This is a story about the pleasant months of the year...

I was psychologically prepared for a miserable winter. I was psychologically prepared for seasonal affective disorder to lay me low after the clocks went back and the days were short, dark and full of drizzly cold awful weather. I was psychologically prepared to knuckle down and work hard during the unpleasant British winter. I achieved a lot, especially considering how suicidal depression, intolerable anxiety and unbearable stress were constantly with me as I attempted to avoid bankruptcy and tried to get myself back on my feet.

Yesterday I was at the marina looking at a yacht I'm going to be sailing soon. Today I took a walk along the seafront and had a picnic in the park.

Theoretically, I have a source of income that lasts until the end of July.

I have a holiday planned in June.

My life is awesome.

Well... my life looks awesome to an outsider. There's nothing too much to complain about except for my crippling debts, the uncertainty about the future, I'm bored and unchallenged at work, I'm still struggling with depression - desperate to feel hopeful about the future, but knowing that things have been quite unsustainable. I've been getting up too early - because my work colleagues are all early birds - and I've been finishing my work too quickly. I hate being bored, but I hate pacing myself too - I'm not capable of deliberately going slow.

I knew winter was going to be hard, but I imagined summer was going to be easy. Perhaps I mismanaged my own expectations. Perhaps I didn't psychologically prepare myself for the whole long slog to freedom. I'm 6 to 9 months away from getting my life sorted out, and that assumes that nothing goes wrong. I could lose my source of income at the end of July. I could lose my source of income sooner - I have no idea what I'm going to be doing after the end of the month.

I shouldn't complain, of course.

I shouldn't complain.

My life is awesome.

So I keep telling myself.

It certainly makes a difference, the pleasant weather. I'm more motivated to leave the house and enjoy the nice things in the local area where I live. I'm planning on going sailing. I'm planning a holiday.

However, uncertainty looms large. My income is insecure. My mental health is quite dubious - I'm struggling to get to the office and get through the days. My job is a lot better than the last one I did in London but I can't cope with being bored and having nothing to do: I've got to be busy busy busy.

It seems churlish to complain. I'm not really complaining - it's a statement of fact. Summer is here but life's harder than I expected... things are still a struggle, although I guess things are a lot less of a struggle. The problem is that I've struggled for so long and I really need a break to recharge my batteries, so that I can carry on without having a nervous breakdown. I haven't had a proper holiday in 21 consecutive months.

The warning signs are there - I had to take a couple of days off sick last week. I'm having an extra-long weekend, because I'm spent; I'm exhausted. It's taken so much to get to this point and there's so much potential for me to really make some good progress now, and start to get my life sorted out, but it's been a ridiculous journey during the course of the last year. The last year has been hell.

Yes, some really nice great stuff is starting to happen. Yes, my life is really improving loads. Yes, I'm really knackered from all the effort I've put into getting myself to this point. Yes, I'm exhausted and I'm struggling to carry on at the same pace; to work as hard as I worked to get me to this point.

This is a bit of a churlish whinge-fest, but I wanted to write about my divided feelings: so happy that summer weather has finally arrived, but also really worried about how much hard work still lies ahead.

I just feel like I should be further ahead than I am, given the suffering and effort involved, but I guess a lot of people feel like that. At least I'm getting somewhere I suppose... I do feel sorry for people who get nowhere, no matter how hard they try.

Tags: #summer #holiday #depression #SAD #sailing

This is a story about repetition...

In my profession everything has an acronym. DRY means don't repeat yourself. I was going to write about the awfulness of withdrawing from sedative/tranquilliser type substances, like alcohol, benzos, Z-drugs and gabapentin/pregabalin. I can't be bothered. I've done it to death.

It was sunny earlier on yesterday but the weather didn't match my mood. Because I didn't feel well enough to leave the house and do stuff, I was sad that I was wasting the pleasant weather being sad and miserable indoors. Then it started raining and I felt better because the weather was more apt for the way I was feeling. I stood by the window and watched the rain.

If you write 900,000 words, you're really unwell when you write a lot of those words and your life gets smashed to bits multiple times - such that you're repeating the same well-trodden steps of picking yourself up and getting back on your feet again - then your writing is quite naturally going to become a bit repetitive.

