This is a story about depression and burnout...

If there's one thing I hate, it's a long drawn out journey to the grave. I really don't want to be on my deathbed, remembering the past, but unable to distinguish one day from any other. So many of us are in a routine of waking up, pressing the "snooze" button, having a shower, getting dressed, going to boring bullshit jobs, coming home, watching TV, preparing some food, loading the dishwasher, doing washing & ironing, and having joyless sex or masturbating to pornography - all purely to relieve the animal urges to copulate, eat, drink, piss, shit and sleep.

Life offers very few opportunities for memorable experiences, especially if you have made the ethical decision not to clone your genes through the impregnation of yourself or somebody else. This does not automatically mean that I consider myself morally superior or in a position to hand down judgements from my high horse. To write emotively on one topic does not logically confer that I hold negative views on those who have embarked up the one-way street that is motherhood or fatherhood. Please; do not send me your protestations that being a parent is both tough and rewarding. I KNOW that parenthood is something that I have no first-hand experience of. I DO respect everyone's unique set of life decisions - everyone's gotta live their own life as best as they see fit, and are able to do, playing the cards that have been randomly dealt to them.

My approach to life remains very much the same as it's always been: high risk, high reward.

I joked with a girl - mocking her - that I had fathered a string of illegitimate bastard children, and was being mercilessly pursued by the Child Support Agency (CSA) for money to pay for the upkeep of these offspring that I had carelessly brought into the world. She thought I was being serious.

So, where is all my wealth hidden? I've been a top-bracket taxpayer for most of my working life. Surely I can't have squandered so much disposable income on drink & drugs, and also been able to have a successful career. This is either unthinkable, or grossly unfair that I've had such a surplus, but yet still managed to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory.

I've paid for convenience whenever I've been able to. Why would I clean my toilet, when I could pay somebody less than I earn per hour? While the cleaner has the close encounter with the porcelain throne, I could be working on a more glamourous project that pays very handsomely. It's a false economy to clean your own toilet, just as it is to do all of the many household chores, which can be done by a professional housekeeper.

When you apply this cost:benefit analysis to your entire life, you end up spending 37.5 hours a week reading news websites and planning your next holiday; enjoying a lifestyle that is approaching the much vaunted "age of leisure".

If you think I'm lazy, you're wrong. Only a crazy person would do the same repetitive tasks that they could easily automate, or train somebody who's prepared to do the work - subcontracted or outsourced - for less money, which leaves you with a net profit AND you don't have to do the shitty job. Repeat this process, because it is scalable, and you're on the right path... assuming you want to be rich and have lots of spare time. Perhaps you LIKE punching meaningless numbers into spreadsheets. Perhaps you WANT to clean toilets.

I looked at a list of the seven deadly sins, and realised that I could be a poster boy for Christian immorality.

If you've ever taken an interest in astrology and the signs of the zodiac, then you're easily fooled by writing that is deliberately ambiguous, leaving the interpretation to the reader, to apply to his or her own life. Religion has made a healthy living out of contrived platitudes that are completely meaningless in the context of the realities of human existence. The Bible, the Qu'ran, the Torah and all the other religious texts are so written as to be [mis]interepreted by the faithful flock.

One might as well say that if you breathe air, drink water, consume fats, proteins, carbohydrates, salts, amino acids and other vitamins and minerals, as well as trace amounts of every element & chemical compound, then you're a doomed sinner. If you urinate, defecate, ejaculate and perspirate, you're going straight to Hell. The demons that walk amongst us, corrupting our innocence and threatening to plunge society into chaos and destruction, are those who fornicate, copulate and enjoy fellatio or cunnilingus. The fact that all of these things are encoded into the very fabric of our corporeal vessels - the DNA of almost every cell in our body - is a fact that seems to have escaped the notice of those who are so easily conned by priests, vicars, preachers, witch doctors, shaman, tarot card readers, astrologers and other snake-oil salesmen and women.

I imagine I'd be pretty bummed if I found out I had an incurable terminal illness that was going to cut my life short, versus my expected lifespan. What would I do about it though? Which god should I pray to?

As a wise friend of mine said, you can be tricked by your genes into believing that love and hormonal bonding are real and tangible. If you think that parents, grandparents, great grandparents - and so on - are somehow going to end up 'less dead' than the people who didn't try to clone themselves, you're wrong. Even in the most anthropocentric & egocentric of interpretations of theoretical physics, you will have to witness the death of everybody you know, as well as the destruction of the planet, the solar system and the galaxies. Eventually entropy will be victorious over the entire universe, with time itself ceasing to be a meaningful concept and nowhere for you - or indeed anything - to exist.

If you believe in god(s) capable of making man and a world fit for human habitation, then you must also accept that this power is equally capable of destruction. He taketh away as much as He giveth - you can surely see this with your own eyes. This is the other side of the same coin that says that an infinitely small point, with infinite density and infinite energy, suddenly exploded into a universe. Following the same reasoning, either the universe will eventually collapse back into itself, by the force of its own gravitational pull, or it will expand until it is so uniformly cool and sparse that it is indistinguishable from the most perfect of vacuums - absolute nothingness.

I look at the world through a madman's eyes - I've read so much and delved so deep into the realm of the theoretical, proven in physical experiments as well as experiments that one can conduct through logical thought alone. I've seen, in my mind's eye, things that cannot be unseen. As Douglas Adams joked, if you see too much of the universe all at once it will destroy you - it's the ultimate torment; the ultimate death.

In an uncaring universe, I can see why people would seek comfort in the fairytale worlds of sky monsters and star signs, but it's pure childishness and immaturity. However, I envy the blissfully ignorant; I envy the blindly faithful, unshakable in their wilful stupidity.

I've worked very hard to master the machines of pure logic and reason - the computers - as well as spending most of my hard-earned wealth on lengthy periods, where I have absented myself from the demands of menial day-to-day existence. I told you that you were wrong about me having squandered my money on drink and drugs. The vast bulk of my conscious waking hours have been spent in startling sobriety; completely crystal clear thinking.

I carved three deep gashes the length of my forearm, with blood gushing out aplenty, before the arrival of two Metropolitan Police officers interrupted me. I can give you the long and exact chain of decisions that led me to do this, which were robustly defended by a logical thesis. That the police arrived was not a surprising outcome for me; in fact I had already anticipated everything that happened that day. The only thing that surprised me was that I was able to bandage my self-inflicted injuries using an actual first aid kit, which I discovered by chance, rather than having to resort to sanitary towels, kitchen roll and sellotape.

You would think that I would be completely insane, completely alcoholic, completely drug addicted or perfectly healthy, contented and conspicuously rich. Scratch the surface, and every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.

If you think the world's gonna end, why hasn't it already? If you think everything's held in stable equilibrium, you simply haven't looked outside your front door: it's fucking war out there and nothing is stable at all. Civilisations destroy themselves and species go extinct - there's evidence of it everywhere.

Thus, you discover me - a distilled and concentrated form of sinner; completely unrepentant and embodying everything you were told in church to fear and shun; the very epitome of evil. Yet, I'm made of the same stuff as you.

I invite you to judge me; to critiqué me. I invite this criticism, because how can good exist, without evil?

Tags: #career #depression #suicide #bipolar #physics #religion

This is a story about changing beyond recognition...

This 25 year old Londoner was hopelessly addicted to kitesurfing, and had secured a job in Bournemouth, where he would work mornings and evenings, leaving his afternoons free to go to the beach. Working for a huge international organisation, he had secured a ludicrously good deal - salary and relocation allowance - and the Human Resources (HR) people who he negotiated with had no idea that the real prize was to be able to kitesurf every day.

Despite being confident and outgoing, he was hiding crushing insecurities about his attractiveness to the opposite sex - a complete lack of self-esteem - and was struggling to find the girl of his dreams, who would be the cherry on top of a lovely cake. Being a hopeless romantic, and pretty inexperienced despite his 25 years on this Earth, he could fall in love at the drop of a hat and be heartbroken when a simple fling didn't turn into anything more serious.

Overcoming his ineptitude with women, he got together with a girl who looked perfect on paper and she was a pretty and petite blonde. He was smitten. She was a science graduate and a computer programmer. She even worked for a client that he'd worked for 6 years before, and he knew many of her colleagues.

In the words of one of his best friends, she was a "conversion project". He would teach her to kitesurf, and then they could travel the world together, chasing warm wind, soft sand and water that was mirror flat or had perfect waves. Brazil, Venezuela, Cape Verde, South Africa, The Canary Islands... there was an endless list of exciting countries to visit with this beautiful girl, and kitesurf together.

