This is a story about worst-case scenarios...

I've brought you here under somewhat false pretences. Possibly you have read what I wrote on suicide methods and have decided to continue reading. Perhaps you haven't read anything I've written before, and an internet search has brought you here. Either way, I kinda lied: this is much more about why to kill yourself than how.

Why kill yourself?

Good question.

If you're reading this, then I'm sure you have your reasons. Perhaps you don't need me to explore the many reasons why, but I'm going to anyway, because you didn't need me to write about all the suicide methods in detail either, but I did and thousands of people read it every day.

It's because so many thousands are reading what I wrote about suicide methods that I felt I should follow up with something about why to kill yourself. I hope you will forgive me if you feel I have brought you here under false pretences, but anyhoo, let's begin.

Why Should You Kill Yourself?

You shouldn't.

The end.

Just kidding.

Unless we acknowledge that there are very real and valid reasons why people kill themselves, then we are gaslighting. We can't pretend that people don't commit suicide, and that those people didn't have good reasons for doing it. People don't just do stuff for no reason. To pretend like there weren't reasons - and there isn't justification - is disingenuous and unkind to those who have died, and unkind to those who are suffering suicidal thoughts.

So, excuse my jocularity. I'm quite serious. We need to talk about why you would kill yourself.

Breakup/Divorce

We've got to start somewhere, so why not with a relationship ending; a broken heart? There's little more gut-wrenchingly sad than losing the love of our lives. Many suicides will be prompted by a breakup, so we need to discuss this. I needed to start somewhere, so this is what I've chosen.

First, we need to acknowledge what love is: a combination of serotonin, oxytocin and dopamine that's released in the brain in order to foster human bonding, sex and produce children; it's a biochemical trick created by our genes, in order to get us to make more copies of the genes.

Is it sad when we get our hearts broken? Yes. Incredibly.

Is it the end of the world? Will we be sad forever? No. Get another girlfriend/boyfriend/significant-other and your heart will soon mend.

Of course, we need to acknowledge that it's absolutely terrifying - as well as a massive inconvenience - to be thrust back into the world of dating. As we get older and fatter, we feel increasingly insecure, and we fear dying alone. Of course, nobody wants to feel fat, old and desperate, fearful of dying alone. I can totally relate to the feeling that I'd rather die than suffer the agony of dating, and the knock-backs; to be thrust back into the crappy world of adolescence with all its accompanying awkwardness, uncertainty and insecurity. "Does he/she like me?" we wonder to ourselves, in seemingly eternal torment.

In my opinion, a breakup is no reason to commit suicide, because - although inconvenient and awful - it's possible to mend your heart by meeting somebody new.

Bereavement

Okay, so I didn't really cover the death of a loved one in the breakup/divorce section, so I'll cover the death of a partner in this section. The answer is pretty much the same, but I do make an exception for childhood sweethearts who've lived into old age. I'm not suggesting that everyone who's been in a super long-term relationship should be in a suicide pact, but it's understandable that after a certain age and many decades of happy marriage/civil-partnership, that life could continue with somebody new is almost unthinkable. Where to draw the line is not up to me, but I feel certain that being a geriatric widower is not how I plan on spending the last years of my life.

Am I advocating for suicide for bereaved older people? Absolutely not. I'm just saying that I can totally understand why heartbroken seniors might decide that their reason for living expired when they lost the love of their lives.

Death of a pet. Sad but no.

Death of a friend. Sad but no.

Death of a parent. Sad (most of the time) but no.

Death of a child... oh damn. Where to begin? Well, we must acknowledge that the grief would be exceptional, and the guilt no doubt. The thing which would never be uttered, but must be discussed, would be the feeling that time's run out to make another kid, mixed up with all the same fears about fertility, carrying the baby to full term, giving birth, having a healthy child etc. All those horrible emotions would have to be re-lived, with the accompanying magnifying effect of knowing how devastating it was to actually lose a child, or - god forbid - children.

It seems quite understandable to me that some horrendous combination of bereavement, such as losing your whole family in some kind of accident, would be far too much to bear. Sure, plenty of people have had tragedies in their lives, and gone on to rebuild their lives with somebody else. That's not to say that everyone can or should. I can totally understand why bereavement(s) would be a reason to commit suicide, and although I can see that many people have been able to get over the tragedy, I don't think it's right to say that suicide should never be considered.

Usual caveats apply: I don't condone or encourage suicide, but I do understand why people kill themselves, although I desperately want a zero suicide world.

Debt, Financial Ruin; Destitution etc

It feels a bit wrong to put debt on a par with the death of a child, but it's also right - debt can destroy lives just as effectively as a road traffic accident. We need to acknowledge how life-destroying debt is, because it can wreck so much more than a person's credit rating.

First, let's talk about the very real, and very devastating consequences of financial difficulties: loss of status, loss of home, loss of relationships... loss of freedom; agency. To have a bad credit rating is to become a leper - unable to buy or rent a house, buy a car, get a job. "Get a job?" you ask... yes, that's right - many jobs will check a person's credit rating and/or ask if they've ever declared bankruptcy. Bankrupts are shunned from almost all parts of society, such that they're ruined for life; unable to get a decent job and therefore shut out of every aspect of ordinary life. That's a bad deal. That's a rough gig.

Without your house, your car, your job and the other accompanying status symbols, how are you going to provide for your family? It follows that you'll be ditched by your partner and your kids; labelled as a loser. This is how people lose everything, not just their credit rating.

Debt is life-destroying.

Okay, so I'm probably laying it on a bit thick. However, this is all the stuff that is on the mind of the poor suffering individual who is struggling with debt, and has decided to commit suicide. Having been hounded by debt collectors, bailiffs and other parasites/vultures, people are driven to end their own lives rather than suffer any more stress, loss, ruin and distress. I empathise.

Although bankruptcy and financial ruin are devastating, the process of being financially destroyed is worse than being destitute. Being destitute is quite liberating. Having struggled with debts for years, being hounded by creditors and other leeches, once the bankruptcy process - or some other kind of insolvency procedure - is in motion, the creditors can't harass you anymore. You'll get an opportunity to rebuild yourself, albeit with the impediment of the black mark on your records. Plenty of people function without credit cards, car loans, mortgages and other financial instruments, and many of them are very successful. In fact, many entrepreneurs talk about their bankruptcies as badges of honour; they're proud of their failures.

I think loss of status is not to be underestimated. If you're used to having a nice house, car, and being a provider for your family, there is an incalculable amount of shame, bitterness and regret, which is almost impossible to deal with. Losing everything is not easy, and we should acknowledge how fatal it can be; how it can be the worst thing in the world to have your life fall apart. Saying stuff like "it's only money" is profoundly unhelpful, because money is such an intrinsic inseparable part of modern life. We shouldn't forget that wealth and status are the things which allow us to get an attractive partner, as well as to feel good about ourselves.

