularly illustrative example.

I'm about to spend Christmas in the bosom of a loving family, living on a gorgeous farm in the Welsh countryside. Of course, things aren't all about me. Christmas is about family; it's about giving, not receiving. How must this family feel though?: they've succeeded. They've nursed me back to health. Money is on the way. I'm back in the saddle, aren't I?

January.

January is my nemesis. Of course, I'm not the only person on planet earth to feel down in January. Of course, we all have winter blues and credit card bills hitting the doormat in January. Great. Let's just see how things go, shall we? I'll be back to living out of a suitcase in January.

Tags: #family #addiction #mentalhealth

This is a story about my 2,500 mile round-trip...

Two weeks ago, the local Community Mental Health Team (CMHT) was phoning me to see if they could potentially admit me to hospital. I had revealed to a psychiatrist that I was having suicidal thoughts, opting to be fully honest - as advised by my doctor friend who was accompanying me - as opposed to saying what I needed to in order get what I wanted. Perhaps it's good that I was honest, because therapy's not quick, and the only pills that work have a tendency to send me a little hypomanic.

So, I'm still unmedicated. It's been 6 months.

The danger was that I'd become so depressed that I'd commit suicide. My hunch was that my suicidal thoughts were being driven by the fact that my life was disintegrating and I had absolutely no control over it. Doctors can't act on hunches. I can though, and I was right - as soon as I started earning money and there was hope that I wasn't facing financial ruin, a lot of my suicidal thoughts disappeared.

Another danger is that I'll start getting delusions of grandeur. However, we should examine quite closely just how delusional I really am. Am I really delusional?

The phone rang. I answered it. A man told me he had a project. Could I do it? I replied that I could. How much money did I want? I told him. Could I start on Monday? I said I could. I didn't speak to him again, until I met him for the very first time, 1,200 miles from home.

If you think that my mental illness is about some kind of lifelong condition that I need to take tablets for, you're wrong. Every single thing in my life - my environment - predisposes me towards mood instability. If you think about the kind of feast and famine stressfest that my boom and bust financial situation has given me, then perhaps you can start to see that I harbour no delusions. My days were numbered. Only bankruptcy and a life of poverty lay ahead, quietly pill popping and watching daytime television, while collecting my meagre benefit cheques. Then, suddenly: an investment banking IT contract lands in my lap.

"Yes, but you're resting on your laurels; relying on your reputation" I hear you cry.

It's true that if it wasn't for friends who've vouched for my good character, I would have been screwed long ago. However it's a non sequitur to say that I'm able to hide my mental illness by burning bridges. How did I build my reputation in the first place, if I'm no use to anybody?

If you were to read through the two and a half years that I've been writing my story, you'll see that I have burnt some bridges. However, you'll also see that my actions are always quite deliberate. I often burn bridges to stop me going back to places. If you look at my whole working life in its entirety, you'll see that the big wads of cash that I get offered to do work that's utterly incompatible with my mental health, is always too much of a temptation. Even places where I've spectacularly burnt bridges, my name isn't total mud. It's been very hard to completely destroy my reputation and good standing, and make myself un[re]employable.

Are you getting the idea at all? Are you understanding the theme?

Perhaps my most astonishing rags-to-riches feat was when I went from homeless and bankrupt, to working on the number one project for the biggest bank in Europe. The exertion of it cost me my sanity. The exhaustion of living in a 14-bed dormitory and working 120-hour weeks; trying to keep my suit and shirts clean and crisply pressed hanging up on my bunk; trying to save up enough money to get myself a place to live... it was too much. I burnt out and plummeted into suicidal depression when I ran out of energy to keep up appearances. However, can you imagine how I felt, when I upgraded from a hostel bunk bed to my own 2-bedroom apartment on the banks of the River Thames, with glorious panoramic views over London. Do you think you'd be mentally 'well' enough to cope with that kind of life turnaround?

Stress and sleep deprivation will have fairly predictable effects on most people. To deprive a person of sleep and then declare that they are mentally unwell seems disingenuous. What about taking a person who believes they're a complete failure and parachuting them into a life of opulent wealth? Do you think that it would have an effect on somebody, if they miraculously avoided certain financial ruin, destitution and homelessness? What happens when the mentally ill junkie homeless bankrupt loser reinvents themself overnight?

Of course, we don't normally let people sort themselves out.

Criminals, the mentally ill, addicts and alcoholics are very keen to club together with their own kind. Like crabs in a bucket, any crab that tries to escape will be pulled back down by the others. I shan't be adding a link to this website on my CV anytime soon. Joining any kind of community where I'm encouraged to wallow in my shame and define myself by my shortcomings, seems like a terrible idea.

In defiance of those who tell me I have delusions of grandeur for expecting more than a pot to piss in, I continue to pursue a two-part strategy: I'm doing incredibly well remunerated work and I'm candidly sharing my story publicly.

"Who are you to tell your story? You're nobody. You're not famous" I hear you grumble.

"Who are you to earn so much? You've failed. You should earn peanuts" I hear you protest.

Don't you understand? The whole system is set up to make you feel inadequate; unworthy. Every exam you ever sat; every job interview you've ever attended - the whole sham was concocted to make you feel grateful for the pittance you receive. The fact that you feel like you're not allowed to write your autobiography or otherwise blow your own trumpet, is by design - you're supposed to feel like a nobody. You've been indoctrinated to feel worthless.

