This is a story about correlation and causation...

I read with interest that the number of prescriptions for antidepressants had skyrocketed to an all-time high in the United Kingdom. 70 million prescriptions were written for 65 million people, meaning that for the first time, there were more packets of pills dished out than there are men, women and children in the entire nation. Unlike Sweden where national records are held, which allow statisticians to understand what percentage of the population are taking medications for anxiety and depression, the UK has to guess based on the number of prescriptions, but it would appear that it is undoubtably normal to be swallowing pills to correct for serious psychiatric conditions.

I read with dismay that doctors believe that the surge in prescriptions is believed to be due to bad things in the news. This is faulty thinking, because we are the news. It's impossible to separate ourselves from the events of the world - the media simply holds up a mirror. The media reflects what we can see around us with our own eyes: the destruction of the natural world, overcrowding and poverty. We know that we live in a very different world than the Baby Boomers grew up in. The many cushy things that previous generations took for granted - free university education, affordable housing, secure jobs - are now so hard to obtain that tiny children are coerced into studying hard from the moment that they can form words, in the hope that their sharp-elbowed parents can barge them to the front of the long queue.

If we look at suicide statistics, we can see that the "it's the news' fault" argument doesn't hold water. The number one cause of death of men age 20 to 40 is suicide, and those deaths are preventable, yet medicine's answer is to blame the newspapers. This is a scandalous situation, that those who are tasked with responsibility for public health would shrug their shoulders and point to the symptoms, not the cause of the disease.

To use myself as a case study, it seems unethical to start a family when the prospects for those children are so dire. What a dreadful thing to do - to bequeath a child a planet which has been irreparably wrecked; to so knowingly and wickedly create new life when the existing life is already having such a miserable existence and is so doomed to meet a horrible end. Life seems very pointless and purposeless, when there is very little hope of living a life which doesn't compound the errors of generations, and hasten the demise of the human race.

For many generations, they were content to build houses, grow crops, keep livestock and have food in their bellies. For many generations, it was a lifetime's work to meet your own basic human needs, and the needs of the children who were born in the absence of contraception and abortion. Today we have a virtually unlimited supply of high-calorie foods and almost none of us build our own homes, grow our own food, or have any dealings with farm animals. We do not know hunger, but we do know boredom, purposelessness, apathy, angst and learned helplessness.

I see people who become obsessed with fitness and toughening themselves up to seemingly cope with a disaster which never comes. Nobody is ever going to need to outrun a wild animal. Nobody is ever going to need to carry rocks or toil in the fields or forest to get enough food for their family. There are a huge number of people who are "prepping" for doomsday scenarios, even though their efforts are futile in the face of the enormously violent events which smite us.

It seems obvious that anxiety and depression are natural reactions to a world that is devoid of any opportunity to use our enormous brain for the ingenious problem-solving which would have been very useful 100,000 years ago, when humans had to continuously adapt to the ever-changing seasons.

I can think back to a time when I was obsessed with the wind and the waves, not in any negative way, but in fact I would relish the arrival of a large North Atlantic depression. I studied the weather forecast on an almost hourly basis and I would drive to parts of the country specifically to seek out storms which would cause trees to topple and buildings to be damaged. I had no control over these violent events of nature, but being part of the storm made me happy. I harnessed the wind - quite literally - and I revelled in the awesome power of nature.

Today, I have a ghoulish morbid obsession with the news, half-hoping that some catastrophe strikes and civilisation is plunged into chaos. I find the waiting to be quite intolerable. I find that my anxiety and depression levels are highly correlated to my boredom and lack of stimulation. My life is very stable and secure, but it's also unbearable. I yearn to be freed from the crowds of people who trudge co-operatively from place to place - why do they not scream and throw their briefcases away, and run off to live in the woods? Why does nobody flee from the concrete jungles and seek out a life which has more uncertainty, hunger and threat to life, but also provides some challenges and obstacles for the brain to tackle?

It strikes me that the source of my anxiety and depression is rooted in the restrictive nature of modern society, where I am unable to build anything or do anything, without considerable restrictions. My forebears were able to build their own houses, fence off some territory, cultivate their crops and rear their livestock - all of these things required a combination of physical and mental effort. For me to get a house and some food, I don't have to do anything - I'm just required to sit in a comfortable seat for a certain amount of hours every day, keeping my mouth shut.

Of course it's seemingly childish to romanticise simpler times, when disease and hunger were rife, but as anybody who's suffered anxiety and depression will tell you: these things are so bad that you want to kill yourself.

Living a life where you want to kill yourself is not great, and I don't think that refusing to read newspapers or watch TV is the answer, just as much as I think that pills are not the answer either. The solution lies in living a different kind of life altogether.