Killing yourself because of bad debt or financial problems seems like the most ridiculous thing to do, but in fact it's one of the hardest things to deal with, because it's such a taboo to talk about financial difficulties and debt. Debts are so toxic to our mental health, keeping us awake at night, and causing us untold anxiety, as we fear the domino-like collapse of our entire lives - job loss leads to defaulting on our mortgage, leads to our house being repossessed, leads to bankruptcy and destitution, as sure as night follows day.

Yes. Debt and financial difficulties cause suicides, in vast numbers. We need to acknowledge that's true. I wish it weren't true, but it is.

The solution? Be prepared to be destitute. Treat it as an adventure. Be a tramp. Enjoy the freedom of it.

Injury, Sickness and Disability

Chronic illness, chronic pain and other lifelong conditions - such as diabetes and kidney failure - have a devastatingly detrimental effect on our quality of life, and to pretend otherwise would be dishonest. However, we are notoriously bad at estimating how bad it's going to be. For example, people with type one diabetes, who are insulin dependent and who must closely monitor their blood sugar, are able to adapt and report far higher quality of life than their initially pessimistic outlook. However, people who require dialysis because of kidney failure, often vastly underestimate how badly their quality of life is going to be affected.

Many people would say that they would want their life support to be switched off if they were paralysed - quadriplegic - but there are well documented cases of people reversing the decision in their advanced directive such that they have indicated that they wanted to be kept alive by machines, most famously by a man who was only able to blink in order to communicate.

However, we must be realistic. In the vast majority of cases, people who are suffering incredibly awful lives, because of chronic pain and other suffering, who've had their reasons to live snatched away by some cruel twist of fate, which has rendered them incapable of ever enjoying a minimum quality of life, are absolutely entitled to reserve their right to die. I must make it absolutely clear: I am pro-euthanasia.

Another thing I must make clear is that I'm well aware that there are very many people who live full and happy lives, despite sickness and/or disability. I am absolutely not an ableist who believes that only the able bodied have a reason to live, and everybody else is somehow less worthy of life and happiness. I am absolutely not saying that - for example - being unable to walk is always a reason to commit suicide.

Nothing could be more personal than weighing up the pros and cons of our own unique situation, and arriving at a decision of whether it is better to be dead or alive. I can't make that decision for anybody, but we should definitely consider that it is very difficult to face a life which promises nothing other than pain and suffering, and regret, sadness and resentment, that we are no longer able to enjoy the things which we used to, in the past.

Everything Else

There are an infinite number of reasons why we might kill ourselves, which might include things such as martyrdom, infamy, to hurt people and other motivations. Suicide can be weaponised, and it often is, especially by marginalised, oppressed and otherwise powerless people.

A completely exhaustive exploration of all the reasons why we might commit suicide is beyond the scope of this essay, although I feel as though I have made a decent attempt.

* * *

As always, I must remind readers that my personal stance is that suicide is understandable but absolutely undesirable in all but the compassionate circumstances, where it is intended to give relief to a person whose life is unbearable; unliveable; intolerable.

We must distinguish the temporary - the acute - from the permanent; the chronic. We must avoid permanent solutions to temporary problems, although I am aware that agony can feel eternal when we are in the grips of it. I am very sorry that people are suffering and I wish they weren't.

This essay is intended as something thought-provoking, and as an open and honest discussion-starter, so that people who feel that they can't talk about their anguish and pain - that suicide is the only option available to them - might feel as though it's OK to talk about the things which are bothering them.

If you choose suicide, I won't judge you or tell you that you're wrong, but I hope that you think about everything, and choose to live in the end... although of course you might decide - based on your personal pros and cons - that life will never be tolerable and pleasant ever again, which is very sad but I understand that people need relief from their torment.

I do not encourage, endorse or recommend suicide.

Tags: #suicide

This is a story about people who are so privileged they don't realise they're incredibly privileged...

I was having a pretty good week. I've made good progress financially, and I'm proud of the work I've been doing on an important project. I've achieved a lot; I've been highly productive.

I'm gaining some financial security, slowly but surely.

Then somebody sent me a listing for a remote piece of land.

Utterly depressing.

In fact, suicide-inducing.

In order to be able to afford said piece of land - with an asking price of half a million pounds - I will have to work flat-out for another year or two just to be able to afford the deposit and then I wouldn't be able to live on the land, because I would have to work for the rest of my life to pay the mortgage. Naturally "remote" does not correlate with "within commuting distance of employment".

Utterly demented.

As an act deliberately designed to make me depressed and suicidal, it could not have been more perfectly designed.

I don't plan on working until my health is failing, and then dying the moment I'm able to escape from the rat race. I'll just kill myself now and save myself the effort, energy, stress and misery.

I'm utterly furious.

I spend my time thinking about perhaps buying a piece of land and a caravan for £15,000 in order to escape from the rat race. I am not in the league of people who think that a half million pound piece of land in the middle of nowhere is anything other than something which I can't afford and is utterly impractical, given it's nowhere near any place of employment; anywhere it would be possible to generate the income to pay the massive mortgage. My priority is to have secure housing. My priority is to escape the clutches of the parasitic idle class, and to live free from the tyranny of rent or mortgage for a while.

Of course I'm privileged to have the vague possibility of being able to live in an old caravan in a grotty field, but I would also settle for a tin shack, or even a tent. Basically, I'm prepared to live like a person in a developing world slum, if I can escape the rat race.

Unless you've lost years of your life to sickness - hospitalised and otherwise unable to work - you don't understand that the things you take for granted, like your house, can be snatched away if you have a period of ill health. I know I can't have a huge mortgage, because I can't guarantee that I'll be able to work 12 months a year. At times I've barely managed to be able to work 3 months a year. I know what it means to lack financial security and housing security: I've been homeless, penniless and almost bankrupt; destitute.

I refuse to go back to that life, of having my health, wealth, home and dignity all snatched away from me. I'll just kill myself instead.

I deliberately haven't looked to see if I can buy a tiny piece of land and a caravan for £15,000, because if I can't then it's time to kill myself. I'm worn out. I'm burnt out. I've had enough. I need a break. My health is failing and I can't participate in the rat race any longer.

Thanks, buddy. Why don't you fuck off with your half-a-million-pound remote fucking shit? Good for you, cunt. I'm just trying to not end up sleeping rough again, you piece of shit.

Tags: #homeless

This is a story about vacation...

It's been pretty much four whole months since I saw my colleagues face-to-face in the office. As the lockdown wore on, my hair got longer and longer. Working from home, I've tended to wear scruffy clothes instead of wearing a smart shirt. These things make a big difference.