There she was, giving it a damn good go in Poole Harbour, under his tuition. Why she was wearing a buoyancy aid in water that's so shallow you can stand up in it, was anybody's guess, but I guess it made her feel more confident. Kitesurfing in those days was super dangerous - the emergency release mechanisms were just being developed, and if you let go of the bar, you'd be dragged along out of control, like being tied to the back of a speedboat being driven by a maniac, until you crashed into one of those harbourside houses.

After a year, he decided to propose. He asked her dad's permission. He did all the things that he thought he should do: buy a house, get married, get a pet, have kids. Thankfully - for the kids' sake - they stopped short of doing that last one. Just looking after their a cat had a very strong bonding effect. Their cat is probably the reason they stayed together as long as they did.

They got married in Hawaii, of course. He was allowed to wear flip flops, but not board shorts. In fact, he had a tough time from bridezilla for almost the whole trip until he put his foot down and said he just wanted to sit by the pool or on the beach, drinking ice cold beverages. She wanted to be sightseeing in a decrepit camper van that they weren't insured to drive. He checked them into a luxury hotel, which cost a small fortune - it was Christmas time after all - and finally, for a brief moment, he had a tiny bit of holiday relaxation.

Notably, they didn't take their kites or kiteboards. Travelling with a wedding dress and linen suit was a teeny bit difficult, but not as hard as lugging a 30kg bag that's nearly as tall as person. However, Hawaii has wind, waves. warm water and beautiful sandy beaches. Barely a few hundred metres from where Barack Obama was spending his holiday break, our missing young man was forced to try pole dancing (windsurfing) for the first time, in desperation to get his 'fix'. There was the shame and indignity of being a beginner windsurfer he was an experienced kitesurfer in a paradise location, who could have been having the time of his life.

After landing at London Heathrow, after over 20 hours of flight time, it turned out that his new wife had used an online booking website to arrange the taxi home, but had not accounted for the fact that they would be away over New Year's Eve. An innocent mistake, but it left them stranded, exhausted, in the middle of the night.

Within a month, he was in private hospital. It was all too much for him. She would rage and throw tantrums when things didn't go her way. He would bite his tongue and try to fix everything. The pressure to please her was unbearable... but it was never enough. He'd bought her a hot tub because she said she had loved having one in California. He'd shown her the world, staying in the best hotels and eating in the best restaurants. He'd married her in one of the most romantic destinations you could ever choose, and he'd even agreed not to wear board shorts. She was threatening divorce while he was sending her a different flower every day, from hospital, to show he still loved her. Despite him being a generous lover, she was on 'no strings attached' dating websites, looking for sex.

If crêpes Suzette, flambéed at your table, with the best views of any restaurant in Malta, is not enough to whisk a girl of her feet, he was left bamboozled as to how he could possibly please her. He was completely naïve, believing that if he treated her like a princess, she would love him as much as he loved her. He was wrong. It hurt and he was heartbroken.

It made no sense. People would come to their summer garden parties and be served home-made burgers and marinated chicken, plus endless varieties of sausages hot off the barbecue, while a range of delicious salads that she had prepared, were laid on for the vegetarians and to garnish the plates with. Fire pits and patio heaters kept people warm after the sun went down, and there was the hot tub kept at a toasty 38 degrees (100 degrees Fahrenheit).

It made no sense. People would come out for trips on his boat to see one of the largest natural harbours in the world. Him and his wife were a natural host and hostess. They were a great team when they were entertaining guests.

For her birthday one year, he took her in his boat up the Wareham River, moored up outside The Priory Hotel, and they ate lunch on the patio, which was some of the finest dining in Dorset - cooked by Michelin star standard chefs - with beautifully manicured lawns leading down to the river bank.

Why they quarrelled and grew apart is a mystery. She wanted to learn to sail and he was an RYA dinghy sailing instructor and experienced yacht skipper. She wanted to rock climb and he had the qualifications and experience to teach her. She wanted to climb mountains, and he had spent months in the high Alps and was a mountain leader (guide) experienced in dealing with emergencies, working with groups of varying ability, and acclimatising to altitude. He taught her how to snowboard and was grinning from ear to ear when she followed him off piste without a moment of hesitation.

However, he was baffled and slightly insulted that she spent a lot of money to go and learn from other people. He'd taken her sailing multiple times, and taught her a lot. He'd taken her rock climbing, and shown her the ropes; pardon the pun. He'd taken her into the mountains and shown her the basics of navigation, safety, route planning and even how to retreat when things don't go to plan. That's our missing man and his ex-wife, in every picture above except the mountain one. where he's the one taking taking the photo.

He was, undoubtably, looking for the love of his life, but married the wrong person. Friends warned him that him & her weren't a good match. "The poison dwarf" was too hot to handle, especially for a sensitive guy who was relatively inexperienced with women and still nurtured the Disney "happily ever after" idea of finding true love. He mounted a kindness offensive - an attempt to satisfy her every whim, her every ambition, but yet it still wasn't enough. He was delicate. She was aggressive.

It made him sick - mentally unwell - all this arguing and rejection. He wanted to just grab her and squeeze her tight until she felt safe and loved. Maybe that was the problem: she felt trapped and smothered. They met when she was only 23, which I guess is quite young, considering that he proposed when she was only 24. For their parents' generation, that would not have been unusual, and he did things the old fashioned way: buying a house to start a family. However, she complained she hadn't seen enough of the world; experienced enough of life's adventures. He set out to rectify this, but what she was really saying is "I'm not ready to be a one-dick woman just yet".

His best friend coined the phrase "conversion project", which is to take a girl and turn her into a kitesurfer; a sailor, a climber; a mountaineer. This friend literally asked "are you ready to be a one vagina man?". Soon after that, this friend went on a trip to sow his wild oats across Scandinavia, before coming home to marry the poor girl who'd had to tolerate this temporary break-up in the full knowledge that his motive was completely unreasonable. They're a happy couple with twins and a lovely house now, so maybe he was right. At the time, his wife wanted to punch his friend in the face or testicles, or probably both.

Before his petite blonde wife, the happy smiling 25 year old - pictured when our story began - had tried to make it work with a kitesurfer who lived 186 miles away, and nowhere near the sea. He'd tried to make it work with other kitesurfer girls too. An incredibly beautiful Burmese kitesurfer girl seemed to be flirting with him when she was on holiday with him in Sardinia, but he was so shy and inexperienced, he didn't dare try to kiss her.

Our missing man tried to make it work with his wife, again and agan and again and again, and eventually it broke him. He broke down and sank into depression, bipolar disorder, alcohol abuse and made a stupid mistake which was his ultimate demise: the abuse of legal highs. This was the beginning of the end.

In the chaos, confusion, stress and trauma of divorce, selling his house, saving his most precious possessions, leaving the town he'd called home for 8 years and all his friends... all mixed in with toxic additives like mental health problems, addiction and alcoholism, he was a little lost boy. He's been missing for nearly 11 years. There have been times when somebody who appeared to be him popped up briefly, but like an apparition, he melted away into nothingness again.

Is it any wonder that he disappeared? He gave so much of himself away - his love - trying to make relationships work; trying to make girls feel special and cherished and loved and like princesses; trying to please; loving unconditionally.

This blog contains the bitterness; the accusations of wrongdoing - the evidence of the inexcusable and terrible behaviour that was perpetrated against the author. This blog tells the story of why that young man went missing, and why he's still missing. Perhaps why he'll never be found. If he's missing, perhaps, you shouldn't search for him.

Perhaps there's no place in this world for a naïve little boy who has so much love to give, but nobody to give it to. So many times in life he was left reeling, hurt and wondering what he did wrong, when all he tried to do was to be as nice as he could possibly be. Perhaps that silly little boy got it all wrong, and life's not about being nice and kind to people; it's about using people and getting what you want at all costs. The boy was not made for this world - he was like an alien from another planet.

Look at this old man. Look at the sadness that he tries to hide, but something in his eyes betrays him. He knows he's nothing like that happy smiling 25 year old young man, photographed 12 years ago. He knows that all the kings horses and all the kings men couldn't put him back together again. He knows that whatever it was that happened, it damaged him badly. Unconditional love, infectious happiness, a sense of contentment and the enthusiastic exuberance that characterised our missing little lost boy, are qualities that this old man doesn't possess - they're completely different people.

It's a tragedy when we lose somebody who brought fun & excitement, adventure & exhilaration, thrills & spills, into people's lives. It's a tragedy when many lives are touched - improved - and then we lose that person.

I don't think we'll ever find him though. He's gone forever.

Tags: #relationships #depression #bipolar #mentalhealth #alcohol #drugs #suicide

This is a story about home treatment...