You tell me that I wouldn't be happy if I was cold and hungry, but you're wrong. I've been plenty cold and hungry, and I can tell you that I was vastly happier than I am today in a warm house with plenty of food in the fridge and cupboards. I was happy because I was free to do something about my situation. If I was cold, I could shelter. If I was hungry I could seek food. As I am presently, I can do nothing except sit at my desk, mute, waiting to die. I have no available options to improve my situation. I have nothing to challenge my brain and body. I have no purpose, except as a decorative lump of flesh and bone sat in an office chair.

Of course I follow the news avidly, but the news does not depress me or make me anxious. My lack of participation makes me depressed and anxious. Why am I just a spectator? Why am I passive in everything? If I was caught in a rainstorm I would look for some object to shelter beneath, but as a member of modern society I am expected to let everything lash down upon my head without flinching. The food and the housing which I enjoy are a byproduct of my inaction not my actions. If I was to act instinctively, I would only make things worse for myself and end up sleeping rough on the streets, hungry and cold. The situation is absurd.

Not taking antidepressants is a political statement, as much as anything. It's not me who needs to be adjusted to fit into society, but instead it is society which is unbearable to live within - there's not enough space for me to do anything other than keep my mouth shut in an attempt to fit in. I refuse to be medicated into a state of glassy-eyed passivity, like a cow chewing mindlessly on the cud.

Of course, if I spawned an infant by accident, then I woud surely be glad of every amenity available in modern society. I'd be cramming high-calorie foods into my child's face and indoctrinating them in the ways and means of staying in the top-half of humanity. However, as a thoughtful, considerate and ethical person who's considered the prospects for any theoretical child, I have decided that it would be cruel to the child and wickedly selfish to not avail myself of reproductive choices, choosing to avoid creating any more miserable mortal souls.

The stability and security of modern life are at the root of our unhappiness, not the state of utopia that we thought it would be. We are hard-wired for adverse conditions, and without that adversity we are nervous and twitchy. Without any route to gaining contentedness that is not morally wrong, we are depressed. The logical conclusion is that we should kill ourselves.

Tags: #suicide #depression #anxiety

This is a story about shouting...

I find myself in the thick of the action at work and I'm failing to keep my head down and my mouth shut. It would be better if I gave my opinion quietly and infrequently, after much careful consideration, but instead I shoot from the hip and engage my mouth before my brain. Most of what I say has a solid basis and imparts some useful expertise, but it would be better if my voice wasn't so often ringing out loudly across the open-plan office.

I'm not sure how received I am. I'm loud, outspoken, quick to respond, decisive, but I'm also like a flame sucking all the oxygen out of the room. I wonder how little room I'm leaving for other people.

I know that I'm not a bad manager - I'm not prone to micromanaging people or being too fussy about the details, such that there's no room for my underlings to think for themselves - but I wonder if I'm a bad team member at times. I know that I'm patient and forgiving with junior members of the team and I invest a huge amount of time in knowledge sharing and training, to help them, but I'm pretty scathing with my words when I see bad quality work done by people who call themselves fully trained and experience professionals. I sometimes wonder what my colleagues do with all their time - how do they entertain themselves if they're not busy?

I often wonder who has the right approach: my colleagues who don't do much so that their projects are never completed, or me finishing projects early? My colleagues would argue that you can make yourself redundant if you do a good job and finish your project to a high standard, such that it doesn't need much more ongoing work to maintain it. I would argue that you're not a good engineer if you never finish a project.

I went home yesterday feeling as though I'd been too outspoken and that I should apologise to one of my colleagues. My brain was badly affected by anxiety and flooded with thoughts about myriad things which needed considering. I bombarded my colleagues with a whole host of things to consider, which probably overwhelmed them and I certainly didn't make a single clear and concise point - I simply couldn't stop words from spilling out of my mouth.

This week, some ideas that I've been nursing for 6 months are coming together. A piece of work that I did in a flurry of manic activity is taking shape as something tangible, just the way I had planned it would. It seems unusual that I should have done all the hard work so long ago and then rested on my laurels, but I needed to have a holiday and move house, which were a huge distraction. The festive season is a bad time to try and do anything important. As it happens, the timing has worked out perfectly, although I have been very bored at times this year.

Having sat quietly at my desk for a very long time, thinking, I now find that I struggle to regulate the volume of my voice. I struggle to hold back in meetings. I struggle to remain quiet for the benefit of the whole team. I'm struggling not to be loud and overbearing.

I would be well advised to put my headphones in and confine myself to my own thoughts for a few days, to give my colleagues a break from the sound of my voice. It would be a good idea to make a promise to myself to say nothing in meetings, except the very bare minimum required, to make a bit more space for my colleagues. I'm like a liquid poured into a mould, filling every square inch of space and leaving no air pockets.

Having unmedicated bipolar disorder in an office environment is problematic. I trample on toes and speak too much, too loudly. I must be very annoying.

