This is a story about being a better person...

There's really no excuse for not being nice, polite, kind. These small things make a big difference. This 'mutual grooming' affects the whole of society. If you think you are exempt from the need to treat people with decency, you need to take a long hard look at yourself.

Why would you not strive to always be polite, courteous, kind and considerate in every dealing with another human being? Why would you not always seek to address and communicate with a person in a respectful way? How can you ever justify being unpleasant, horrible, towards one of your fellow human beings?

What have you got to lose?

I'm rather baffled by people who snarl and bark and yelp at me like an animal. Why do they think that would get results, when they have not tried a human approach? Why would you start with aggression and unpleasantness and then go from there?

I have studied Game Theory so I'm aware that it might be a form of low intelligence that causes a person to always play the lose:lose strategy, in the hope that somebody will just hand them the reward that they demand. No. Doesn't work like that. You have to speculate to accumulate. Sorry, idiot, you can't just take take take.

If you are a leech, you will either destroy society or you will eventually be excluded. You might think you are cleverly getting away with things, but it somehow shows on your face, if you're a wrong'un. You might be telling yourself that you're a good person so much that you believe your own lies, but be careful because that won't wash with the world.

I'm going to continue exposing my own guilty conscience. That's an important part of my public life laundry. If anybody thinks I have been blaming anybody for things, they're wrong. I've been explaining why I think and act the way I do. I've been explaining who I am, and how I became me. We are all animals that react to our environment, our nurture (or lack thereof).

I'm sick of people talking about choice. Why don't you go and corner a rat and berate it for its choice when it bites you. Why don't you trap a scared dog, and then call it a dangerous animal when it attacks you? The animal should choose more wisely, when it's tired, hungry, stressed, upset, beaten and abused, with no escape, right?

The photo above is a meal I received in hospital. It's funny how hospitals and the NHS and all the superbly talented and caring people who work to save lives tend to try and be kind and help people. It's funny how that works. It's funny how being abusive, mean and unpleasant to people puts them in hospital. It's funny how being kind and caring makes them better. Funny that.

If you want to kill somebody, you can murder them, or you can rob them of their dignity, self esteem. You can attack them. You can take away everything they have to live for. You can isolate them. You can tell them over & over again that they're a bad person and they should blame themselves. Yes, if you do all those things, you will quite often kill them. It's funny that the NHS doesn't do those things.

I've tried to shield myself from toxic people in my life, and every time I do that, my life gets better. My recovery and wellbeing is a direct result of excluding the toxic people who made me sick and made me blame myself. My sickness is directly proportional to whether people around me care about me living or dying.

What sickness is it, that means that people would put their own prejudice, hatred, bitterness, unpleasantness, selfishness and general lack of human decency, ahead of killing somebody? What's wrong with people?

Imagine this: there's a knock at the door, and when you open it a man clutching a wound to his stomach falls into your hallway. He gasps "phone me an ambulance, please". What kind of horrible person responds "you are getting blood all over my carpet you selfish scum, get out of my house"?

That kind of response baffles me. In fact, it alarms and disturbs me. Where did the humanity go? Was that person born without an empathy gland? Was their ability to feel an emotional connection with anything but their own selfish f**ked up world, somehow not present due to a birth defect or genetic condition?

How do some people sleep at night?

That is all.

Tags: #nhs #mentalhealth #divorce #parents #bullying

This is a story about observation...

Frankie is a people cat. He needs company. When we went away to France for a couple of days, he was lonely and wouldn't leave our neighbour alone. He invited himself into her lounge and wouldn't leave. When we got home, he yawned, stretched and padded over to greet us. He let us all know how much he missed his humans.

It would be rather sinister to say that I had been observing my fellow patients in hospital, but it was kind unavoidable. I don't really watch TV and I find humans much more interesting than most other things. I also bonded with my companions, and the staff.

It was a locked ward, but I was there voluntairily so I guess I could have asked to be discharged whenever I wanted. But I went there to be safe, so it seemed crazy to ask to leave when it took me 13 hours to be admitted, and I was in a place of safety.