This is what the Conservative government's 1990's Care in the Community policy looks like, in practice. An extremely low-paid NHS worker, who isn't trained as a mental health nurse, is dispatched on public transport to travel across the London borough of Tower Hamlets, to bring me a bag of medication. They're supposed to check that the old packets are empty, which 'proves' I've been taking my medication. They're supposed to escalate any problems to nurses and doctors, back at base. If they can't find me or get in contact, they're supposed to ring the police.

It's that final point that's the important one: the police got co-opted into this half-baked scheme. Of the people the police deal with - the front-line officers - most of them will have mental health issues. The police are picking up the pieces of the mental health epidemic. When somebody is truly having a mental health crisis, the police will be the ones who get that sick person to the place where they should have been in the first place: a psychiatric institution.

There are nurses, psychiatrists, social workers and the like, who are involved in assessing whether you need to be detained under the Mental Health Act - what's known colloquially as a 'section'. If you're seriously mentally ill and out in the community, it's down to the police to find you, catch you, detain you and get you to that assessment where you get 'sectioned'.

Also, the police are out there, picking up body parts off the train tracks and underground railway. The police are there when somebody has jumped off a bridge and landed in a river or on some mud flats, or maybe gone splat into something harder below - perhaps a road. The police are there when somebody looks like they're about to jump under a train or off a bridge - CCTV operators are trained to look out for agitated members of the public, who look like they're about to top themselves.

Around the time of Care in the Community, there was an explosion in prescribing of psychiatric medication by our ordinary general practitioners (GPs) - our regular family doctors - there were 9 million prescriptions for Prozac in the UK in 1991. This is the principle behind Care in the Community: put people in a chemical straightjacket, and they can be safely released back into the general population. Ten years later, there were 24 million prescriptions for Prozac and another ten or so years later again, and London alone gets through over 60 million prescriptions for Prozac. These are almost all issued by a GP, not a psychiatrist.

When it comes to "serious" mental illness - anxiety disorders, bipolar disorder (a.k.a. manic depression), schizophrenia, personality disorders - the NHS kicks you out of the bit where you get various therapy options (e.g. CBT) and instead you're referred to a psychiatrist, who will prescribe some fairly brutal medication. In the case of schizophrenia, you could have a risperidone implant, injected underneath your skin, which will keep you in a chemical straightjacket for up to 6 months.

The other people who got co-opted into this Care in the Community policy were the general public. An average member of the public is fairly fearful of a schizophrenic, believing them to have multiple personalities and a propensity for violence. Several murders that received significant media attention, focussed on the fact that they were committed by formerly institutionalised schizophrenics. Depression is now such a common feature of people's lives, that any stigma has gone, but most people would be fearful of living near, working with, or having their children around a schizophrenic, surveys have found. Lock your doors - there might be a madman lurking nearby.

If I was in hospital, I'd have somebody checking on me every 30 minutes to an hour - making sure I hadn't found some way to harm myself. With the Crisis Team (a.k.a. Home Treatment Team) who are tasked with keeping me safe at home, I see them every other day. I could take a fatal overdose 2 hours before they were due to arrive, and by the time an ambulance got to me, I would be well and truly dead as a dodo.

I had stockpiled 336 tramadol tablets (16.8 grams) which is enough for two people to commit suicide, easily. As part of their responsibility to help keep me safe, they asked me for the tramadol back. I gave them 112 tablets (one box) which was a tick in their box. In hospital, I would never be able to hide the remaining 224 tablets from the nurses. If I took an overdose, I'd be fed activated charcoal, have my stomach pumped, be put on a respirator and given various medications to counteract the deadly effects of a tramadol overdose, in plenty of time to save my life.

I can't tell you what the cause and effect is. I can't tell you whether Care in the Community is the reason for the mental health epidemic, or whether it's something else, such as the collapse in living standards and precarious lives we live now, with our income and housing under constant threat.

Most people don't like to lose their liberty. In fact, it's distressing to be locked up somewhere, and not allowed to leave. There are crisis houses, where you can come and go as you please during the day, but you have to be back by nightfall and sleep there or else the police will be sent out to find you. This seems like a compromise that would suit most people who are having a mental health crisis, who pose no danger to the general public.

With the false security of Care in the Community, the number of beds available for those having a mental health crisis, has been slashed dramatically. You can attempt suicide and be hospitalised - in intensive care - and then discharged out onto the streets, simply because there isn't a free bed on a psych ward or in a crisis house, where you could more safely transition back to normal life. You can be suicidal, and the best the NHS can offer you is to come check that you're still alive once a day.

As a man, I'm many times more likely to commit suicide than a woman, but far less likely to seek help. This means that I have had the good fortune of being looked after once in a crisis house and once under a voluntary 'section' on a psych ward. Not many people receive lifesaving treatment like that - the resources just aren't there anymore.

So, what's the solution? Pharmaceutical companies tell us their medications are better than ever. More and more of us are taking powerful psychiatric medication. But, yet, the percentage of the population suffering from mental health issues is ever-growing; suicide rates keep climbing - there is, undoubtably, a mental health epidemic. My personal opinion is that it's not a medical problem: it's a problem created by insecurity: jobs and housing; it's a problem created by declining living standards and soaring levels of stress.

No amount of pills are going to fix the mental health epidemic, even if you bring them to my door.

Tags: #mentalhealth #suicide #depression #bipolar

This is a story about reasons for living...

When you find yourself checking your life insurance, to make sure that it's adequate to cover your debts and leave a small legacy for your only sibling, and you bought the policy specifically because it covers suicide, that's a whole new dimension on 'financial planning'.

I've led a charmed existence. The only things left that I want to do are to visit Tokyo and New York. Everything else I ever wanted to do, I've done. Some of those things, I just did on a crazy spur-of-the-moment whim, like going to San Francisco - booking a flight so soon there was barely enough time to get to the airport, let alone pack a bag.

I could use my remaining creditworthiness to tick those last two boxes, or try to die of a heart attack from a final, unrestrained, orgy of hedonism. The latter probably not exactly being that great for whoever's joining in the drug-fuelled sex, suddenly having to deal with ambulances, police and whatnot.

I've written about it at length, but I'm going to quite considerable effort to rectify a situation that has been steadily deteriorating for 6 months... and it started pretty bad. Acute kidney failure and a hospital's high-dependency renal unit. Dialysis and a 25cm tube in my groin. A foot and ankle, numb and immobile. That's how it started. Followed by losing my employment and then just a financial tailspin; a nosedive. Somewhere in the mess, there was a breakup and in what felt like the blink of an eye, it didn't even seem worth bothering to try and rescue things anymore... they were too fucked up.

That's pretty much where my thoughts keep ending up. I think about all the effort involved, and the stress, of repairing what's broken and starting afresh where necessary... there will be doors open to me, if only I can find the energy and the will to go through the necessary suffering to get... to get... to get... where exactly? I'm only getting older and my health can only get worse. I have friends in their sixties who are still very fit & active - doing extreme sports - but they also have kids, which seems to be one of the main reasons for living.

I've been a rich bachelor. Why would I work my little socks off just to get back to being that person? Depression has struck even at times when I've seemingly had it all - the girl, the house, the cars, the boats, the bling, the stack of cash in the bank, the great job... whatever. The main things I miss in the world are my sister (who I hardly ever see), my niece (who I hardly know and wouldn't even recognise me) and my cat (who, sadly, can't be expected to live for many more years). Of course, I miss my friends, but most have left london and started families; they're busy people with busy lives.

I know people would like to have me around, so they've got the option to see me... not that many do see me, as they're raising children and working all hours. It was very touching to have a bunch of visitors when I was in hospital. I'm pretty sure I could count the number of people who made that trip on one hand though. Not a criticism of my friends: hospitals are not happy places, and living in central London makes me pretty inaccessible unless you happen to be in the capital anyway. However, staying alive, just so that people have the option is not really enough of a reason to live.

My increasingly scarred left arm is more indicative of the emotional pain I'm in, rather than serious suicidal intent. It's not a cry for help. It's not attention seeking. It's a physical manifestation of the severity of the depression, stress and desperation I've been dealing with.

I've still got at least 5.6 grams of tramadol. 8 grams would virtually guarantee my death. I can't really see me surviving with 5.6 grams, especially if I augmented it with codeine, dihydrocodeine and half a bottle of vodka. A gutful of benzos and sleeping pills, and death would be painless. The expression on my dead face would probably be one of peaceful tranqulity, not that I would want friends or family to have to see it. Remember me like I am in the image above, on my birthday some years ago. I seem to look fairly happy with life then.

