This is a story about having no home town...

"Where are you from?" people ask me. The answer, which is most unexpected to them, is that I was born in Aberystwyth in Wales, but only stayed there a matter of months, then moved, then moved again to some Cotswolds village, then moved again to Central Oxford, then moved again to France, then moved again to Devon and then moved again to Dorset, around the time I left home, and then I've lived all over, but mostly in London... does that answer the question?

A social worker, housing officer or other person tasked with helping me have a safe place to live and enough money to buy food, would ask "where are your local connections?". Again the answer, which is most unexpected, is that I have the most old friends in Bournemouth but they're from 5+ years ago, and the place with the most of my oldest friends who I've actually seen relatively recently is London.

The next question is "where do your parents live?". To which the answer is they moved back to one of the very many places we moved through, as I got dragged around the country, abroad, and got sent to 8 different schools. "Aha! That's your local connection then!" says the social worker, housing officer or other type person.

NO.

I have a friend in Abingdon, which is not local - it's the same county as my parents, but a long drive away. I have no relationship/connection with my parents, and there never will be a connection again - I haven't seen them in years, and I have documentary proof that my dad is actively working against my best interests. They're the very last people on Earth I would want to be within a million miles of.

"What about brothers and sisters?" comes the next question. My sister lives in Nottingham. I've been there 3 times. When I asked my sister about moving to Nottingham, she said no. My parents think I'm 'banned' from talking to her, but we do communicate and we're on OK terms. Nottingham is somewhere I know nothing about, having barely visited the place.

"What about where you've had your GP registered?" comes the next question. Well, in the space of a year that would be London, Manchester and Wales.

"How are you getting on in Wales?". One friend, who I've met once. Another friend who I've met two or three times. No job. I have to use the satnav to get to the supermarket. At least I'm in the right country, in terms of where I was born though.

"Hmmmm" they say. "No local connections here" they say. Then they roll a 12-sided dice to decide where to give me a one-way train ticket to. I go to the local services there and we start back with "where are you from?" and work through all the same answers, before the dice gets rolled and I'm moved somewhere else.

If I'm out of sight and a safe distance away, I'm out of mind. Local councils just want me moved out of their county, so I'm somebody else's problem. Friends who I've been chatting to about having a beer in their part of the country quite naturally don't remember to tell me when and where it's happening, because I'm out of sight and out of mind. 

Frankly, I've been busting my balls to stay afloat despite mental health problems which have nearly claimed my life on several occasions, and cause me a very great deal of problems. I look functional and productive, but - for example - for most of my last 3 month contract in London I was thinking about suicide every day, and more recently, breaking up with my girlfriend and my contract ending early have taken me to the point where I've had the knife at my throat in the bathtub, trying to line it up with my carotid artery so I can be absolutely certain that I'll be dead and completely unable to save - it only takes minutes to bleed out from such a major artery, and even if I got to a hospital in 10 minutes, they'd have to find enough units of blood to refill me, while performing open cardiac massage AND having a trauma surgeon on hand to suture up the damage while blood pissed out of it at high pressure... you can't just ligate that motherfucker - it's supplying oxygenated blood to your brain.

The thought of the stress and hassle of interviews, moving, impressing new boss & team, re-establishing a routine. It's all too much. I was already on the limit. I'm not well. I shouldn't be working.

Yes, my mental health is bad enough for me to be sectioned, which means it's bad enough that working a full time job (which I don't even have) is ridiculous, as is the idea that I've got any kind of support network around me. Nope. I'm alone. I'm not managing to stay afloat.

Any social worker, psychiatrist or GP would conclude I'm unfit for work and I'm vulnerable. I need things like income and housing to be supported by the welfare state, because I'm in bits and I'll just kill myself because I'm so exhausted by pretending to be healthy when I'm not at all. I'm very, very sick. I'm just very, very good at hiding it for long enough to scrape together enough cash to avoid becoming homeless again.

But, it's always going to come back to the same question: "where are your local connections?". There's a simple answer: NOWHERE. So, instead of getting help where I am, I get help nowhere. There's nowhere I can go. There's no home town I can go to. There's no family. There's no support network. Might as well just kill myself.

I'm exhausted. Might as well just kill myself.

I had a lovely time seeing an old friend a couple of weeks ago... he lives in Prague. I'd made plans to see a friend from California and a friend from Abingdon, but I'm out of sight and out of mind so they didn't reply to my messages - I never knew where and when they were meeting up. You cannot begin to imagine the social isolation which I suffer on a daily basis.

Time to die, I think.

Tags: #suicide

This is a story about it being all in your mind...