On my travels - and I don't mean geographically - I've encountered a lot of people who've been less fortunate than the investment banking types who I'd usually come into contact with. The only difference between me and my fellow hostel mates, is that they never believed they'd even get within 100 feet of the front doors of a massive investment bank, let alone land a job there. The difference is attitude: act like you're supposed to be there. Life's all a confidence trick.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've faced the horrendous realisation that I'm unexceptional. I mean, I'm on the right side of the bell curve, but I'm not an outlier. What special achievements set me apart? What proof have I got of my intellect? Of course, the answer is that I'm distinctly average; perhaps even a little below average in some areas, thanks to excessive consumption of drugs and alcohol. I should have been swinging towards hypomania, but instead I've been suffering from an almighty self-doubt crisis.

Imposter syndrome has driven me to try harder; to concentrate. Anxiety and the sheer terror that I'm incapable of doing the job I've been doing for 20 years, is being slowly replaced by the welcome return of some belief in my own abilities.

Of course, now comes the threat of overconfidence. Perhaps now I'll swing hypomanic? Perhaps soon I'll declare myself Jesus Christ re-incarnated? Perhaps those doctors were right all along, and only pills can prevent the inevitable mood swing upwards?

I don't think so.

I worked on a long project last year and I was stable. The role was incredibly boring, and it was very hard to stay motivated, but money got me out of bed in the morning and money kept me at my desk until the end of the working day. Last year was a triumph of money's ability to restore mental health, through wealth. It's no accident that the countries with the biggest rich-poor gap also have the worst depression and anxiety. Anybody who tells you that rich people get depressed too, or that poor Africans are really happy is just perpetuating anecdotal nonsense - being poor in a rich country is incredibly toxic to mental wellbeing.

It's true that I've sorted myself out financially a few times now, only to throw it all away, but that's dual-diagnosis not mental illness. Bipolar has allowed me to have a lovely life. I don't want to change from feast and famine; highs and lows. However, undoubtably I'll be tempted to take drugs again once my bank balance is replenished.

If you're wondering what's going to stop me from relapsing into addiction, once I've dug myself out of the hole, then I'm afraid you're going to have to wait. Recovery from an acute episode of dual-diagnosis - depression, hypomania and substance dependency - is well beyond what I'd planned to write in this single essay. I'm going to have to revisit this topic, because it's fascinating to me: my life depends on it.

My train from London to Wales fast approaches Swansea, completing my 2,500 mile roundtrip. Of course, it's been a much, much longer journey than that.

Tags: #bipolar #addiction #career

This is a story about being gainfully employed...

Follow your dreams, as long as your dream is punching made-up numbers into a spreadsheet, trapped inside a depressing office with no natural light in the middle of an overcrowded polluted concrete jungle, with a horrible commute every morning and evening.

I started a new job this morning. I'm 1,200 miles from home. I had to take a train, a plane and an automobile to get here.

For a whole month, I wrote. That's a lie... I had some days off. I had to get my stuff from London, I had to get my passport from Manchester and I had some days when I just didn't feel up to writing, but I pretty much spent a month as a writer.

In order to indulge my artistic ambitions, I've had to give up a couple of months when I should really have been job hunting. My writing has also lost me lucrative contracts, when my Twitter/blog has been discovered by bosses. As a hobby, it's been incredibly expensive. As a job, it's been financially ruinous.

A friend of mine had two job options when he graduated: writer or computer programmer. He chose the latter, because the salary was five times as much and he wanted to be able to afford luxuries like food and rent. Another friend had the choice between an electric guitar and a computer. He chose the latter, knowing that it would pave the way for a lucrative career. I too have forgone opportunities to pursue academic interests, because of economic incentives.

In fact, we are strongly economically disincentivised from pursuing art. There can only be a handful of Damien Hirsts in the world, while there are millions of penniless artists.

They say that if you're good at something, you should never do it for free. However, how are you going to ever get good at something unless somebody's going to bankroll you while you're bad at it? Nobody is born with prodigious talent. There are also vast numbers of negative people who'll criticise, tell you that you're going to fail and tell you to give up and do something else. There are vast numbers of people who have a vested interest in seeing you fail - they don't want to see you succeed when they're too much of a gutless, spineless, miserable moaning, pathetic, uninspiring and otherwise wimpy excuse for a human being, to actually ever try to follow their dream or support somebody else in following theirs.

Given that it's rewarding to fuck about with paint or clay, stand in front of people singing or playing an instrument, act, play sports and otherwise pursue the performing and creative arts, one might argue that we're never going to be short of people who want to turn these hobbies into jobs. Wouldn't we all be artists if we could?

Here is the present paradigm: given an oversupply of people who'd like to do something more rewarding than the bullshit McJobs on offer, we have fierce competition for just a few slots. Only those who are prepared to go to extraordinary lengths, or those who are lucky enough to have been born into a family that already possesses wealth and fame, will be able to do a job that's fun rather than fucking awful.

Is capitalism working? Isn't capitalism supposed to reward those who work hard? Isn't the whole reason why capitalism's better than other systems of wealth distribution, because it incentivises hard work? What happens when that's no longer true?