It's a bit of a strange compromise though: safety under lock & key. I wasn't sectioned but, scarily, the consultant did consider it, which was a little ridiculous considering I had been safe for 6 days by that point. A section can be 72 hours, 28 days or even 6 months... terrifying, considering all I did was go to my GP one afternoon.

Anyway, hospital was brilliantly therepeutic. I managed to tackle a bunch of stressors in my life, with the help & support of the NHS team. My treatment was very holistic: drawing, sculpture, drama, cooking, socialising, plus non-judgemental chatting to mental health professionals, of course.

Medication plays a role too, but it's very unclear whether it helps or it hinders, in the long term. Sure, if I was having a psychotic episode - seeing and hearing things - and was a real danger to myself or others, pharmacological intervention might be unavoidable, but is it really necessary to medicate a functional, articulate, self-aware and coping individual?

When I presented to my GP, we had the briefest of chats imagineable. My GP only really needed to know one thing: I couldn't guarantee my own safety. I had tried to keep myself safe, but plans to kill myself had formed in my head. It was only a matter of time before I acted on them. Free will is an illusion. We are controlled by circumstances. Try choosing not to be in pain next time you stub your toe.

Wanting to be in hospital is a big deal. Psychiatric wards are not for the faint hearted. You will have somebody checking on you a couple of times an hour - especially at night - and people yell out randomly all night. People sing to themselves. People wash obsessively (or is it compulsively?). People shuffle. People mutter incomprehensibly. People steal your stuff. People ask you strange questions. People are aggressive. People are inappropriate. There is a lot of anger, crying, frustration, fear, boredom, confusion, despair... but there is also hope and optimism. Strangely, I find the environment to be calming. It's supposed to be. It worked for me.

Obviously, you can't have shoelaces, belts, razors, scissors, cables (e.g. for charging a mobile phone), curtains (including shower curtains), locks on doors, furniture that's too tall, windows that open more than the smallest possible crack, windows or mirrors that could be shattered... there's a fairly comprehensive list of safety considerations.

Here's a little picture of the space where you can get some fresh air:

Nice, isn't it?

Well, yes it kinda is. The fact that the NHS has gone to all the expense of designing something that is - presumably - to discourage people from climbing the walls and jumping off. I guess that most people aren't such a good climber as me though, so it works for the majority of suicidal patients.

People also have unmet needs that are fairly obvious when you observe them for a little while. As a lifelong non-smoker, it was obvious to me just how important nicotine was in the lives of almost all the patients. The hospital has been smoke free for nearly 3 weeks, which is a huge burden on staff, who must accompany patients off the hospital premises every time they need a cigarette. Yes, that's right, need... these people are psychologically drug dependent. Nicotine is an extremely addictive drug.

Luckily I had already eliminated alcohol from my life too, 3 weeks prior to hospital admission. I actually have a working theory that that it's the reason why I became so deeply depressed. It happened to me in 2008 as well, when I quit drinking. It's so hard to avoid alcohol though - it's so socially engrained - that conducting an in-vivo study has been very hard, but I've gathered quite a bit of excellent quality data now (I've agressively managed to control other variables).

Frankly, I'm a bit of an oddity. I'm completely unmedicated, abstinent from caffeine and all drugs and alcohol. I have been for a long time. I'm about as clean living as they come. A perfect test subject for an unethical experiement into whether mental health issues come about due to environment, genetics, diet, social factors, stressors etc. etc.

Why unethical? Well... quite simply, if my mood sinks too low, I will take my own life. It's really not a choice. I don't want to die - at the moment - but when those dark times come, I feel quite differently. You feel differently too, and that's why you're thinking "why?" or some version of incomprehesion. You don't know how it feels until you've been there, and I really do discourage a trip to the edge of the abyss.

It's ironic. I have no fear of death, but yet I am able to rationalise that it would be foolish to make an irreversible decision. I ride my bike through handlebar-width gaps between double-decker busses, I climb the tallest trees, jump out of aeroplanes, have my photo taken on perilous ledges with no ropes attached to me, and drive at the limit of control.