I wish I had the enthusiasm to write whimsical fictional short stories, but I don't have a lot of time for fantasy, given the things going on in my life that ground me in reality. To indulge in flights of fancy is ridiculous when my day-to-day aims and objectives are as pedestrian as being able to pay my rent and not end up sleeping rough again.

I'm repeating myself again; hamming up my sob story - poor me, poor me, pour me another drink.

It's all very well expecting me to suffer in silence, but I have to find some kind of coping mechanism for the suffering, and mine has been drinking and writing. While the latter has been a lot healthier than other things I could use to cope, the former got rather out of hand. Time to give my liver and brain a little break from intoxicating liquor.

Oh dear I'm repeating myself. Didn't I already have a couple of dry spells?

Getting started on a break from the booze is harder than you'd think. I spent most of yesterday evening, night, this morning and this afternoon feeling like I wanted to slice into my arm lengthways in order to puncture my radial artery. I've felt like everything is going to go wrong and that I'll never escape my predicament; that I'm getting nowhere. I've felt like everything is futile and life is so unpleasant that I'd rather be dead. I'm attributing these feelings to the abrupt cessation of the consumption of alcohol.

I'm not sure why I'm doing this to myself. The sleep deprivation and horrible gnawing anxiety that I'll put myself through will in no way compensate for the marginal relief that my liver will feel, and I jeopardise my job because my days at a desk with nothing to do become intolerably awful.

My friend calls this "the fear" which I think is a good description. For him - a moderate drinker - it can be 3 days of unpleasant nonspecific butterflies in the tummy. For me it's a round-the-clock skin-crawling hellish experience that completely ruins my ability to function and puts me on a precarious knife-edge, with self-harm and suicide being the big risks.

I needed to make a change and it's easier to do it now that I have a bit of money in the bank, but I've got to get through another month and a half of the daily grind before I can have my first proper holiday for 22 consecutive months.

I'm already starting to falter and slip-up. My spotless image was tarnished when I had to take a couple of days off sick. I'm going to have to figure out how to take more time off if I'm going to be able to limp along to the middle of June without having a nervous breakdown. My petrol tank is empty and even the fumes have pretty much gone - I'm spent.

I hate writing like this - this whingey diary entry. This isn't the kind of writing that I want to be doing. I promised myself I'd write fewer than 700 words, and I'm going to have to stop now if I don't want to exceed...

Tags: #alcohol

This is a story about living on the edge...

Strangely, this broken blind is the only thing that's keeping me safe at the moment. I could replace the blind, but then I'd lose the safety that it gives me. I deliberately chose an apartment with a ground-floor bedroom with terrible blinds, because of the lack of privacy. It's strange, but this lack of privacy - this broken blind - is keeping me safe.

It's been 21 consecutive months since I had a proper holiday. For two consecutive Christmasses I've been with a family that's not my own, which has meant the exhaustion of being on best behaviour, and struggling to adjust to the unique way that those families observe the festive season. Other than that, I've had some long weekends, but not a proper break. A lot of the time in the last 21 months, I've had the threat of bankruptcy, eviction, destitution and homelessness hanging over me. A lot of the time in the last 21 months, I've been recovering from illness, which has seen me hospitalised. A lot of the time in the last 21 months, I've been very sick.

I'm exhausted.

I'm burnt out.

I'm sick and tired of working my bollocks off, being responsible and working hard when I'm too sick to shoulder that burden. I should really have declared bankruptcy and put myself at the mercy of the state, to house me and to give me a pitiful welfare payment so I could buy a few cans of baked beans, and otherwise live like a pauper - at least this torture would've been over.

I left work, I went to the supermarket, I drove home, I washed up, I put some laundry in the washing machine, I tidied up, I put the shopping away, I cleaned the kitchen, I hoovered the carpet. All in a day's work, but I've already done a day's work. I've done 21 consecutive months of work without a proper holiday.

You might not think it's work, being sick, but it's certainly not holiday. You might not think it's work, recovering from illness, but it's certainly not holiday... and it's certainly not restful when you're running out of money and you're worried you're going to be evicted. You might not think it's work, spending Christmas with people you only just met, but it's exhausting to be on best behaviour and minding your manners; making smalltalk with everybody and asking all the right questions that would be expected in polite middle-class company. You might think I've been on a jolly holiday for the last 21 months, but I haven't. I've moved house 4 times, been hospitalised 3 times, been sectioned, had various crisis visits from psychiatrists, doctors, social workers and the like, plus I've been dreadfully sick... both physically and mentally. I've not been having a jolly holiday.

