This is a story about discovering yourself...

Nostalgia is a liar that tells us that there was a bygone era when things were better than they are today. It tells us that despite a lack of antibiotics, immunisation, modern surgical techniques, telephones, internet, jet aircraft and reliable fuel-economical automobiles, there is something that we're missing from the pre-war years.

The fact is, that most people didn't have enough to eat, struggled to stay warm & dry and lived in fear of preventable diseases, which killed a huge proportion of people. Manual labour and low standards of health & safety killed men early. Childbirth and a lack of family planning killed women early. Infant mortality rates were stupendously high. Life was short & shit.

There's no point in looking backwards to those times. There's no point in stuffing your house full of antiques and dressing your children like some Dickens pastiche. There's no point in preaching a values system that probably never existed. You might like to believe that there was a time when there was more respect, more order. Do you think that the whip, cane and the gallows were never used? Even with corporal and capital punishment as deterrents, people still stepped out of line.

You might bemoan unruly or even ferral children, and imagine that there was a time when kids "behaved themselves". In fact, it is you who is delusional. Children are not dollies and mannequins. Children are not there for you to play dressing up games with, and to robotically comply with your instructions. They are little people, with their own identities.

The sooner that you accept that we live now, not yesteryear, the better. Your child does not have some imagined Victorian values stored hidden inside them. Your child exists as they do, today. They are shaped by this very moment, not your flights of fancy, nor your imagination.

Sure, as a parent, you have some preprogrammed delusions. You will always believe your baby is the bonniest. You will always think your child is the most adorable, the smartest, the one destined for success. No, probably not.

It's a good idea to back your kid up, to be on their side, to fight their corner. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with that. It all goes a bit skew-whiff when you start using your kid to live out your own fantasies though, getting your kid to compensate for your own inadequacies. If you didn't do well at school, pushing your kid too hard to be the academic that you failed to be will never fix your past failure.

And so it came to pass, that I arrived at the age of 17 without the foggiest idea of who I was as a person. I was quite clear about two different imaginary people that my parents wanted me to be, and just how much contradiction and impossibility there was in realising their fantasies. However, I hadn't the faintest idea of what shape my own personality took.

Discovering the drug, Ecstasy, allowed me to feel self-love and explore my feelings for myself. It also gave me a strange identity, bound up with drugs, dancing and music. I was a clubber/raver. I knew who I was on a Saturday night, in a sweaty railway arch, cutting shapes in the air and with pupils like saucers, high as a kite on MDMA. The rest of the time was dead to me. I was just counting down the hours, minutes and seconds until the next weekend.

This was clearly not a sustainable and complete identity, and my self-esteem was still at absolute rock bottom. In this vulnerable phase in my development, I slept with my male boss, believing - hoping even - that I was possibly gay. Turns out that I'm not gay. Shame. Life could have possibly slotted into some order, as at least there is some strong identity in being camp and effeminante, as a man.

The next cruel twist of vulnerability was to see me get involved romantically with an achondroplastic dwarf. She's one of the nicest girls you could ever hope to meet, and I really hope her feelings aren't hurt if she reads this, but she was quite aggressive in her advances. As I was completely lacking in self-confidence, I struggled to assert myself. I went along with things. I complied.

It's a bit strange, dating somebody that you're not attracted to, but I guess it's no different from my experiments with homosexuality. It's just that she was less unpleasant to kiss than somebody whose face is covered in stubble. Being f**ked in the arse is tolerable, but not exactly pleasant. This girl at least didn't want to penetrate me with some part of her body.

This strange little life had formed itself. I switched myself off during the week and went into hibernation. Then at the weekends I would take Ecstasy, and under the influence of this chemical, my feelings became much more fungible. It's easier to believe you have fallen for somebody, under the influence of the 'love drug'.

I guess I always maintained some toe-hold in reality though. I always knew that my feelings were being psychopharmacologically pulled this way and that, and I knew deep down that something felt very wrong.

It takes a long time to fix broken self-esteem and for you to emerge from the oppression of people who never allowed you to have your own identity. My own tastes had never been allowed to develop. I had never gained the skills of choosing my own clothes and outfits. I didn't know how to dress.

My hair was unruly and an inconvenience. I didn't like its style, but I had no idea how I wanted it to be cut. I had no idea how to tame my wavy locks. It's only because of an outdoors lifestyle, that I arrived at the shorter cut that I wear today.