Uncontrollable shaking, jaw chattering, nausea, insomnia, restlessness, chest pains, elevated body temperature and sweatiness, breathlessness, diarrhoea and stomach cramps - it sounds like I'm physically sick, but I'm not. I genuinely believe that there's no physical reason why I'm experiencing all these symptoms. It's all in my head.

My symptoms are not due to disease, medication, drugs, alcohol, injury or any tangible physical thing. A medical examination - purely physical - would conclude that I'm in good health.

Why do I feel so damn awful then?

It's been months since I stopped taking the addictive sleeping tablets. It's been months since I stopped taking the addictive painkillers. It's been well over 6 months since I stopped taking the addictive sedatives and tranquillisers. It's been about a year since I stopped taking the stimulant I was addicted to. It's been over a year since I stopped taking opiates for the pain in my ankle. I'm completely clean and I recently had 5 days of sobriety, to prove that I hadn't become alcohol dependent and give my liver a break from the booze.

From what we understand of addiction, there are physical addictions, which we treat with substitute prescribing because the physical symptoms are too awful for addicts to withstand, and there are psychological addictions, which are just a lack of willpower and an indication of moral deficiency and bad character. We understand that psychological addictions are easy to deal with - just quit cold turkey and get over it.

It upsets me that I've done all the hard work of getting off at least 8 addictive substances, with 7 of them considered to be physically addictive, but the 8th still has a psychological hold on me, somehow... 1 year later. That's not supposed to happen. In the textbook, once you quit drugs your life becomes amazing and brilliant and perfect and you never look back. Certainly, the textbook will tell you that physical addictions are real addictions, and psychological addictions are not real addictions at all - they're all in the mind.

So why is it that I'm so sick?

If it's all in my head, why do I feel so nauseous?

If it's all in my head, why is my body shaking uncontrollably?

If it's all in my head, why are my symptoms so manifestly physical that other people can notice them?

Addicts are taught to hate themselves. We're told that we're bad people; that our problems are all our own fault. We're told that we have bad character; we're weak; we lack the moral fibre to buck our ideas up and behave properly. We're told that we're worthless scum... worse than worthless, in fact - a menace to society and death's too good for us.

How can it be then, that I've done all the right things and proven my worth to society; I've proven that I can white-knuckle my way through cold turkey and get clean from not just 1 addictive substance but 8. I've done all the right things, but there's still very a real and tangible physical manifestation of my addiction, which isn't supposed to exist because any residual addiction that I still have is psychological apparently.

It upsets me that I've done all the hard work and proven that I've got incredible willpower, yet this psychological problem with physical manifestation still plagues me.

With my bipolar disorder, I have to be very careful to manage my stress levels, make sure I get enough sleep, have a good routine, eat well and generally look after myself, but I still suffer bouts of depression and episodes of mania. I have to be very careful to not get carried away when the early warning signs of mania and the triggers are present. I have to struggle an incredible amount to hide the fact that I regularly have debilitating depression and suicidal thoughts.

With addiction, we're told that there aren't any tablets to treat it, unless it's a physical addiction. My kind of addiction has supposedly been cured, because I've used the only treatment option that's available: willpower. For over a year, I've managed to control my addiction to my substance of choice, by simply willing my addiction to go away.

It seems a little remarkable to me that I've managed to rebuild a lot of my life and I appear to be a very functional fine upstanding member of society, but yet I'm sick enough to cause concern to my nearest and dearest. How can I be so sick when I've been doing all the right things? How can I be so sick when I haven't done anything wrong? I've followed the textbook to the letter, but reality does not correlate with the wishful thinking you find in the textbooks.

In a perfect world, I'd disappear for a month and go lie a beach in a hot country. In a perfect world, my income would be secure. In a perfect world, I wouldn't have Damocles' sword dangling over me all the time. In a perfect world, I'd put my health first and society's expectations and the unbearable pressures on me second.

This is not a perfect world. I'm trying to build a glider while falling off a cliff.

Tags: #addiction

This is a story about routine...

I don't have my laptop with me at the moment, which means I've had to download a random image of mine from the cloud. I'm not really sure what the image is supposed to represent - perhaps that some people lack the discipline to piss in the toilet rather than on the floor, or perhaps that some people lack the discipline to clean up their own mess. Anyway, this is the image I've chosen. I'm not even sure what I'm going to write about. There's one thing that's been really bugging me, but I'm not going to write about it because I'm disciplined.

To be trapped into an unpleasant situation, but to impassively observe and endure; to keep your lip buttoned - that takes discipline. To see wrongdoing and hear unforgivable things uttered, but not respond. To be passive and impassive; to be an observer - that takes discipline.