Business attire is important. There are plenty of useless idiots in the working world, commanding high salaries simply because they wear a nice suit. Wearing the right clothes is an effective way of getting people to respect you and to value you, and your opinion. Without the visual cues of the business attire, people can only judge you based on what you say and what you do, which they are hopelessly under-qualified to do.

Being face-to-face is important. So much of nonverbal communication - such as reading a room, or looking for body language - is useful to know if you're rubbing somebody up the wrong way, and therefore to know whether to back off; to let something drop.

In the office, a vast amount of the working day can be eaten up by simply moving around the building - looking for meeting rooms, walking to the toilet, walking to get a sandwich, walking to get a drink - plus there's a lot of opportunity for ad-hoc chats with colleagues. At home, I'm alone with my thoughts for most of the day. I'm incredibly bored. When we have a meeting I'm desperate to talk to somebody; so isolated and lonely.

At the office, if I'm acting a bit strangely, somebody can have a quiet word in my ear. "Is everything OK?" they can ask, kindly. At home, nobody really checks in on me; there's no human connection.

I'm so bored.

I get through all my work so quickly, because there isn't enough to do, and I'm alone with no distractions.

The autumn, winter and spring are going to be incredibly hectic, stressful and high-pressure, so I'm keen that the workload should be managed effectively; expectations have to be set appropriately. I find myself being very forceful, trying to protect myself and my colleagues from being overwhelmed; overstretched. I push back hard on the insidious scope creep; the relentless push to overpromise and underdeliver; an army of soft-skilled fuckwits saying yes to everything because they're yes-men; people-pleasers who don't actually have to do the work themselves - it won't be them who have to work late into the night and over weekends in order to deliver the undeliverable. Nobody thanks you when your project is late, you don't deliver everything you said you would, and the quality is atrocious.

I should stop caring.

Not my circus, not my monkeys.

I should just take the money and keep my big mouth shut.

It doesn't make sense to rock the boat. I should be diplomatic. I should smile and take the money, and ignore the problems; ignore the disaster that's brewing. I know it'd be better for my bank balance to just keep my mouth shut.

It's difficult. My mental health is not compatible with office jobs working for huge organisations, but it's easy money. It's a LOT of easy money. Hard to turn down that kind of money, even if it's toxic to my mental health.

I haven't taken any time off since the start of the year. I have been working as hard as I possibly can. I just want this atrocious period - of financial insecurity - to be over.

When you're going through hell, keep going... and go as fast as you can!

I opt for ripping off the sticky plaster as quickly as possible; a short sharp shock.

Except this isn't short and sharp... it's prolonged.

Interminable.

I'm not sure what I'd do with time off anyway. UK citizens are not exactly welcome in a lot of places, given that our nation is riddled with deadly disease. I hate travelling alone.

I do need some time off though, before I have a breakdown; before I get too sick to work. It's strange, my mental health is very bad, but I'm still very productive. I assume that I'm very difficult to work with at the moment though, but I don't really know, because I don't get any feedback; I don't have normal interactions with anybody. I'm completely isolated and losing my mind.

Tags: #work #office #bipolar

This is a story about routine...

Despite the chaotic - and often traumatic - backdrop to my life, during the past 5 years... I have still managed to write on a very regular basis. I've written from a hospital bed on multiple occasions. I've written from a psychiatric ward on multiple occasions. I've written when I've been dreadfully sick - both physically and mentally - and I've documented the path I've taken, from near-bankruptcy and destitution, to stability.

It might not look very healthy, but it is - my writing is a healthy habit.

I skipped writing over the weekend because I was busy. That's OK. I'm allowing myself to skip the occasional day when I'm busy. I'm not going to force myself to write every single day, without fail.

I have decided that I need to get into the habit of writing fewer than 700 words - it's a limit which forces me to be a bit more focussed on what I want to say, and discourages me from aimlessly rambling. Given that I mostly just write my stream-of-consciousness, it makes sense to create an artificial limit, because my thoughts are unending.

As I have repeated oftentimes before - ad nauseam - I am aiming to try to be more forward-looking, and to not dwell in bitterness and regret from the past; to not wallow in my life's misfortunes and my shitty childhood.

I can tell you for certain that I WILL NOT be writing any kind of "things I'm grateful for" vomit-worthy rubbish. Of course I have things I'm grateful for, and I have a great deal of perspective - I know I'm fortunate in many ways - so I don't need or want to have to write down all those things; it's pretty boring.

I'm glad that my skin isn't all peeled off and dipped in salt and acid. I'm grateful my eyes haven't been gouged out by rusty spoons. I'm grateful that my penis hasn't been cut off and stuffed in my mouth...

No.

I spend a significant proportion of my day reading the news, and whenever I see starving African children - etc - then I think "poor starving African children. We should improve the living conditions for human beings". I do not think "I'm glad I'm not a starving African child" because that's just sociopathic. Obviously it's better not to be a starving African child, but I'm afraid I'm cursed with enough empathy to think "we should improve things" as opposed to "I'm so grateful other people's lives are so shitty".

My routine consists of lying in bed reading the news, a shower, feeding the cat, reading the news, catching up on anything I missed at work, reading the news, work, meetings, reading the news, work, lunch, reading the news, work, meetings, work, reading the news, writing, dinner, reading the news, speaking to friends on the phone, watching documentaries about human suffering, social media, sleep... repeat.

As you can see, I read a lot of news.

I do not watch any TV.

I'm certain that I would be happier if I replaced some of that news reading with socialising, but my routine is predictable and somewhat in my control. The only thing I can't control is the human suffering which I see in the news, but I do care and I do what I can - from the confines of my routine - to improve the lives of humanity. Mostly, I do a lot of thinking about the suffering of humanity, but don't mistake me for somebody who doesn't care and doesn't do anything. The emotional labour is exhausting; the mental labour is exhausting. This shouldn't be underestimated.

Of course I want to change my routine. I want to exercise more. I want to socialise more. I want more excitement; variety. However, the routine gives me a great deal of stability, and the stability gives me health and wealth. Stability is very important to me, having had so many years of chaos and trauma.

My routine is important.

Tags: #routine #bipolar

This is a story about suicidal people...

I received an email, approximately a month ago, telling me that something I wrote back in February was getting a lot of readers, via Google searches. I dismissed that event, because the email said I was getting a small amount of visitors to my website. It turns out that I was getting a huge amount.

When I finally dug into the stats, they shocked me.

• Hypercapnic alarm response - 1st
• Can you drink yourself sober - 4th
• How do you suffocate yourself - 5th
• Easiest way to kill yourself - 6th
• What is the easiest way to kill yourself - 7th
• Most reliable way to commit suicide - 7th
• Easiest way to commit suicide - 10th
• Quickest way to kill yourself - 14th

That's just a selection of the things people are searching for on Google, along with the position where my website is ranked in the search results.

