This is a story about agoraphobia...

This is how I used to get fresh air and sun-kissed skin a year ago. You might say that central London has terrible air quality, but the city where I now live has worse air quality.

My apartment in London cost me more than three times as much as my current apartment, but there were hundreds more opportunities for work, if not thousands more - all accessible by public transport.

I had to get my car roadworthy today. It looks like I'm going to be joining the commuting masses, all clogging up Britain's roads. After dropping my car at the garage, I opened the Uber app on my smartphone. There are no Uber drivers in the whole city. I rang the city's biggest cab firm and they said I'd have to wait 90 minutes or more. I walked home from the garage in the sunshine. I did need the fresh air, the vitamin D and the exercise, but remember... I now live in a city that's more polluted than London.

I think I'm taking a wrong turn. I think I should be going back to London, because I can guarantee a steady stream of work there within the space of a few square miles: The City of London - the Square Mile - and Canary Wharf are the gifts that keep on giving. Sure, London is overcrowded and overpriced, but at least it's somewhere I know and I have friends. I'm going to end up in places I've never visited before, temporarily, and feeling very unsettled. I think it's a mistake.

I didn't mind isolating myself in that apartment in London so much, because I could sit on the balcony and soak up the sun. I could sit on the sofa and watch the boats go past. I could open those big patio doors and have a lovely breeze blowing through my whole home. It blows my mind that I felt more connected to nature in the middle of a city with 10 million inhabitants, than I do in this small seaside place with lush green valleys and hills no more than a 20 minute car ride away.

I probably need a bit of both. I might as well be in London if I'm working full-time. But I need somewhere to call home - I need a base, and that base should be somewhere cheap. It's a lot of pressure to keep working all the time when you need to find £500/week just to pay the rent... plus you've got all the bills on top of that.

It was a mistake to put myself into the situation where I had sole responsibility for paying all that rent, and no way to get out of the contract when I was too sick to work. If I went back to London, I'd have my company rent a place on a month-by-month basis, so I could leave whenever I stopped working.

I don't know what's keeping me indoors. There's some kind of force-field. I haven't reached the point where I feel I can relax, take my foot off the gas pedal and just coast a bit. I should be enjoying the summer, but I'm not; I'm really not at all. My summer has been ruined.

I think I need to plan to go away when the days are getting shorter, it's getting cold, wet and miserable, and the clocks go back. I need to get an autumn/winter sun boost. That's the next thing I can start to pin my hopes on.

If I can get through the next 3 or 4 months relatively uneventfully, keeping the cash rolling in, maybe I'll be in a position to sit in the sunshine and actually relax and enjoy myself. At the moment, I don't feel like I deserve to enjoy the summer... there's still so much work to do; there's still so much stress ahead, and uncertainty.

Tags: #mentalhealth #depression #holiday #seaside #apartment #london

This is a story about being ready to roll...

My car's not road legal, the hotel isn't booked, my shirts and other work clothes aren't washed and ironed. I managed a few days without tranquillisers, but I still guzzled 2/3rds of a bottle of red wine and used a sleeping pill to get to sleep last night. My hair's grown long and I need a shave. I spend more time thinking about setting my affairs in order and killing myself, than I do about the practical steps necessary to prolong my suffering: another town; another job and yet more isolation and loneliness.

There's a huge gap between where I am in my mental state and where I need to be, if I'm going to go and make a good first impression, and keep up the charade until the work is done; until I can finally collapse in a crumpled heap.

There are important pieces of a liveable sustainable pleasant life which are simply missing; absent. Family, friends, community, social support network; a partner or best buddy. Can you imagine spending 28 days in complete isolation, except for a few messages exchanged via social media? Can you imagine spending a couple of years working your arse off trying to get to the point where you felt financially secure -- no longer on the brink of bankruptcy and destitution -- but seemingly never making any progress?

Yes, we've all experienced moving house, breakups, making new friends, starting new jobs, going to new unfamiliar places, having to somewhat re-establish ourselves. So what? You did it, it was stressful, and now you're relaxed and all settled in nicely. The bad memories fade quickly and the good ones dont: you can almost look back and laugh at all those unsettled times you've been through. For me, the unsettled times are so frequent that the bad memories never fade. I'm caught up in a never-ending series of very stressful events.

Out of economic necessity, I need to ready myself to re-enter the workplace one week from now. I need to look well presented, I need to be on the ball and I need to sustain a certain degree of professionalism until the work is done... I'll need to be able to get through week after week of hiding the fact I'm sick and struggling. I'll need to be able to cling on and hopefully make it through to the other side, before I hit the wall.

One day I'll wake up and say "I just can't do it anymore" and I won't be faking it; I won't be making a fuss about nothing - I really will have nothing left to give. Whether that's day 1 or day 101, or whether it's sufficiently far into the future that it doesn't affect the charade, I can't say. Obviously I worry that my health will fail me too soon; my energy will be used up and I'll be of no use to anybody, which means letting people down; no more pretending to be OK.