To continue to grind my axe would push things too far. I need a period of reflection. I need to get back to writing what my readers want to read. I got derailed and I haven't really known where I was going, except that a lot of what I was saying was falling on deaf ears. My intended audience were not getting the message, or if they were then they were resistent to it. I tried softly softly, then my patience ran out. I bottled stuff up for too long. I remained in an intolerable situation too long. I was trapped in close proximity to a person who was really winding me up, but I think the feeling was mutual - time to move on; time to bury the hatchet.

Of course, I'll never be able to just bury the hatchet on command. Of course, to say that I'm going to change and suddenly start writing about other stuff, would be to suggest that my emotions, thoughts and feelings can be changed to be whatever I want them to be, whenever I want.

I want to write shorter pieces. I want to write stand-alone pieces that are accessible to anybody. I hate having to self-censor. I hate having things which are off-limits. I hate talking in riddles and putting heaps of effort into making absolutely 100% certain that nobody could ever make any connection - no matter how vague or unlikely - to the people I'm writing about. I hate that constraint. I hate that it ruins my writing.

I want to write shorter pieces.

I want to write pieces that anybody can read, and understand perfectly well what I'm talking about; relate to.

I want to get back to good honest straightforward writing, for everybody.

I'd love it if this blog post was a clear demarkation between a phase that I've been stuck in, and a new period where I get back to the good old writing that I was enjoying so much, where I could breezily explore anything and everything that took my fancy. Maybe I'll get back to that good place eventually.

I'm disciplined. I write every day. If I'm not writing, then you should worry - it means I'm very sick, or something terrible is happening in my life. If I'm not writing, something is wrong.

I'm disciplined. I write. Every day.

I'm going to try to become more disciplined about writing less. I'm going to try to become more disciplined about keeping to topics that anybody could relate to - no more cryptic stuff; no more guessing games.

My routine got messed up by a thoroughly unpleasant set of events, but hopefully that phase is drawing to a close. There's still stuff that has to be done to close that particular chapter, but then it's done and dusted and the curtain can fall on that particular unfortunate period. Time for a fresh start. Time for a new beginning.

Things don't end neatly and cleanly. Breakups are messy. People and human relationships are complex. Emotions can run high.

I don't need that kind of drama. Time to get back to good honest simple writing. No censorship; nothing cryptic; no guesswork.

I enjoy being open and transparent. It's healthy to be open and transparent. I'm going to continue being open and transparent and writing about everything that goes on in my head, in a candid and unflinching manner.

Time to get my healthy routine back.

Tags: #writing

This is a story about nodding off...

I was expecting my alcohol-free week to pay dividends, but it's not [yet]. I've had three awful nights of sleep and I've been struggling to keep my eyes open at work during the afternoons. My body clock is all screwed up - I'm struggling to get out of bed in the mornings and I'm struggling to get to sleep at night. The only variable is the alcohol, so I know that my sobriety is to blame.

I'm strict with my bedtime and mealtimes. I dim the lights and avoid using my laptop and smartphone in the evenings. I'm doing all the right things but I'm tired and I'm getting more tired by the day, because I'm not sleeping very well at night.

I've noticed an improvement in terms of weight gain already - my trousers had been feeling a little tight. Alcohol piles on the pounds because it's so calorific. I think it's worth having a break from booze for the benefit of my liver and waistline.

I think I'm having bouts of depression and anxiety as a result of abruptly cutting my alcohol consumption to zero. I keep thinking that I'm bored at work and that I should walk out and go home, because I can't stand sitting around twiddling my thumbs. I keep feeling depressed about the fact that I'm months away from financial security. I feel like I can't yet afford to take a holiday - I need to earn every penny I can to dig myself out of the hole and get myself into a strong situation.

My situation is pretty damn good really. I'm managing to get up and get to work nice and early. I'm making it through the working week without too much struggle. My finances are improving. The weather is improving. I have a lovely home. I'm sure I'll feel a lot better after a restful laid-back weekend watching TV while I lie on the sofa. It'll be great to have some weeks without any stress or disruption, to really get into a good routine.

I took a big gamble in making a big change, by stopping drinking so abruptly. I was sensible when I made all the other big changes, like tapering slowly off various medications, but it was really hard. By stopping drinking suddenly I've risked nasty side effects, which I'm very much experiencing right now. I'm sure my body and brain will be very grateful for having a break from booze, but right now I'm exhausted... I'm not feeling the benefit yet.

I guess things always get worse before they get better.

Tags: #alcohol

This is a story about diminishing a person's struggles...