I wondered why I was getting many more emails from suicidal people. Now I know - I'm on the first page of Google for most of the things which people search for when they're feeling suicidal.

Obviously, this feels like a big responsibility.

I immediately went back to what I wrote and checked it, to ensure that it didn't encourage, endorse or otherwise prompt or promote anything remotely approaching a suggestion that suicide might be a good idea. Of course, I acknowledge that suicide is a choice which is forced upon people, who are suffering unbearably horrible circumstances, but I want there to be zero suicides; I desperately want for society to take suicide prevention seriously.

The problem is not the suicidal people.

They don't need to fix things.

The problem is their circumstances.

They can't change their circumstances.

If they could, they would.

I don't think suicide is ever the answer; the solution... however it does offer relief from interminable unbearable suffering, so I understand why people consider it, and I understand why some people choose it. I wish there were alternative choices, but society does not wish to offer any, oftentimes.

Having spent time on numerous psychiatric wards, attempted suicide and suffered from persistent suicidal thoughts, for many years, I have been well aware of the mental health epidemic and the growth of suicide to be the number one cause of death in men under the age of 50, and the fastest-growing cause of death in girls and young women. I was well aware of what was going on in society, and the statistics, but I wasn't fully plugged in to that raging torrent of human misery. Now, the world's suicidal people are beating a path to my door, desperate to know how to end their suffering and pain. It's a heavy burden.

Although I've already asked myself this question many times, I have to consider whether it's responsible to talk so freely and openly about suicide methods, and to be empathetic and understanding of people's struggles, and the desire to end their lives. Aren't I supposed to treat the subject as taboo and immediately condemn anybody who's feeling suicidal as "taking the easy way out" etc.? Of course I'm not going to do that, because that's what the whole of this dreadfully shitty society is doing, which has resulted in the vast numbers of deaths of despair we see today.

Another thing I have to ask myself is what I have in common with cult leaders and others like them, who have presided over the suicide of their devoted followers, and other unwilling people swept into their death cults. I have to ask myself whether narcissism is playing a part, and whether I am leading people astray. I have to suspect myself as being a bad, dangerous person, who might cause harm.

I think. A lot.

Of the people who've contacted me over the years, while in a suicidal state, most are alive. A few are dead, including a very close friend. Am I to blame?

I think about stuff all the time. I can't switch my brain off.

I'm never going to reach any fixed and immutable conclusions. The whole point of this entire endeavour was to have an open dialogue. Only through discussion can any progress be made. Only through discourse can any thorough examination of things occur. Only by grasping the nettle, is it possible to help people who are thinking about suicide - taboos and knee-jerk reactions aren't going to help anybody.

It's very alarming to see - first hand - the vast number of people trawling the internet in a suicidally distressed state. It's daunting to be in a position of influence. It's a big responsibility to say and do the right thing. However, I hope that what I write is helping, not making things worse. I like to think it is, but I'm always open to input.

Tags: #suicide

This is a story about crutches...

Trawling through my photos from the past three and a half months, I found very few which would be suitable to accompany what I wanted to write today. The photos on my phone are mostly of my cat(s) and not much else. However, this photo does - rather cryptically - allude to what I am now writing about.

When I started the lockdown, I decided that I wasn't going to bother with a desk or an office chair at home; that I would muddle by with my laptop on my lap. I decided - wrongly - that it wouldn't be worth the effort of setting up a proper office at home.

As I already wrote a few days ago, I started the lockdown drinking copiously. Every day after work, I would pour myself a large glass of wine. I would estimate that my alcohol consumption was somewhere in the region of 8 to 10 bottles of wine per week.

As I already wrote a few days ago, I started the lockdown physically dependent on medication. Every night I took sleeping pills. Every day I took tranquillising sedatives.

Then, it became obvious that there would be dire consequences to my physical health.

I didn't want to finish lockdown as a fat alcoholic pill-popper with a hunched back.

Because I delayed setting up my home office, I didn't have a lot of choice for a desk and an office chair, hence why the ugly garish monstrosity - pictured above - has become part of my home office. The desk is super ugly too. However, it's good to have a more professional set-up instead of reclining on my sofa.

The health improvements to my life don't feel like they're paying dividends. I still feel overweight, unfit and I still crave alcohol. Ostensibly, I feel much the same as I did when I was guzzling booze, popping pills and spending 16 hours a day reclining on my sofa. However, we must acknowledge that there is a very significant difference between an alcoholic pill addict, and somebody who drinks in moderation at the weekends, and is entirely medication free. That I have stabilised myself and found almost liveable and almost bearable sustainable routine without my crutches, is not an achievement which should be underestimated.

The backdrop to the past four months has been the global pandemic which has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, and threatens the livelihoods and living standards of hundreds of millions, if not billions of people. If there was ever a time to feel insecure about money, work and housing, it would be now.

I wouldn't describe myself as a particularly anxious person, but the past 5 years of my life have been spent with the threat of destitution hanging over me. I've been forced to generate vast amounts of money each year in order to protect my credit rating and employability, as well as to simply pay rent, bills and service debts. The amount of money needed to escape my predicament was so vast that I was forced into high-risk high-stress situations, which were potentially high-reward. Eventually, perseverance paid off. There was no other choice: a crappy salaried job would have inevitably led to bankruptcy; the books simply didn't balance with some crap paying job.

So, I've suffered 5 years of incredible, immense stress. I've suffered 5 years of living on the edge of ruin.

When the pandemic started to get very bad in Europe my mood improved considerably. The havoc wrought by the pandemic has brought the stress and suffering that I was enduring into the lives of vast numbers of my fellow people. Suffering collectively is far more bearable than suffering alone.

At some point, I want to stop talking about the difficulties in my past and to talk about the future. I want to put some distance between my past and the present. I want to have a period of wealth and security, which clearly delineates 'now' from 'then'.

I note that my abysmal childhood became unimportant when I started to have success and get ahead in life, in my late teens and early twenties. My rapidly growing bank balance, exotic travel, status symbols - like houses, cars and boats - and adventurous hobbies, felt like I could forget about past transgressions against me: the bullies and abusers were rotting, and I was thriving, so I wasn't bitter and angry; I had broken free from the misery of the past.

My rage at my parents - which has been a repeated theme of the past 5 years - and sad memories of a ruined childhood, which has caused me vast amounts of problems... all becomes irrelevant again, as my health and wealth are regained, and my quality of life improves manyfold.

Yes, my crutches are going to change from alcohol and medications, to be luxury holidays and other trappings of wealth, but I don't care. Alcohol and medications lead to misery and death - they're a dreadful trap, which leads nowhere positive.