The way I see it, we give up our childhoods to study hard, in the hope of getting better jobs. We give up our prime healthy years so that we can have a good retirement. What happens when the pension system is about to collapse and we can't hang on to the money that we've squirrelled away because our children can't afford houses? What happens when we bust a gut to get top exam grades and go to good universities, but there aren't any jobs and the ones there are wouldn't even allow us to afford the cost of living anyway?

Why are we working so hard? Why are we competing?

The competitive element of capitalism seems to have failed to deliver our most brilliant minds into productive endeavours. All those miserable hours of homework don't seem to be benefitting anybody. All those miserable hours spent in a traffic jam or otherwise in the rat race don't seem to be benefitting anybody. All I see is people chasing a dream that seems to slip ever further out of reach. What the hell are we doing, working so hard so that we might be able to one day stop and catch our breath, except we never can?

What happened to the age of leisure?

Of course, I see the irony and hypocrisy of writing this when I've been lucky enough to enjoy career breaks that have enabled me to write a couple of novels. "When do I get to write my book?" some might ask. Yes. I refer you to my previous question.

Something's gone horribly wrong and the prospect of a comfortable retirement is sailing over the horizon. Extrapolating, the prospect of any dreams being realised is an absolute one-in-a-million shot. As opposed to the buy-now-pay-later bogyman that we're all supposed to be afraid of, it seems to me as if we've sleepwalked into a kind of pay-now-never-get-the-benefit kind of dystopia. I really don't understand why people aren't chucking in the towel on their bullshit jobs and writing that fucking book. Why don't students say no to homework, and enjoy their youth? From what I can see, the stress and anxiety of modern life is ruining the vast majority of people's mental health.

I guess there are going to be growing pains, while we shift from a productivity-based capitalist global economy, back to a kind of life where we value human things like staying near our families, seeing our kids grow up and having what we want and need NOW not LATER. I mean, for fuck's sake we're not asking for much and we don't need much. Since agricultural mechanisation, we've been able to feed vast numbers with very little effort. Only about 1% of the UK's income comes from farming and fishing. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?

So, as I beaver away in an office working Monday to Friday yet again, I wonder how close we are to that day when we all suddenly decide that enough is enough and we really don't need any more exotic and arcane ways of disguising the fact that what we do all day for 'work' is absolute total and utter horse-shit, for most of us. Why can't we all be artists?

Tags: #art #economics #capitalism

This is a story about intolerable stress levels...

On the 9th of September 2017, I was in possession of a wallet containing my driving license, two debit cards and two credit cards, as well as my keys and some cash. I had prescribed medication. I had my smartphone, a laptop and a digital camera. On the 13th of September 2017, I had none of these things, and nobody could tell me where they'd gone - to all intents and purposes, they had been lost or stolen. Don't ask me whether they'd been lost or stolen, because I didn't know, despite asking anybody and everyone I could.

Then, I was muscled out of my office.

I was in a city where I didn't know anybody, with no wallet, phone or internet capable device. My work colleagues were avoiding the office. You know those films where the person's identity has been erased, and men in black suits are hunting them... that's what happened to me: I was locked out from my life.

I'm not sure if you've ever tried to kill yourself, but you have to be in a pretty desperate situation, to decide to end your own life. Dying is a big deal: you only get to make that decision once. If you're successful, there's no coming back from a suicide. How do you think you'd feel if you survived?

I came to be wandering around an alien city, with no friends, family or work colleagues who'd help me or even speak to me; without cash or bank cards; without my phone or laptop; without my ID card - my driving license. What the actual fuck?

"Phone your parents".

Yeah. Right.

Which is it? Am I mad or am I bad? My parents have made up their mind: I've been successfully faking a diagnosed mental illness as an excuse for my behaviour, apparently. It's all in my head. It's all made up. The quote above is what my dad really thinks - he was interviewed.

So, did I or did I not try to kill myself? Did I or did I not get admitted to the Intensive Treatment Unit (ITU) in a critical condition? Did I or did I not find myself in an alien city, without bank cards, cash, phone, laptop or any means of contacting anybody? Did I or did I not get muscled out of my office? Did I or did I not get turfed onto the street, and was expected to just deal with this clusterfuck?

Luckily, I'm an evidence gatherer, so I have all kinds of documents and other things - like the plastic bag pictured above - which are helping me to piece together the picture of what exactly happened during a period where I went from having a girlfriend, friends, apartment, job and an identity, to suddenly being completely destitute - no fixed abode, no nothing. My world fell apart in the blink of an eye.

If it can happen to me, it can happen to anybody.

If you're looking for a trite oversimplification, here it is: I tried to kill myself.

I can't make this any easier for anybody to understand. The only thing that I did wrong was that I tried to end my life. When I survived, there was no life to go back to. My apartment was ransacked; my most valuable possessions were missing; my whole existence crumbled to nothingness.

If my guardian angel hadn't travelled up from London; if I hadn't managed to appoint a couple of solicitors... how on earth would I have coped? There was so much work to be done, to track down what the heck had happened to my life, since I'd been lying unconscious in a coma, with a machine breathing for me. Only an idiot would suggest that I could have sabotaged my life so spectacularly, when I was flat on my back with my eyes taped shut; tubes coming out of me. There is absolutely no doubt about my movements during the period when my world exploded, because it's all been thoroughly documented by those who had a duty of care to look after me - I was incapacitated; vulnerable.