Having a week to prepare yourself for a period of effort that you don't feel in any fit state to face is not a nice prospect. Even if I could just sleep for the next week, I don't think that would be enough. There are practical preparations. There are things that are really toxic to my mental health - like living out of a suitcase - that look pretty unavoidable. There's the futility of going to a place where I have no intention of staying, beyond a few months, so why make friends there? Why put down roots? Why make myself comfortable; settled?

So, I continue to be unsettled. I continue to live without anywhere I really call 'home'.

It's a week to get myself into some kind of bare minimum state so I can go and get some more money, but no matter how much I earn, it all seems to just disappear... an exercise in futility; exhausting futility... except maybe for the banks and the landlords, who profit handsomely from my efforts, while not labouring at all themselves.

That the only reason for any of this stress is purely to service loans, pay rent and pay bills, hardly has me jumping for joy; it's hardly a big motivator. There's seemingly no light at the end of the tunnel.

So, as I try to sort my practical matters, rest, live healthily, and generally prepare myself for another stint at the coal face, I'm struggling to find much meaning in it; much reason to live.

Tags: #career #depression #suicide

This is a story about being an involuntary recluse...

I suppose the involuntary part of involuntary recluse is questionable. It's not like I've tried to leave the apartment and be sociable, and been rejected. There's nothing obvious keeping me indoors with the curtains drawn, all alone. However, it should be self-evident that I'd be much happier outside in the sunshine with company, than isolated within the 4 walls of my home. Therefore, there must be a reason why I don't feel able to go out; socialise.

I'm a mess.

It's got to be fairly obvious that I'm a mess. My thoughts have been all over the place. My attention and effort has been directed in many different directions. I've been drinking far too much, and other things have seriously destabilised my brain chemistry too.

It saddens me that I'm squandering the summer, but I'm sad anyway; depressed.

I spent all afternoon watching football. I don't even like football. You would have thought that somebody who has absolute free will and can choose to do anything they want, whenever they want, would not choose to be indoors in a darkened room watching a sport they don't even enjoy. That's where the involuntary bit comes in.

I can't explain it. I can't explain the complete collapse in my mental health; my quality of life; my will to live. I can't explain how I've become a prisoner in my own home. I can't explain how I've lost all my energy; all my motivation. I can't explain why I've given up; I don't see the point of anything.

I try to write a little every day. I don't know whether I'm going to be vile, vicious, vindictive and vengeful, or just whinge about my lot in life.

Sometimes, I'm forced to walk to the nearby corner shop. Sometimes, I have alcohol delivered to my door. That's about the only contact I have with the outside world. It's been the case for weeks.

A number of things happened, which I really don't feel I had much control over, which destroyed the shaky and fragile foundations of the life I was rebuilding. That's what makes what I'm going through seem involuntary; unwanted. Yes, in theory I have free will and I could make alternative choices, but in reality I'm completely flattened by a collapse in my mental health; completely floored by depression.

I lie in bed until late in the day, then I lie on the sofa with the curtains drawn. I just want to be unconscious. I often wish I was dead.

What is there for me to look forward to? Where should I invest my time and energy? What's the point? Where will it get me?

Nothing; nowhere. Don't bother. Give up.

Tags: #depression #suicide

This is a story about exclusion...

The police have finished their investigation and the coroner's inquest has happened. Does that mean that those of us who are privy to information which should never have been shared with us can now break cover?

"[Ted Senior] has killed himself"

I got this text message on Monday 12th February. Ted Senior had hanged himself on Saturday 10th February.

I didn't know Ted Senior. I'd been in his bedroom. I might have seen him in passing in his house. I might have seen him in passing in the area of Swansea where he lived.

Somebody sent me that text.

Prior to that, somebody had told me confidential details about what Ted had shared online and the consequential furore after it "went viral" (to quote the tabloid press). Somebody had told me how isolated Ted was; how badly he was being treated at university. Somebody said they'd told him he should go home and see his mum. That's what he did: he went back to the family home, he wrote a suicide note and then he hanged himself.

From what I've read in the newspapers, Ted's family want to know how suicides can be prevented in future. Ted's family are raising money for a foundation in Ted's name that will invest "in projects and forums aimed at preventing a reoccurrence of a similar tragedy". So, I know for a fact that Ted's family want to prevent a reoccurrence of a similar tragedy. I think that gives me a right - an obligation - to speak up about my own suicidal thoughts.

I've written, deleted, censored and edited so much on the subject of Ted Senior's suicide, because I empathise so strongly with what drove Ted to kill himself, yet there are some who believe that it's best to cover-up and gloss over the enormously powerful forces that drove this bright young man to take his own life.

At this stage, there's nothing that I want to add to the sensationalistic tabloid news coverage angle, because I think the media have been reasonably respectful towards a young man who made a simple error of judgement: sharing something online when he believed it would be kept private. But his entire future was jeopardised. A silly mistake looked like it was going to destroy everything he'd ever hoped to achieve: to become a doctor. I can empathise so much with the feeling that his opportunity to have a prestigious qualification, a prestigious job with high social status, a decent salary; the house, the car, the wife, the kids; the respect of society and the life he'd always dreamed of - that was all about to be destroyed. I can empathise.