I still have suicide as my 'retirement plan' but that's a simple matter of practicality, given that I'm now unable to be likely to accumulate enough wealth to enjoy a comfortable retirement before my health starts to deteriorate. It's something I'm going to have to learn to live with. Or rather, it's something that's going to kill me. C'est la vie. C'est la mort.

Tags: #alcohol #medication #debt #suicide #parents #bullying #childhood #lockdown

This is a story about the Coronavirus pandemic...

Many people planned to come out of lockdown with new hobbies, fitter, healthier, happier and myriad other unachievable unrealistic things. I think that we have mostly come out of lockdown fatter, more unfit, poorer, more insecure, lonely, isolated, bored and generally worse off.

I started the lockdown drinking very heavily and eating McDonald's breakfast every morning. I decided that if we were going to be suffering the misery of being under house arrest, then I would treat myself. Quickly I realised that I was going to end up with clogged arteries and morbidly obese. I was eating takeaway several nights a week and not doing any exercise.

I started the lockdown physically dependent on sleeping pills to get to sleep, and using two different tranquillising sedatives to cope with unbearable anxiety. I decided it was too much hassle to try to keep stocked up with the medications I needed during the lockdown, and I calculated that I have enough left to be able to taper myself off. I didn't want to run out of medication suddenly in the middle of a pandemic.

I started the lockdown working on my sofa, fully reclined. I realised that my posture and back would be ruined by working in such a position for 8 hours a day, followed by many more hours on the sofa after finishing work.

Things had to change.

I thought the lockdown would last a month or two, but I must admit that I didn't think it would drag on beyond a quarter of the year. I tried my best to psychologically prepare myself for the lockdown lasting for months, but I was hopeful it'd be all over after 6 to 8 weeks.

I bought a desk and an office chair.

I weaned myself off the sleeping pills and tranquillisers.

I cut down my drinking, and even went teetotal for 6 or 7 weeks.

I started exercising. Not, like, exercising exercising. Just going for a 10km walk every day. Enough to keep me a little bit active, but nothing crazy.

I stopped getting takeaways. All those takeaways were costing quite a lot of money, when they were all added up. Sure, I felt like I could justify spending the money to enjoy some nice food, as compensation for the doom and gloom of the hundreds of thousands of people dying all over the world, and the restrictions to our freedom... but it wasn't healthy and it was costing a packet.

I paid off all my debt. This wasn't so much a planned thing. It was something that just happened to co-incide with the lockdown. However, it feels pretty damn good to have some savings now. I have a net worth again, which feels good. I have some financial security, even if it is pretty negligible. It had been a very long time which I'd been struggling to get my finances sorted, and it's a big relief to be back in the black.

My life is extremely austere and simple. I have my house, my job, my cat, my car; that's it. My health is probably OK. My weight is OK, although I am carrying some extra weight I'd like to shift, as a consequence of lockdown. My finances are OK. My job seems OK. My housing situation is sort of OK. My kitten is great, although my cat is lost... overall OK. My car has a big dent where an idiot crashed into it during lockdown, in a virtually empty car park, but there are more important things in life than having a shiny perfect car.

All things considered, I think I'm one of the lockdown winners - I'm emerging in far better shape than I went into lockdown. Some people have lost their job, or are about to lose their job. Some people have struggled with alcohol and food. Some people have struggled with mental health. In almost every area of my life, things have improved; I look reasonably well positioned to weather a difficult autumn and winter.

Although losing my cat was the worst thing that happened, it has forced me to connect with my neighbours and the wider community, so I have even managed to live a far less isolated and lonely existence under lockdown, than I was living before - I speak to far more people; I'm more connected and socially engaged.

I thought that if I retreated inwards, living and communicating through my blog and social media, then I would find it impossible to get through the lockdown. It looks like a reasonably good decision, to have taken a break.

It helps that it's summer - of course - which lifts my mood and generally creates a more pleasant and favourable backdrop for life, but I feel hopeful that I've got a decent position of health and financial stability to fight through the autumn and winter. I just need to book some holidays now... I've worked non-stop since early January, when I was discharged from hospital.

Tags: #debt #medication #work #lockdown #cat #kitten #weight #car #house

This is a story about starting over...

My cat is missing. She's been missing since 26 June. I've posted leaflets through the door of hundreds of homes in the vicinity. I've posted all over social media. I've alerted all my neighbours through private messaging groups. I've spent countless hours walking around, calling her name, shaking her food. I've put her litter, her blanket and her favourite toys around outside my house, in the hope that she'd smell the scent.

All to no avail.

She's gone.

Was she stolen? Was she hit by a car or a train, and the incident didn't get reported; her body wasn't found? Has somebody started feeding her and taken her in as their own? Was she stolen for profit by an unscrupulous rogue? Is she out there somewhere, lost and hungry?

Whatever has happened - and I'll probably never know - she's gone.

Of course, I can play the coulda woulda shoulda game. In the course of my search for her, I've found out that there are lots of cats just like her which are living quite happily in this safe neighbourhood. We live in a leafy, wealthy suburb, plus the streets have been extra quiet and safe because of the Coronavirus lockdown. Perhaps I could have turned my house into some kind of maximum-security cat prison, but why did I need to worry? I live in a nice place and I have nice neighbours; plenty of cats just like her live very happily in this area.

Whatever has happened, she's gone and I can't do anything about it now.

I don't have a time machine. If I did, would I go back and change anything? It's not realistic to put a metal grille over your windows. It's not realistic to install air-lock style security doors. It's not realistic to secure every skylight, window, door and air-vent, which your determined would-be escapee might use in their bid for freedom. I'm trying to live my life, not become a prison warden to a cat, living in some kind of concrete bunker with bars on the windows and heavy metal cell doors.

If I was messing around with time travel, maybe I should go back further and not get the cat.

Maybe I should go back further in time and not give my first cat to my parents, during the messy divorce.

Maybe I should go back further and fix my marriage.

Maybe I should go back further and not even get with that girl who I later married.

Maybe I should go back further... and not even be born.

This reductio ad absurdum reasoning leads me to conclude that it's futile to start wishing to change things in the past, not least because it's impossible anyway. It's futile and unproductive, and it leads nowhere good.

Maybe I'm just covering my ass because my cat is lost and I feel bad about that; somehow responsible. OK so my decision has led to my cat becoming lost. There. I said it. Does that bring my cat back? No.

Anyway, as is often my way, I'm making another point: there are heaps of things which are less-than-ideal in my past, but I can't do anything about them. I've had a really rough bunch of years, and it's caused me a whole heap of problems, but I can't expunge those unfortunate events from history so I'm going to have to live with everything that's happened.