I'm crying now, and I don't know why. I don't feel like I want to live. I'm not afraid to die. There's no realistic future that I can imagine, where things are not just getting worse and worse and worse. I've gathered enough data - the trend is obvious.

"Don't do it" they say. "You'd be missed" they say. Well, I'm alive, in these 750,000+ words and in hundreds of photos and videos. There's enough of a digital version of me to satisfy anybody's desire to know me. All we ever want to do is hear a little of what's going on in other people's lives, and then talk about our own life anyway.

I think I'm crying because I know I'm at the end of the road. I'm crying for myself, like the conceited twat that I am. I'm crying at my own funeral, because I feel so certain that death is the only option now: I don't have the strength, the energy or the reason to go on living, under this dark storm-cloud.

There's obviously some planning and preparation necessary, so don't dial 999 just yet, but it's remarkable how you can reach a point where you know all the reasons why suicide is a final solution for a non-final problem, but yet you want the peace, the tranquility, the escape, the end... you want it anyway, even if people are going to call you selfish; even if there's some trauma involved for people you care about.

Call it dying with dignity, if you want an analogy.

Tags: #suicide #depression

This is a story about the never-ending story...

When I lost my house in my divorce, I did a smash and grab, boxing up things that I thought would have good resale value. I had money, even though my ex-wife had tried to bankrupt me, because I sank every penny I could borrow into Bitcoin at just the right time. I had a friend's guest bedroom. I had my health. I had hope; optimism.

"Why don't you sell some stuff?" my parents unhelpfully asked, when my ex-wife demanded a £7,000 bribe so that she would stop delaying the sale of the house and trying to bankrupt me. At that time, I didn't have £7,000. I had about £3,500. I sold my car, raising about £2,000, but I knew that to spend weeks and weeks getting £100 here and £200 there, just wasn't going to raise the remaining £1,500 without a couple of months of dedicated time-wasting. If you can earn £500 to £600 a day contracting, should you spend time selling a small TV for £100, or should you go and get an IT contract instead?

I hadn't 'lost everything' by any stretch of the imagination. Losing your home is unbelievably traumatic. Moving house is one of the most stressful things you could ever do. However, I was now living with two old friends and their three lodgers. What I lost materially, I also gained by getting out of a relationship where I was either being abused or in fear of being abused (yes: having to keep yourself behind a door, when somebody is punching and kicking it and screaming abuse at you is "abuse") and I gained some new friends and regular contact with some old ones.

That old life sat in boxes in storage for a couple of years, and I didn't miss any of it. I lived with my friends, then a miserable shared house that drove me to attempt suicide, then a bed & breakfast (Camden's alternative to a psychiatric hospital), then hostels, then the park, then a crisis house, then Hampstead Heath, then hostels again, then a kind man's spare room (who was horribly abused by his wife) and then the flat where I live now.

I've learned from my mistake, and I'll be storing the very minimum I can get away with. A lot of stuff is going to be thrown away. I know it sounds wasteful, but I've tried for over two weeks to sell some things for a price that makes it more like I'm being a charity than trying to get some money. Certainly, my time has been wasted more than you could possibly imagine, for an incredibly futile amount of money. I could make more money begging.

I now don't have enough money to pay for cheap accommodation long enough to get a job, start it, and get paid. There's also the Catch 22: in London, I can earn enough to dig myself out of the hole, but I can't afford the high cost of living. In some other town or city, I can earn enough to sustain my current shitty situation, but I'll never escape. Somebody's going to lose money they're owed (e.g. my landlord) and I'm going to pay reputational cost: credit rating wrecked, county court judgements... maybe even bankruptcy.

I could feel some relief to be off the treadmill, and be able to live "poor & happy" but poor is one thing, and having a black mark against your name is quite another. You can't even rent a place in this country without a credit check.

I'm not sleeping in a shop doorway that smells of piss, and having to beg enough money for food each day, but I've got a near impossible decision to make: is hope more important, or is it more important to have less pressure to keep a good credit score and avoid black marks against my name, They're both equally shit to be honest. As soon as I start defaulting on debts, the courts will fuck me over, and all hope of a simple life will simply evaporate - I'll be working shit jobs AND paying a disproportionate amount of my salary to leeches.

I've got a new pair of shoes, and they make me happy. My flip-flops, which were my summer footwear - very much part of my identity - I can't walk in because my left foot is numb. I tried cycling the other day, and it's really hard to bunnyhop with a numb foot. But, my summery shoes have been my lottery win, in the face of unrelenting worry.

How ironic, that the last time my life collapsed, I was trying to get away from somebody who was ruining my life, and this time, the collapse has almost been guaranteed by the fact that I left somebody who was improving my life, giving me hope, supporting me and underwriting some of my risks. I'll probably never meet somebody like that ever again, and that's the hardest thing... knowing that a moment of mental illness has cost me more than it ever has done in the past, and I've lost at least 3 well paid jobs because I went hypomanic.

I can't cope. I can't cope in the slightest. I can't even begin to face the first step down a road I've walked before. I've been cutting my arm again, but going slightly deeper and with a sharper knife; figuring out how hard I have to press to open my veins lengthways. I think about those 8 grams of tramadol - all you need for an overdose - and how easy and painless it would be. I think about the relief of it all being over.

The usual admonishment is about how selfish it is to leave so many problems for the living; that no matter how tidily you leave your affairs, somebody still has the awful task of going through the detritus of your life. What can I say? Sorry? It's not like anybody ever thought to themselves "oh, better not kill myself because it's a bit selfish".

Don't ring the police or panic or anything. If it's done and there's a body, you'll know and you'll be warned, so that unfortunately, some front-line worker will have to deal with it. At the moment, I'm just trying some food and some sleep, in the hope that this feeling will pass, because it's never been this strong and it terrifies me, to know I'm so close to the limit, but the need for some peace and relief from the stress and the misery and depression is totally overwhelming me.

"Try upping your medication" - oh go fuck yourself.

"There must be somebody who can help" - yeah, that's probably you, but because everybody thinks "there must be somebody" that means there's nobody.

"What about the government?" - yawn. Go watch "I, Daniel Blake" and then you'll understand what the Tories have done to the welfare state. Ken Loach didn't even use true stories he could have done, because he wanted to represent an average experience, rather than an extreme and sensationalistic one.

I'm going to try and sleep on it, but just getting through this evening seems like too much to cope with.

Tags: #suicide

This is a story (with pictures) about a typical day in my life...

Here's where I slept last night. This is the spare room. The chair and the red thing are my crap attempt to block out some daylight - the windows are floor-to-ceiling, but the glass is frosted on the bottom half, and the blind only comes down halfway. I get woken up by the morning sun if I sleep in here on non-cloudy days.

As you can see, I always keep a range of electronic gadgetry within grabbing distance of the bed. I get woken up so early, that if I'm browsing Facebook on my phone (I'm so addicted to that) I keep nodding off and pressing buttons - very often that means a video will start playing and the sound will wake me up.

You might notice two pairs of studio-grade headphones. I have quite a collection of high-end headphones. It's retail therapy for me, to buy headphones.

This is my drug shrine. I come here to worship, mostly at night. I swallow a cocktail of everything from opiates to benzos to sleeping pills to stimulants to mood stabilisers to antipsychotics... you name it, I've got it. The only ones I really like are the Xanax.

This is my real bed. It was pristine, but then I stabbed it with a knife, stole two bedslats and bled all over it. Oh, yeah, and I stole a metal bar from it too, that was a handle to allow you to lift it up and get to the storgage underneath. Rather quite a lot of insanity has gone down in this bedroom. I tried to lift up the mattress and get under it, with my ex on the other side. Remarkably, she didn't say a thing or budge an inch. I guess people have just gotten used to my erratic behaviour.

This is my desk of depression. You might notice a set of intrays (collapsed) and a couple of shoeboxes. Those were my early attempts to get more organised. As you can see, I've given up and this desk has become a kind of no-mans land. My passport and €500 are buried here, somewhere.

There's my missing duvet and pillows. I put them there so they didn't get messed up when I was messed up. Hiding under that pile are two laundry baskets, which are full of dirty washing.

In the washing basket are a couple of clean pillowcases and my leg splint. Also in this general area are things that I have thrown from a distance at the pile. There isn't really a system, per se.

This is the world-famous Nick Grant patent Floordrobe™. Socks and pants go in the rightmost box, but every other box is a lucky dip. I can't say that it works very well for finding specific items of clothing, but it works really well for putting away clean washing - you just tip it onto the boxes and then spread it around until it's roughly level. You should try it.

There's a couple of dents I punched in the bathroom door when I was drunk. I don't know why I did it. I regret it now. The other marks are from where I was trying to stop bad people from getting me, when I was in my bedroom. They were going to come in the bathroom window. Or at least, that's what my totally sane and logical brain said.