Oh if only life was as simple as "snap out of it" or "think positive". If only life was as easy as sending out good vibes to the universe to make good things happen. If only it was possible to alter our own moods entirely at will. Why would anybody want to be depressed? Why would anybody want to be stressed, anxious and/or suicidal? It doesn't make any sense.

Life's more complicated than the trite soundbites that are designed to stick in your head when you read a self-help book or watch a video of a motivational speaker. Yes, you might get inspired to make meaningful change in your life that could ultimately be helpful, but you've still got a miserable job that you hate, money worries, and all the unresolved insecurities that you carry around with you all the time. There are no quick fixes. There's no book you can read, video you can watch, website you can click on, alternative therapy or A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G that will give you the instant relief that you crave. Sorry about that.

The biggest thing that you can do to make yourself feel better is to cut toxic people out of your life, get a better job and become richer, get secure housing, and myriad other practical things to resolve your day-to-day stress. Of course, all those things are easier said than done and they'll take time and effort. Life is also a damnsight easier if you're already rich and you possess considerable advantages over the struggling masses.

When you're chronically sick with an invisible illness, every man and his dog will have a quack cure that they'll be absolutely certain will help you, and they'll be personally offended if you don't immediately drop to your knees and praise them as some sort of god for telling you their idea - an idea that you've head a million times before. "YOGA!" "KALE SMOOTHIES" "MARATHON RUNNING" "KISS A WHALE" "HUMAN SACRIFICE" "DANCE THREE TIMES AROUND A YEW TREE AT MIDNIGHT ON A FULL MOON" etc. etc.

It gets really boring.

Then comes the victim blaming.

When people get frustrated that you're not accepting their advice that most definitely would instantly cure you, then they start saying that you want to be sick; that you're choosing to be sick; that your illness is part of your identity and you don't want to let it go, because you need it. That's really super offensive.

It can be really exhausting having to politely fend off the relentless barrage of supposedly well-meant - the old "their heart's in the right place" excuse - unsolicited advice, which actually requires a lot of gentle, tactful and skilful social navigation to basically say "your quack cures are completely useless and please stop pushing this unhelpful crap on me". Then, when the advice-giver finally cottons on to the fact that you're not going to immediately rush off to a yoga class on the strength of their conviction that it'll be instantly curative, they start to blame the victim. "You don't actually want to be cured, do you? If you wanted to be cured you'd rush straight off to yoga, right now" etc. etc.

Humans are superstitious creatures. Whatever we happened to be doing at the time when something nice happens to us, tends to be adopted into a ritual; a ceremony. We wear our lucky underpants when we're going to a sports game or trying to get laid. We are spiritual because we make false correlations between prayer and seemingly having our prayers answered (spoiler: that thing that happened was going to happen anyway). We worship at the temple of alternative medicine, where we believe that healers of various descriptions have cured us, when science tells us in no uncertain terms that at least 80% of the time things would've gotten better anyway. We worship charlatans, snake-oil salesmen, preachers, healers, life coaches, motivational speakers, self-help book authors and a whole parade of other people who seek to profit from human misery, stupidity and superstition.

In a world where living standards are improving, sooner or later everyone's going to get their lucky break. However, in a world of declining living standards we've got to cut the crap. With the mental health epidemic raging out of control, we can't continue to allow convenient and comforting bullcrap to usurp the truth and harsh reality. Sadly, it's hard damn work to overcome an invisible illness and find a way to cope with life.

Whether it's doing 10,000 steps a day for a month, giving up alcohol for a month, writing 1,667 words every day for a month, going to the gym every day for a month, giving up dairy for a month or whatever it is... you'll feel better. The reason you'll feel better is you're doing a hard thing. You'll feel a sense of achievement, no matter what it is that you're doing, because you'll find it gets easier in the end. You're creating a habit. You're creating structure and routine. You can look back with pride at how far you've come.

So, don't suffer the boastful "why don't you exercise more and be skinny and beautiful, like me?" smugness that's much more about the ego of the advice-giver, than it is about your wellbeing. Advice like that is given for the benefit of the giver, not the receiver. Don't stand for it. Don't accept it. It's unhelpful.

Yes, there are people out there who have superstitious beliefs. They believe that the reasons why they're rich and successful are because they got up at dawn and thrashed themselves with nettles, or they got up at dawn and prayed to a sky monster or they got up at dawn and drank a gallon of kale smoothie or whatever the feck it is, but it was hard and it was unpleasant. They're just superstitious idiots. Ignore them.

Tags: #mentalhealth

This is a story about seeing things through a blue filter...