I've had enough. I want to abandon my responsibilities. I want to give up.

I'm exhausted and I want to give up.

The only thing keeping me safe is that blind.

So long as I keep that blind deliberately broken, anybody can spy on me; peek into my world.

If I had perfect privacy I think I'd just give up; I'd relapse. If I thought that I could withdraw into a private world - close the curtains and pretend the world's not there - then I'd do it in a flash because I'm so exhausted and fed up with the relentless never-ending saga of month after month of work, work, work.

I've done well to get to this point, but I'm pretty much spent. Every penny I've earned has gone on rent, bills, interest and living expenses. I feel like I've got very little to show for my efforts, but I do have an apartment, a car, a job, a girlfriend and some new friends. I feel like I've made very little progress, but I've managed to get myself into a good position to start to dig myself out of the hole... but I'm exhausted and I've hit the wall. I'm burnt out; I'm frazzled. I'm a wreck.

That blind is broken and it means I have no privacy. It's a funny thing to keep me safe, but I knew it would. I'm really on a knife-edge though. I could so easily throw everything away and say "fuck it" because I'm just too damn tired to go on.

I'm really at my wits end. I really need a holiday.

Tags: #holiday #exhaustion #burnout

This is a story about getting fat...

In December I started a lovely little self-contained project. I flew to Warsaw to gather the requirements from the client and then I flew back to London. I was living in AirBnBs and travelling home to Wales every weekend. I was living out of a suitcase, but it was OK because I was busy getting on with my project.

Then I finished the project.

The project was only supposed to take 6 weeks, but I finished it in 3. I spent another 3 weeks polishing the finished result and adding every bell and whistle I possibly could to create a completely spectacular Rolls-Royce solution, but then the project was well and truly finished and there was nothing left to do.

The team I was working with were based in Warsaw, and I was based in London. I had nobody to even chat to in the office, to while away the hours. I was bored out of my mind. The client was quite happy for me to sit around doing nothing, and he even wanted to extend my contract for a further 6 months beyond the original 3 months, but I was losing my mind with the boredom.

To cope with the boredom, I started to drink. I was drinking heavily. At one point I was drinking 2 bottles of wine a night, every night.

At the start of last September I had a benzo habit that had gotten out of control. I was taking several Valium and Xanax every day, and then a couple of zopiclone and zolpidem at night, plus a whole load of pregabalin. All those medications are GABA agonists, which is to say that they're hypnotic-sedative/tranquilliser type drugs that all act in the same way... very similarly to alcohol. I was physically addicted to those medications and if I stopped taking them then I would have a seizure that might kill me.

By the time I started that project back in December, I had managed to quit the Valium, Xanax and zolpidem. However, I had stopped but then started taking the pregabalin again because I was so stressed out by the travelling and the new job, and the fact I was homeless and rapidly running out of money. The pregabalin soothed my jangled nerves during the day, and the zopiclone helped me to sleep at night. With the combination of those two medications, I was able to limp through that 3-month contract in London.

I drank a lot when I was in London because I was bored and I was withdrawing from the benzos, and I hated the job because I was so isolated and lonely, and I hated the travel and the AirBnBs. I was suicidal A LOT of the time.

Along with the drinking, I got into bad eating habits. I would have fried chicken from KFC and burgers from McDonalds. I would have greasy curries and fatty kebabs. I lived on fast food and vast quantities of wine. I really let myself go, because I hated my life so much and it was so unbearable.

In January I decided that I needed an incentive to quit the London life and base myself in Wales full-time, so I started dating. I met a lovely girl who enjoys eating out, getting takeaways and drinking wine. We've had a great time, eating, drinking and being merry.

Now I'm feeling fat.

My girlfriend and I have stuffed our faces with fine food and wine for the last 3 months, and I'm feeling fat and unfit. I've had a brilliant time, but I've really let myself go. I've stuffed my face without a single ounce of restraint.

There's a canteen at my new workplace, and I stuff my face with chips, burgers, pizza, burritos, pies and numerous other incredibly unhealthy foods, every single lunchtime. Gone are the days of my relatively healthy lunches that I used to have in London. My lunches in Wales are nothing but carbs, carbs and more carbs.