I didn't want to know any of the inside details of Ted's alleged misdemeanour. I didn't want to get involved. I didn't want the gory confidential details shared with me, but they were. Then things escalated to the point where Ted Senior committed suicide and I've got to process everything on my own. I've got no support network. I've got nobody I can talk to about this. I've got nobody I can confide in. I'm a keeper of secrets that I should never have been entrusted to keep and I don't like it. In fact, I hate it.

I've kept shtum about Ted Senior until the police investigation and the coroner's inquest have been completed - I have nothing valuable to add - but I need to let it be known that I've had to deal with the confidential details of this case all on my own, in isolation, with nobody to talk to. I've maintained confidentiality when others who should have known better have been loose-lipped. I've been the one who's borne the burden of empathising with the plight of Ted Senior for a long time, while also not feeling able to discuss it with a single soul.

It's a lot to bear on one's own.

Tags: #suicide

This is a story about isolation and loneliness...

"What's the meaning of life?" I was asked, to which I instantly instinctively answered "spooning". Whether it's your kids, your sweetheart, your pet or some other living thing - such as a pet - the state of cuddling seems to be the one where I feel most content and at peace; most relaxed and comfortable.

I seem to be getting further and further away from that soothing state, and becoming more and more isolated. I seem to be facing a period of isolation, which could feel very prolonged and unpleasant indeed.

Already, I live somewhere where I feel there are far more people who hate me and would like to do me harm, than the handful who like me and would like to see me thrive and be happy. Now, I'm faced with a stark choice: stay and watch my meagre pot of money dwindle to nothing, or go somewhere new temporarily... with temporary being the watchword. If it's temporary, how do I survive without those cuddles; that social network; that sense of belonging?

If I go back to London, I could expect that I could rebuild my social network and it'd be worth investing in new relationships. If I went back to London, I expect I could manage to stay there for as long as I needed and wanted to. I feel like I belong in London.

Now I'm faced with the economic necessity of going somewhere as soon as I can, to get the cash flowing again, but what's it going to cost me? Living out of a suitcase is not pleasant. Staying somewhere temporarily goes against everything I feel I need, to be happy and content. It really could be a case of jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Economic necessity will drive me to do things which are incredibly toxic to my mental health. I feel like I've got a gun to my head. No choice.

What should I do? Rationally, I tell myself that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, and this bird in my hand is particularly economically valuable. Rationally, I tell myself that the discomfort is only temporary: "it's only 6 months" I say to myself. "It'll be over before you know it" I tell myself. My emotions scream "NOOOOOO" really loudly though. "NOOOO DON'T DO IT" says my heart.

Desperate people will do desperate things. I have a feeling that I'll over-rule my heart, because of economic necessity and my desperation for cold hard cash.


Tags: #career

This is a story about a calorie controlled diet...

If there's one thing I like to do other than drink alcohol, it's to eat unhealthy food. In fact, I find the combination of both to be most agreeable.

Here's what I've eaten (and some of what I've drunk) in the last week:

Sunday

1. Tin of Heinz beans & sausages

Monday

1. Vegetable samosa
2. Chicken, bacon & mayonaise pre-prepared sandwich
3. Large bag of Skips crisps
4. Large bag of beef flavour crisps
5. 3 cheese strings
6. 1 bottle of white wine
7. 1 bottle of red wine
8. Peanut butter eaten straight from the tub

Tuesday

1. Nothing

Wednesday

1. Nothing

Thursday

1. 4x slices of toast with marmite on

Friday

1. 3x chicken drumsticks
2. 2x smoked mackerel fillets
3. 4x cheese strings
4. Tiny amount of Ben & Jerry's Karamel Sutra ice cream
5. 1 bottle of red wine
6. 1 bottle of white wine

Saturday

1. Nothing

In terms of drinking that I omitted, because it's been a bit more chaotic/unpredictable, and it's also fairly boring information, I have drunk a lot of apple & black-current, orange and lime flavour squash. It's 24 degrees celcius in my apartment and staying cool is a problem. I pre-mix the squash, speed chill it in the freezer and then transfer it to the fridge. In theory, there's always a cold drink I can grab, provided I'm not cornered in some part of my apartment.

Monday is representative of what I ate and drank most days while I was working full-time, although I'd try to keep to one bottle of wine only.

Friday I managed to stock my cupboards from a proper big supermarket on Friday. Not well communicated by this food diary, is the fact that my cupboards and fridge are now brimming with easy-to-make meals, which are far healthier than big bags of crisps, samosas, more crisps and other crap you can buy from a corner shop, along with 2 bottles of wine for just over a tenner.

I have a cornucopia of delicious foods to choose from right now, yet my life is still chaotic.