One of the staff in hospital suggested to me the other day that I could keep 1% in reserve, just in case of emergency. It actually didn't sound too crazy.

Please support the Junior Doctors if they strike, and any other NHS workers. They deserve better pay & conditions (October 2015)

Tags: #suicide #depression #bipolar #NHS #mentalhealth #drugs #alcohol #caffeine #nicotine #frankie

This is a story about being a martyr...

My wife said she would divorce me if I went to hospital. The alternative was death. Unsurprisingly, I didn't get the most out of the treatment that I received. I'm glad we're not together any more (we divorced last year). Perhaps we can finally start to move on with our lives. I really do wish her the very best of luck in life and love.

If people think I'm self-pitying, a martyr, they're wrong. I had a horrible time, but I'm making a clean break from that life and letting that stuff go. I was told - by my wife - that I was infringing her human rights, by barricading myself in a room for my own safety. When I decamped to living in mega shed she wouldn't even leave me alone in there. All I had was water from a hosepipe. She used siege tactics and I nearly starved to death.

Cause and effect. Life is all cause and effect. I don't believe it's entirely deterministic, but it's statistically probabale that certain actions will - in all likelihood - lead to certain reactions. If you prick us, do we not bleed?

So, I'm hoping to discharge myself from hospital today. I need to come back to hospital though, because my heart is literally broken. It should be OK, but I don't know for certain yet. I need to have an echocardiogram.

If anybody thinks I'm irresponsible, or self-indulgent, you should know this: even when my ribs were poking through and my trousers falling down, I still fed my cat. I love Frankie and I care about him. He doesn't know any better. He was there for me, as non-judgemental unconditional love.

That was all it took to save me from some very dark days.

The pink paint splatters are from 'the test': did she love me or did she love our house? (July 2013)

Tags: #divorce #mentalhealth #depression #suicide #NHS

This is a story about thought experiments...

I had 50 minutes to draw something while in hospital. I drew this. I have been thinking about it since I lay dying on the floor, unable to move a muscle except my eyes, diaphragm and heart. My urine was like orange juice and full of blood.

I considered that dying would be a regretful waste, because I wouldn't be able to tell anybody what it was like to die. I decided that if I discovered I was immortal, it could corrupt my morality and I would eventually use that knowledge to my sole advantage. I also considered how embarassed I would be to 'meet my maker' in the full realisation that I p1ssed away my chance to learn anything from the situation.

Bizarrely, I then conceived a thought experiment, as I lay on the floor. This addresses The Measurement Problem in Quantum Physics. The problem is this: how do you separate the experiment from the scientist who is conducting the experiment? By taking a measurement you are actually part of the experiment. We see this in every experiment that attempts to measure Quantum weirdness.

Then, seemingly 'miraculously' enough of my muscle was broken down by my body so that I had enough energy to get up and phone for help. I wasn't out of the woods though. I nearly lost my kidneys. There was a lot of muscle damage too. So, just biology, and not really a miracle. I'm not a God bod now... although I did become agnostic at this point.

My thought experiment is a variation of Schrödinger's Cat, where two brave (or suicidal) scientists willingly enter a soundproof box, with a soundproof wall separating them. They then have to press a timing device for each other that must be pressed once every 2 minutes or else the timer will reach zero, and a captive bolt will pneumatically be driven into the brain of the other scientist. Given that there is a co-dependence on each other, if one scientist dies, so will the other.

As an additional twist, if the two scientists press their buttons at the same time, within n milliseconds of each other, then they are both killed by the captive bolts.

We can then start to tweak the parameters of the experiment so that we dial in a known probability of our scientists being killed. With 120 seconds of possible button push time, and 1,000 milliseconds in a second, we might hypothesise that there is a 1 in 120,000 chance (0.0008%) of both buttons being pushed within the same millisecond, which will trigger the event that leaves our scientists dead.

So, what if our suicidal scientists press the button 60,000 times? Well, then the probability that the 2 scientists will be dead when we open the box is 50/50 . This is equivalent to Schrödinger's Cat, except that 2 scientists are both alive and dead, rather than 1 cat that is both alive and dead, until we open the box.