All the money I've earned has so far been spent on living expenses. I'm running out of money, although I should get a much needed cash injection early next week, which can't come soon enough, because it's been really expensive getting myself back on my feet - renting an apartment and buying a car so I can get to work. It's been really stressful, having the threat of bankruptcy hanging over me for so long. It's been so stressful being so short of cash.

Because of the unbearable stress, and the dreadful withdrawal that I've been through from stopping all those highly addictive tranquillisers and sleeping pills, I've been compensating with comfort eating and alcohol. I've been drinking bucketloads and eating far too much. I've put on weight, and I'm depressed about that - it affects my self-esteem.

Hopefully, money will come flooding in next week, and I'm booking a holiday for mid-June, which can't come soon enough, because it's been a ridiculous 21-month slog without a holiday to get to this point, and I still have a month and a half more to go before I finally get a nice break.

I'm using alcohol and food as a crutch, because I'm not taking any medication and I'm not taking any time off work. I'm stressed and exhausted, and the thing that's suffering is my health; my weight; my appearance. It depresses me that I've let myself go, but I've been dealing with more than I can handle. Frankly, it's a miracle that I've made it this far.

So, as if I haven't worked hard enough, I'll need to cut down my drinking, exercise more and eat less. That sucks. At least there's a holiday and summertime on the not-too-distant horizon.

Tags: #medication #weight #eating #food #health #mentalhealth #addiction

This is a story about neuroplasticity...

Who even am I any more? Am I the same person my friends knew 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago? Have I changed beyond all recognition?

I suppose change is not important if you're happy with who you are in the present day. I wonder about who I've become. I'm very isolated and I'm so fixated on earning enough money to dig myself out of the hole I got in, that I'm not really making a lot of time for socialising or reconnecting with old friends. I don't speak to anybody on the phone. I don't speak to anybody via email. I only speak to a tiny handful of people via text message. I've got no local social network. There's hardly anybody I'm in regular contact with.

I had a very clear plan for a long time - get out of an abusive relationship, move to London and resume my career in The City. Moving, selling the house and divorce were horribly sabotaged by my ex and made unbearably awful, which derailed me. I ended up stuck in a never-ending nightmare cycle of getting sick, ending up in hospital, recovering, starting to get my life together, and then it all falling to pieces over and over again. I had one good shot at escaping from her, but she ruined it; she ruined me; she ruined my chance.

I woke up in hospital all on my own far more times than I care to remember. I was cut adrift. Nobody came to see me.

Then, a little over a year ago, one of my lovely ex-girlfriends organised a load of support for me when I was in hospital. I had LOTS of visitors and brilliant messages of support. That was amazing. That made such a big difference. That was a turning point.

Recovery is non-linear, and getting my life back on track back in London was impossibly hard. I needed to leave London, which meant a breakup with the aforementioned lovely ex-girlfriend. Nothing about that breakup was done right by me. Nothing about the situation was good. It was a big fat mess. Things got worse before they got better. Things got A LOT worse.

Between the seizures and the coma, I think that my latest suicide attempt reset my brain. I think all those seizures were like a kind of intensive Electro-Convulsive Therapy (ECT) for me. My life certainly started to improve versus the destructive cycle I had been caught in while living in London. When I tried to kill myself, I was hopelessly trapped. My suicide attempt broke me free from something I could never have escaped otherwise.

It's strange: two breakups and a suicide attempt led me to a better life, inadvertently. Through that destruction has come new life and more prosperity; hope.

I'm completing my 21st consecutive month without a proper holiday, and I'm exhausted and stressed, but I get up every morning and I go to work. Whatever's going on with my mental health, I'm very functional. I'm in a healthy happy relationship. I'm getting on well with my colleagues. I'm staying on top of my adult responsibilities - paying my rent & bills, keeping my car road legal, washing, cleaning, laundry, shopping, cooking and all the other stuff that caused me unbearable anxiety and difficulties last year.

I might be somebody completely different, but I'm still somebody. My personality might have completely changed, but I'm still me... just not the me I was in the past. If my work colleagues like me and my girlfriend likes me, and I'm a functional member of society, then what's the problem with me?

I'm paranoid that mental health problems are going to rear their ugly head, but it's been almost 8 months without incident. I don't want to get complacent, but that's a long time to be unmedicated as well as dealing with the horrendous stress of losing your home, losing your job, almost going bankrupt, moving house, moving city, starting two new jobs and everything else to boot. Looking at the evidence, I'd say that I'm one of the most mentally strong and stable people you're ever likely to meet, as opposed to an emotionally unstable lunatic, which you might wrongly presume from some of the stuff that happened before.