I had a lengthy break from blogging and social media. I felt like it wouldn't be good to be writing every day during lockdown. I thought that the time would pass incredibly slowly if I was writing my blog during the repetitive and monotonous stay-at-home period, where I've been cooped up under the same roof for more than 3 months, with no company except my cat... who has now disappeared.

My intention is to begin writing regularly again, but I hope that my improved mental health, finances and a generally improved outlook to my life - much more stable than in recent years - will provide a backdrop for a period of writing which seems more like a normal happy life; less full of disaster and violent mood swings; less full of powerful negative emotions and terrible memories; less full of bitterness and hate.

Of course, my writing is therapy for me, and part of therapy is venting - catharsis - so I shall no doubt be launching myself into the occasional angry rant from time to time, but I'm hoping to somewhat turn over a new leaf and start with a clean slate as much as possible... although I can never escape my past, and doubly so because I intend to leave this blog in place unedited, containing all the difficulties I've been through in the 5 years I've been writing it.

I'm hoping that by writing a load of new material which is coming from a much more secure and happy place, it will put some time, space and distance between me and the bad stuff in my past.

Tags: #cat

This is a story about the control of information...

As is often the case, something I have read or watched has prompted me to write. Today, I felt the urgent need to write about methods of killing yourself. I felt compelled to document every single method of committing suicide, which I could possibly think of.

The reason why I would write this down is that the thing which most often draws visitors to my website is something I wrote about suffocation - asphyxiation - as a means of suicide. People also come who are desperately trying to cure themselves of their problems with mental health, alcoholism and addiction. People visit my website for all kinds of different reasons, but as a source of information on how to kill yourself, my site is one of many millions. Our libraries are full of books which explain in exquisite detail how people have ended their own lives, since we took pen to parchment, or chiselled runes into rock. For those who seek, they will find.

I've noticed a lot of criticism of the owner/operators of forums where suicide is predominantly discussed, and prominent popular indviduals who have large social media followings have been criticised for their participation in the online discussion of suicide which has coalesced around their digital persona.

We have to be very clear about something here: people need and want to talk about suicide. Making it a taboo subject, and ridiculous fantasies about book burning and the modern-day digital equivalent - banning websites - fails to address any of the underlying causes of why people take their own lives.

People don't kill themselves because they're encouraged by others, online. People don't kill themselves because they're able to easily find the information about the methods of suicide. The reasons why people kill themselves are as complex as the individuals who end their lives prematurely, and to point the finger of blame is pointless; futile.

While it might be true that we see 'outbreaks' of suicides which cluster together geographically, almost like a conventional viral, bacterial or parasitic infection, passed from person to person, this does not mean that newspapers, magazines, TV & radio stations and the modern digital equivalents, should never talk about suicides, or the methods. There is no evidence to prove that journalistic guidelines have in any way reduced the likelihood that fellow friends, classmates and other people in the vicinity of a suicide, will commit suicide themselves. We are missing the point: if one person in a particular area of the country, of a certain age, living a certain lifestyle, is compelled to end their life, then why should we be surprised that there are many others who are living on the edge too? It is absolutely untrue that the media and the internet is in any way shape or form responsible for pushing and/or prompting people to end their lives.

We also have to answer the difficult question: is it ethical to force a person to live a miserable and unbearable life? Is it unethical to force a person to endure unending suffering?

A documentary I was watching particularly annoyed me when a so-called expert came onto the program to say that suicidal thoughts are usually fleeting, and quickly pass; they essentially said that depression is temporary - in a particularly dismissive manner - and that we should shut up and put up with it. This made me furious.

People don't end their lives whimsically. Suicides are meticulously planned. The formation of the idea of killing one's self is something that has taken place during years of terrible suffering. I say that it is unethical to act in any kind of way to prevent a suffering person from achieving relief from the terrible torments which they have decided are too unbearable. It's their life at the end of the day. It's selfish to ask them to keep living an intolerable miserable suffering-filled existence... for what reason? So that you don't feel sad? Get over yourself. Get a grip. Have some compassion. Show a little empathy.

I believe strongly that suicides are 100% preventable, and that we should aim for zero suicides - nobody should ever commit suicide. However, the solutions are well beyond the scope of this essay, and ask the reader to think the unthinkable, such as improving people's lives, instead of fobbing them off with cheap anti-depressant tablets and abysmal "behavioural therapy" courses developed and delivered by a group of people with the collective IQ of a slug. The evidence is clear: suicide is the number one killer of men under the age of 50, and the suicide rate in young girls and women is growing faster than ever before. Yet, the approach remains unchanged: ineffective medications and ineffective psychological therapies. Also, the circumstances get worse and worse: youth unemployment soars, personal debt soars, global warming and climate change rages out of control, and the chance of having a fulfilling happy life diminishes by a vast amount every single day.

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So, you came here for the good stuff, right?

OK, here are all the ways you can kill yourself, separated into some different sections.

Poisonings and Overdoses

Almost every substance which a normal person can obtain will result in a slow and painful death. Anybody can find a poisonous mushroom or plant - such as deadly nightshade or hemlock - which will kill you, but it will be extremely unpleasant. It's possible to purchase a large quantity of paracetamol, for example, which will easily cause fatal liver failure, but this is a particularly slow, painful and unpleasant death.

Deaths by overdose are hard to achieve with so-called 'safe' modern medications. Your doctor is unlikely to prescribe you enough opiates to allow you to kill yourself, unless you stockpile your supply, and slow-release formulas can make it hard to commit suicide using swallowed tablets. Barbiturates, which are the number one choice of doctors who wish to commit suicide, are never prescribed. There are deadly medications, such as warfarin, but to obtain them is almost impossible.

Were you able to obtain a poison such as strychnine or cyanide, your death would be surprisingly slow and painful. Potassium cyanide particularly, would not be a pleasant easy death, unless combined with a large dose of sedative and a painkiller, because it essentially induces a heart attack.

Blood Loss and Other Trauma

The body has developed very advanced mechanisms to cope with severe lacerations, and blood vessels will spasm and contract to contain loss of blood. The arteries are generally well protected by the anatomy which has evolved to keep us alive.

Generally speaking, cutting the jugular vein(s) is a reliable method of suicide, but there are many variables: the blade must be sharp, the aim must be true, and the cut must be made with force and certainty. It's more likely that you will end up with a profusely bleeding laceration than a lethal wound.

Cutting one of the carotid arteries must surely be the most reliable way of killing yourself with a knife or razor blade, but detailed anatomical knowledge and a willingness to undergo immense pain, while conducting this surgery on yourself, makes the task almost impossible.

Plunging a sharp object in-between your ribs and into your heart or one of the biggest blood vessels in your body will kill you very quickly, but the chance of you hitting your target is low.

The Japanese Samurai favour disembowelment as an "honourable death". Do not recommend.