Three years ago I rented a lovely apartment by the River Thames. It was very stressful going through the process of getting off the streets, out of the hostel and into a place of my own, but I did it. Soon after moving in, I realised that the whole ordeal had taken me to the brink of a nervous breakdown. I had myself admitted to hospital - a psych ward - because I was afraid that I was going to commit suicide. The London apartment completely over-stretched me financially, necessitating a big money contract to pay the rent, although as a proportion of my income it was very affordable.

I'm attempting to rent somewhere new. The cost is only a fraction of what my rent was in London, but I'm earning the same amount of money as I was in London. The cost of living is so much less in Wales. I've managed to earn enough money to pay lots of rent up-front if I really needed to, so I'm in a much stronger position than I was in London. It's still stressful though.

What am I going to do if everything goes to plan? I'll have nothing to complain about.

Perhaps I seem like a broken record, complaining about my lot in life when I'm very lucky, fortunate and blessed. It must seem to you like I lead a charmed existence. It must seem to you like everything goes my way and I get everything I want. It must seem to you like I worry and complain about nothing.

I complained about my cashflow; my finances. I complained about living out of a suitcase. I complained about being bored, isolated and lonely; not working with a team of people. I complained about having to go through a security clearance vetting process. Now I'm complaining about the tenancy application process. It seems like I just love complaining.

I don't love complaining. I need the things that you take for granted: friends, a partner, money, a job, a car, a home. I complain when I'm missing something essential from my life. I complain when something's not right and it's unbearable; intolerable. It's true that I had a job and I complained about it... that's because I didn't have any work to do or anybody to talk to, which was horrible. I don't complain without good reason.

For three consecutive years it appears like I managed to get everything I ever wanted and needed, but then I screwed it all up and threw it all away. Only a year ago I apparently had it all, only to then self-sabotage. Maybe I don't really want to sort my life out?

The amount of time and effort involved in repairing my life is quite staggering. It's not easy to come back from the brink of irreparable disaster. It's not easy to come back from the dead. The kind of self-resurrection process that I've made appear quite easy and routine is not easy at all. The kinds of 'everyday' stress and anxiety that you think that you face in life - such as starting a new job or moving house - are actually incredibly rare occurrences that cause you a great deal of distress. Imagine having all the most stressful experiences in your life condensed into a time period of approximately a month - that would surely be too much stress to handle, wouldn't it?

Yes I'm a broken record and I'll probably keep repeating myself until I have a signed tenancy agreement and a bunch of apartment keys in my hand, or my [current] worst fear is realised and I'm marginalised; destined to remain homeless.

Yes, other people experience stressful events in their lives too. Good for them. I'm not looking for reasons to be negative. I don't think that I'm not going through the same kind of job-hunting and apartment-renting processes that other people have experienced in their lives. It's just that things are a little more life-or-death for me because I've been through hell to get where I've got and I'm exhausted; I'm at the limit of the shit that I can take.

Sorry for repeating myself.

Tags: #apartment

This is a story about daily routine...

I'm a little superstitious. When you've been on the journey that I've been on you can start to have some pretty strange ideas about what makes the difference between success and failure. If I'd ever been so afraid and desperate that I'd turned to religion you can be pretty sure that I'd now believe that the sky monster is responsible for the improvement in my situation. If I'd sold my soul to the devil then I'd be Beelzebub's biggest fan right now. It's easy to attribute credit to the wrong things when you're in a desperate situation.

Should I credit my veganism? Should I credit giving up sugar? Should I credit drinking 2 litres of water every day? Should I credit jogging? Should I credit yoga? Should I credit mindfulness? Should I credit antidepressants? Should I credit mood stabilisers? Should I credit a faith healer? Should I credit acupuncture? Should I credit homeopathy? Should I credit quitting alcohol? Should I credit my voyage of self-discovery? Should I credit being single for years? Should I credit my vow of celibacy? Should I credit my vow of silence? Should I credit any of the myriad charlatans who claim that they have the cure for the agony of human existence?

I'm writing today because I'm superstitious. I believe that I've got to write every day, because my daily writing habit provides stability in my life. Who are you to say I'm wrong? You probably believe in sky monsters or have weird eating habits. You're just as superstitious as me. You're just as much of a creature of habit.

I'm not going to write much because I'm busy. I'm having quite a nice time at the moment. I'm stressed as hell that something's going to go wrong - such as my attempt to rent a place to live failing spectacularly - but perhaps that's because things are going OK and I'm a little paranoid. I'm loathe to change anything. I'm loathe to stop doing something that I've been doing regularly, because I've become a little superstitious.

I take a photo of the plant on my desk every single day. Routines are awesome.

Tags: #writing

This is a story about working...