Today, I find myself having to trawl through the jumble of papers and emails that have flown around, which essentially constitute a smoking gun. Circumstances conspired to cause me to become so stressed that I chose to attempt to end my life; I couldn't deal with the shitstorm around me; I couldn't cope. Having been discharged from hospital, things are not much better. I very much want to kill myself right now.

There's a reason why I haven't poked the hornet's nest: all this shit which was too much for me to handle when I was hospitalised. Why the fuck have I got to deal with it now? All of this bullshit is making me suicidal again.

I just want to live in peace and quiet. I didn't sign up for the shit I'm going through. It's unjust.

I'm being hounded to death.

Tags: #suicide

This is a story about life on the farm...

Yesterday, I was too depressed to get out of bed. Being awake was horrible - I tried to doze for as long as I could. I was irrationally afraid of having to get up for some reason; on edge that there might come a knock at the door. My friends make me feel incredibly welcome, and I would always have somebody to talk to if I was feeling lonely and desperate, but I also feel like I should demonstrate my willingness to help wherever I can.

Today, it's been sunny and mild; very good weather for the time of year. Hiding under the duvet doesn't feel so bad when it's grey skies and raining, but I feel guilty about wasting the day when it's nice outside. Nice weather can paradoxically make me feel even more depressed.

I'm naturally a restless, anxious and fidgety person. "Where am I going? What am I achieving?" I continuously ask myself when I'm not consumed by a task; fixated on a mission.

At the beginning of the week, I dragged myself out of bed to go to the seaside. It was a drizzly foggy day, so the picturesque beach wasn't going to yield any nice views, but still, it was an outing. Rain-drenched families trudged through puddles. "Why are all these children not in school?" I asked. Apparently, it's half-term school holiday time in England - not so in Wales.

This jarring disparity; this acute difference between what consumes my thoughts, and what most other people are concerned with, is being well highlighted in my current environ. I was cut off from the world in my London apartment. It was wonderful to have the space & time to think & write, but I was very far removed from the day-to-day reality that most of humanity experiences. In the past few weeks, I've been reminded about school-runs, commuting to work and long days in the office, car maintenance, housing, pets, children, cooking and cleaning, although I can claim absolutely zero personal involvement in the running of these affairs - I'm an idle observer; a tourist.

Of course I worry that I'm lazy; worry that I'm mooching; worry that I'm a leech; a parasite.

"Yes, we'd all like to be a thinker; a writer; an artist; an intellectual; a professional layabout" I imagine people saying. "Your art is just a hobby... get a job" is what I imagine people are thinking. I feel guilty for not producing anything more tangible than the words on this page.

I started to get a little stressed about November, when I plan to write my second novel. "How am I going to find the time to write?" I wondered to myself, which must sound a little ridiculous to you. Why am I even writing anyway, when I'm not overtly commercialising my creative output?

There's something more socially acceptable about saying "I'm sorry, I need to write my book" as opposed to just "I'm sorry, I need to lie in bed feeling incredibly anxious and depressed". I wonder if more people would have breakdowns and refuse to go to their stressful and boring jobs, if it wasn't so stigmatised. Wouldn't we all love to just spend all day with our children, and not get out of our pyjamas? Why can't we skip breakfast and have cereal instead of a cooked meal, and completely reject the demands of society?

I feel immense guilt for not having a proper job, spending hours of my life stuck in traffic, being bored to tears by a bullshit job. What's my contribution to society? Why am I allowed to pontificate, when I haven't done my 9 to 5 grind?

I'm not so naïve as to think that the good life doesn't have to be bought and paid for with human misery. For every beautiful countryside cottage set in manicured gardens, nestled in lush green countryside, there is also an immense amount of suffering that's gone into delivering that dream. The children who wait 5 minutes, staring at a single marshmallow on the table in front of them, will receive two marshmallows as a reward for their patience. Those same patient children will shed tears when they are packed off to boarding school, but it'll all be for a good reason one day.

Are we even supposed to be so patient; so tolerant of intolerable cruelty? Are we any happier for all that homework? Are we any happier when we get "A" grades and go on to get a fancy job, miles and miles away from our home and our family? Are two marshmallows sweeter than one?

I feel like the cuckoo in the nest: I'm no genetic relation of the lovely family who I'm living with. Why do I get to enjoy the comfort of a farmhouse straight from the pages of Country Living magazine? What's my contribution to the household? What's my contribution to humanity?

Extrapolating, I can easily imagine that I will have produced my second novel in a little over a month from now, but I will have very little else to show for my time, not to mention the food and energy that I will have consumed. To say that I have been working on restabilising my mental health and attempting to rediscover my reason(s) for living, feels a little untrue given the trajectory of my mood. To turn a blind eye to my very real concerns about the difficulty of obtaining paid employment during the Christmas & New Year period, seems short-sighted - November will be over in the blink of an eye.