I always take a shower... except when I'm depressed. Then I take a shower if I'm going on public transport or meeting the Queen or something. I do have some 'canned shower' which is also known as body spray. Enough of that will mask the smell of my rotting flesh.

My ensuite also has a bath. I only take baths if I'm having a stimulant overdose. Cold baths. REALLY cold baths. I could probably go into shock and die, but I'd also rather avoid the organ damage caused by malignant hyperthermia. I could not take dangerous drugs instead, or be more careful with my measurements, but those sound like ridiculous suggestions.

There must be something here that can cure me. Probably the bleach. Most of the bottles are amino acids and vitamins. There are also dressings and antiseptic wipes, in case I decide to slash my arms to pieces again.

If I was going to work, I would get a crisply laundered shirt out of here, and a smart suit, which I would pair with a nice pair of formal leather shoes. The other side of the wardrobe is full of boxes of stuff from my house, which was sold as part of my divorce. I do not look in the boxes. Not because I'm upset that I had to divorce that evil b*tch, but because the stuff in them was in storage for so long, it's clearly surplus to requirements.

WTF is this at the bottom of the wardrobe? A mixture of tools, a tent, a squash racquet, bits from a crutch, a bent fork. I can spend hours playing with these toys, when I'm loopy and I've decided that bad men are going to break into my flat and get me in my bedroom.

The coast is clear. No bad men today. Or at least, not yet. A few days without sleep and I'm sure they'll be back. They always are. How do they know that I've not been sleeping so I'm vulnerable? They must have bugged my room.

I should go out on my bike. It's a nice sunny day. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe never. I like the blue bike the best, but the rear wheel is buckled. Riding the black bike is joyless experience, like fucking your ugly wife.

Ah the kitchen. Not looking too bad. Probably because I live on pot noodles and pot porridge. I'm about to have some pot porridge now. Do you want to see me make it? You do? Ok then.

There you go: pot porridge. You take off the superfluous plastic lid, tear off the foil and pour boiling water in, up to a line that you can hardly see. Then you have to stir it. The stirring is what makes it cooking. I do cooking, me.

Pot noodles have exactly the same process, except there's no plastic lid, which makes the pot noodle the most efficient of all the pot meals.

I could eat at the dining table. That way, I would get less shit all over myself. I never eat at the dining table. I was using the dining table as a dumping ground for post, but it depressed me. I would eat at the dining table if I had cooked a meal to woo a girl. Not a lot of wooing going on at the moment, or cooking.

Here's where I'm going to eat my breakfast. In fact, here's where I'm going to eat all my meals. I even slept here the other day, because I'd managed to mess up BOTH of my bedrooms. It's an awesome sofa, because it has a reclining view of the TV and a reclining view of the river, and you only have to turn through 90 degrees to enjoy both.

There's the guitar I never play, with a Vox valve amp that cost a bomb. Sounds cool even if you're just plucking individiual notes though - let the effects do the work. I can play Star Spangled Banner and sound like Hendrix, just because the amp is so good.

There are also plants which I don't water. I struggle to feed, clothe, wash and hydrate myself. What the fuck am I going to do with plants?

Another toy I never play with. It's got Oculus Rift virtual reality. It feels like you're actually inside a racing car. It's awesome, but I've got the attention span of a goldfish, thanks to what I presume must be the consumption of copious amounts of hard drugs.

I suppose I should open the blinds. I've been hiding from the builders, but there's only ever two of them and the project is two months late. Still, they do enough hammering at 8am to remind the whole block that they're completely useless fuckwits.

Yeah, this sign has been up for months.

There we go. Some of my view, with some scaffolding, which slightly spoils things.

I'm on the balcony. Shhh! Don't tell the builders or I'll be killed to death. Actually, you might struggle to find them.

The London Eye is on the left, then The Shard is fairly obvious. There's a new skyscraper springing up to the right of that. The tops of Tower Bridge are visible. There's the bloody walkie talkie. To the left of it is the dome of St Paul's Cathedral, and to the left of that is the BT tower. Over in the City, you've got the Cheesegrater, Tower 42, Gherkin and Heron Tower. There's probably some other landmarks I missed, but you get the general idea.

There's the 'beach' as well as the communal garden for the flat... and some more scaffolding of course. If you were to look the other way, you'd see my nearest Pokemon gym. Yes, I was so bored at work that summer, that I started playing Pokemon.

Being a West-facing apartment, the garden is sunniest in the afternoon.

Looks like it's going to be a nice day. Better close the curtains again so I don't feel guilty about wasting it.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my life today.

Tags: #depression

This is a story about pulling the wool over somebody's eyes...

Every day, between 6pm and 8pm, I get a visit from a different stranger. They all belong to Tower Hamlets' Community Mental Health Team, and specifically to the home treatment Crisis Team, but it must be a big team because I almost never see the same person more than once. Everybody's reaction is the same when I let them in: "wow! look at the view!".

The fact is, I have enough money to last me 2 more weeks, but then I'm not just skint... I'm actually insolvent. I have a lease that doesn't expire until September and I have to service various debts that I ran up, just trying to stay alive.

"Oh, you probably spent all your money on drugs" I hear you say.

Recently, I was on the dark web, looking for something for a friend - something to relieve pain that wasn't on offer on the NHS. Having located some vape oil, containing medical cannabis, I then couldn't resist the urge to continue window shopping. To my alarm, the worldwide supply of supercrack had dried up, due to the Chinese very effectively banning the production and sale of it.

There was one supplier - in the whole world - selling his remaining stock of supercrack. 10 grams. That amount of good quality cocaine might cost you £900. For 10 grams of supercrack, I paid the princely sum of $134.

How long do you think 10 grams of supercrack lasts? Well, we can work it out. A severe addiction might consume as much at 15 milligrams per day - that would be enough to not sleep for a whole day and night. So, easy maths then.... 10,000 divided by 15 = 667 days. One year and ten months, of daily drug abuse for $134. No. I did not spend my money on drugs.

So, back to the strangers in my home each evening. I sit them down on the sofa, next to the patio doors that lead onto the balcony.

Still somewhat wowed by the view, they can also see a number of expensive electronic trinkets lying around. The conclusion that is instantly drawn is that I'm not really in crisis, but in fact I'm wealthy, successful and totally in control of my life. They couldn't be more wrong.

I wrote about this the other day, but lurking behind the door into the kitchen, are a load of bottles for recycling. In theory, I've stopped drinking, but that's just a technicality. If you're in the grips of a mental health crisis or drug-induced behaviour, then you don't tend to have a glass of wine in front of the TV. Remarkably, I've had a bottle of white wine in the fridge, unopened, for over a week.

"Why don't you just have one glass and stop?" a psychiatrist asked me. I replied that oxygen would make the wine go off, so I needed to finish the bottle once it was open. She suggested a vacuum pump wine preserver, to which I replied that I bet I'd never be able to find one. The penny dropped, and she realised I was taking the piss. The reason why I don't stop is because I don't want to. Alcohol is an effective way of getting intoxicated, so you don't give a fuck about your problems... except I do seem to give a fuck in a strange way, because whenever I get ridiculously drunk, I punch my bathroom door so hard that it makes a hole in it. Then I wake up and think "why did I do that?" and I'm filled with regret.

Strangers who come in my house don't see my bedrooms. My main bedroom with the ensuite has got blood spots all over the floor from some accidental injury or something. There's lots of evidence that I imprisoned myself in that room, for some reason. In fact, there's lots of evidence outside the communal areas, that I've absolutely lost my mind at times.

Recently, being in possession of quite a good set of tools, as well as a box of screws, I set about attempting to screw a desk to the door of my spare bedroom, or something like that. The plan wasn't even clear to me. Once you lose more than about 3 nights of sleep, your priorities are quite corrupted. Instead of hydration, food and sleep, my focus switched to barricading the bedroom door. If you have a dark sense of humour, you may chuckle at the fact that as soon as I had completed my task, I then needed to undo my work because I needed to use the lavatory.

These are the kinds of things that are quite important if you want to understand just how sick I am, but the 'window dressing' which is my lounge, balcony and view, rather distracts from the piles and piles of dirty dishes, and overbrimming laundry baskets. The home visit team members walk away thinking "I must tell my colleagues about that awesome view", rather than "I must tell the doctor that the patient looked like he hadn't slept for days, or eaten much".

Can I fix things? I've pretty much given up hope. There just isn't time.