I want to be busy. I want to have the distraction of being engrossed in a project. I want to feel like I have a purpose and I'm working towards a goal. I want to feel like hard work will get me to the end result quicker. I want to feel like there's a relationship between the effort I put in during my waking hours and the net result. The rewards should feel commensurate with the energy expended.

I'm writing less and that's because I'm making some progress. In the absence of another outlet for my creativity, all my pent-up energy gets poured into writing. In the absence of another more productive distraction, I write a lot.

I've still got a lot to say but I don't feel the pressing need to write about anything at the moment. I have a huge list of blog post titles that I could use to get me started, but I'm actually feeling fairly content to have a period of lower output. I expect that if something upsets me I'll be pouring my heart and soul out, but I'm feeling alright at the moment.

Work is going alright. I'm in the process of renting an apartment. My cashflow is OK at the moment. Things are going OK with my girlfriend. I'm seeing friends and doing activities. My life's generally a lot healthier and happier than it was a few weeks ago.

Writing doesn't feel like it's very energy-consuming, but it's exhausting living with a lot of anxiety and in fairly dreadful and toxic circumstances. It's awful living without much hope of life getting better. I feel like things are improving and I've got some hope for the future, so I don't need to write so much. Things are not so desperate.

I need to learn how to take it easy and plod along at a steady pace. I need to stop working as hard as I possibly can and travelling as fast as I can. I've been rushing everything because I've been under so much pressure. I've been so close to disaster for so long that when there's a window of opportunity to fix my life I have to be quick. Things are going alright, so I need to back off the gas pedal and engage the cruise control for a while.

My life has become quite sensible all of a sudden. I go to bed early. I get up early. I'm in the office on time and I work less than 8 hours a day. I take my time and I don't rush my work. I'm working at a sustainable pace, rather than burning myself out.

It's been incredibly draining to get to this point, but hopefully I can limp along and I'll slowly recover from the ordeal that led me up to this point. To all intents and purposes my life appears to be getting fixed up very rapidly, so you might find it offensive that I talk about the struggles I've been through, but it's true - it wasn't very long ago that I was absolutely screwed and had no hope of fixing my life.

It's going to take months and months before I'm well and truly in a good position with an apartment of my own and a pile of money in the bank. It's going to take a long while before I prove that my stability hasn't been just a fluke. I can't really believe that I've managed the best part of 4 months at work without a major incident, despite it being the crappiest time of year and there being a heap of stress in my life. I need to keep going and get into a really good routine. I need to get back to position of financial and housing security and regular social contact, and maintain that for a good long while. I'm slightly nervous that I might be experiencing the calm before the storm, but I've managed 6 months without a destructive mood episode or any self-sabotaging behaviour, so it's a good omen.

The next challenge is to get the keys to the apartment I'm renting and move in without having some kind of breakdown. When I rented the place in London on the river it nearly killed me. I don't want to repeat past mistakes, but everybody needs somewhere to call home. No more sponging parasites trying to ride my coat tails and ripping me off for thousands of pounds of unpaid rent and bills this time. No more Klingons.

I'm optimistic. I'm enjoying my new job. My finances are in reasonable shape, although cashflow's going to be a little tight what with buying a car and renting an apartment in the space of a few weeks, plus buying some clothes I need for work and other unavoidable expenses. You have to speculate to accumulate.

I thought I was going to write just a few hundred words but I seem to have written much more than I was expecting to. Oh well. Better out than in.

It's Friday and I feel like I've worked hard to get to this point and I'm seeing some rewards. I know that I don't really 'earn' my money per se, because my job is very easy and I'm overpaid, but there are lots of ways that I DO work really hard, so I'm going to go ahead and pat myself on the back for what I've achieved. I know there's lots more hard work ahead, but I'm going to celebrate a little bit - another working week completed and more money on the way, hopefully. I'm digging my way out of the hole little by little.

It's frustrating that hard work often doesn't pay off, but I feel like I've always been rewarded for my efforts.

Tags: #career #homeless

This is a story about spying...

I'm not doing very well in terms of burying my blog. I've not been very successful at writing a load of non-contentious stuff that would bore any person who stumbled upon my website and decided to go digging in the archives. I've not done a very good job of being sensible and writing stuff that wouldn't be controversial if it was discovered by somebody connected with my work.

Where I live is a fairly small place. In theory I should be more careful, but I haven't been. It's been too difficult to change my habits. I've written candidly with authenticity and honesty for so long that it's become a habit. I'm unguarded. I'm vulnerable. It's been so long since I kept up the corporate mask and pretended like everything was A-OK for the sake of my job.

This Monday has been completely different from last Monday. I'm starting to become hopeful that life might become sustainable and pleasant. Happier times might be ahead - I'm really close to making a breakthrough. My life is more good than bad at the moment.