Throwing a ball for the dog in the garden, sucking in lungfuls of clean fresh air that's blown inland straight from the Atlantic Ocean, my physical health is undoubtedly improving. I'm seeing an aspect of existence that I'd long forgotten, trapped in a polluted concrete jungle, and surrounded by the seething masses in densely overpopulated cities. This life is so much healthier and happier than the rat race, but I can't afford it - it feels as if I'm enjoying a retirement I haven't paid for.

Perhaps you imagine that my time is free for the pursuit of leisure. Perhaps it is. If so, why am I so damn stressed?

Tags: #family #depression #writing

This is a story about last regrets...

The first time I took an overdose it was half by accident. It was 2014 and I was living in Kentish Town, London, with 3 strangers in an apartment that I'd just moved into. One of my best friends revealed that he had been harbouring a bunch of stuff that he was really upset about, but he'd been keeping secret - he'd lied whenever I asked if everything was OK. He suddenly let rip as if he knew my whole story, when in fact he only had one side - from my dad. I'd never felt so alone in my whole life.

I didn't mean to take such a massive overdose. When I was in the process of committing my semi-accidental suicide, I realised I could either evacuate the poison from my body, or I could let it dissolve into my bloodstream and kill me. I remember taking the decision to relax and take no action. I remember deciding to die.

I took a piss and it was full of blood. My chest was 'wet' with fluid on my lungs; my breathing laboured. My sides and tummy hurt, where my kidneys and liver were badly damaged - I was suffering renal and hepatic injury: multiple organ failure.

I collapsed and I couldn't move. I thought "this is it - I'm going to die".

Then, I realised that my death might look accidental.

I was upset that somebody might think I died by accident. I was annoyed that a coroner might conclude that my death was "misadventure". It was frustrating to think that nobody would understand that I wanted to die.

I started to think "I need to leave a note".

When you're collapsed on the floor and you can't move, it's quite hard to leave a suicide note. I had collapsed onto a laptop power supply & cable that was really hot and burning my skin - it hurt a lot and I desperately wanted to move, but I couldn't. "Dammit this is frustrating" I thought.

As I became more convinced that I was going to die, I started to think about what I would tell somebody, if I could communicate a message from beyond the grave. I wanted my death to be useful to the advancement of human knowledge, as opposed to a senseless waste.

* * *

I went to my local doctor's surgery and told the receptionist that I wanted to kill myself. She made me an emergency appointment. I went back to my apartment, where I couldn't even talk to my sofa-surfer. I was going to talk to medical professionals, or I was going to kill myself: those were the choices.

The doctor wrote me a letter and I took it to the Royal London Hospital.

After 13 hours, I was admitted as an informal patient onto a psych ward at Mile End Hospital, London.

One week later, I suddenly decided to record a video called "Goodbye Cruel World" and flew to San Francisco.

Some people might think my behaviour is rash; impulsive. In fact, I had a whole trans-Atlantic flight, plus the flight from the East Coast of the United States to the West Coast, to contemplate what I was going to do. I'd booked flights leaving myself barely enough time to get to the airport. 12 hours later I was stood on the Golden Gate Bridge, peering over the edge, having borrowed a bike from my friend and cycled there.

My amazing friends in the Bay Area were so great that I decided to get a semicolon tattoo to commemorate my trip instead of jumping off the bridge to my death.

* * *

I swallowed enough tramadol, codeine and dihydocodeine to kill me several times over. I had plenty of time to make myself vomit up the pills and phone the emergency services. Instead, I patiently waited to die. If I was going to feel any regrets, I would have felt them in the hour or two before help arrived. I had assumed that none of my Twitter followers knew where I lived, and I would not be found in time to save my life.

"What did you think would happen?" a doctor asked me. "I thought I'd fall unconscious, start having seizures and never wake up" I replied. "You're going to die slowly and painfully" I was told. "Oh well, at least I'm going to die" I thought to myself.

"No activated charcoal!" I yelled. "Don't pump my stomach!" I shouted. "Don't resuscitate me if my heart stops!" I demanded. "I don't want to be treated!" I commanded.

When I was off life support and no longer in a critical condition, I felt no regret. I still wanted to die. My intention had been to die. I didn't feel like there was some higher power looking out for me. I never thought for a moment that there was some plan or purpose to my existence on the planet.

* * *

The response to my fully premeditated suicide attempt, with a proper suicide note - the world's longest - has been incredible, and now I'm filled with a mixture of shame, embarrassment and a feeling that I owe friends and strangers a great deal of gratitude, for the love and care that I've received.

I find myself being looked after by an amazing family - who read my story and contacted me out of the blue - in beautiful Welsh countryside.

Friends who I haven't spoken to in years have gotten back in contact, and there seems to be a glimmer of hope for the future.

I wonder if people think of me as attention seeking. I wonder if people think that this was all a cry for help.

There's no doubt that when I swallowed those pills I wanted to die. I should have died - there was little chance of surviving; I had done the calculations; I had done the research.

I'm hoping that my mood will improve and circumstances will continue to be kind to me. I need work - a job; I need money. I can't stand still. To sit back and do nothing will only plunge me deeper into a destructively stressful world of pain, which will scupper any slim hope I have of rebuilding my life.

I do regret the distress that I've caused to my sister, my friends and kind strangers who've followed my story. What now though? Do I attempt to go back to life as normal and pretend like nothing happened?