Self-immolation would be incredibly painful, and your death would be caused by suffocation: the flames would consume the oxygen from around your body, and your lungs would be burned so badly they would not function. Definitely do not recommend.

Falls From Height

Yes, these will kill you. There is a well documented case of a man who survived a fall from the Golden Gate Bridge, which is about 67 metres (or 220 feet for those who prefer imperial units). In rock climbing terms, that's about 1 rope length, and there are lots of documented cases of rock climbers who have fallen from the top of a cliff and survived.

This is all about the height, and the surface you're landing on. Maximum height and solid landing surface = more certain death. I would say that 8 storeys or more, landing on concrete, rock or something similar like that, would guarantee 'instant' death. Bear in mind that you would need to jump and also endure the fall, which would both be very traumatic, but it would be a 'quick' death versus a poisoning or overdose, for example.

Hanging

Most people who have hanged themselves have died from asphyxiation, and have suffered an incredibly awful death. Death by hanging has a high success rate, but we should be mindful that the final period of that person's life was unimaginably terrible. To asphyxiate elicits one of our most primal panic responses - the hypercapnic alarm response - and we know that many people who have hanged themselves have taken 30 to 90 minutes before they have finally expired. This is one of the most unpleasant deaths I can imagine.

For a hanging to be a quick death, the neck should be broken or the body should be decapitated - either outcome achieves the desired outcome, which is a quick death. It would be advisable - although I advise nobody to commit suicide, of course - to err on the side of caution, and ensure that the 'drop' is sufficient to break the neck at the very least, and if decapitation occurs, then it's far preferable to the alternative: a lengthy asphyxiation.

Electrocution

Most modern domestic and commercial electrical systems are fitted with systems to prevent electrocution, and as such you would be unlikely to be able to electrocute yourself by, for example, dropping an electrical appliance into the bath-tub while you were in it.

In the interests of a full and frank exploration of all the available suicide options, I must tell you that it's possible to obtain a lethal electrical current by simply removing the cover of your fuse box, where there are live parts which do not have the protections which you have throughout your house or other premises.

Touching a live electrical conductor will hurt, a lot, but it won't kill you. In order to kill yourself by electrocution, you must first grip something which is earthed - such as a copper water pipe or the earth clip for your house, usually marked with green and yellow striped insulation - and then touch the live source of electricity with your OTHER hand. Then, the electrical current will flow across your body, through your chest, and your heart will either be very badly damaged or at least enter ventricular fibrillation, where it is unable to pump blood, causing you to lose consciousness immediately.

It's possible that you might only receive a 'mild' electrocution, leaving you with very bad burns, tissue and nerve damage, but otherwise alive. For this reason, it's probably inadvisable for anybody except a trained electrician to commit suicide using this method.

Asphyxiation, Drowning, Suffocation etc

As I wrote before, the hypercapnic alarm response, which is your body's natural reaction to high carbon dioxide levels in your bloodstream, will cause incredible panic and suffering. As such, drowning yourself by attaching weights to your body and jumping into water, would be a terrible, terrible death. Do not recommend.

To attempt to suffocate yourself, perhaps by putting a plastic bag over your head or other somesuch thing, would result in the elicitation of the hypercapnic alarm response and you would tear the bag off your head, driven by instinct. Your primitive survival instincts would override the neocortical modern brain, which we have unfortunately evolved, leading us to want to commit suicide in the first place.

In order to asphyxiate in the manner which we would all wish to die, which is painlessly and peacefully, the solution is simple: we must breathe a gas which contains no oxygen or carbon dioxide. To breathe the gas from your oven puts your neighbours and firefighters at risk, because a gas explosion will be the likely result. Instead, a bottle of helium can be purchased inexpensively, for the usual purpose of filling baloons. Instead, the helium should be used to provide a steady supply of gas to some kind of 'hood' which you wear. By breathing an inert gas like helium, you will quickly lose consciousness and death will follow within some minutes, as your body and brain are deprived of oxygen.

Other

There are things which might work, but are more likely to cause you incredible pain and injury, such as injecting yourself with a bubble of air.

You could obviously starve or dehydrate yourself to death, but this would be time-consuming and result in a slow and painful death, with much suffering.

For those who live in places where firearms are easily obtained, I don't know why you're even reading this: if I could get hold of a gun I'd already be dead, I'm sure. That's not to say that gun control is preventing my suicide; merely that there are easier ways to kill yourself in a country like the UK, but I foolishly have opted for methods which were unlikely to kill me, such as poison, overdose and cutting veins.

The number of ways to cause your body a traumatic injury are innumerable, but an example might be to turn off the airbag on your car and then drive without a seatbelt at 100mph into a concrete pillar which is supporting a bridge.

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As you can see, the options are multitudinous and you really don't need me to list them. You already knew almost all this stuff, and if you didn't, it was available on a million websites; it was one single Google search away.

As for the charge that I am encouraging, endorsing, glamourising or enabling suicide in any way whatsoever, you are barking up the wrong tree. Look again at the suffering. Look again at the causes of that suffering. Look again at the options available to the victim of that suffering. If it was possible for a suicidal person to endure any longer, they would. If there was an easy option, like a magic pill from a magic doctor who lives in a magic building, then we would see suicide rates falling not climbing. The medical establishment claims to want to preserve life, and it claims to be empirical and evidence-based, yet all the evidence shows that medicine is failing abysmally to deal with the number one killer of men under the age of 50; the fastest growing cause of death of young girls and women. Medicine can f**k off - it's had plenty of chances to do something about the suicide and mental health epidemic, but instead it has rested on its laurels and dished out useless pills, and allowed intolerable living conditions to grow, flourish and proliferate.

If you think my article is somehow dangerous and irresponsible, I suggest you seek your first recourse with those who claim to be practicing so-called medicine, when all the evidence shows that the medications and treatments prescribed are entirely ineffective, and the mental health epidemic and suicide rate are the number one public health emergency, yet your doctor is doing nothing about it - they have their head buried in the sand.

For those of you who came here looking for information on how to commit suicide, I empathise. I've attempted suicide several times. If you want to talk to somebody who lives with suicidal thoughts on a daily basis and has tried every conventional treatment you can possibly imagine, who won't try to "talk you out of doing anything" or otherwise patronise you, my Twitter DMs are open and my email address is publicly available.

If you're suffering, I'm sad about that. I wish people didn't have to commit suicide, but sometimes they do, because the suffering is too unbearable.

Still thinking about killing yourself? Please read my essay on how to kill yourself.

Want even more? Please read about why I am planning on committing suicide.

Tags: #suicide #depression #medication

This is a story about self preservation...

I haven't written for over a month, but the general circumstances of my existence would have been repeated ad nauseam, as they cause me untold amounts of stress & anxiety, for reasons I am about to explain.