I'm aware that I can get carried away with my productivity and ability to solve hard problems, and I can start to see other people as deadweight, which can lead me to saying unkind things and being very rude and dismissive. I forget that people take pride in their work - even if it's rubbish - and can be offended when I bulldoze my way straight through it inconsiderately, in pursuit of my goals. I'm aware that my future employment depends on playing nice with others, and I should calm myself down during these periods of mania-like frenetic activity.

I forget that I'm no longer managing huge teams all across the world. I forget that I'm no longer CEO of a startup that I founded. I forget that I'm no longer the boss, but in fact I'm a consultant who's been hired for my expertise and opinions, which need to be tactfully given to the client. I forget I'm not in charge of the project. Often, my loud authoritative voice can lead to people getting into the habit of looking to me for leadership, when I'm not in charge of anything, which is a mistake on my part, because my strength is in my knowledge and experience, and my ability to solve hard problems - it's not my job to lead the team, but I always find myself naturally providing some degree of leadership, although I don't actively seek to gain power and control.

It's strange. Sometimes people are very relieved to have me working on their project, because I always have a clear sense of direction and I provide a reassuring level of seniority - people trust that I know what I'm doing - but I continuously jeopardise my job by doing things which could very badly backfire if they didn't work.

I have a colleague who's close to retirement who's been hired to do pretty much the same job as me. We couldn't be more different. He spends his days listening to the radio and reading the news. I think there's a lot I could learn from him about plodding along as slow as possible, without getting sacked. Sometimes I find the attitude to be loathsome, but what's the real harm in it - isn't he getting a lot better deal out of life than I am? What use is all my hard work? What good will it do?

I need to calm down. Arrogance will flare up and I'll start being disrespectful to people, and that will be the beginning of the end.

Tags: #career

This is a story about prescribed medications...

After 4 months of sobriety I'm grateful for the weight loss. My liver must be very grateful for the break. It was exactly 2 years ago that my addiction peaked, when I had managed to obtain a stockpile of my drug of choice that would last me 6 years. Having that stockpile was a pivotal moment, because I knew that I would not survive for more than 6 months with a virtually limitless supply of the drug I was hopelessly addicted to. I knew that I had tested the patience of a very supportive friend - my guardian angel - and I announced to her that I would be committed to overcoming my addiction, which I have done.

These two achievements are not to be underestimated, and are also set against a backdrop of great financial hardship and other averse circumstances. I've been forced to move around. I've been forced to work when I'm sick. I've been forced to go deeper into debt and to re-invest the money I receive, in order to escape from the horrible trap I found myself caught in.

It's not really possible to travel directly from the depths of drug addiction and alcoholism to clean and sober living. A person can't wake up one day and decide that they're going to stop taking drugs and drinking. There are consequences of such a decision.

My hospitalisation in 2017 represents the peak of the consequences of my decision to attempt to quit addictive substances. At that time, I was still physically addicted to one prescribed medication and four which I obtained on the black market. It seems obvious that I should have ended up on an intensive care ward, having seizures, in a coma, with a machine breathing for me. It seems obvious that the battle was too hard to win and I would capitulate.

Presently, I am physically addicted to one medication and psychologically dependent on another. In terms of progress, this is a vast improvement versus taking 5 medications every day - instead of three physical dependencies, I have one, and instead of two psychological dependencies, I have one.

I swallow one pill for anxiety. If I abruptly stop taking that medication, I risk having a fatal seizure.

I swallow one pill for sleep. If I abruptly stop taking that medication, I will have insomnia.

I don't drink, which is great news for my physical health.

I'm working, which is great news for my bank balance.

Everything seems to be under control.

However.

My dependence on the black market is problematic. I had attempted to stockpile enough medication to allow myself to taper my dosage down and free myself from the physical and psychological dependence on the tablets, but the disruption of a breakup and moving house was a huge setback. My stocks are running low and I'm having problems replenishing my supply.

Of course, my plan all along was to end up completely substance-free. I tried in 2018 but my drinking got out of control. Drinking alcohol as a way of compensating for the unpleasant withdrawal side-effects of stopping medications, is not something that's good for my health. I gained weight and became alcohol dependent. Having broken my alcohol dependency, I would like to remain mostly teetotal because it's better for my weight, fitness and general health.

If you talk to any doctor they will tell you that all their patients suffer significant discomfort when withdrawing from psychiatric medications which they have been taking for long periods. In fact, the doctors will tell you that it's virtually impossible to get their patients to quit the prescribed medications which they have become dependent on.

Why quit?

It seems to be in vogue to stop people taking medicines which humanity has used safely and effectively for a long time. It seems to be trendy to stop people from taking opiates, benzodiazepines, tranquillisers, sedatives, hypnotics, sleeping pills and a whole host of medicines which were greedily guzzled by many generations without any issues. It seems to be the way of modern medicine to offer 'safer' ineffective alternatives and refuse to prescribe effective medications.

I can attest to the great difficulty of getting off the addictive medications which doctors don't prescribe. I've been addicted to all of them, and I've successfully stopped taking all of them for lengthy periods, so I can describe in exquisite detail the very many agonies and unpleasantnesses associated with cessation of these medications. I can recall exactly what the withdrawal side-effects are like for the pills that your doctor won't give you.