The vicious cycle goes like this: I start to feel stressed and anxious, which triggers an alcohol craving. I then buy 2 bottles of wine, 'planning' on only drinking one. I drink both bottles and wake up feeling awful, of course. The hangover triggers a stimulant craving, which can be temporarily alleviated with Red Bull, but that then causes me to feel anxious and jittery and crave alcohol. Allegedly, somebody identical to me but not me, tried taking Concerta (an ADHD medication) for a couple of weeks: it's often sold as Concerta, but that's because the previous brand - Ritalin - has negative connotations in patient's minds, like Prozac (tell the patient it's fluoxetine and they'll be much more likely to take it).

I think my health would benefit from:

• Not drinking 1 or 2 bottles of wine every day
• Not binging on unhealthy snacks while getting drunk
• Going to a proper supermarket once a week, so I have food that I want to eat in stock, as opposed to going to the corner shop every day because I'm "hungry" but really it's to buy 1 or 2 bottles of wine too.
• Not relapsing back into being a regular caffeine user
• Finding some kind of Concerta/Adderall slow-release formula type medication that can help me face the next 27+ years of soul destroying office job bullshit, which only keeps me busy & concentrating for 5% of the time and the rest is like torture
• Finding some kind of tolerable antidepressant, to help me through what I anticipate will be at least a year of feeling lifeless, joyless, demotivated and deriving almost no pleasure from the things I used to enjoy.
• Maybe if that pile of pills is making me a bit too enthusiastic and excitable, bordering on the manic, I might have to consider a light mood stabiliser too - perhaps a low dose of Olanzapine, although I'm loathe to suffer the weight gain.

Specifically my mental health would benefit from:

• Detoxing again from the sleeping pills, tranquillisers, sedatives and stimulants, which I've only used sporadically over the last 6 weeks - I have no benzodiazepine dependency, thankfully - but I need to 100% cease that ruinous vicious circle.
• Getting a hair cut and washing my favourite clothes; maybe even buying a couple of new things I like... I seriously only buy new clothes every 3 years
• Getting my apartment in a state where I'm not paranoid that the landlord might see a couple of bits of damaged decoration and freak out.
• Securing a new contract, but with enough time to physically rest & recuperate before starting
• Spending some time with my friends in Ireland, or going to a hostel where I can be around people, and socialise a bit, as well as sleeping lots, getting fresh air and generally having a long-overdue restorative holiday.
• Being realistic about where I'm really going to thrive, or where I'm going to be isolated and lonely. Swindon is a big no, I think. Newport, I have one friend, but he's super busy with his kids. So, it's got to be London really.
• Friends first - get a regular meetup sorted... a guaranteed one day of the week (minimum) where I'll see friend(s). The more friends the better. Concentrate on friends.
• Being more aware of how easily I fall in love and become relaxed and comfortable in domestic life. I'm quite content deciding on dinner, cooking, eating, watching TV or a film, kissing and cuddling, sex, spooning, then a kiss goodbye in the morning with a nice hug... and repeat, and repeat, and repeat. I've been so isolated and lonely for so long that FOMO and jealousy of my partner's social life isn't a problem, and I just spend the time on my own... drinking. It doesn't leave me in a very secure place though, if I don't have my own friends and events.
• Exercise. I put this on just because it's such an obvious suggestion, and one that I get all the time. It's not a bad suggestion. It's an impossible suggestion when all the other stuff listed above is broken. "You won't feel like doing it, but afterwards you'll feel more energised; it'll give you energy" - OK, what you're talking about are chemicals released to ease your muscle pain, which are actually opioids, so you get a literal 'high' after exercise, AND the fact that you're getting fitter. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, so to use energy does not give you energy. You're right, I don't feel like doing it, and I would benefit from being fitter, but as the Millennials are wont to say: "I literally can't even".
• Speaking to friends on the phone or Facetime etc - I live my life in text, through a browser or an app. I'm in contact with sometimes hundreds of people a day (19.5k Twitter followers presently, for example) and some friends are good enough to regularly message me, but it's not the same as a live conversation where you can hear somebody's voice.

Well, and just because I'm making lists, here's the practical stuff I've got to sort urgently:

• Car MOT on Monday morning
• Answer phone/emails from agents RE: contracts
• The world's biggest pile of stinky washing
• Making sure my back bedrooms are at least passable and not likely to cause alarm to uninvited visitors

Less urgent is the redecorating, just because it's going to be a pain to organise.

nAlso, I did an epic job of cleaning the bathroom(s) spotlessly and mopping the floors and otherwise making my apartment pretty presentable, A lot of my TODO list has been tamed.

So, a bit more than just my food diary, but it hints at why for 5 out of 7 days I ate virtually nothing. It also hints at the three ways things could go: 1) no more food diary cos I'm dead, 2) food diary of junk which is making me fat, and alcohol which is making me unwell, 3) food diary that might be a bit more interesting (although it'll probably start with sandwiches and soups and pre-cooked meats).

Also, related content if it's going to be the "no more food diary": The Supercrack Diet

NOTE: I think the muscle damage/breakdown causes weight loss (at the expense of your kidneys) and sweating and dehydration cause further weight loss, but your body goes into shock and you just end up weak and more or less the same weight once you've rehydrated... although my tummy is half the size of what it was 6 weeks ago. Any sport scientist will tell you not to run out of glucose or water when exercising, or else you'll lose muscle mass, while any doctor will tell you that artificially raising your metabolic rate and putting strain on your heart (such as using fat-burners like DNP) is quite likely to kill you or permanently f**k you up.