10 grams of supercrack certainly doesn't help, and I knew that a relapse would be one problem too many, on top of a giant shit sandwich. However, the things I've tried that are a sensible and realistic approach, have brought in way too little cash for way too much effort. I'd rather have my MacBook Air and iPad Pro, than a few pennies, even if they're surplus to requirements most of the time.

I could keep up appearances for friends and family, but I lived in fear of my work colleagues discovering that I suffered from mental illness for so long, that the exhaustion became unbearable. It was an open secret that I would be late to work during periods of depression, or not turn up at all. Everybody knew that I liked a drink, but I surrounded myself with other heavy drinkers. The problems worsened, and I had to run twice as fast to just to stand still. I came to London, knowing I could burn a bunch of bridges, and never exhaust all the options open to me, but it's bullshit, having to interview for jobs when you've got a 20 year career behind you and countless people who know you're good at what you do. Also, why shouldn't my friends know what's going on in my life. If they're true friends, they'll see that I'm still me, but I'm in crisis - they won't suddenly change their opinion of me, because of prejudice, although one close friend did and it broke my heart.

Don't lift up the rugs or look under anything: I've swept so many things under the carpet. Out of sight out of mind. I don't bear close scrutiny, but nobody looks very carefully anyway. First impressions count for everything.

After the insanity comes a further insanity - a paranoia that my flat is trashed and I'll never be able to bodge it up good enough to escape hefty bills for repairs that are completely over-inflated by the unscrupulous letting agents.

Where am I going to go? What am I going to do? The fact that you're asking those questions is the clue as to why I might wish to escape into alcoholic oblivion, or take supercrack. There are no easy answers. I know I keep going on about it, but the whole hospital/dialysis/job loss fiasco has left me questioning what the f**k I'm doing, working IT contracts in London, except for the staggering amount of money that it brings in. It doesn't compensate for the up-front stress, followed by the abject boredom and misery.

You'll probably find me sidling up to you in a bar in 20 years time - the known local drunk - and saying to you "I remember the time I lived by the River Thames and worked for the world's biggest companies" and you'll think that I'm some delusional twat.

I hope I just die before I suffer that indignity.

Tags: #mentalhealth #depression #alcohol #drugs #addiction

This is a story about irony...

So, I've had a busy week or so. Predictably, my rocket fuel sent me loopy - mixed state, to use the technical term, which is both high & low - which meant the sensible thing was to stop taking it. Me being me, that meant immediately, without the advice of my doctor. Pain is only temporary, right? You might say that this weird psychological state was the reason I made some pretty big life decisions; took extreme action; said some regrettable things. I have 3 big gashes down my forearm, I was seen by two Metropolitan police - who are always brilliant, even when they're arresting you (no arrest this time though) - and my psychiatrist, who wants to put me in hospital (i.e. section me) if I don't agree to daily home check-ups, but she's very nice about it.

The time was about right to get obsessive about something that's going to put pounds in my pocket. I was supposed to leverage a bit of hypomania to get the hell out of bed and either get a new contract, or work on a super cool project that might be really profitable. However, trying to harness the beast is crazy idea - when it works it works; when it doesn't, the destruction can be devastating. I did not harness the beast.

I've gone from 14 hours sleep a night to an average of 2. That can't be helping matters.

In 3 weeks time I hit zero: £0.00. No more money for rent next month, no more money for bills, no more money for anything that can't be put on a credit card, and even then, it's hardly a solution, is it? Also, I'm £6k short on my tax, due at the end of the month. Basically, I'm now insolvent.

So, what does one do in such a situation? If I could start back at work on Monday, or a week later, with the company I was contracted to in Jan/Feb, I could just about escape, by the skin of my teeth. What are the chances of them placing me with a client, within 9 working days? Slim to none, I'd say. Also, I'm sick again and I've got doctors hassling me for daily shit - dialysis & blood tests then, home visits from the Community Mental Health Team, this time. Doesn't this all sound rather like deja-vu?

My instincts tell me to box my stuff up, move out, preserve my cash and let the landlord keep my deposit. My instincts always tell me, that when shit goes bad, cut your financial commitments and retire to a safe distance. I would have done that in November 2015, when HSBC terminated my contract, but I felt responsible for a sofa-surfer and a flatmate. Big mistake. My instincts are usually correct.

My financial situation will continue to deteriorate, but at least I'm not careening headlong into a massive bankruptcy, provided I can borrow some (or all) of the £6k I need to pay my tax.

I'm now free to work anywhere in the country, if not the world. I had an offer of contract work in Poole in Dorset, from a friend. I have other friends in the area, who might be able to put a roof over my head while I find my feet again. It's one plan, at least.

What's the alternative? Go deeper in the hole and try and get a flatmate ASAP, to cut the speed with which my finances crumble to shit? I'm not sure I really want the pressure of the financial commitment; responsibility for an expensive central London flat. You know, I've ticked my "live by the River Thames" box, and I've even fallen out of love with London, or at least Canary Wharf and the touristy bits. The last time I felt wowed by my home city again, was when I interviewed for a government contract, on the first working day of the New Year. I would see Big Ben every day, and work in HMRC's impressive building, next door to the Churchill War Museum, St James Park and Horse Poo Parade. I've never worked in public services, let alone the posh bits, down the road from Bucky Pee and round the corner from the Palace of Westminster. That was 6 months ago, and I've been stressed and depressed the whole time since then.

Everything is probably going to come tumbling down - the landlord will sue me; I might not be able to borrow the £6k for my tax; who's to say that offer of work is still there? Should I just freeze, like a rabbit in the headlights of an oncoming vehicle?

Did I precipitate this, or was it destiny; fate? I've certainly been depressed for a long time - could that be to do with not wanting this life any more: the high rent, the pressure to get well paid contracts, the 'quick and painful' strategy, the limitation of how far you can realistically commute in London. It's depressing, feeling trapped. It's depressing, having so few options.

I have more options now, but less support. Was I too hasty? Yes, of course. Did I make bad decisions because I'm unwell? Yes, of course. On further analysis, am I freer now, more flexible, more able to consider almost any option? Yes, notwithstanding my dire finances and the fact I have far less assistance.

Perhaps it's time to admit defeat and prostrate myself at the feet of those who demand money with menaces. Sometimes, when the thing you fear most happens, it's liberating. I remember walking home from the police station once, in gym pumps they'd managed to find for me, having been led barefoot in handcuffs to a police van, in busy central London, then locked in a cell. As I walked along, looking like absolute shit, I thought "this has been literally the worst thing that could have ever happened to me". In actual fact, something about human nature means that we slowly deal with traumatic incidents, and they lose their venom; their potency.

You know, I worry about bankruptcy, but if it's only a barrier to jobs I don't want anyway - not in the sour grapes sense - then I get to do whatever I want anyway, unencumbered by the need to maintain a certain image & income. Maybe it'll suit me and I'll be happy. There are numerous successful entrepreneurs who've had bankruptcies in the past - it's part & parcel of taking risks.

I've always been financially responsible and met my obligations to my creditors. I've actually been very financially prudent, although you wouldn't think it from the last couple of years. I don't spend money before I've earned it, and I always kept money in reserve - I never overstretched myself. However, I'm now deep in the shit, and the stress has been there for so long, I think I'm worn down, and it's contributed to my ill health.

There was briefly discussed, potential salvation: a generous philanthropic liberator from my prison of financial misery and jobs that I detest and make me unwell. However, when it's personal, you feel differently than with a faceless bank that makes billions in profits. I've worked in banking a long time, so I know it's a victimless crime to take money that they just magicked out of thin air anyway: fractional reserves and the money multiplier. It's all just a game, and money isn't real... except when you borrow from friends & family. When you borrow from a partner who you're planning on spending the rest of your life with, it's a bit different: that's more like pooling your resources. However, your partner might have stipulations that are life-limiting: needing to or insisting on staying in one location, for example.

I do feel suddenly terribly alone, and that I need to act almost immediately; to take evasive action. I have a friend who's been a godsend; a guardian angel, but I am mindful that I've already ended up depending on her, far more than I am comfortable with or intended to do. I'm highly indebted to her, in so many ways - more than was ever supposed to happen between two friends. We perhaps share the same predisposition for trusting people and ending up pouring good money after bad. Where, for example, is my ex-flatmate who owes me thousands? Ironically, another friend who owes me a 4-figure sum, has mentioned his expertise in the field of, erm, debt recovery. But, that's a murky area I'd rather not get involved in.

Anyway, I have some new summer shoes, but it's absolutely lashing it down outside and I wanted to change the laces too. This might seem like the most ridiculously trivial thing to have elevated to a position of ultimate importance, but when the big stuff reaches incomprehensible proportions - squashing me like a giant boulder - having something that's shiny and new, improves my self-esteem, and feels like winning the lottery.