So, what if our suicidal scientists press the button 120,000 times? Well then the probabilistic prediction is that there is a 99% chance that the co-incidence would have occurred. We would be very surprised to open the box and find two living scientists. However, there is still a possibility that - no matter how slim the chance - they could have played Russian Roulette with a 100 bullet revolver loaded with 99 bullets, and somehow managed to fire the empty chamber.

So, what if the scientists playing the game keep playing and playing and playing and playing. What if they eventually grow tired, having run many millions, billions, trillions, quadrillions of iterations, and they are still alive and button pushing? What if they decide to rip off the equipment and step outside the box? What would they know?

They would know that Quantum Theory's prediciton of immortality is very likely to be correct (Many Minds interpretation) and also know that this can be communicated beyond a single conscious surviving mind.

I know that this is very messed up. Similar thoughts troubled another JPMorgan IT bod to the point where he took his own life.

However, we can't ignore the predictions of a fundamental theory that seems to be borne out by the experiments that we can conduct ethically. But why are we asking intelligent people to do stupid jobs? Is that ethical?

I have always had a passion and aptitude for science and art, but we are all in a debt trap. Without the brain draining work of Global Banking IT, I could never be debt free. My myopic ex-wife got greedy. She now has a paltry amount of rapidly devaluing fiat currency, rather than a tangible freehold property asset.

This is the kind startup I really want to be working on.

I started building this but my divorce nearly destroyed me (October 2013)

Tags: #physics #depression #suicide #mentalhealth #NHS #startup #career #divorce #banking #capitalism

This is a story about the value of time...

I should have been at work today. Instead, I was trying to entertain and amuse my fellow patients in hospital. We put on our own rendition of There's a Hole in My Bucket. I must stress that this was a team effort. I co-wrote the script, helped make costumes and props and played the part of Liza. Everything is cool when you are part of a team. Everything is better when we stick together.

I might be a drama queen, but you don't have to attend the performance

We even tried to work in some plot lines for Black History Month but this was somewhat of an afterthought. We definitely challenged gender sterotypes though. Homophobes might also be somewhat disbelieving when I say that I'm mostly heterosexual, but I was able to have make-up applied to my face, wear an apron and play the part of a LAY-DEE, OOH!

Yes, this is a satirical critique of today's society (October 2015)

Tags: #NHS #mentalhealth #depression #suicide #LGBT #gender #leadership

This is a story about a sane response to an insane world...

We were told Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) could hit us within minutes, but it took me 13 hours to be admitted to hospital when my life was in danger. We have our priorities totally wrong.

Nuclear weapons, guns, bullets, bombs, tanks, warplanes, warships, submarines... can these things really come ahead of seeds, tractors, irrigation, clean water, reversing the spread of deserts, planting trees, immunising people against preventable diseases, treating illnesses that are seen as 'par for the course' in Western life - like diarrhoea - that kill in the developing nations, and the education of girls and young women; that data has shown to be the most effective route to good family planning,

Is it a lack of education that causes people to believe what they read in commercial newspapers, and what they see and hear on commercial radio and TV, which have a political and economic bias, to maintain plutocratic power and control over the struggling masses? Why are people so racist? Why are people so protectionist? Why are people so uneducated regarding repetition of the mistakes that history teaches us, that people have made time and time again?

Technology can save us, but it can save us in unusual ways. For example, microbial filters like the LifeStraw® from Vestegaard. Obviously, this drinking straw stops waterborne pathogens from being ingested, but - perhaps more significantly - it reduces the carbon footprint of people who use it, because they no longer have to boil water to make it safe to drink. This device makes profits through carbon credits claimed for every straw used.

That makes a lot more sense to me than trying to get the rich to put money in charity collection buckets. Keep your coins, I want change.

I would rather be at work, or looking at the river from my apartment. Anybody who says I engineered this situation must be mad (October 21st, 2015)

Tags: #mentalhealth #suicide #depression #NHS #war #charity #media

This is a story about unquantifiable needs...