You can lose weight by 'fasting' but it's for people with sedentary jobs, and also there's no point if you're going to undo your good work by binging on junk and alcohol on the 'normal' days.

Anyway, there's a little glimpse into my unhealthy lifestyle.

Tags: #food #diet #fat #slimming #mentalhealth #depression #adhd #exercise #friends

This is a story about n^th chances...

Is the UK so short of people with the technical skills and experience that I possess, that I would suffer no career setbacks even if I literally curled out a turd on the table in front of the entire board of directors, having waltzed into the boardroom, leapt onto the boardroom table, lowered my trousers and squatted?

I've been doing more-or-less the same job for 21+ years, and every single enterprise CRUD app for a large organisation is exactly the same as the rest. Yes, I switched from one programming language to another. Yes, I switched from one kind of way of managing a project to another. Yes, I learned a load of technologies that do a lot of 'magic' for me, so my job is 95% plugging things together, and only 5% 'programming'. It's not even programming any more... that 5% is just renaming stuff that you've copied and pasted, so it's not so obvious that you copy-pasted it, and then sorting out a bit of rewiring and configuration.

The last couple of projects I worked on, I got so bored and I had so much spare time, that I was able to do things properly for once - I did things which are hard, so most people don't bother; I was thorough. I didn't cut any corners. When I found the inevitable complex technical problems which defeat most people, I didn't kludge round those problems... I spent those days and whole weeks, tearing my hair out with frustration, to arrive at a "textbook" solution. I should write a frigging book: "How to write nice elegant software in a horrible corporate environment where nothing works like it's supposed to". I guess the title could be a bit shorter.

The main project I worked on last year involved a lot of conversations like this:

• CEO: I want the app to look like this
• Me: I'll make an app that has the essential features, but it'll be ugly, then I'll work on the other 70% of stuff that needs doing
• CEO: Yes, but the app needs to look and work exactly like this
• Me: Ideally, in a year or so, it could do yes, but right now you've only got me, so if you want to launch something in a couple of months, I need to do lots of other things as well as make a pretty app
• CEO: OK, but it'll look like this, right? The design is 100% complete
• Me: It won't look like that because the design includes things that are impossible
• CEO: OK, but it'll look almost like this?
• Me: I think you're getting too hung up on the app. There's lots of other stuff to do too.
• CEO: But it's important that the app looks like the designs we've produced
• Me: I think you should hire somebody else who can tweak what I produce to make it look the way you want it to look, and I'll get on and finish all the other essential bits
• CEO: We already had 6 different freelancers from 6 different countries produce 6 different apps, and each one looks nothing like the design I want. Can you re-use any of their code?
• Me: No
• CEO: OK, well, I'm sure you'll have it all done in 2 months

So, I worked on the thing that I usually wouldn't bother doing, because it's not my core skill, which was to faithfully reproduce the design that the CEO wanted. I spent a lot of time making a really really pretty app. I learned a lot. I stopped being so afraid of UI/UX work. I started to feel quite confident building attractive and complex user interfaces; pretty apps.

Then, onto my bread-and-butter: take a load of data, convert it and store it somewhere, create some means of retrieving it, and create some means of users interacting with it, plus gathering loads of data and analytics on who they are and what they're up to.

Only, almost all my time had been wasted making a stupid pretty app, and when I came to look at the source data which has supposedly been analysed, it turned out that the analysis was total BS. Half the data which the pretty app was going to display to the users quite simply didn't exist - it was fiction; fantasy. "We'll scrape that data together ourselves" said the CEO. The price of a pint in 120 towns and cities. The average rent in 120 towns and cities. The total number of students in 120 towns and cities. The number of nightclubs in 120 towns and cities. Lunatic.

So, I've had occasion to become somewhat obstreperous. Rather than just plod along and ignore the lunacy, and waste my time on wild goose chases and impossible tasks, I've gotten stroppy; I've let my frustration be known loudly and clearly. I stop doing what I'm asked to do - because it's lunacy - and start working towards a finished product.

I wonder how many times I've left a project, and the CEO or whoever has been thinking "thank God we got rid of that guy who gave us a complete working application, and who told us in precise and concise detail all the problems that we were going to face if we continued on our chosen path, which we've repeatedly refused to deviate from". It's actually interesting to see the pretty app that I developed, live in the App Store, exactly how I left it - none of the impossible lunatic things are there, unsurprisingly

Given that each of the 6 previous freelancers had looked at the previous developer's code and thought "nah, this is rubbish, I'm going to throw it away and start again" but whoever it was who took over the complete and working system that I left behind, decided that it was actually exactly what they wanted and needed, so they released it to the App Store.

On another note, I keep getting sick. I work very hard, I try very hard, and I immerse myself it what I'm doing - I live and breathe the projects I get involved in; I care. It's the caring part that's the problem. When you care too much, you get upset and then you start to get frustrated, which is exhausting and it makes me sick. I literally get sick: I get too unwell to work.