IT contracting gave me the money to attain status symbols like a nice car, which I'm ashamed to admit, helped my self-esteem to some extent. Becoming some twat who is rather pleased with himself because he's rich and successful in those materialistic measures was not a road that I would have liked to continue down though. It was rather offensive to be flashing the cash to compensate for crushing inadequacy.

It was London that eventually gave me the space and the time to develop my own style, my own precious identity. It was tough going. One very bullying housemate drove me to the very limit of what I could endure, before she finally pissed off. Oh, what sweet relief! To finally be living in the Angel Islington, as a well dressed young man in a job that I was good at, with a healthy circle of friends and acquaintances. It was bliss.

The combination of corporate identity midweek - nice suit and crisply pressed shirts - with a surf style at the weekends, coupled with my newfound love of kiteboarding, really sealed the deal. I felt like a complete person, and for the first time in my life, age 23, I actually asked a girl out on a date.

I was still crushingly insecure, but I mostly muddled through because I was busy and I was optimistic and positive. I bungled a lot of the growing up, and failed to see the opportunity for bed-hopping for what it was, and instead continued to think I was falling in love at the drop of a hat.

I was hopeless at reading even the most un-subtle of advances by the opposite sex, and screwed up opportunities to trade up with some girls who I fancied the pants off. I was a faithful monogamist, but perhaps only because self-esteem and experience were still quite lacking in my love life. I kick myself now, when I think of some of the gorgeous women who advertised their availability to me.

In London you can find people whose style you wish to emulate. You can find those few inspiring fashion pieces, which can prop up your fragile self-esteem. You can start to develop your own identity, your own style, your own wardrobe. You start to feel good in your clothes, and then later in your body.

My broken self-esteem was restored to the point where I was confident enough to make a permanent mark of ownership on my body, in the form of a tattoo. I'm now so self-confident that I made the mark in a place where I can't even see it. From the photos that I've seen, it's not even quite in the right place but I don't care. It feels nice to have disfigured myself, deliberately, through my own choice.

I even grew a moustache for Movember, which is something I never thought I would do, given my lack of ability to grow decent stubble or a beard.

There's this tightly-bound link between London, outdoor/adrenalin sports, working for a corporation and being a secret raver/clubber, that is instricically linked to my identity. It's hard to shake those foundations as the things that I will run to in times of stress.

I know that MDMA will release me from the shackles of shame, regret and self-criticism, when I become paralysed by those oppressive thoughts. I know that the chemical will help me to have an epiphany of sorts, and move on with my life when I have become stuck in a rut. It's like taking a brief holiday from yourself and all your baggage. It's pretty hard on your body & mind in your thirties though! Quite a hangover.

I know that adrenalin sports will remind me that I'm alive, when I feel dead or dying. Just riding across London on a bicycle is enough to reaffirm that you still have some self-preservation instincts. You always end up having a moment where you nearly die, which puts things into perspective.

I know that immersing myself in corporate culture is occasionally good for my identity. It feels good to put on a suit, and know that the public are somehow looking at you as somehow more respectable, more mannered, more civilised. It feels good to puff your chest out with self importance and pretend like being part of the big money machine means that you have some value, even if the bubble soon bursts.

I know that being part of the heaving mass of bodies that make up London is a very cool part of somebody's identity. When you are somewhat hardened to it, used to the noise and the invasion of personal space, and the offence on your senses, you then start to get enjoyment from gliding serenely through the carnage. You know that people are looking at you and wondering how you managed to cut through the crowd and anticipate the seemingly random movements of individuals, so that you dance around the dawdler and dodge the ditherer. It feels good to have mastered the capital city, to know these mean streets.

Put it all together and you have quite a strong identity, quite a distinct personality. It's quite nice that a 'me' has emerged after a rather difficult upbringing, and further struggles to break free from parental oppression and some relationships which preyed upon my vulnerability, my insecurity.

If you wanted to try and get me outside the M25 now, you'd have to put my dead body in a pine box.

I love this dirty town.

Tags: #london #career #childhood

This is a story about three amigos...

You need some fire in your belly if you're going to achieve great things. The three handsome gentlemen above have all bucked the trend and excelled at what they do, in their own unique ways.

It's not my place to share other people's stories, but we all had events in our lives that have had an influence on the passions we have pursued. You never know what somebody else has been through, so it's always the best policy to be non-judgemental.