I think the lesson is that the brain is a homeostatic organ that's evolved to rapidly adapt to the ever-changing environment. If you trap me in to dreadful circumstances, I'm going to have a dreadful reaction - that's logical and reasonable; that's rational... a sane reaction to an insane world.

I do have my PTSD flashbacks - described as "Tourette's-like" by a close friend - and I do have to be extremely careful with my sleep, diet, stress levels and myriad other things, but my mental health problems are a risk not my destiny.

If I can just keep plodding through life, things will improve. Time is the biggest healer, giving my brain time to adapt.

Tags: #mentalhealth #ptsd #suicide #homeless #career

This is a story about relentless monotony...

I fell asleep at my desk today. I haven't had any time off since November. I spent November writing a novel, so I guess I haven't had any time off since October. I was in hospital in October and I moved house, so I guess I haven't had any time off since September. I was in hospital in September and I tried to commit suicide and I lost my job and I was evicted, so I guess I haven't had any time off since July. I moved house and started a new job in July, so I guess I haven't had any time off since June. I was selling loads of my stuff, trying not to go bankrupt, while also trying to get a job in June, so I guess I haven't had any time off since May. I was quitting supercrack, having an episode of medication-induced mania from California rocket fuel and breaking up with my girlfriend in May, so I guess I haven't had any time off since April. I was a drug addict in April. This is what I was doing back in April.

Here I am looking at the dark web a little over a year ago. I'm probably not buying anything that would be illegal because I already had enough supercrack to last me 2 years. The fact I'm wearing clothes and sitting in my lounge, taking recognisably normal-ish photographs suggests that a little over a year ago, things were going OK.

Oh no I spoke to soon. This night-vision photograph indicates that I was going bat-shit insane while high on supercrack. I took this photograph only a couple of days after the one before, where I was sat in the lounge browsing the dark web. This photograph was taken about a year ago.

What the hell is THAT? Well, it's pretty obvious that I've barricaded myself in my bedroom. This photograph was taken one year and one day ago. This photograph perfectly illustrates my subconscious fears of privacy invasion - that people are going to burst in on me, shame me and violently attack me. I don't come across as very paranoid in day-to-day life, but I'm very traumatised, and this is my reaction that that trauma: I barricade myself in to protect myself from my parents and ex-wife. It's bat-shit insane, of course, but this is my underlying psychology.

Looks like I was eating some food. I'd probably barricaded myself in my bedroom for days. I'd probably not slept for days. My life was a horrific mess a year ago. I had a virtually unlimited supply of supercrack and my addiction was raging out of control. Clearly I was paranoid because of drugs and sleep deprivation, but what was the seed of that paranoia? I wonder if it could have anything to do with having the rug pulled out from under my feet - being muscled out of my own home; being horrifically injured in my own home; being punched in the face or suffering a horrific injury to my leg, at the hands of my ex-wife and parents. I wonder if it could have anything to do with them. I was trapped in a corner for so very long, with no means of escaping my tormentors, who were demonstrably vile, violent and abusive. Fuck them. That kind of trauma has a lasting effect.

My paranoia reached such ridiculous levels that I barricaded the door to my ensuite bathroom using my laundry bins and some clothes storage boxes. Clearly I just wanted to be left alone. Clearly I didn't feel safe. Yes, it's paranoia that's come about because of drug abuse and sleep deprivation, but there's got to be a seed too. Nobody gets this paranoid unless they have their ex-wife kicking doors in and screaming abuse at the top of her lungs. Nobody gets this paranoid unless they have their parents humiliating them and bursting in on them, and dragging them out of their own home. There's a seed for paranoia. There's always a seed.

Something to help me sleep (zopiclone) and something to help me cope and function (dexamfetamine). You can't end a horrific addiction instantly. There's no cold turkey when you're in as deep as I was. I was too dependent. To attempt to suddenly quit overnight would have caused me unbearable withdrawal symptoms and would have required me to be hospitalised. This is what I prescribed myself - two medications for harm reduction. Two medications that I used to wean myself off the dangerous and highly addictive supercrack.