I bust my balls, then I get sick. When I get sick, all kinds of bad stuff happens. I might end up in hospital. I might end up in trouble with the police. I might end up falling out with friends. I might end up running out of money. I might end up homeless... who knows? It's anybody's guess how bad things are going to get when I get sick. I've attempted suicide 3 times already.

So far though, nobody seems to have gone out of their way to do life-changing damage to me: to black-ball me from ever being able to work again, to punish me, to give me black marks against my name that would exclude me from civilised society. Nobody seems that keen to see me dumped on the enormous pile of humans who we've decided serve no useful purpose. Nobody seems that keen to prevent me from ever having another chance.

The last couple of projects, I didn't get obstreperous and I didn't get so sick that everything got badly messed up. The last couple of projects, I gave the client exactly what they asked for, more or less... I just ignored the lunacy, and built useful high-quality working software and ignored all the questions like "where's that [impossible/useless] feature I asked for?" and sure enough, they forgot all about it in the end, and they were happy.

In my personal life, I don't know why my misbehaviour when unwell hasn't landed me in more trouble than it has, and ejected me from civilised society and consigned me to a life that a great many of our "unwanted" and "unwelcome" members of society suffer, because they've caused trouble and they're now permanently branded as "trash". It must seem very unjust to those who have been branded as "human trash" to know that the rules and regulations of life are supposed to be applied fairly and evenly, but evidently they are not. Maybe it's because I can pretend to do a posh accent. Maybe it's because I try to remember to say please and thank you lots. Maybe it's just because I've been lucky up to now, but luck won't last forever.

I know people have found my blog and they know that my visible tattoo advertises that I've got problems, but nobody ever says anything, except for the occasional "do you wear contact lenses?" or other hint that they've seen my bespectacled profile picture: my alter ego.

My plan is to try and get myself onto page one of Google (I'm on page 2 at the moment I think) but the truth is, I don't think people - the decision makers - actually care that much, when they find somebody with the skills that are apparently in such short supply that a person like me can limp along and suffer the horrible manic highs and depressed lows in full view of my office colleagues, when economic circumstances force me back into that environment.

Ideally, I'd like to send out my CV and have my email address as nick@manicgrant.com and list my website, as well as including details about exactly what's happened in my life since I got sick. I'll just write a summary of my life and career to date - good and bad - rather than the corporate friendly horses**t nonsense that conforms to the expected standard.

At the moment, do I require mercy? Yes, a little. I'm in a precarious situation. There are a few people who could choose to bring the full force of the blows raining down on my head, but they've been merciful, so far.

At the moment, do I require an n^th chance? Yes of course. I always feel like I'm on the back foot; I always feel like an imposter or a fraudster, even when I've just finished a big project and the client's really happy. I always feel like my not-so-secret website and the stuff that's happened in the recent past - which would usually be confidential - somehow disqualifies me from doing the job that 21+ years of evidence shows I'm very capable of doing to a high standard.

For the first 11 years of my career, I had an unspoken agreement with my bosses: they'd let me have days off sick or come in late when I was depressed, because they knew I'd be so productive when I was manic. It was a system that worked well. The trouble is, with short projects, it's so much harder to establish the trust in that relationship and accept that a member of your team is not a regular 9 to 5 Monday to Friday mediocre plodding drone who doesn't give a f**k.

It would be arrogant and unreasonable of me to expect special treatment in the workplace, or indeed in society in general. I don't know why I keep getting more chances. Do you think it's fair?

Tags: #career #computing #bipolar

This is a story about a worrying disappearance...

My flat's a bit of a nightmare really. The landlord slides the garage door up and down all day long, and seems to be endlessly sawing up bits of wood, then he stomps up and down the stairs, slamming the door - all of this is within a few feet of me in my lounge. At the back of the house, the bedroom is basically a viewing gallery for perverts - the blinds are about as much use as opera glasses.

I don't want to disturb anybody, but I don't want to be disturbed either - catch 22.

Ventilating the front of the apartment is OK, but to keep the temperature down the best thing to do is keep the curtains closed at the moment. Ventilating the back is impossible, save for setting up a load of seats for prime viewing position into the only one of 2 rooms which most people want privacy in: bedroom & bathroom.

The heat is a real problem, but so is the as-yet undealt with problem of getting some air circulating.

At the moment I'm sleeping on the sofa and spending the days on the sofa with the curtains drawn, which somehow feels like I'm doing something I shouldn't be. It also seems to announce to the world that I'm at home, but perhaps sleeping during the day... I feel I should 'act normal'.

It's driven me a bit crazy to be honest, feeling like I can't be in my bedroom during the day (or at night with privacy) and like I can't have the lounge curtains drawn during the day, or sleep on the sofa at night... it's all behaviour that would raise eyebrows; provoke speculation.