I find it hard to find a good reason to quit and be completely 100% free from any mind-altering substances, but I'm certainly having difficulties in maintaining a reliable supply, which puts me at risk of a potentially fatal seizure. Quitting the medications which give my life enough stability to be able to hold down a well-paid job, is not desirable, but it seems necessary given the exhaustive efforts undertaken to thwart me - playing the stupid cat-and-mouse game with a bunch of people who don't care about the consequences, is a waste of energy and I would love to be free from the stress of dependency and uncertainty about the supply of something which I physically need.

Luckily, my physical dependency is something I have the capacity to alter - unlike type 1 diabetes - so I am following through with my plan to wean myself off the two remaining medications, hopefully slowly enough that it doesn't destabilise me so much that I lose everything.

My version of clean and sober might not seem very impressive to you, but I assure you that it is a considerable achievement to have beaten fully-blown addiction to every substance imaginable and restored some health and wealth to my shattered life.

Tags: #addiction #drugs #medication

This is a story about safeguards...

There is an oft-quoted statistic about 93% of communication being non-verbal. When I write, you cannot hear my tone of voice and you cannot see my body language or facial expressions. When I write, I do so in advance of your reaction, so I am unable to tell whether what I am saying is being well received or whether it is causing people to recoil in horror and disgust.

It's damn hard being live-wired into the fabric of the internet. It's not easy using public writing as a coping mechanism.

I get home and my anxiety levels are sky-high having spent a whole day in an office trying to act normal and keep my mouth shut. I get home and I've usually spent the bulk of the day trapped in my own skull with my thoughts bouncing around inside my head. I get home and I'm suddenly very alone, but I'm in an environment where I can somewhat relax and be myself. The net result is an outpouring of jumbled thoughts and feelings, which get typed and published onto this website, for the entire world to see.

Because of the incredible disruption of moving house and things which have greatly disturbed my brain chemistry, I have an ever-increasing amount to say, in a desperate attempt to occupy my mind and bring some structure to my life. My routines are sacrosanct to me but I have little control in my work environment, where I must conform to bland office mediocrity and keep my head below the parapet, so my writing is the part of my routine where I blow off some steam. Unfortunately, there's a great deal of pressure to be released.

I'm aware that my daily word count has been creeping up little by little, to the point where I'm easily blasting out 1,500 or 2,000 words at a sitting. Nobody wants to read that much. Instead of writing short sweet little blog posts, I churn out disturbing half-formed thoughts from the depths of my subconscious, which reveal a side of me that nobody ever directly acknowledges in themselves, let alone writes about at length.

Instead of finding a dark corner of the internet to lurk in and turning my insecurities into hate-filled invective directed at a common chosen target, replete with the jargon of a particular online community, instead I have developed a reflex where if I think it, I remember it and I write it down. My daily writing reflects all the unspeakable things which any person might think but never say. I say the things because of my increasing isolation.

I'm lucky enough to have a great number of friends online who I could chat to, but I feel as though I'm poisoned and that I must cut off the limb which the venomous snake bit. I feel as though I have to purge myself of toxicity. I feel as though I must try to vent all the terrible things I'm feeling, in order to feel better.

I write out of sheer desperation.

I doesn't seem to matter how much I write - it doesn't make things better, but sometimes it makes things worse. I write because it's a well-established habit and pattern of behaviour. I write because it helps me to get my thoughts in order. I write because it helps me feel in control of my life. I write because I'm proud that I'm creating something. I write because it gets a reaction. I write because it gives me a connection to people. I write because people respond. Sometimes, however, people don't respond and the lack of reaction is distressing.

I push very hard. I push myself. I push others.

I'm not sure if I'm pushing people away, but I certainly stopped engaging properly with people.

I feel so overwhelmed with the enormity of the task of getting my life back in good order - financially for example - that I've whittled away everything which doesn't fit to a very austere and minimalistic routine. I eat, sleep, work and write. Most other people have their families, friends, kids, pets and other such things in their lives, but my life has been reduced to a crude cartoon.

I reached 700 words and I promised myself I wouldn't write any more.

Please, tell me if you're still listening; still reading.

Tags: #writing #socialmedia #friends

This is a story about sex equality...

When thinking about sex, one must consider prostitution, pornography and sex tourism. I also think that one should consider InCels and men who are changing their bodies with hormones and surgery to emulate certain aspects of the female physical form.

I consider all these things, because my attempts at considering what it's like to be born in a female body would be nothing more than educated, well-reasoned, rational guesses based upon a lifetime of observation. When I've written about emotive topics in the past, my readers have defended my right to write freely on the topic and say unspeakable things in the name of being a free thinker, but I've been well aware that some of my most respected female friends have strongly rejected certain opinions which I volunteered.