I'm not saying that we had it harder than anybody else. It's not a pissing contest. It's not a competition. And this isn't going to be a tear-jerking tale of woe is me. In fact, I'm not even going to tell you anything more than what I have already stated: behind every driven ambitious person, there is usually an unseen reason.

So, have we got chips on our shoulders? No, we have each others arms on our shoulders. We stand in solidarity, brotherhood. We are positive can-do people who act with energy and enthusiasm, not negativity and bitterness. If we have a reason to put more effort into things, to try harder than Average Joe, then it's because we are channelling our feelings in positive ways.

My friends aren't always immune from gossip, rumour and prejudice. However, they have been good enough to reserve judgement of my character. Yes, I have been pleasantly surprised that my friends have been good enough to listen to my story, now that I'm becoming well enough to tell it.

Writing somebody off, writing off a life, declaring somebody a 'lost cause' is never good. It's a death sentence. You never know just how close somebody is to the edge of the abyss.

Something happened yesterday that really struck a chord. Somebody was pushed in front of a tube train, at Kentish Town station, where I used to live, until very recently. I would travel every day from that very station platform. That's what is happening in our society. People don't jump, they're pushed.

Nobody chooses to jump off a building or in front of a train. Nobody chooses to slash their wrists or eat poison. Nobody chooses to suffocate themself or slit their own throat. Nobody chooses to blow their brains out or electrocute themself. Nobody chooses to hang themself or overdose.

Yes, it's more obvious when you can physically see somebody else pushing the person to their death, but it also happens in unseen ways too.

Every ignorant comment, every bit of gossip you pass on, every time you pass judgement and assume that you even have the faintest idea of what's going on beneath the surface of a person's life, you are slowly killing that person. You are driving them inwards, you are isolating them, you are killing them.

Yes, talking about somebody behind their back might feel like helping. Wringing your hands and saying to each other "what can we do?" while you exchange your guesswork, your ignorant speculation... it's not getting to the heart of the problem. It might be making things worse, by making that person feel alone and not understood.

It's hard, I know, trying to help somebody who has stopped communicating, clammed up. But I have no words that can possibly express the difficulty of trying to communicate with a far greater number of people who are talking to each other about you. The numbers just don't stack up. There's only one of me, so there's no way I can keep everybody informed, especially when I'm very sick.

Please don't think this is a criticism of my friends. The fact that they have reserved some judgement and they're slowly coming back into my life is spurring me on in recovery. You have to have hope and optimism to fight back from the brink of suicide, and you need friends. You need to feel like there's some chance of escaping depressed isolation, which is a death-spiral downwards.

People might think I'm pedantic. I am, but only on things that matter. If I correct you on the difference between mania and hypomania, it's because it's an important distinction that allows me to maintain hope of having some kind of quality of life. If I point out the research that shows better long term outcomes for unmedicated patients, in my situation, then it's important to know that I've had many discussions with many doctors and you telling me to follow doctors orders is not helpful, because you have no idea which doctor you're talking about.

Oh snap it sounds like I'm ticking people off. I'm really not. I just want friends in my life, not amateur psychologists, amateur psychiatrists, amateur doctors. It's really sweet of you if you've done any reading about Unipolar Depression, Type II Bipolar and other issues affecting my life, but it's really not necessary. I've done all the reading and the best possible thing would be to just judge my character and trust me... I'm working on the illness thing.

The thing that I'd like to reassure people about is, insofar as me and the docs can tell, the illness is acute not chronic. That means there's a chance I can get better if I'm given a window of opportunity.

Looking backwards to move forwards is 'wrong' apparently, but I tend to ignore the advice of anybody who hasn't been to hell and back. I've tried doing things the way that ignorant people have suggested, and I can tell you first hand that your oversimplified version of reality doesn't work.

There are no short cuts and you have to use stepping stones. Sometimes the path might double back on itself, but as long as it's the right path, you have to keep following it. I went up a cul-de-sac and I could have raged and stormed and sulked and generally allowed myself to be trapped in a dead end - indeed many people wanted to trap me in the dead end - but in the end I had to just ignore all the haters, travel back down the one-way street from the dead end and find the correct path.

Everybody boos and jeers you when you have taken a wrong turn. Nobody congratulates you on having figured out you have made a mistake, and pats you on the back for being strong enough to retrace your steps, rather than just kill yourself. Nobody says, hey, you've had to travel twice as far as everybody else, let me give you a hand. Nope, people will expect you to work three times as hard, because you made a mistake. You already have to work twice as hard, but that's not good enough for people. They want to put the boot in and make you work three times as hard, because having to work twice as hard is not enough punishment as it is.