It takes a lot of effort to keep up with somebody in distress. If you're not going to go the distance, you are just guessing, and you will be wrong on every conclusion drawn from lazy presumptions.

Whenever my homeless friend Frank phoned me, I would get on my bike and travel from Kentish Town to King's Cross to meet him. This might have been rather inconvenient for me, but I had started so I was going to finish. That's the first thing you need to know about me & Frank: we are determined people who finish what we start.

I had decided to take a trip to Prague, Czech Republic, to see a friend from the Springboard Accelerator Program, Cambridge. In so doing, I wasn't there for Frank. The consequences for him were nearly disastrous.

Did you know you can't keep one single solitary crab in a bucket, because it will crawl out and escape? However, you can keep two or more crabs in a bucket, because as soon as a crab tries to escape the other(s) will pull it back down into the bucket. They keep each other imprisoned. Mutually assured destruction.

Frank is a happy-go-lucky kinda guy, like me. We trust people. We give people the benefit of the doubt. We ran into some of Frank's 'friends' just before I had to catch my flight to Prague. They tried to mug me. Luckily I was streetwise enough to see what was happening and I cycled off. There was nothing else I could do. They stole Frank's iPhone, so I couldn't contact him. I had no idea what had happened to him.

When I got back from my trip to Prague, I got a call from Frank's friend, Paul, saying he had just been discharged from hospital.

There was a significant disparity between Frank's story and his hospital discharge notes. He told me he had been discharged from St. Pancras Hospital, but his discharge notes were clearly from UCLH. He told me that he had sustained a head injury, but there was no mention of that in the notes.

However, what did check out was that Frank was an alcoholic and he had gone through untreated withdrawal that could have killed him. Delirium Tremens killed the famous singer Amy Winehouse and it nearly killed Frank. The notes didn't seem to draw much attention to the fact that he did not receive treatment for his withdrawal. I guess London hospitals see a lot of homeless alcoholics though... mainly in the morgue.

When I first met Frank, on Primrose Hill, the first thing I noticed was that he was clean shaven, well dressed, had a tidy haircut and spoke articulately. The second thing that I noticed was that he was drinking at 7am. When we went to get a cup of tea later, I noticed that he started shaking quite badly... it was time to skip the tea and get him an alcoholic drink.

Buying alcohol for an alcoholic? Had I lost my mind?

You are ignorant about the dangers of abrupt alcohol withdrawal syndrome for an alcoholic. It's not a perfect solution, to buy them a beer, but do you really want somebody having a Grand Mal seizure and dying right in front of your eyes, because you are too stubborn to educate yourself about the damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you don't trap that an alcoholic can't escape.

So, alcoholics are abandoned by society, begging enough money to self-medicate for their physical dependence with the threat of horrendous withdrawal syndrome and possible death, if their blood alcohol level drops too abruptly.

How do I know this? I've known alcoholics, I've seen people get treated, I've read books and papers and online resources. You can do it too, if you care. It's certainly a lot easier to be wilfully ignorant, though, and incorrectly say "why don't they just stop drinking and use some willpower?". It's certainly a lot easier to not know any facts and just be wrong about everything.

What if that person was your son, daughter, brother, sister, husband, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, friend? Just let them die, right?

Well done.

First, do no harm (October 2013)

Tags: #frank #homeless #alcohol #addiction #NHS #friends

This is a story of a red flag that gets raised before disaster strikes...

Why does a person sink? Why do they get swamped? Why do they collapse inwards, under the gravity of their own infinite stress, sadness, blackness? Why do they implode in a spectacular supernova? Can we ever understand and relate to depression so deep that it would drive a person to take their own life? Can we make a difference? Can we empathise, help and ever rehabilitate somebody who has the clinical diagnosis of depression, without pills and a padded cell?

From my personal point of view, I have always felt that making a mistake leaves a dark stain on me, a black mark. People seem to have a very long memory for the mistakes I have made, and enjoy bringing up things that embarrass and upset me. In my career, the people who I need to impress and to promote me are always very keen to know about my weaknesses and flaws, seemingly as an excuse that I should "know my place" and not challenge the status quo.