I've gone as far as it's possible to go to the edge of the abyss, without actually plunging to my death. I've learned everything there is to know about mental illness, hospitals, doctors, medications and psychiatry, without actually losing my mind and disappearing into an institution forever. I can tell you everything you never wanted to know about addiction and alcoholism. I can tell you about "hidden homeless" - hostels and sofa-surfing - as well as what it's like to lose everything and sleep on the streets. More importantly, I can tell you what it's like to fight back; to recover.

Fundamentally, this journey started when the odds seemed insurmountable.

The challenges ahead still look to be more than I can possibly tackle.

Tags: #suicide

This is a story about pill popping...

If you're unfortunate enough to find yourself on a psych ward, you might be surprised to discover that you don't have a choice about whether you take your medication or not - you can be treated against your will. That's worth repeating one last time: you can't refuse your treatment.

At the moment, I'm effectively unmedicated. I'm taking pregabalin for neuropathic pain, but I'm reducing my dose by 50mg every 4 days, so I will stop taking it altogether in just 12 days time. I'm taking zopiclone for insomnia, but I will halve the dose in 7 days time and stop taking it altogether in 21 days time. Meanwhile, I've been taking a tiny dose of lamotrogine - just 25mg - which is too little for it to have any effect.

But, presumably I was on some heavy medications while I was in hospital?

No. No I was not.

Since the 9th of September 2017, I've stopped drinking altogether - I'm teetotal - and I've stopped abusing benzodiazepines (Xanax and Valium). I've also not taken anything other than pregabalin and zopiclone. It was less than 3 weeks ago that I started taking a tiny dose of lamotrogine, which is not capable of controlling any mood disorder that might be troubling me.

I must admit that I rather toyed with the poor psychiatrists who saw me. I casually dropped olanzapine and sodium valproate into conversation, and their faces lit up like a Christmas tree. My fellow patients were acutely unwell, and injections of Depakote - colloquially known as "depo" - were dished out to anybody who exhibited troublesome behaviour. It's a sad sight to see somebody who's just had their injection, shuffling along the corridor like a zombie.

Although strictly speaking this is not supposed to happen, I dictated the medication I wanted. My notes from my psychiatrist in London had not travelled up to the North of England with me, and my new doctor (General Pracititioner) knew nothing about me. The clinical team had to take my word as gospel.

I'm now wondering whether to be compliant with the medication that I decided I wanted, or not.

tags: #mentalhealth #bipolar #medication

This is a story about slipping through the safety net...

Exactly one month ago was World Suicide Prevention Day and exactly one month ago I was in a critical condition, on life support in intensive care. I was given a 50/50 chance of living or dying, following an overdose the night before. It seems sickeningly ironic that if the emergency services had reached me just a little bit later, I wouldn't be writing this. If I didn't live in the United Kingdom, where we have the best healthcare system in the world, I would probably not be writing this.

It was 9 years ago that I first sought help for my mental health. "Have you heard of fluoxetine?" asked my doctor, within 30 seconds of me explaining my symptoms: suicidal thoughts, low mood, low energy and an inability to get out of bed and go to work like normal. I was disappointed to be offered patent-expired generic medication, without a moment's hesitation. I walked away empty handed.

Clinical depression was where I started my mental health journey. Having the label "clinical" made a huge difference. To add that word - clinical - onto how I was feeling, was necessary to defend myself from anybody who might say "just snap out of it" or "pull yourself together". In my case, having a label was desirable - it wasn't an excuse; it was a diagnosis.

Every time I've gone to my doctor, I've been hoping to receive some counselling, but instead I got referred into psychiatric services as an outpatient in 2010. I was referred for Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT) treatment, but by the time I was assessed, my mood disorder had been diagnosed as type II bipolar disorder. The assessment concluded that my mood disorder was too severe to be treated with CBT. I was left with no psychological treatment. "What am I supposed to do?" I asked. "Go back to your doctor" came the reply. It was a devastating disappointment.

By 2011 I was so unwell that I was assessed under the Mental Health Act, to see if I needed to be detained in hospital - what is colloquially referred to as a "section". I begged to be hospitalised as I was suicidal. I repeatedly said the classic cliché that so many people will say when they are desperate for help: "I'm going to kill myself". Community Mental Health Teams (CMHTs), crisis teams and home treatment teams must hear those words so often.

With a shortage of psychiatric beds, there's a huge reluctance to "section" anybody. At the time of my first section assessment, my girlfriend and my dad were present, so the assessment concluded that I could be kept safe at home. In fact, I sawed a hole in the back of my shed, climbed over a neighbour's fence and ran away. The police were called to look for me because I was a danger to myself.

Soon after that, I was seen by a private psychiatrist, referred and admitted for 4 weeks of inpatient treatment at a private hospital. The cost was over £12,000.

There was some debate with my medical insurance company as to whether my bipolar disorder was acute or chronic. The insurance company said it was a chronic condition, and therefore not covered by the policy. The consultant whose care I was under, managed to argue - over the course of a couple of nail-biting weeks - that my presentation was acute.

Having to resort to the private sector; having disputes with an insurance company - none of this was conducive to getting better. In fact, having to find my own psychiatrist, get approval from the insurance company to even speak to the doctor and then having the stress of thinking that I might need to spend £12,000 of my dwindling savings, was an awful ordeal when I was clearly very unwell.