Yes, it's easy to end up hating the world, because the world is looking to scapegoat you. The world is looking for easy answers. The world is looking for convenient members of society to isolate and blame. Adults are not really very grown up. Adults have never really left the playground, where they liked to pick on children who were different. Bullying is rife in society.

When somebody gets weak, they're such an easy target. And the best part of all is that they get weaker and weaker until they die. Yup, it's great fun being an adult bully, because you get to kill people and then deny all knowledge, because you're smart now. You can cover your arse with plausible deniability. You can point the finger at all kinds of things that were symptoms of that victim's distress.

If it looks like I'm stuck in the past, it's because I've waited 10 years for the opportunity to be able to move on from a fateful mistake. It's a messy story, and it's not like I can point to a single error, but there was a significant life priority change in 2005 that threw my world into chaos.

I left London to live by the beach, but that wasn't a mistake necessarily. However, it put me in a precarious position. New town, new friends. I was rebuilding my life fairly quickly, but things were still fragile. Plus my circle of friends were all starting to leave London anyway. Lots of people came to visit. It could have worked.

I played for the title. I took a shot at the top. I tried to have it all. I thought I had found the girl of my dreams and I had it all. Turns out, I wasn't as mature as I thought I was. I made the mistake that nearly every adult must surely make at least once or twice. I picked the wrong girl.

Because I was in a fragile place, I had one or two attempts at correcting my mistake. I tried to break up with her, when I could see that my quality of life was being destroyed. It was my mistake. It was my lack of strength. It was my neediness and insecurity, being relatively young and inexperienced and in a strange new town and in a new job... I couldn't just walk away so easily. I don't blame her for not letting me go. It was my fault for getting trapped.

If you love them, let them go. I loved her. She didn't love me. You live, you learn. My parents taught me to never give up on a relationship, so I didn't. I kept going. I don't give up on things. It's not in my nature to give up on things. I'm the guy who fixes things. I'm the guy who makes things work.

Yes, I've read Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus and I know that women aren't after a Mr Fix-it, but it's more romantic than that. I'm a soppy loved-up kind caring sort of guy who just wants to make things work, patch things up, move forward together. I'm a diplomat, I'm a pacifist, I'm a lover not a fighter.

Did I deserve to have my face beaten to a pulp for the way I felt? Did I deserve to be driven to the brink of suicide? There has to be some shared responsibility somewhere, but I'm over it now. I know that I'll never get an apology. I know that she'll always think she was justified for battering both sides of my face when I turned the other cheek. I didn't lift a finger in self defence or retaliation, because I'm an open hearted person.

Three strikes though. Three strikes and you're out. Nobody has hit me in my adult life except for my ex-wife. Probably because they can see that there is anger just waiting to be unleashed if you mistreat me. Yes, it's really not advisable to hit me. You can try, and you might get away with it a couple of times, but I really wouldn't advise you to test the three strike rule. You might get a knuckle sandwich.

Why would you hit somebody who is kind and caring and open hearted anyway? What's it going to achieve? I'm a lover not a fighter. Just be nice and kind and caring and then we'll get along just fine. If you abuse me, my response is going to be predictable. Yes, abuse has predictable results. Bullying has predictable results.

My Dad raised me as a pacifist. I was raised to ignore bullying. I was raised to not rat people out. I was raised not to complain about abuse. I'm very good at calming myself down. I'm very good at absorbing blow after blow that is rained down on my head. I'm like a giant abuse sponge. I soak up all that abuse.

However, there is a saturation point. When the abuse sponge has become completely soaked with your rage and agression that you have taken out on me, you'd better be a little worried. When the punching bag can't take any more, you'd better not take another cheap shot.

I can tell you a lot about de-escalating situations. I can tell you a lot about anger management. I can tell you a lot about dissipating negative feelings. I can tell you a lot about de-fusing a ticking time bomb. Blaming me - the abuse victim - is not a successful strategy for helping somebody to get over their mistreatment.

Am I hamming myself up too much as this big victim? Am I too self pitying? Poor me, poor me, pour me another drink? Well, people have to find a way to cope somehow. Presently, that's this blog for me.

Yes, you can follow my progress right here, as I work through a bunch of stuff, in public. I'm not holding back. I'm staying true to my values of honesty and openness. I'm baring my soul as I'm working through this stuff. It's weird that I'm still carrying this stuff around, right? But where's it supposed to have gone? How do you get rid of all the crap you've taken, all the abuse you've absorbed? How do you dump it?