The world has organised itself into a Pyramid Scheme, where there are a handful of unbelievably filthy rich oligarchs, sheikhs, kings, queens and emperors and other scum, who sit in their palaces, while their people starve in squalor. The trickle-down effect is a lie, spun by the courtiers, the sycophants in the entourage of the super-rich.

This wealth-worship has created a totally fake society, where newspapers, TV and the media, exists only to tell the proletariat that they are 'special' and 'unique' while at the same time, getting them to buy mass produced products from factories in China.

The best example of which is Apple and Beats by Dr Dre. There is a standard line amongst the creative community, that only a MacBook will suffice, as a the workhorse for the output of recording artists, graphic designers, web developers and startup founders. This is backed with the celebrity endorsement of footballers, who are seen arriving at matches wearing their 'individual' choice of a pair of overpriced Beats headphones.

I have always said that it's the software packages that are important, not the Operating System (OS) or the hardware, provided that both of those things are adequately up to specification to run the software. It's true that Apple stuff "just works" but anybody who foolishly accepts a new software release too early also finds that Apple do a lot of their testing by relying totally on the loyalty of their Fanboys.

I have mixed feelings about the largest consumer electronics company in the world. I think they are more anticompetitive than Microsoft ever was in their heyday. When IBM's BIOS (Basic Input-Output System) was reverse engineered, which started the boom of IBM Personal Computer Compatible grey clones. This, along with Microsoft Disk Operating System (DOS) launched the home computer from the realm of labcoat wearing boffins, into the ubiquitous Internet-of-Things existance, where my car and my washing machine have an Application Programming Interface (API). This has been Bill Gates' vision for as long as I can remember.

I have always been fairly platform agnostic. I tend to go with whatever works, and ignore the marketing rhetoric and hyperbole.

That takes a lot of work and bravery, because at some point, people start to have vested interests. There are billions of dollars at stake in the tech industry. Apple majicked (sic.) a billion dollar App industry into existence more or less overnight. Who would have thought that paying 59 British pence for stupid little time-filling games (the developer used to keep 36 pence of that) would be so lucrative?

It also seems to take a lot of bravery to stick around and re-invest your cash in something worthy or pay the tax, because Apple seem to have precipitated a brain drain in the developed nations. I know far too many wealthy people who are hiding in tax havens, due to fear and greed. Why run away to South East Asia, taking your cash pile with you? What was wrong with paying tax or investing in somebody or something? What are you afraid of?

Perhaps I have little appreciation of risk? What's the worst that's going to happen to me though? The Conservative government will support me as a successful entrepreneur who invests in people, ideas, research & development. The Labour government will support me as a socialist who pays his taxes and does not try to evade them, recognising that the National Health Service, high quality schools and colleges, roads, libraries, street lighting, policing, fire service, trash collection, civic ameneties, community events, social services and the broad and rich spectrum of life in the United Kingdom is truly a model that every nation should aspire to emulate.

Feel the fear and do it anyway (Y2K)

Tags: #apple #computing #career #NHS #politics

This is a story of the people who see you at your most tired, afraid, and in the most pain and discomfort...

I owe the hard-working, caring and dedicated nurses of the National Health Service my life, along with the Radiographers, Cardiologists, Phlebotomists, Psychiatrists, Social Workers, Psychologists, Nutritionists, Physiotherapists, Pathologists, Porters, Caterers, Cleaners and of course the Doctors, Consultants, Surgeons and Anaesthetists. It would be ridiculously selfish of me to not continue living after all the hard work that a huge team of people made in putting Humpty Dumpty back together again.

I always seem to expect that things will heal overnight, and indeed I rushed everything after a fairly major leg injury. After the accident, which luckily seemed to avoid any major blood vessels, despite severing a load of muscle, tendon and nerve. I hastily cobbled together a 'field dressing' with sanitary towels and a dressing gown cord, and wanted to make my own way home, but paramedics insisted on checking me out. It was them who discovered I couldn't actually raise my foot anymore, due to a severed tendon, and had lost feeling on the top of it, due to a severed nerve.