I have two more months of paid employment and then I'm potentially back hunting for work again. Even in the best case scenario, where I work every single day between now and the end of March, all that money is accounted for - somebody wants it: the taxman, a bank, a landlord... some vulture or parasite.

My rusty old car has bitten the dust and must be scrapped. I managed to limp it along, spending very little money on it, but it finally became uneconomical to repair it, despite the problem being as seemingly simple as a single broken bolt.

What does a 40 year old man who doesn't own a house or a car, or have a job, have to live for?

This is the question I asked myself on December 19th, when I noticed that my urine was full of blood, and later turned dark brown in colour, with a noxious scent. Later that day, I noticed that my bladder was no longer filling and I knew that my kidneys had failed.

The usual response of a healthy happy person when faced with a life-threatening medical emergency is to hastily make their way to hospital. My response was to wonder how long it would be before the waste products in my body would build up to a sufficient level to trigger a cardiac arrest. I imagined that 3 or 4 days would be adequate. I began the wait.

By December 23rd I was suffering from seizures, blackouts, confusion, muscle pain, abdominal pain, weakness and a host of other symptoms related to multiple organ failure, the complications of having highly toxic blood and massive fluid retention.

Against my will but without protest, I was taken to hospital by ambulance, where I spent two and a half weeks having dialysis for many hours a day, in the hope - the doctors' hope, not mine - that it would save my life. My only concern was that my life would be saved but my kidneys would not, thus rendering me dependent on dialysis sessions, 3 times a week, 4 hours per session, for the rest of my life, in order to remain alive. Of course, under those circumstances I would have committed suicide at the earliest possible opportunity.

I was discharged from hospital to discover that my cat had urinated on almost every single item of clothing that I own. My cat is incredibly intelligent, and she had managed to find a way to squat and pee in every drawer, box, bag and other container of clothing.

Kidney failure prevents the waste products from your muscles from being filtered out of your bloodstream and into your bladder, where they can be urinated away. Pickling your muscles in toxins, virtually immobile in a hospital bed, on a noisy hospital ward for two and a half weeks, was something that left me physically drained and very weak. Dealing with the mountain of cat-urine soaked clothing was a task which was beyond my capabilities, while still recuperating from the ordeal I'd suffered.

During the two and a half weeks when I was in hospital, I had three visitors: my ex-girlfriend, a work colleague and a friend. My ex-girlfriend was staggeringly out of touch with reality and stubbornly refused to drop her fantasy ideas about what the National Health Service is. She visited a few times at the beginning and then I never saw her again. My work colleague reminded me that I'm well liked and respected at work, and that's incredibly valuable. My work gives me a great deal of pride and a sense of identity. My friend reminded me that for all my years of struggle, I've been playing a rigged game all along, and I'm the only one who's been playing by the rules; not cheating.

It seems inevitable that in the not-too distant future, for one reason or another, my temporary employment will end and I will lose not only my source of income, but also any reason to remain in both this city and this country.

I have no relationship to stay here for: that's over.

I have work colleagues here, who are wonderful, but I always maintain a degree of separation between my work life and my private life, notwithstanding this blog (which serves as an invitation for anybody who really wants to be my friend to reach out).

I do love my cat, but she urinates on everything made of fabric or otherwise porous, and destroys anything else which she takes a disliking to: my houseplants, my carpet, my furniture, cables, anything fragile etc. I'm sure that I can find her a loving home where her misbehaviour will be tolerated.

My existence appears to be that of an anti-social hermit, but I assure you that there are hundreds of people who I have to deal with on a professional basis, who find me to be a pleasant and affable fellow; a good colleague. I have a very select few close friends who I maintain regular contact with via phone, email, SMS and other text, voice and video services.

Estranged from my family for over 6 years, with the exception of my sister, and single, this might be cause for loneliness and unhappiness, but I live for my work at the moment, which provides ample social contact, and it seems sensible that I move somewhere where I have at least one close friend - I'm in no mood to become one of those tragic 40+ men who join some kind of club or society in the desperate pathetic hope of gaining a social life.

What about suicide? Well, if the opportunity to die - passively - presents itself again, then I certainly won't be phoning the emergency services. It's barely a month ago that I had a few days to contemplate the fact that I was about to die, and I was quite calm; I was looking forward to the rest and relaxation of being dead.

My priorities remain the same as they always have: to repay my guardian angel and attempt to achieve some kind of financial and housing security, and to reconfigure my life so that the vast amounts of stress, anxiety, boredom and misery heaped upon me by the rat race - causing untold depression - can be replaced by either an alternative, or early death (i.e. suicide).

Thus, I might appear heartless, but it's all a practical necessity to maintain the slim chance that a life worth living might eventually present itself; otherwise the choice is clear: immediate suicide.

I sometimes wonder: am I tough? Am I mean? Am I a sociopath? Am I antisocial? Do I lack empathy? Do I mistreat people?

I think the answer to all those questions is: no. I spent the best part of three weeks in hospital with some people who were just as sick as I was, if not more so, and they really wanted to live. They were tough. I was tough too, but we're all tough, so that means I'm not particularly tough. None of us are tough. The answer to the rest of the questions is clearly no, because the evidence points overwhelmingly to the contrary. I'm just surviving; that's all I'm doing - I'm doing what needs to be done to get through every miserable, awful, unbearable day.

If you think I owe you something, believe me I know about it. Believe me, I think about it more than you think about it. Does that mean that you're going to get a gift-wrapped package in the mail with a red ribbon on it, containing what you're 'owed'. No f**king way. Get to the back of the queue, buddy. Do you think I spend a lot of time thinking about what I'm owed? Sometimes I realise that if everybody who's picked my pocket coughed up their debts to me, then I'd have that financial security that I so desperately need, but I'm happy with the way that I've lived my life; I don't regret trusting people and taking chances.

So, where are we? Ah yes, self preservation. I basically need to work every single day I can for two solid months, just to have a bank balance of zero pounds and zero pence and not owe anything to anybody, and not have any valuable assets to my name. When I wrote "self preservation" at the top of this blog post, I did so with extreme sarcasm, because my life is literally preserved without my consent; if it had been up to me, I wouldn't have been born, I wouldn't have been 'saved' all those many times; I wouldn't have survived at all, and I'd be glad of it, because I would be resting in peace.

I do of course have people - and cats - who I love and I would 'miss' (although this is an oxymoron, obviously, to imagine that the dead are capable of missing anybody) and who would miss me, but it's selfish to want people who are in pain to go on living, when their quality of life is intolerable: this is why we euthanise our pets with no qualms; it's more humane.

If you think I'm heartless and lack empathy, you are mistaken, you are a fool, and you're no friend of mine.

Tags: #hospital #suicide #friends #relationships