I wrote about consent, which created considerable discussion, while not drawing anything other than loyalty from vocal Twitter followers who were obviously reluctant to do more than reserve judgement.

I think I was being deliberately provocative.

There wasn't really any need.

Why subject my female readers to provocation when I'm increasingly aware that every female friend has experienced some kind of unwanted sexual advances - in the best of cases - and in many cases has suffered a sexual assault and/or rape? It wasn't meant to be upsetting or even particularly insensitive to those survivors, but what I wrote was not particularly useful, given that my entire essay was based around the pleasant and charmed existence I live, where consent is often not given verbally but there's certainly no ambiguity: I was being disingenuous for the sake of poking holes in attempts to legislate with fuzzy imprecise language in a world which loves guessing games.

Let's talk about some subjects which I find difficult instead.

Firstly, an admission: I hate uncertainty. I hate ambiguity. This roughly translates as a combination of insecurity and some leftover unhappiness from adolescence, when I was more shy and awkward, and more of a social outcast; a creepy weirdo. My feelings towards the dating game are closer to the feelings which drive InCel thought patterns than I'm comfortable admitting. The words "guaranteed shag" are more attractive to me than repulsive. I know that the idea of a government-run girlfriend programme to ensure that every fat pimple-faced pale gamer who never leaves the house is paired up with a sexual partner, is clearly a somewhat terrifying idea, if we imagine that hordes of wimmin are going to have to be caught with nets or herded into pens to be then boxed up and delivered to the horny InCels.

I'm starting to feel a little old, approaching the age of 40, and I have little enthusiasm for going to the gym simply to make my superficial appearance more attractive. It would be a lie to say that I wasn't aware that sex tourism exists. It would be a lie to say that I wasn't aware that prostitution and escorting exist. The idea of travelling to a foreign country for sex is quite repulsive to me - I specifically reject it, because it seems like another form of colonialism and western exploitation to me; it seems like a form of economic modern slavery. The idea of paying for sex in the UK is not problematic for me, but it is not attractive - the act of coitus is not something which I can easily separate from my desire for intimacy and companionship. The most pleasurable part of lovemaking is spooning - the stroking, tickling and the warmth of each other's bodies in a bed - so paying for sex doesn't meet my needs. I would probably pay to support a wife or girlfriend, in order to guarantee my supply of love, but paying for sex seems like an extraordinary waste of money.

In many ways, I can agree that it's a great time to be a man. High quality pornography is available for free, with every extreme fetish imaginable catered for. Hookup apps provide free sex. Plastic surgery, makeup and the sexualisation of society provides constant titillation, and the media has sifted and sorted the world's women to find the very most beautiful to parade before my eyes. My greying hair and extra pounds of flesh pose no problems for me, despite my insecurities about my appearance.

But, in many ways I'm rich and successful and I've been told that I can have it all - I can have anything I want, whenever I want.

I do agree that I feel very entitled.

I'm privileged.

Probably the weirdest and least comfortable of my admissions is that I considered the merits of purchasing a sex doll. It seemed like a straightforward enough decision, given that it would undoubtedly be more pleasurable to penetrate an object which simulated a female body, than to stimulate myself with my hand. It seemed as though it posed no ethical quandary - nobody had to suffer for my pleasure; nobody was coerced into doing anything they didn't want to. Then, of course, I remembered that my primary needs are for intimacy and companionship. I have no difficulties in masturbating to temper my sex drive, without the aid of a sex toy. I can't think of a much worse feeling than having to clean and put away a sex doll after use, when the lust had been satiated and a more rational state of mind had returned. How awful to have the grim task of dealing with putting away a lifeless object, instead of the deliciousness of being wrapped in another person's arms postcoitally.

I considered that I live alone and there's perhaps no reason to even put away a sex doll, if I owned one. It would only be paranoia that somebody might be unexpectedly in my home and see the lifeless object in my bed, which would mean that I'd shamefully hide it away after use. What about having the sex doll in my bed to comfort myself when I'm alone at night, I wondered... what would it be like to put my arm around this object and cuddle it, like a child would cuddle a teddy bear, perhaps?

Is this the grim future which we inhabit: Where balding men with beer guts and grey pubic hair travel to Thailand and have sex with young women who are trying to financially support their families? Where the ugliest men have sex with the most attractive women, because of the coercion of capitalism? Where stripping and webcam work pay for university educations? Where sex work is normalised? Where computer games and the internet have left some of us lonely and isolated, while others hook up using apps and take their bedroom exploits to new extremes?

At the root of it all, I recognise something which I freely but uncomfortably admit to: that the certainty is exactly what I want. I want to be able to go to websites where I know there is a vast trove of free pornography. I want to be able to browse vast numbers of single women in my local area. On the matter of being able to buy sex, or to be able to travel to a country where the buying of it is more subtle, I suppose it disturbs me more than it comforts me. However, I would be more afraid of dying alone if sex tourism didn't exist. Perhaps I would have made a more serious attempt at securing myself a wife if there was no route open to me to leverage my wealth and privilege when I get desperate enough. There must be comfort in knowing that there are some guarantees in my privileged life.