The operation took a long time and must have cost a lot of money. I have paid a lot of tax and National Insurance during my career, but that does not make me entitled. I need to repay my debt to society somehow. I haven't thought how I'm going to do that just yet, but I do think about it. I do have a list I'm working through, although I'm obviously never that mindful of the "one step at a time" mantra... I tend to sprint everywhere.

Running before I can walk, running with scissors (not how it happened, just a metaphor) and all the other things my Mum warned me not to do never ended in tears because I was always told to MTFU (Man The F**k  Up). A kind friend told me the other day that excess mucous and swollen mucous membrane might indicate a backlog of tears. I guess my tear ducts are fairly full.

But let's keep this about those in the caring professions. These people have to mop up your blood, pooh, pus, vomit and mucus, while you wince and generally try and hide your discomfort and be as polite and courteous as you can under the circumstances.

We should pay people in the caring professions a living wage, and more to reflect the important role they have in society.

I, for my part, am going to ensure that I pay full income taxes on my earnings when I am inside IR35, which is anytime that I have a regular place of work and commute to the same office on a regular basis... like now.

Coming from a startup and small business culture, I have always re-invested any profits into Research & Development projects in my time between contracts, but I think I need to just get a regular hobby... probably a safe one, given my accident prone nature!

I also think that a socially responsible proportion of my disposable income that I have should go as Gift Aid to Macmillan Cancer Support, because Cancer is a disease which blights all our lives, and the nurses in Palliative Geriatric care are really doing an extremely tough job and should receive all the support that we can possibly give them, as highly qualified professionals in a job that demands them to be kind and caring, loving and supportive, dealing with the inevitable painful loss of loved family members.

This by no means absolves me of my social conscience, but it's a public declaration of starting as I mean to go on. Some might see this as pathetic hypocrisy. Fine. Send me a postcard with a better idea.

Tags: #NHS #injury #startup #charity #career

This is a story of a night where I fell asleep and didn't know if I was going to wake up...

God bless the NHS. This is the view that I couldn't really appreciate, from my hospital bed, where I was quite surprised to wake up. I wasn't surprised that I was in hospital, as I remember going there, but I don't remember caring whether I lived or died. I certainly was not afraid of death. I was surprised to still be alive. Was I grateful to be alive? No. Was I grateful for the hard working people of the Royal Free Hospital? Yes.

On another occasion, I had sliced my wrist open, which was a fairly calculated cry for help, and as my distress grew, I posted a picture on Facebook of some Potassium Cyanide which I had obtained through the Dark Web, which was perhaps a final warning. The responses to both were rather confusing and disturbing. People reacted angrily. I became the bad guy somehow. I'm not sure how or why that happened.

It was World Suicide Prevention day on September 10th, but I was too consumed with work to notice that day had passed. That means I survived, for now. However, I am scared that the darkness may return one day.

That's why I decided to build something that I thought would have been useful to me, when I was going through tough times. I didn't even stop to think that somebody else might have built something similar. I just threw something together (areyougone.org) in the matter of a few hours.

If it only takes me a few hours to build a suicide prevention / missing persons service, but it only takes you a few moments to dismiss somebody as a "Melodramatic Emo" or some kind of "Lost Cause" then F**k You, buddy.

None of my friends came to visit me in hospital. None of my family. That's a pretty poor show.

Do you really want to pick over the details? Who made you God? Why should you sit in judgement over those lives you want to care for and nurture and protect, and those who you deem unworthy? When is it OK to label a person as a lost cause, and just leave it to the Police, Nurses, Doctors and Coroners to pick up the pieces?

We are kicking human lives into the gutter, and I'm upset about that.

I had to ring an ex-girlfriend to bring me some clothes. Weeks in hospital with no physical support from partner, parents or friends is pretty shitty (May 2014)

Tags: #suicide #mentalhealth #depression #NHS #london