I flushed that big bag of supercrack a year ago. There was enough to last me a couple of years, easily. I can't remember when exactly I flushed it, because my life was chaotic, but the evidence suggests that it was at this point I decided to get clean, using substitute prescribing.

Things didn't go smoothly, but it's very difficult to deal with a major addiction as well as mental health problems and all the practical problems that came about because my life had disintegrated. I needed to get money, get a job, get an apartment I could afford. I needed to move house, move city. I needed to get a new girlfriend and a new group of friends. I had a false start in Manchester, but I tried again in Wales... I'm trying again in Wales.

Maybe you think my life is easy and everything is sorted out, because I earned bit of money, which I spent renting an apartment and buying a car so that I can get to my new job. Maybe you think my life is easy because I get up and go to work every day, and I'm doing a good job and my bosses are impressed with me. Maybe you think my life is easy because I've 'bounced back' from losing two apartments, running out of money three times and being hospitalised twice. Maybe you think my life is easy, because I've made it look so easy, quitting supercrack, Valium, Xanax, tramadol, codeine, dihydrocodiene, pregabalin, zopiclone and zolpidem, which are all highly addictive. Maybe you think my life is easy, because I've gone 7 months unmedicated and I haven't had a single mental health episode that's caused me to commit suicide or do something else drastic to fuck up my life. Maybe you think my life is easy because my finances are improving and I've got a girlfriend. Maybe you think none of what I went through in the last year was very hard. Maybe you think none of what I've been through in the last year has caused any lasting damage.

I'm in my 5th consecutive month of full-time work without a holiday. I'm working my bollocks off. All I do is work work work, because I'm running as fast as I can to get myself into a position where my housing is secure - nobody can evict me - and I'm financially secure. I constantly have to ignore my physical and mental health, because I so desperately need to get myself into a position where I can collapse in a heap and have a minor nervous breakdown.

Yes, I can do stuff like this - I can save myself; I can come back to life; I can return from the brink of destitution and make it look very easy.

It's not easy.

Tags: #homeless #addiction #drugs #bipolar #mentalhealth #suicide

This is a story about feeling hard-done-by....

Poor me. Poor me. Pour me another drink. I look back upon things I've written and I cringe because I'm so self-pitying. In the context of my improving situation, it looks rather churlish to complain about my lot in life, however I'm wont to moan because I've spent most of the last 5 years battling to get back on my feet after a messy divorce. I'm repeating myself. Jeeps I'm repeating myself and it's only the first paragraph.

I don't really understand the whole "count your blessings" and "other people have it harder" mindset. Shitty times are shitty times. Unbearable crap is unbearable crap. I don't really care that there's one super unfortunate person who's having the most awful time in the whole entire world. I don't really care that there's only ever one human being on the entire planet, who supposedly has the moral right to complain, because nobody has it any harder than them. This isn't a lack of perspective, or being a spoiled brat - it's human life. Next time you stub your toe, you should try not being in pain by remembering that other people are in far more pain than you... see how that works out for you.

I don't generally think of myself as very hard-done-by.

I get up in the morning pretty early, but not the earliest. I have to commute to work, but not the furthest. I have to do a job that's pretty boring most of the time, but it's not the worst. I don't have housing security or financial security, but I'm not starving and homeless. I'm pretty lonely and isolated, but I'm not raped, tortured and murdered every single day. On balance, my life's pretty good. Perhaps you think that means I should only ever write about how awesome everything is. Perhaps you think I should leap out of bed in the morning with a smile from ear-to-ear.

My depression has definitely lifted a little now that I got through a ridiculously stressful and unpleasant ordeal where I pretty much lost everything and very nearly ended up with black marks against my name that would have made me unemployable and unable to rent a place to live. I very nearly ended up homeless again. I got down to a bank balance of £23 available credit, making bankruptcy imminent. I got through that, but it's taken its toll.

I'm drinking loads. Perhaps that's because I was using alcohol as an unhealthy coping mechanism - a crutch - when I was battling to beat my addiction to two prescription medications that I had been taking for a year. I was battling to earn money and stave off bankruptcy. I was battling to save up enough money to buy a car, rent an apartment and be able to switch to a job that was closer to home. Alcohol soothed my nerves; calmed my anxiety. Alcohol lulled me off to sleep.

I whine a lot. I drink at lot of wine and I whine.

I release the pressure build-up here on this blog. I come here and I write every day. Writing is my healthy coping mechanism. Whining is healthy. Drinking wine is not healthy. I drink too much wine.