I seem to have been living life somewhat in reverse. Starting as a rich, responsible, reliable salaryman. Then around age 32, there was a veritable orgy of sin and debauchery; I cut loose from mainstream society and was homeless, in and out of hospital and in trouble with the police (although I escaped court and criminal charges). Now, I'm looking at my respectable life being shredded irreparably and who knows where that leads: flipping burgers? I can't see it. Selling the Big Issue? Quite possibly.

From where I'm sitting, I can see the river and the boats. But I can also see a top-of-the-range Vox valve guitar amp, with Korg effects head and Gibson Les Paul guitar. I can see a pro-grade racing simulator, with the seat, pedals, gear lever and an Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, for a fully immersive experience, plus a very high-spec gaming PC. I can see my Macbook Air (core i7 processor and 512Gb SSD) unused while I tap away on my Macbook Pro (core i7 and 512Gb SSD) - both the best that money can buy. Next to me is my Panasonic Lumix camera, with Leica lens. Oh, and let's not forget my HD projector that can do 120" screen, in 3D. There's my iPhone, of course... almost the newest model. That's just what I can see. I could asset strip, but I'd be lucky to raise £4 or £5 thousand pounds, and I need £6 thousand for my tax alone. Second-hand electronic goods are worth very little.

What should I do? Bankruptcy and bailiffs seems like folly, but then so does staying where I am, racking up a huge chunk of debt while I search for a contract that I might be too unwell for anyway. Cut my main expense - rent - and head for guaranteed work, if it's still on offer in a cheaper part of the country; seems to make sense. I have more friends in Dorset than I do in London too. I could be stubborn - determined to make London work on the 4th attempt - and move back into a hostel, find work and then find a cheaper place to live. Certainly, I need to act now. Depression has taken me to the brink of ruin.

Ho hum. In a way, I like it when I'm forced into action, and I like it when I'm busy with a mission.

Other wild ideas I've considered are running away to France - my colloquial French was once close to fluency - or further afield: Poland, Czech Republic? I could actually just disappear right here in the UK: get a new identity off the Dark Web and abandon the old one. Then, either be a hobo for a bit, a vagrant, a native backpacker; or set up shop somewhere new, unencumbered by the vultures who circle over my current identity, and my prized plump carrion flesh they hope to feast upon... they know I'm rich pickings, and they eye me greedily.

Oh, I thought about buying a boat, but I might just as well buy a van, cross the channel and head south.

All of these options are infinitely more attractive and more realistic than landing a contract in London in the next 2 weeks, and getting paid by the end of the month. Besides, it was only Sunday that I sliced 3 deep cuts the length of my forearm, with blood running out from the capillaries, and tiny punctures in the veins. I stopped short of slicing any veins open - they're very hard to close if you do it lengthways... that's the point.

Choices, choices, so many choices, but not a one you'd want to take.

Fuck.

Tags: #career

This is a story about mismatches...

Writing is hard. More specifically, writing well is pretty damn hard. To write well every day; to finish a book; to have the discipline - that's the hardest. Lots of people write - it's our preferred method of communication these days, rather than the phone. My Facebook friends are mostly what you'd term "well educated professionals". Some of my Facebook friends are people who used to write every day on the same discussion forum as me. When I step out of that bubble, I'm reminded that it was the general populace who invented 'text speak' and still use it to this day, because writing is just a means to an end for them - to send short colloquial messages about their banal lives, where the style, grammar and intangible beauty of a well-constructed sentence has zero value to them.

When I started my blog, I didn't know where I was going with it. Then, I remembered that a friend who aspired to be an author, and has now published three books, said that he was going to blog for a year, to test his discipline and hone his art. I copied that idea.

When I started my debut novel, the idea was to write at least 1,667 words a day, so that after a month, I would have achieved a 50,000+ word count.

This year, things started going wrong almost from the very outset.

In the blink of an eye, I found myself in hospital on a high-dependency ward, with acute kidney failure. My weight had gone from 77kg to 95kg, because I had stopped urinating: my bladder was empty. I was on dialysis and generally being poked and prodded by some very worried looking doctors. I didn't have my laptop or a means to connect to the Internet - those aren't the kinds of things you take with you when you get a phonecall from the doctor you saw in Accident and Emergency saying "how soon can you get back here? Do you need us to send an ambulance?"

Like dominoes, the pillars of my life started to collapse. First, I lost my job - they couldn't wait for me to get better, even though I discharged myself from hospital after two weeks, against medical advice. Then, rent, taxes, bills, insurances and everything else started to become a matter of imminent financial implosion. Depression tore through my mind like an inferno through a building. The strong opiate painkillers, that I needed for the leg injury which caused my kidney failure, made doing anything at all quite challenging - it might not have been heroin, but I sure as hell got sick if I forgot to take my 4-hourly dose. Writing and work were replaced with lying on the sofa in a drugged-up haze, half-aware of whatever was on TV.

You'd think that after I got off the painkillers and I could walk distances again, without it causing me agony, I would be ready to find another job. Anybody who followed my story through December and January, will know that Christmas and New Year scuppered my job search. Effectively, I went through the stress twice, and then lost the job anyway through no fault of my own. I wrote about how psychologically damaging that was, having argued with the doctors so much, discharging myself and getting angry phonecalls from doctors and consultants saying I needed to go back to hospital; I was risking my life and I was still critically ill.

I didn't need concerned doctors to tell me I was still ill and in no position to work - my commute to work, with my heavy ankle brace, caused me untold pain. How was I supposed to travel every day on overcrowded public transport, and walk the final part of the journey, when it would leave me exhausted and crying in pain when I got home. I was relieved when my boss told me to take some more time off to get well; only it was him being cowardly - my contract was terminated soon after leaving the building.

Everything else from that point has been measured by that yardstick.

If it's hard and stressful to get a job - and to start that new job - under normal circumstances, can you imagine pulling out a 25cm dialysis tube from a massive blood vessel in your groin, with blood everywhere, and leaving hospital when all the doctors are begging you to stay? Can you imagine your first day in the office, except that less than 48 hours ago you were considered so sick that you might need a kidney transplant, or even die because the dialysis wasn't working effectively? Can you imagine working those first few days in your new job, getting phonecalls twice a day from different doctors saying that if I turned up at any A&E and had a blood test, they would admit me to hospital as a critical case, because of the dangerous toxins circulating in my bloodstream? Can you imagine dealing with almost unbearable pain as well as doing your job? And then what happened? I went to all that effort and I lost the job anyway.

I've been a full-time IT professional for 20 years, and to be honest I lost the love for it very quickly. I spent most of 1999 recovering from weekends of all-night raves. I spent most of 2001 to 2005 chatting with my friends on a discussion forum and organising kitesurfing holidays and weekend trips away. 2005 through 2008 I worked very hard, but I surrounded myself with alcoholics, who were some of the very best people I've ever had the privilege of working with. 2008 I thought I was pissed off with JPMorgan, but it turned out that I had simply reached the limit of what I could take with IT jobs for big companies. Ever since then, I've made my money as an entrepreneur, independent developer and IT consultant, as well as speculating in emerging technology (e.g. iPhone apps, Bitcoin mining). I work about 5 months a year, and I hate it, but it pays the bills. My last contract paid £660 a day, so you can see, I don't have to work for very long to earn what I need.

So, now I'm in the situation where I was tipped over the edge. It's not normally very hard for me to find a new contract, and I find the actual work very unchallenging; easy. To have worked so hard to get well, get out of hospital, get to that job, and then to lose it... when I fucking hate IT work anyway. It was the last straw. The company said they'd have me back as soon as I was fully recovered, but the spell was broken - I used to put up with the boredom and the bullshit, because I was earning the equivalent of well over a hundred grand a year... if I ever worked a year. I can't go back to it. You could offer me £1,500 a day, start tomorrow, free rein to work on whatever project I want, and I don't think I could do it. It's like all that hatred of the job and the politics and the bureaucracy and the insanity and incompetence of people in positions of authority, suddenly hit me all at once.

I stopped caring that I'm going to be nearly £6,000 short on my tax bill, in 27 days time. I stopped caring that I'm not going to be able to pay my rent next month. I stopped caring that if I go bankrupt I'll never be able to work in financial services again, be a director of a company, have anything except the most basic bank account, which means I wouldn't be able to - for example - rent a car. I stopped caring that I'll never be able to get another mortgage or rent my own place. I stopped caring that I would lose my excellent credit score - I have borrowing facilities of £30 grand and no debt that shows up on those credit checks. I stopped caring that many of my possessions would be sold by bailiffs for a fraction of what they're worth. I stopped caring that I would lose things that I spent years and years choosing and customising: a mountain bike I bought when I was 18, with the lightest frame money can buy, handmade and hand painted - including my name - which I have added the very best of everything to, bit by bit, until the total cost of the bike is as much as a decent car... but it's not about the cost; it's about the pride in doing that - the pride in customising something with painstaking effort over 19 years.