On the topic of entitlement, I suppose I feel as though I should be able to get a girlfriend as easily as I would obtain any other thing that I want: I choose and I pay. I'm not such a monster that I objectify wimmin in the way my words seem to suggest. I'm very much looking for a life companion who I can shower with love and affection, but I must admit that I find the uncertainty of dating quite unpleasant, and I would much prefer to skip straight to the part where we're fully committed to each other and we figure things out from there. I instinctively reject things like arranged marriages, because they seem coercive and exploitative - mostly very young girls being married off to rich old men by their greedy selfish parents - but I watched a television program where people who'd never met each other got married as part of a very fascinating experiment.

I suppose these thoughts and these words are indicative of how dysfunctional I am and how incomplete my life is. It seems clear to me, writing this, that I am pinning my hopes on a relationship as a magic bullet to cure my unhappiness and distress, which is far more due to my lack of local friends than it is due to lack of a partner. Of course, having a lifelong companion is of great comfort and a source of much pleasure and happiness, but I do consider what I have to offer myself in return, and whether I would be a needy and clingy burden because my life is so empty.

The sex doll thing is a bit of a red herring. I wrote the title because I knew it would attract attention. Sex is of much lower importance than surrounding myself with people to talk to. Intimacy is important. Cuddles are important. Sex is just a fleeting itch to be scratched, and not worth being in a bad relationship for or sacrificing friendships for.

I write this somewhat aware that it makes it almost impossible for me to admit to any future object of my affections that I write this blog. I've been writing stuff which paints myself in a terribly unflattering light. I've been writing stuff which is very hard to read for even those who've gotten to know me over a considerable length of time, let alone those who are considering embarking upon a romantic relationship with me.

I wonder to myself if I should employ a cleaner to clean and tidy this gigantic house that I live in. I must admit that I have entertained - theoretically - the idea of financially supporting and housing a woman, in return for the guarantees which I feel entitled to as a member of the patriarchy.

Of course, you must understand that I feel repulsed by myself and I instinctively reject the idea of having servants - even if they're paid - so this has been somewhat of a hypothetical exercise, but I write with candid honesty, as I am wont to do.

Tags: #sex #relationships

This is a story about paranoid schizophrenia...

I've lost my mind in all kinds of places, but the place where my sanity most eluded me was in this bedroom. I moved into this almost-ready-made perfect home, which only required a few bits of bedding and storage boxes to turn it into one of the most tidy and well organised places I've ever lived. I had stability and eventually I had security. I had my own front door, which I could lock and double-lock and be safely protected from the outside world and anybody who wanted to intrude.

The story begins in the midst of an unhappy relationship, several years earlier. A toxic mixture of mental health problems and drug abuse combined with an abusive relationship, to leave me barricading myself into rooms for my own protection, while my long-term girlfriend and later wife screamed abuse, kicked and punched the door which was my flimsy defence from the onslaught, which was seemingly unending.

The situation got so bad that I retreated to my summer house, where I drank water from a hosepipe and defecated in a bucket. I had no food or access to anything other than cold water. I couldn't take a shower. I was cornered.

To her credit, my ex-wife relented and I was able to come out of the summer house unmolested, unharassed and somewhat reassured that she was a safe distance away. We separated, but I was badly traumatised. The psychological torture had lasted for nearly 2 years and I was deeply damaged.

The extent to which I had been traumatised was not apparent to me. I moved away from the area to be away from her, and I assumed that my mental health was intact enough for me to start a new life without any problems. I assumed that having escaped from that abusive situation where I was cornered, I would be quickly on the mend.

What I discovered was that I carried a kind of post-traumatic stress which was thinly concealed by my generally sunny and upbeat positive mental attitude. I set about rebuilding my life and didn't think too much about the past. However, stress, exhaustion and drugs all had the capability of plunging me back into flashbacks of those awful moments when I was cornered. I experienced episodes of extreme paranoia about the kicking and punching of the flimsy door that protected me, and the torrent of abuse and violent anger which was a constant source of threat on the other side of whatever barrier I could find to protect myself.

It seems obvious that drugs are bad, and certainly the problems I had with drugs unleashed the very worst of the psychological trauma I had sustained. One might be tempted to say that the paranoia was caused by the drugs, but in fact the origin of my paranoia was much easier to explain. Few people would be psychologically strong enough to withstand the torment of being trapped somewhere with only one exit, and an angry violent abuser screaming and hammering on the single door with punches and kicks. Few people would escape without post-traumatic trauma from such events.

It seemed obvious in my perfect safe protected stable microcosm that nobody was going to hurt me. It seemed obvious that my front door was sufficiently robust to resist kicks and punches, and that I had escaped my abuser. It seems perfectly obvious in retrospect, but you have to understand that the trauma was deeply ingrained in my subconscious.