If anybody tells you not to whine so much, they're a toxic person who shouldn't be anywhere near you. Whining is what people do when their lives are shitty and they're going through hell. Whining is a way of coping with some truly awful stuff. Whining is a safe way of venting. If somebody tells you to be positive and pretend like everything's OK, they're toxic and they don't care about what you're going through.

I wish I whined less, but my whining is driven by my circumstances. As my circumstances improve, I'll whine less. When my life becomes sustainable and pleasant, I'll stop whining. The whining is getting me through the long slog. Wine is also helping me get through the long slog.

I'm comfort eating and abusing alcohol, and it's having a negative effect on my body - I'm putting on weight, my liver is having to work hard and alcohol is generally not very healthy. It'd be nice if I could live healthily immediately, but wine and whining are helping me to limp along at the moment - they're the crutches that I need.

I need a holiday. I need to lie on a beach in a hot country for a week. Yes, sure, lots of us need a holiday. I've got to get through another 3 weeks before I get paid, and then I can maybe have a relaxing break, where I won't be worrying about money or losing my job. I hope that the next few weeks are just going to be solid whining, because I even bore myself sometimes, but it's hard going at the moment... moan moan moan.

I have other stuff that I want to write about that's probably more interesting, but I thought I'd rattle off a little essay about whining and about wine, of course.

Tags: #alcohol

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 not fitting neatly inside the boxes...

I'm trying to rent an apartment. The apartment rent is £675 a month. I earn approximately £7,000 a month after tax, although my take-home income for the last 3 months has been a mere £10,716.91 because I've had to work in London which has been awful. Yet, I'm still not able to rent an apartment that costs just £675 a month.

To prove my income I've provided my full bank statements for the last 3 months. To prove that I'm a reputable individual who will have no problem paying the rent, my chartered certified accountant has provided a reference. I've provided proof of address, proof of identity, proof of residency, proof of eligibility to live & work in the UK. I've proven everything, yet I'm still not able to rent an apartment that would cost £675 a month.

I don't pay any income tax. I pay £0.00 income tax. It might seem a bit morally objectionable to not pay any income tax, but I pay plenty of corporation tax and dividend tax. My productive endeavours bring in 20% VAT, 20% corporation tax and 7.5% dividend tax for HMRC - the taxman - so the UK benefits quite handsomely from my work, but still... I don't pay any income tax. Income tax is a very bad way to prove my income.

I currently earn £600 a day, which is £3,000 a week, which is £13,000 a month, which is £156,000 gross per annum. It really is gross just how much I earn. Of course, I have to pay my VAT bill, corporation tax bill and dividend tax bill. I get to keep 4.5% of the VAT and I can earn £11,500 without paying any tax at all.

With 8 weeks of holiday and sick leave per year, including bank holidays, my gross income works out to be £132,000. After tax, that gives me an income of £11,500 salary plus £68,820 in dividends, which is a take-home pay of £6,693 per month. I'll pay £51,680 in tax this year.

That's worth repeating.

I'll pay £51,680 in tax this year.

But, I pay zero income tax, so I can't rent a £675 a month apartment. I've been through the arduous tenancy checks and I don't fit neatly in their boxes. They can't wrap their head around the fact I don't pay any income tax, even though I've proven that I have an obscene amount of income.

The whole process of trying to work my way out of poverty, get myself off the streets and get back into civilised society has been exhausting. I'm fucked off with it. I've provided the most intimate of personal details. Every single item of my spending has been pored over and gone through with a fine-tooth comb. I've been poked and prodded and examined and found wanting, because I don't pay any income tax and the closed-minded drones who are responsible for determining whether I'm eligible to no longer be homeless have decided that I'm not allowed to have a home of my own for some reason.

It's made me really suicidal. Why did I put myself through all this shit? Why did I work so hard and struggle? Why have I been subjected to such an ordeal? Why bother?

I'm presently considering various suicide options. This shit is keeping me awake at night and I'm fucked off with it. I've had enough. This isn't acceptable.

It's not acceptable to block somebody from working their way out of poverty. It's not acceptable to stop a homeless person from getting themselves back on their feet. It's not acceptable that society should marginalise people like this. I've had enough.

I've had enough and I can't stop thinking about killing myself.

It's pushed me to the brink of suicide.

Tags: #homeless #suicide

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