Now, I'm a minimalist. I'm a digital nomad. I've used all my experience as a mountaineer and Alpinist to travel light, with clothes that pack small, but they're super warm and everything either dries quick or stays dry. I have a grab bag that weighs perhaps no more than 15kg, but I could sleep quite comfortably in an extremely cold winter. I learned through bitter experience, the discomfort caused by cheap equipment: blisters, wet feet, damp clothing, sleeping mats that don't stop the cold penetrating from frozen ground, tents that get flattened by gales, synthetic sleeping bags that don't keep you warm. Everything that I carry meets the three criteria: light, strong and expensive. There's also a fourth criteria: how effective something is in terrible weather. It might be subtle, but there really is a big difference between a 'good' waterproof jacket, and one that costs well over £400; for example, are you able to use the hood but still move your head to look around? How many drawstrings are you able to operate without having to unzip anything?

There's so much crap that I just want to dump. I've ended up with paperwork that goes back to 1997. I only ever wear a few different outfits and I wear my clothes until they're threadbare. I could lose 95% of my clothes and not even miss them. I have boxes of stuff that I rescued from my house before it was sold, during my divorce. It was a smash & grab - I was paying for the man & van by the hour plus we had to get back to London before my self storage shut. I literally took no more than an hour to grab anything of real value, and a mug that my sister hand-painted for me. Can you imagine that? I dumped my books, a summerhouse that I designed and built myself, stuffed full of gardening equipment, garden furniture, tools, mountaineering equipment like ropes, ice axes, crampons, a pile of kites that probably cost me many thousands of pounds when they were new. I dumped my hot tub. I dumped games consoles, games, DVDs. I dumped kitchen knives, Le Creuset cast iron casserole dishes. I dumped my Weber barbecue, my fire pit and patio heaters. I dumped the bed I bought when I moved to West Hampstead in 2000. I dumped the oak dining table and chairs I bought when I bought the house. I dumped an antique sash window that had been turned into a mirror by my dad, as a Christmas gift. I dumped the huge wardrobe that I built to go right to the bedroom ceiling - one side customised just how my ex-wife wanted it, and another side customised just how I wanted it. I dumped a garden that I had lavished hundreds of hours on, making the grass lush and green, weeding the path, mulching the beds and tending the mature shrubs and palm trees. I dumped my electric guitar and electronic drum kit. In fact, I dumped a whole band's worth of instruments for playing Guitar Hero. Where was I going to keep all this stuff, living in my friend's spare bedroom? It was going to be ages before the house was sold and I got the money to get a place of my own again.

Now, I have a place of my own, by accident. One friend thought he was going to live with me rent free, but he hadn't done the maths - the rent was more than his salary, and he was fucking useless. The one bit of work that he was supposed to do that would have brought in some money for my company he fucked up. He hassled me for an interview at HSBC, which I wangled for him... and then I had to deny I knew him very well, as he was exposed as inept. My next flatmate didn't pay his rent for 3 or 4 months and never paid me any bills. He was surprised when I told him that he was going to find his stuff dumped on the street if he didn't get the fuck out.

If I was going to cut & run, I'd want my two MacBooks (Air & Pro) and I guess I'd take my iPad Pro too - call them tools of the trade - plus 3 pairs of high-end headphones, and my grab bag (tent, sleeping bag, sleeping mat) with my good waterproof jacket and my down jacket. I'd wear my waterproof trainers, water-resistant trousers and my fleece, with a merino wool base layer. I'd take my passport and €500 in cash that I have lying around. I'd take phone and a battery pack that can charge it 12 times. There's not a lot more that I tend to travel with, except copious quantities of benzodiazepines and Z-drugs. When you live in a hostel for a year, you learn what you need and what you don't. When you live under a bush in a park or on a heath, you learn what you're prepared to have stolen, potentially. It took my fellow homeless in Kensington Palace Gardens over a month to find my hiding place - people don't really venture into massive thorn bushes. If you're smart, you can disappear from the world, despite living in a densely populated city. People's dogs would smell my food, but their owners couldn't see me in the gloom. Hampstead Heath is somewhat more of a challenge, because people like to fornicate in the bushes, but the general rules apply: people are lazy and stick to the paths mostly, so by choosing the remotest part of the heath, you very rarely see anybody.

My life is in the process of breaking up again; disintegrating. I don't care. I am so depressed.

Let it all burn down, I say.

Tags: #depression

This is a story about habituation...

What a surprise! There's a small glass of wine left in the bottle today. How did I end up missing that? I normally drink the house dry, every single night. I've stopped buying gin, Pimms and other spirits, to avoid the temptation of a strong early-evening drink, to take the edge off the day; the nightcap that sends me to bed completely sozzled.

I'm not saying I've become some pious teetotaler who rather too proudly proclaims their abstinence, as if it makes them a better person somehow. I respect former alcoholics who know that once they pop they can't stop, but anybody who chooses not to eat or drink something because of their beliefs and values can bloody well keep it to themselves.

The French - during a water shortage - put up public notices saying "SAVE WATER: DRINK WINE". I fucking love the French.

I've been having my rocket fuel antidepressants for a few weeks now, but I'm sleeping 14 hours a day and I'm almost completely incapacitated by depression. The doc told me to take two pills a day, so I'm taking four, trying to speed things along a bit. The timing could not be worse. I need to be up and about, earning money, enjoying our all-too-brief British summer. Instead, I'm in bed with the curtains closed.

The friend who challenged me to 100 days of sobriety now takes 3 day breaks from drinking. I can't remember the last day where I didn't have any alcohol. Probably when I was in hospital, or maybe the day of the London Marathon, when I momentarily relapsed onto the really hard stuff: supercrack.

Perhaps that's one of the main reasons why I'm still depressed - it was only a month ago that I was convinced the sound of helicopters and yelling crowds, was an angry mob and the police, out to get me. Paranoia like that is awful. Supercrack is a Hell of a drug.

What a year. Starting well with a contract for Lloyds, but then suddenly my foot was numb and swollen. By the time I made it to Accident & Emergency, my whole left leg had swollen up. Acute kidney failure meant two weeks on dialysis and an operation to put a 25cm long rubber tube into a vein in my groin. Managed four days work then lost the contract - too sick to work. My flatmate had buggered off and owes me thousands of pounds in rent & bills; made a complete mess of my spare bedroom. Nobody knew why my foot was numb and I couldn't move it very much, despite being poked and prodded by various doctors. I was taking huge doses of opiates to manage the pain, and had to endure horrible withdrawal - nausea, cold sweats, diarrhoea - when I decided to try and get off the painkillers.

Gawd knows how long I've been taking Xanax and Valium for. I probably need a benzo detox. Opiate withdrawal is unpleasant but benzo withdrawal can kill you.

But, one step at a time. I'm going to try and only drink half a bottle of wine tonight. She wants to drink early and then stop; I want to drink late and then go to bed. It's going to be a test of my willpower, which is severely compromised by alcohol.

If tonight goes well, I'll try and do three consecutive days with no booze; see if it helps my mood. I'm sure my liver will thank me - it's already pretty busy trying to process all those chemicals I put into my body; all those pretty pills.

It's true, the more someting is ubiquitous, the harder it is to abstain from it. I hadn't dabbled in drugs for a decade, when the Dark Web brought a drug superstore right into my living room. Little packages of joy coming through the letterbox, allegedly. It's easier to get booze though. If you really have the thirst for it, you can nip to your local convenience store or even have it delivered to your door in London, 24 hours a day.

They tell recovering addicts to delete all their dealers' numbers from their phone; avoid friends who are still using drugs; change your lifestyle to avoid reminders of the places you used to use drugs. But what if you only ever did drugs on your own? What if you never met a dealer in your life? What if you could never forget the steps to access the Dark Web?

Why am I so hard on myself when I'm dealing with so much? Addiction, hospitalisation, psychiatric wards, mental health conditions, painful injuries, money worries, people owing me lots of money, need to get another contract, need to get a new flatmate, need to fix stuff up, need to stabilise and get into a sustainable position.

Alcohol's probably the most health-destroying drug; the most dangerous to quit if you're dependent; the most ubiquitous; the drug I've been abusing for the longest.

One step at a time.

Tags: #alcohol #drugs #addiction #mentalhealth