While I was able to function reasonably effectively and act mostly normal, I struggled with paranoid thoughts, unusual beliefs and strange behaviour, when I came under great financial pressure and and had a great deal of stress in my job. When I became exhausted, physically and mentally, I began to form paranoid beliefs. I struggled to maintain my ability to be objective and grounded in reality. My sanity suffered during moments of great difficulty.

I had a long period of drug abuse which demonstrated to me - beyond any reasonable doubt - that my original paranoia was no longer grounded in any past trauma, but instead had grown into something which was self-fuelling. While the original seed of my traumatised behaviour - barricading myself into rooms - was well understood, I had a lengthy period of time where I would suffer dreadful paranoia, only to eventually have to face the fact that my feared abuser was never going to turn up.

Strangely, that period I spent barricaded into my bedroom, hundreds of miles away from my abuser, did actually 'cure' me of my paranoid psychosis. Every time I desperately piled up furniture against the door and could never quite manage to create enough of a barrier to satisfy myself that I was safe, I eventually realised that nobody was battering on the door. I took down my barricades and I was surprised to find that my tormentor was nowhere to be found.

It was incredibly dangerous, and it cost me very dearly, but eventually I was left with nothing except drug-induced paranoia, which went away as soon as I stopped taking drugs.

I'd had periods where I'd been clean and sober, but they'd never cured me of my paranoia. My post-traumatic stress was still very much unresolved and the psychological damage was a deep and bloody wound. Even after long periods where I had been abstinent from booze and drugs, my mental health was fragile as hell and I could be tipped into insanity by relatively trivial stressors.

Two years in my lovely apartment, barricading myself into my bedroom and my ensuite bathroom, and I was cured by the most unusual and unlikely of things. The very behaviour which an outsider might assume was the root cause of all my problems, turned out to be a cathartic exercise which rid me of both the paranoia and the drug addiction.

I expect today if I were to spend several days and nights abusing powerful stimulant drugs, I would begin to suffer from paranoia, but I have been through some incredibly stressful events lately and my mental health has been reasonably robust. In comparison with the many days which I would spend not eating or drinking, barricaded in a room with only one exit, fearing for my safety, the few problems I've had in the last year have been nothing... hardly worthy of consideration.

A breakup and a house move were enough to unseat my sanity and cause me to be absent from work for a week. My brain chemistry was messed up for a couple of weeks following that episode, but the damage was contained and I've been able to hold onto the substantial progress that I've made, without slipping too far back down the greasy pole.

The demands placed upon me are almost unthinkable. I live amongst unpacked boxes of my stuff and furniture that needs to be assembled. I live with all my suitcases of clothes strewn around my bedroom, because I haven't built the furniture to put things away yet. My mail piles up and administrative chores are left ignored, because it's taken an unimaginable amount of effort to get myself from the point where I was homeless, jobless, penniless and detained against my will on a psychiatric ward, to where I am today, with a house, a car, a job, money in the bank, my reputation and my liberty preserved. The tasks which still lie ahead, such as making new friends and finding a girlfriend, plus putting in place the hobbies and interests and weaving the social fabric which will make my life worth living, is not something that should be underestimated.

Not all those who wander are lost, and I have decided that I wish to make this city my home, but it's not as simple as just deciding. There is considerable effort involved in surrounding yourself with the things which meet your human needs, such as the web of relationships which support you.

I'm convinced that the very worst of my mental health problems were caused by the circumstances of my existence. Psychiatrists would refer to my condition as adjustment disorder which is just a fancy way of saying that human beings will struggle under incredibly stressful conditions. My problems have been acute - not chronic - and can clearly be seen and understood in the context of the extremely toxic circumstances of my life. Certainly, quitting drugs and staying clean are essential to any hopes I have of continuing to rebuild my life and improve my circumstances, but drugs are just a small piece of the puzzle, which is mostly about having secure housing, financial security and a support network. Anybody would crumble to pieces if they were put under the kinds of stresses and strains that I've had to endure in recent years.

I now live in a brand new place. I've had a clean break. My home is untainted. This city gives me a fresh start.

London is big enough that you can lose your mind and nobody will notice or remember. London is big enough that you can go completely crazy and you'll never manage to screw up your life, because there are so many people that you get lost in the noise. It was good to be in London during those difficult years where I was barricading myself into rooms for no reason, except that I was so post-traumatically traumatised that I simply had to do it as part of my recovery.

I face the difficulty of starting afresh from almost nothing, but I don't carry a single bit of paranoia that somebody knows about my difficult past. I really feel like I have a chance to totally start anew without anybody knowing anything which might prejudice me. I'm judged totally as the man I am today, not at all on who I was during the dark moments I endured in the past.