It makes me a little paranoid knowing that I've got some things that I want to keep. I'd be upset if I lost my local job and my imagined future crumbled into dust. Without money how am I going to get a place of my own? How am I going to be able to go out on dates and on mini-breaks with my girlfriend? How will I continue to escape from the circumstances that made my life so awful, without some means of bankrolling it? There's a temptation to hide my real personality; to hide my inner monologue; to bury my true feelings; to present a fake corporate-friendly mask instead of my honest self. I'm economically incentivised to become Mr Boring.

Obviously I'm not going to ditch my blog. I need my daily writing outlet. I need the stability; the security; the comfort blanket.

I'm very worried that mania is going to rear its ugly head and ruin everything. I'm really worried that I'm going to self-sabotage as soon as I get myself into a better position. It's been so long since I had all the pieces of the puzzle. It's really dangerous when I get everything, because I'm busting my balls and on the brink of a breakdown the whole time. I can imagine that I'll be hit with an emotional tsunami when I finally get the keys to a place of my own, for example.

I can detect a lot of unpleasant aggressiveness in my demeanour at times, due to the fact I'm so stressed about crossing the finish line. I'm super defensive and super protective over the progress I've made. I have so little tolerance for anybody who might stand in the way. I have no time for anybody who thinks they've got any ideas of how I should be living my life, because I've got such a clear idea in my mind of what I'm doing and where I'm going. It's so stressful to be so close, but yet so far.

I'm under so much pressure to make my struggles secret. I can't imagine that my work colleagues would understand the journey I've been on to get to this point. It's too mind-blowing for a corporate drone to think about an atypical path through live. It's too much of a taboo to talk about any off-piste moments that aren't CV-friendly, in the world of business and large organisations.

I'm going to keep the details of my working day secret, as is my professional duty, but it's too much to ask of me to bury my blog; to hide my identity. Yes, it's risky, but I need the stability; I need the consistency; I need the continuity.

By writing, hopefully I'm making myself more normal in the flesh. I think that without this outlet I struggle to deal with people face-to-face. Without this outlet, there's no way of getting rid of the bad thoughts and feelings and harmlessly de-fusing things that threaten to blow up in my face. Without this outlet, there's a greater chance of me losing my mind and screwing everything up. I just did 6 months incident-free. 6 months of stability is an amazing achievement, especially considering the toxic circumstances I've had to deal with. By writing, I hope that I can maintain the steady stable changes that have helped me to improve my life, working towards happier times.

I don't even particularly feel like writing today, but I'm doing it because it's part of my routine. Some days we don't feel like going to work, but we do anyway because we need the money. The routine is necessary. The routine is healthy even. It can be easy to give up and stop... to refuse to carry on.

Keeping secrets is a burden. I can't handle any extra burdens right now. I'll do my professional duty and avoid any situations that would infringe my code of conduct, but I can't afford to go stealth; to bury my identity.

Perhaps I seem reckless. Perhaps I seem like I want to have my cake and eat it. I certainly seem to be getting everything I want. I guess I should be humble. I guess I shouldn't take any risks. I guess I shouldn't take any chances. I should grovel and kiss arses, declaring my undying gratitude for a few crumbs from the cake, shouldn't I?

I've been put through the wringer to get to this point, but that doesn't make me want to hide my personality; it doesn't make me want to put the corporate-friendly mask back on. I think it was the fake corporate mask that made me unwell. It was so exhausting pretenting like I'm the perfect employee... a perfect CV; a blemish-free record - no black marks against my name.

So, the open secret is staying here. Fuck it. If you want to buy 100% of me - my brain, my body, my past, my future - then it's going to cost you a lot more than I'm being paid at the moment.

Tags: #career #writing

This is a story about being run down...

I'm tempted to have a moan about the various ailments that have been hanging around for a couple of weeks, and the fact I'm really exhausted. I'm tempted to compare myself to my work jumper that was attacked by moths and is full of holes. There's something tired and tatty about me. My laptop has taken a battering, just like my poor body. There are plenty of clues that I've had a rough few years, but I'm feeling like I've gone on about it far too much. I've written so much about my distress that I'm reluctant to write any more - I'm aware that I've been a broken record for far too long.

I feel like I've overstated the case. I feel like I've protested too much. I feel like I have been unfair; unkind. I feel like my response has not been proportionate; reasonable. What about the starving Africans? What about the other people who have it so much harder than me?