People have got a zillion and one techniques, suggestions. I've got a suggestion for you. Fuck off unless you want to be my friend. I need friends not therapists, carers.

I want friends. I need friends. I miss friends.

Before everything went to hell in a hand-cart (April 2005)

Tags: #friends #divorce #mentalhealth #bipolar #suicide #depression

This is a story of fear, lies and insecurity...

I once used the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition) to decompose, deconstruct, examine and criticise my ex's behaviour. I should have turned that spotlight on myself, instead. People in grass houses shouldn't stow thrones.

I have lived a lot of my life with fear, guilt, self-loathing and insecurity. It dominated every waking hour of my life, which was pretty unbearable. I was a pathalogical liar, manipulator, bully, cheat and child.

Yes, that's right, I was a child. Up until the age I could legally drink (18 in the UK) I was growing up. I'm not 'grown up' now, but there was a turning point around the time of my late teens, which began a process of change, from child to adult.

As a kid, I used to lie about having Sky TV, owning a Game Boy and even about the size of my hard disk drive (fnarr, fnarr). I used to feel unworthy of having friends, a girlfriend, and instead cultivated a self-protecting "if you don't need me, I don't need you" isolationism, where I used to spend long periods lost in my own thoughts. I was so lost in my own thoughts, my parents even had my hearing tested, as it would take me a few moments to return to reality from my daydreams.

I remember my Mum being horrified that I seemingly lacked empathy for my tormentors. Two boys who were particularly vicious and violent towards me, and made my life hell, were apparently thin, pale and emaciated, from an unpleasant home life. Unfortunately my unpleasant school life blinded me from these facts, at the time, and I failed to share my Mum's feelings of protectiveness for these bullies.

I think I would have developed into a cruel and bullying boss and CEO if it had not been for an unexpected event in my late teens, which was at once both life-changing, but also potentially life-destroying.

3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine is something I can correctly type from memory, because it is intractably linked to a turning point in my life. It's a bitter medicine to swallow, literally and figuratively - plant alkaloids are extremely unpleasant tasting, and Leah Betts had recently died when I took this substance for the first time - but the "empathy pill" or "love drug" literally changed my life overnight.

Before I continue, you should know that I had never abused drugs before taking MDMA, and I more or less ceased taking Ecstasy only a year or so after my first experience with it. What is written about drugs and addiciton being dangerous and life-destroying is true, and I am very glad that I didn't graduate onto drugs like Ketamine, which has caused irreparable urological damage to the bladder of many clubbers and ravers, and harder drugs that have destroyed countless lives.

There are no words sufficient to express the veil that was lifted as I 'came up' 45 minutes after ingesting a Mitsubishi Turbo pill, in a dark nightclub under a railway arch near Vauxhall, London. Pounding Trance music and sweaty bodies filled a space, way beyond the legal capacity of the venue. I was terrified by the setting, before my friend John even produced an innocent looking tablet on the palm of his outstretched hand.

We should be mindful of the dangers. Leah Betts was killed by a lack of blood supply to her brain, when it swelled up and squashed the artery entering her cranium. She unbalanced the osmotic processes in her body by drinking ~6 litres of water in the space of only a couple of hours. I can understand why she did it. The drug is hyperthermic and diuretic, which means you get hot - so you want to drink more fluids - but you don't feel like you need to pee.

Addiction is also a huge danger. Look again at the chemical name. It has methamphetamine on the end of it. The drug is basically Crystal Meth with a Phenethylamine ring bolted on to it. How else can people dance for 12 hours nonstop to monotonous minimalist electronic music?

Luckily for me, the confidence, energy & lightness in my limbs, the euphoria, the nonsensical "liking" of a chemical substance is the hallmark of an addictive Dopaminergic agonist or reuptake-inhibitor... all these things were of secondary importance to the main event: I felt loved and secure and happy and I felt empathy towards every person, regardless of looks, age, colour, creed, political leanings or socioeconomic background, citizenship, perceived intellect or subcultural references in their clothes, piercings and tattoos - including myself - we are often unable to stop judging and accept our own selves.

As ravers, we used to say "PLUR": Peace Love Unity Respect. I think this is a good motto for life #dontbeevil

Tags: #london #drugs #addiction #childhood #bullying #mentalhealth