At the end of 2012 I got married and 8 months later I separated from my wife. She didn't care about the incredible stress that divorce and selling our house would put me under. I moved to London to live with supportive friends while my life was ripped to pieces. I lost my job.

By 2014, I completely slipped through the safety net. I took an overdose and lay dying of multiple organ failure on the floor. I managed to phone a friend who got me to hospital. After a week, the hospital discharged me to a hotel. I had two weeks to organise my own accommodation because no bed on a psychiatric ward could be found for me. My muscles were horribly damaged by the overdose and I was in agony. With a bundle of documents to prove that I was a priority case for emergency housing, I visited the local council housing department. The officer I saw promptly disappeared on holiday, abandoning my case. I became homeless.

After living in cheap backpackers' hostel, I reached my two week limit, which is a rule that most hostels have. I then started living in a bush in Kensington Palace Gardens. When it became apparent that living in a bush was not a long-term solution, I stumbled into nearby Paddington - St Mary's Hospital - and presented myself at Accident & Emergency. 12 hours later, I was given two weeks respite in a "crisis house". I tracked down the housing officer who I'd spoken to before. At the end of two weeks, I received a one-line email: I wasn't eligible for any help from the local council. Why? What now?

I was homeless on Hampstead Heath. It was very beautiful, but it was still summer. What was I supposed to do when the weather turned bad?

How had this situation come to be? I'd been a highly functional, productive and fine upstanding member of society: I'd had a successful career, paid taxes all my working life, bought a house, gotten married and done all the things we're supposed to do. What the heck was I doing homeless and abandoned by the state when I was obviously a vulnerable adult? My doctor had written a letter saying I was a vulnerable adult, and my psychiatrist had done the same. These letters had been presented to the local council housing officer, but yet it had made no difference. What have you got to do to get help in this country?

Eventually, I came to be living in the North of England, in an apartment which was a perk of a job I'd taken out of desperation. The apartment was miserable, dark and dingy, and I was terribly lonely. On the 9th of September 2017, I took a massive overdose, which I had researched on the internet to make sure it was likely to be fatal. I regained consciousness after having been in a coma, in hospital, on the 11th of September 2017 - I had completely missed World Suicide Prevention Day. A machine was breathing for me and I was put back to sleep. I didn't leave the intensive care and high dependency wards until the 12th of September 2017.

On the 13th of September 2017, I found myself discharged from hospital and left to flounder all on my own. I didn't want to go back to the apartment where I'd tried to kill myself. I've not been back there. I'll never go back there.

I was sectioned - a section 136 - after being taken to hospital by police. I had to make a massive public nuisance of myself in order to get help. The hospital upgraded me to a section 2, which meant I was going to be kept on a psychiatric ward for up to 28 days. Why now? I'd had two near-fatal overdoses, which had hospitalised me in a critically ill condition, but yet I hadn't been considered enough of a risk to myself to receive inpatient psychiatric treatment. Why did it take so long to finally get the treatment I'd been begging to get for 6 years?

The psychiatric ward discharged me from my section after 12 days, and another week later I was discharged from hospital - a good samaritan has taken me into their home. Again I wonder why no temporary housing was forthcoming, given the fact I am so vulnerable - I lost my job and my apartment due to mental health discrimination. I'm being victimised again & again.

I'm in a safe place now, but my food & accommodation comes from a charitable family who have taken pity on me, after reading my story on my blog - we clearly don't have a system that works for the whole of society. We can't all turn to Twitter every time we're having a mental health crisis.

My Twitter followers brought the emergency services to my door, saving my life. Through my blogging and social media presence, a stranger read about my desperate plight, and kindly offered to take me into the family home.

Today, I feel OK, but why have I been subjected to such a horrific ordeal? I very nearly succeeded in ending my own life, because no help was forthcoming when I really needed it - we're locking the stable door after the horse has bolted.

Using myself as a case study, the safeguards we have in place to prevent suicides are woefully inadequate. My first-hand experience of NHS mental health services, is that they're desperately underfunded and overstretched.

There will be so many tragic preventable deaths if we allow the current situation to persist.

Tags: #suicide #mentalhealth #bipolar #depression #nhs #hospital

This is a story about how nothing really mattress...

This is the last double bed I slept in, 27 days ago. That's my brand new bedding with brand new pillows and a brand new duvet. I moved to Manchester with nothing more than my laptop and a bag of clothes. New life - clean slate. This is the apartment where I tried to kill myself. It was a miserable place and I'm glad I never slept there again.

I woke up on Saturday 9th September, and I was miserable. I wrote a blog post in this bed, about how miserable I was and how close I was to committing suicide. It was prescient.

The next bed I lay upon was owned by a guy who I had become friends with through my girlfriend. My girlfriend at the time was of no fixed abode - sofa surfing with a guy who she met on a dating website. I'd travelled to this friend's apartment to see my girlfriend. We lay kissing and cuddling on our friend's bed. Then, we broke up.

Coming home to my miserable apartment, I didn't get into bed - I took a massive overdose and lay on the bathroom floor in the dark, waiting to die. The next bed I laid upon was in the Accident & Emergency department of the nearest hospital.