The gap in my writing has been valid cause for concern. I feel so hyper-sensitised to all the noises around me, and I've been struggling not to attach my own negative interpretation of what I hear: "oh it's terrible" I hear somebody say, and "what are we going to do?" and I presume it's something to do with me. If I hear a stamp on the floor from the neighbour above, I presume my attempts to be as quiet as mouse have failed, and I'm annoying them.

The bathroom, with its lack of windows, and equidistance from ever-present landlord and neighbour who I can hear above, has become my place of refuge. It has a door with a lock - nobody can just barge in unannounced. Also, unlimited cold water.

One thing that's very difficult to do though is to sleep on the cold floor tiles of a bathroom, in the pitch black, with only a towel as both blanket and something to lie on. It's disorienting - a sink appears out of nowhere; you reach for the door handle, but realise you're 90 degrees out of alignment; the shape of the floor space doesn't seem well thought out for a person lying on those cold tiles for many hours.

There are 3 legitimate entrances into my apartment, and I sometimes just want to feel like I know what's coming a little bit in advance. Last night, somebody was walking on my windowsills for f'cks sake, which is unnerving, but not as unnerving as having 3 doors that your ever-present landlord might decide to walk through at some unpredictable moment.

Anyway, I had something to eat, and I've not been too bad with the dehydration thing, having now found that the best thing to do is take a cooling shower. I do need to air out the revolting sweatiness though.

How I get back to any semblance of normality seems an impossible task at the moment, but I suppose with time and patience I'll get things sorted. I'd cleared half my TODO list, but now it's bigger than when I started, and I worry about the logistics of the things I can't do myself. Even the logistics of the things I can do myself are complex, given that my whole life is on public display, barring the bathroom.

I'm sorry for severing all contact, but I can't wrap my head around what next and when. There's home life to sort, I need to be rested and ready for my next opportunity and then there's the exhaustion of dealing with all the phone-calls and emails; interviews; requests for documents, forms to be filled in, new office, new team... blah blah blah. I don't even know whether to go for something reasonably close to home, but there's no way I want to be commuting 1hr+ every day. No point thinking about it while things have rather been in crisis at home, and there's enough to be done sorting myself and my apartment.

It'll be just my luck... after all the days and days of waiting for the worst to happen, the sky will fall in and my world will implode just as I've started to take care of myself a bit more. I've stopped letting my days be dominated by either trying to hold my breath and tiptoe around, or move to whichever part of my home feels most secure; least surprises; least peeping Toms. It'll be just my luck that now I'm no longer living with the anticipation of the most awfully intrusive home invasion, today or tomorrow - before I've had time to sort things - the dreaded event(s) will happen.

What a waste of a summer. What a waste of an opportunity to keep moving forwards without losing too much momentum. That's the fragility I've been talking about for so long; that's the bomb going off, after I've been talking about it ticking for a long time. Did I precipitate all this? Is it all my own fault? Try to remember that rebuilding an entire life from the ground up is hard, and without the usual safety nets of local social network and family - let alone simple familiarity with the area - meant that removing a couple of key building blocks brought the whole Jenga tower crashing down, although - in theory - there exist superhuman people who can endlessly move house, move area, make new friends, get new jobs, get a partner, get a hobby, stay fit & healthy and turn up and work their full-time job, week after week, month after month... relentless.

This isn't much of a holiday; in fact quite the opposite, but there we go... I'm still present, at least bodily. I'm not sure I want to live if the next bit of shitty luck - the thing I've been dreading - rips out another one or two of those Jenga blocks.

Wish me luck, that I have an unmolested couple of days and I can start to get on top of things; that the sky doesn't cave in now of all the bloody times it could've done it.

Interestingly, when that sharp knife's been at my throat  - at least 3 or 4 times - ready to be plunged into my jugular vein and carotid arteries the moment my sanctuary was breached, things went quiet and I thought clearly... the madness and the terror ended, and the immediate threat of a life-destroying event disappeared. I took a cooling shower, put on some clean clothes and started to look after myself. It's as though things have to get to that point: if you're not prepared to die, you're gonna have unimaginably awful events happen. It's the Schrödinger paradox, except I'm the cat - in all the universes where the the worst happened, I killed myself.

I'm not optimistic or positive. In fact, I'm anticipating that things are going to be very very very hard for what will feel like an eternity, but for those who've been worrying about me committing suicide, it's perhaps been well over 24 hours since that blade was lined up in position, and I don't feel suicidal now that I'm not quite as trapped and cornered as I was... famous last words. In short: I'm safe at the moment.

I wish I was writing regularly. I wish my writing quality hadn't gone to s**t because of mania, sleep deprivation and general malnourishment. I wish... I wish... I wish. But, there was an inevitability: cut enough of those slender threads and I'll fall further than most would; further than you'd expect, because you take for granted the social fabric you're woven into... it's almost tempting to abandon the attempt to return to wealthy middle-class life, because at least when I was homeless I was part of a community. How ironic, to immediately want to go back to those homeless days when a couple of bits of my 'respectable life' were lost.

I'll try and write again, and write less. Little and often.

Anyway, still here.

Tags: #homeless #apartment #landlord #paranoia #privacy #mania #suicide

This is a story about the end of summer...