I pretty much only have one strategy for getting out of a bad situation, and that's to work. Most of the time I'm not able to work at work - I'm underemployed - so I write. I write a lot. The amount of writing that I do is inversely proportional to the amount of actual paid work that there is to do. The more I'm writing, the more indicative it is that I'm distressed and trying to keep myself occupied. It might not look like a useful endeavour, but it's a kind of productivity that I can derive some satisfaction from, even it it's a bit counter-productive at times.

I wonder how run-down I've got. I sleep a lot, but I also have lengthy periods where I'm in a state of anxiety that's very exhausting. To be on high-alert all the time demands a lot of energy - it's draining. I can't explain it. I don't have much to do at work, but somehow that's worse than being really busy. I don't know why I've arrived at a point where I feel so run-down, but there's plenty of evidence - my immune system's really low, I'm prone to random bouts of crying, I'm tired all the time, I'm not coping.

I'm tired of being miserable. I'm tired of writing about depression and anxiety. I'm tired of worrying my friends. I'm tired of writing the same old things. I'm tired of the repeated themes; the monotony.

Some things are better. I have a lot more people to talk to at work. I'm managing to get through 7 or 8 hours and it's bearable for quite a lot of the day.

Some things are worse. I have to get up early. I have to prove myself in the new job.

Some things will get worse before they get better. I'll rent a place of my own soon(ish) but it will be stressful. I'll take a holiday, but I need to get through the first few weeks at work before I can have some time off.

I know that the days are getting longer and spring is on its way. I know that I have a huge head start this year, versus all the terrible winters I've had in previous years. I know that I'm very lucky that multiple important things in my life are going alright at the moment. In theory, things are looking up.

In practice, I'm battling to get into my new routine and get my body clock used to early morning starts. I've started from a run-down position, due to a rough couple of months working in London. I shouldn't complain, but it's a bit of a struggle.

Versus Monday morning, things have improved. Monday morning was dreadful. Every morning is dreadful, but hopefully things are going to improve day by day, provided I keep going. It feels tough but I'm sorry for whinging. Hopefully the really bad moments - like Monday morning - are becoming more infrequent.

I worry about tomorrow morning, as I do so often. I worry that I'm going to hit the wall and be unable to face the day. I worry that if I'm unable to face the day, I won't be able to face making my excuses either... I'll just abandon everything and turn my phone off. If I abandon everything then I won't be able to face the world again - it's been too hard to get to this point. I worry that I'll abandon hope, and life. I don't feel hopeless presently, but I worry that I will feel hopeless and that my hopes are dashed. Hopelessness is what leads me to feel like I should end my life.

I'm not sure how I feel about tomorrow - if I can get the horrid morning bit out of the way - but I think it's a little bit hopeful. I'm not exactly looking forward to going to work, but I'm not dreading it in the same way as I was with the previous job. I've got some stuff to do, which is better than having nothing to do. I speak to people at work now, so that makes the day more bearable. I don't feel useful, or that anybody's depending on me, which are reasons to get up and face the day. Perhaps things will improve though. The fact that I think that things might improve shows that I have hope, which is progress - maybe it'll make things a little easier tomorrow.

With lots of tiny marginal improvements, like not stressing so much about arrangements for showering and work clothes tomorrow, and my commute becoming more routine, the anxiety and dread is diminishing. It's mundane but it makes a big difference. I had been routinely bored out of my mind, isolated and lonely at work, which was causing me a great deal of distress, but things are changing. I need to get out of the habit of feeling anxious about the working day, because it's not going to be as awful as it has been in the past couple of months.

It's a shame I'm run down and in danger of hitting the wall, but if I can just muddle through the next few weeks then I should establish a healthy working pattern - things will become sustainable; tolerable.

There have been moments during the last three days that have reminded me of what I've been so desperate to get away from. I've thought that I'm broken and I can never work again. I've thought about getting up and walking out. I've thought about quitting and never going back to work. I think it's just going to take time to re-adjust from a job where there was nothing for me to do, and no way of filling the time that I could cope with, to a new paradigm where I at least have people to talk to. The last job was unbearably toxic to my mental health. This job is gonna be alright probably, but it'll be a little while before I'm busy and into the routine - there are going to be moments where I feel a little bored and isolated, but things will get better because I'm part of a team of people I can chat to.

I'm so reluctant to speak optimistically because I'm scared that I'm going to hit the wall. I feel like I have so little in reserve. I feel like I'm running on an empty fuel tank. On the other hand, I'm getting on with it - I'm managing to take things one day at a time.

Time is the healer. That's what I keep telling myself - if I can just keep creeping along one day at a time, then time will do its work. I just need to keep getting through one day at a time and then easier times will arrive, provided I don't hit the wall and give up.

Tags: #career #suicide #depression