I'm presuming - because I was unconscious - that I stayed on the same hospital bed, as I was transferred from A&E resus to the Intensive Treatment Unit (ITU) and then to a High Dependency ward. I was on life support. I was having seizures. I don't remember any of this.

I vaguely remember having to scramble across onto a different bed, to move me out of the High Dependency ward and onto a general ward. I remember this because there was a bag of my piss sloshing around that had to be moved too, and there was a tube coming out of my penis, which I had to be careful not to entangle with anything. The tube that was going up my dick yanked my male member around - it wasn't a comfortable experience.

From hospital I was thrown in a police cell. There was a 'bed' made of concrete painted with light blue paint - the same glossy paint that adorned the floor and walls of the cell. To slightly soften the hard concrete, there was a thin blue foam mat, which was wipe-clean. I did not sleep.

Driven home by the two police who had interviewed me - at 2am in the morning - I finally got back home at 3:30am. My sleep medication was nowhere to be found and I'd had a traumatic day - sleep was impossible. I lay awake on my bed, waiting until the earliest possible moment I could go to the office and try to find a work colleague - I was in a desperate situation and I needed help from somebody friendly and sympathetic to my plight: alone in a strange city with no friends or family; no smartphone, laptop, debit card, credit cards, cash or driving license.

After a second dreadful day I was pretty fucked up, as one might expect of somebody abandoned in such shitty circumstances. As sleep deprivation reached the 40+ hour mark, I ended up back at the same hospital's Accident & Emergency department that I had been in 5 days earlier.

Another day, another hospital bed. This one I came round face down on, with my wrists handcuffed behind my back, after having received an intramuscular injection of 4mg of lorazepam. It was approximately 3am in the morning - now 6 days after my original hospital admission.

Sectioned first under a 136 (up to 72 hours) and then upgraded to a section 2 (up to 28 days) I was then taken to a secure psychiatric facility with airlock-type doors, to stop anybody escaping. I was given a private room that was quite nicely appointed, with a writing desk and an ensuite wet-room.

Having blearily come round in the early hours of the Tuesday morning, it was now Thursday night. I finally had a single bed in a comparatively peaceful environment in which to collapse and sleep, mercifully with the assistance of some zopiclone to calm my jangled nerves and soothe me into my slumbers.

Gone were the bleeps and hisses of the machines that were keeping people alive, on the Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), replaced with the sound of alarms, slamming doors, shouting and running in corridors, as my fellow patients were restrained by staff. I found it somewhat comforting, to know that my crisis was no longer at its peak.

After 8 days on the PICU, I was transferred to an acute psych ward. It was terrifying.

With me in hospital I had two Apple iPhones, two Apple Macbooks, a Nintendo Switch and £1,150 in £50 notes. It's not really recommended to have that amount of valuables on your person, in amongst some very poor and deprived people. The wealth disparity was vulgar.

My guardian angel facilitated the return of my surplus iPhone and Macbook - Apple were excellent and refunded me with no quibbles.

I begun life on the new ward in a private bedroom, but I didn't have an ensuite shower and the TV blasted right next door for 19 hours a day, at full volume. At first, I was too tired to care and I could sleep through the dawn chorus of utter bullshit television a million decibels, but then it started to keep me awake, leaving me less than 5 hours of shut-eye per night.

Then, the dreaded dormitory. Dorms are a mixed bag - very dependent on the luck of the draw, in terms of your fellow occupants. Security is a massive concern, as nothing more than a privacy curtain separated my personal possessions from anybody who'd care to have a look through my bags. Snoring can be a pain in the arse, with one person able to keep everybody else awake listening to their noisy slumbers. Thankfully, my dorm buddies weren't too bad.

This morning I woke up to "second; minute; hour; power; shower" repeated over and over, as a poetic dorm buddy wrote a new rap. That was 5:15am. It was still dark. He was pretty loud. He's sleeping now - snoring.

Today, I'm bustin' out of the psych ward. Watch out, general public of the United Kingdom - I'm going to be moving among you again as a free man.

This is my current bed. I'm lying on it as I type this. I don't know what the bed or the room I'm sleeping in tonight looks like - I've never set foot in the house I'm going to travel to this afternoon. It's a leap in the dark, as is my wont.

Some of my few remaining worldly possessions are here with me in Manchester and some are in London. I'm surprised that I haven't lost more of my valuables. I can't quite bring myself to do the maths, to figure how much money I've lost on this crazy jaunt to the North of England. What does it matter? I'm alive and about to be accepted into the fold of a kind family who are taking me in - the IT consultant who lost his mind in a city where he didn't have any friends or family. It's unlikely that I'd have ended up homeless, but I wasn't relishing the prospect of being chucked off the psych ward and into a dreadful bed & breakfast, in some shitty suburb.

The very definition of "my" home and "my" bed has been smashed to smithereens. Tonight will be the tenth bed I've lain upon in less than 28 days, including several hospital beds and the concrete slab that passes for a bed in a police cell.

Distress flares were fired off and a good samaritan is coming to rescue me from a fairly dire situation.

Tonight, I sleep in a normal house for the first time in what feels like a very long time.

Tags: #hospital #mentalhealth #nhs