That blue sky isn't real. They installed those fake roof tiles so that patients receiving dialysis have something slightly nicer to look at than grey ceiling tiles, during the many hours that they're being treated. Both my kidneys had failed very suddenly, so I was having 4 or 5 hours of dialysis every day, desperately trying to get both fluids and toxins out of my system, because I was very sick indeed.

I've waited and waited and waited for better weather. My mood has been persistently depressed. Suicidal thoughts have been with me daily, if not hourly. I've been clinging onto the thought that better weather in May and June would lift my spirits, and improve my mood. I've been desperately hoping that my energy will come back, and I'll feel enthusiastic about life.

Instead, a couple of terrible things happened in May and June, which destroyed my fragile little world.

I'd barely gotten started putting down roots - job, place to live, girlfriend, friends - when everything was smashed to smithereens. Now, the longest day of the year came and went and I didn't even notice. Depression keeps me prisoner in my own home. Some days I don't even open the curtains.

I'm wasting the few short summer months, which is a tragedy, but the timing couldn't have been worse to lose a couple of things that I desperately needed. When I needed good luck, I received bad luck... which I know is so often the case in many people's lives, but it doesn't make it any easier to cope with.

Winter is coming.

All those months and months of hard work I put in over the winter are being undone, and the boost that summer should give me - making life easier and more pleasant - has been sabotaged. Things are harder than ever. I'm heartbroken that my summer is ruined.

So, enjoy your ice creams and your days at the beach, and your family holidays. I barely leave the house. I'm as white as a ghost.

Superstitious people say that bad luck comes in threes, so I'm now just sitting at home waiting for the sky to fall in.

Tags: #depression #suicide #summer

This is a story about bullies and abusers...

I only have a couple of months left to go and I'll have hopefully achieved my ambition of writing a million words in 3 years - the world's longest suicide note - and the most comprehensive, candid and unflinching glimpse inside the mind of a dead man walking.

"We didn't know" and "he seemed fine" and "what could we have done differently?" are the kinds of things that haunt the people after somebody has committed suicide.

Well, there are no excuses here - I've made my very best attempt to write on a daily basis, all the things - most of which are very practical - which have driven me to attempt suicide. Eventually, I will die at my own hands.

To imagine that there's a doctor, psychiatrist or other charlatan out there who's got the f**king cure, means you're more delusional and insane than I am. Take a good look around you - things are getting worse not better; more and more people are feeling depressed; suicide has gotten so bad that it's the number one thing that's gonna kill a man like me, yet there are no pills that work, psychological treatments which are available to anybody but the extremely wealthy or indeed any offer of safe sanctuary for those of us who can't guarantee our own safety... we're a danger to ourselves. Check the data - we are suffering an epidemic of mental health problems. Every piece of objective data you can gather says the same thing: so-called 'medicine' is not making people better, and things are getting worse and worse.

Writing this blog is my therapy. It's the rock I'm clinging onto, shipwrecked in a storm as the rain lashes down and giant waves threaten to drown me. This blog gives me pride in what I've achieved, despite the adversity I've faced. More than anything else, this blog is MY PRECIOUS ARTWORK which is 90% complete, but it's fragile... don't fuck with it.

I was attacked by proxy. A horrible person got a muscly bully to invade my home and force me - with threats and intimidation - to delete quite a lot of blog posts. That coward is using their macho friends, colleagues - whoever - to coerce me to submit to their will. You can beat the living shit out of me if you like, vandalise my car, smash up my stuff, but don't f**k with my motherf**king art. If you're hiding behind your muscly bullies, thinking you can fuck my art up and you're safe because you're protected by your macho 'protectors' then you've underestimated how much it's hurting me... beyond a certain point you'll have hurt me so much that I don't care if your thugs kill me; the treats and intimidation won't matter any more. You're such a coward and you're so horrible for trying to f**k up the one thing that's most precious to me, via your proxies.

Hands off my art. It means so much to me that I'm prepared to suffer whatever the consequences are for standing up to the bullies and those who threaten me; invade my home; intimdate and force me - literally standing over me making threats - to destroy my art.

I'm not sure how many thousands of words were lost when my home was invaded and I was threatened, intimidated and forced by a macho proxy to delete parts of my artwork, but even a single word is too many. I was forced to delete a picture of a sausage, for f**k's sake. Having that level of control over somebody's 3-year project, while thinking you're safely protected and your macho proxies are doing your dirty work... that's despicable. Words don't come easily. 1 million words don't come easily. 3 years on a single project is not easy. If you f**k with it you're hurting me more than you can possibly imagine.

If you think there's a vindictive vengefulness bubbling under the surface here, think about how you'd feel if somebody took a knife to one of your children and left a scar across their face - that's how I feel about this artwork being f**ked with. Every time I look at this blog, I'm reminded that there's a scar... when a thug forced their way into my home and threatened and intimidated me, and wrecked my artwork.

I'm a desperate man with nothing to lose. All I've got is my art - my 3-year project - so the hurt you cause me if you f**k with it is incalculable.

Tags: #relationships #art #writing