It might seem crazy to write and publish this, given my opportunity to escape my past and re-invent myself, but I don't want to run away from my own history. I need to acknowledge that bad things happened in my life, and they have shaped me. I need to acknowledge that even though I am healthy and functional today, I will carry a lifelong risk of problems if I become complacent. I need to make sure that I keep my stress levels and energy levels within safe ranges, and I need to put in place the things that will help and protect me when there are inevitable hiccups in life.

My bedroom looks nothing like the neat and tidy bedroom in London, pictured above, but my mind is far more neat and tidy, ordered and robust. I feel far more in control of my behaviour and my thoughts. I feel far less troubled by anything even remotely like paranoia. To all intents and purposes, I have very good mental health, but still very poor life circumstances, but at least there are practical remedies for things like my lack of local friends.

It's a somewhat positive outlook, especially considering how frequently I suffer from suicidal thoughts, but despite my tendency to become depressed and overwhelmed by the enormity of the task ahead, at least most things seem to be within my control. I can choose between going on dates or trying to make new friends. I can do things to get the stuff I need in my life. I feel relatively safe from traumatic events that are beyond my control.

Tags: #friends #relationships #suicide #mentalhealth #paranoia #depression #london

This is a story about making new friends...

How does one set about rebuilding the web of human relationships which are so integral to our lives; so important for our happiness and wellbeing? How do we arrive in a strange new city where we don't know anybody and set about making friends and filling up our "little black book" so that we can have sex when we need and want to?

We don't really talk about the grubby business of ensuring we have a steady supply of intimacy, but we all do it. Every man and every woman has their strategies and their relied-upon individuals, who can supply a "booty call" when required. We form relationships which serve as backups and others which serve as the main source of our need for cuddles and fucking. We might think of ourselves as loyal monogamous people, but we are all strategising. We are in relationships because we are getting something out if it.

I'm not so sex-obsessed that I think that sex is at the root of everything, but intimacy is a very important part of human needs, along with the ego rub that we get from being desired. Even if we're not actually having sex, we get kicks from knowing that somebody's interested. We need to feel acknowledged, even if it's something ostensibly platonic. We want somebody to pay attention to us; to crave our company.

Modern life has reached a point where I can arrive in a new city, move into a house, travel to work, shop for groceries and I can live in complete isolation. Nobody will knock on my door and introduce themselves as my neighbour. Nobody will stop me in the street and start talking to me. Nobody will notice that I arrived and nobody would notice if I was gone. I could live as a completely reclusive hermit in the centre of a busy city, surrounded by people.

It would be unusual for me to interject myself into anybody's life. If I started talking to strangers in my local supermarket, people would think I've gone insane. People would assume that I'm some sort of con artist or a would-be axe murderer. Random conversations with people in my local community is not the modern way to start making friends.

Book clubs, salsa dancing, sports teams and other such things are a safe way to meet people, but one must feign interest in the thing in question in order to make those acquaintances. I don't particularly feel like playing 5-a-side football or reading a book, in order to make friends. I'm not sure how else to set about the task of meeting anybody though, in a manner which is likely to lead to friendships.

Online, people just seem to find each other serendipitously. I have no idea how social networks form online, but I know that meaningful lifelong friendships sprout from online contact. However, despite the tentacles of the internet reaching globally, the chances of meeting somebody in the same town are quite small. From all my thousands of Twitter followers I've probably only met 4 people in person, and only 2 were ever in roughly the same geographical area as me.

I have friends who met the love of their life on Skype. I have friends who met the love of their life on websites you've probably never heard of, like faceparty or some other forerunner to the dominant tech giants of today. I know of people who've had affairs with people who they've met on Facebook.

It would be unusual if I didn't use technology to meet people.

I suppose I've been hesitant to dip into the world of tech, because I wanted to get a little bit settled in everyday life before I played my ace card.

The temptation to use dating apps is enormous. In a dense urban area there are a staggering number of lonely people looking to connect. Dating apps - whether you like them or loathe them - have become a ubiquitous part of modern life. It seems that a staggering number of people maintain a presence on a dating app for a very long period of their life, perhaps never even deleting their profile despite seemingly achieving the stated aim of the apps, which is to meet somebody and start a relationship. It seems like people struggle to cope without the dopamine hits of getting matches and receiving messages. How are we supposed to switch modes from having a dizzying array of faces at our disposal to swipe, and the possibility of multiple conversations and competing love interests, to then enter the stable and routine world of just dating one person in a monotonous monogamous heteronormative stable relationship?

Personally, I have my fill of online interactions every single day, so I find online dating to be a chore. I view online dating as a means to an end and I'm glad when the ordeal is over and I've met somebody. I'm glad to be in an exclusive committed relationship. I do not enjoy any part of the dating experience.

I flicked the switch.

I'm back in the game.

Because of my propensity to throw myself into any task with great gusto, I'm not wasting any time. I am treating the dating game as a campaign. I am waging war on womankind in single-minded pursuit of a new love interest. I am utilising every ounce of my skill and energy which is usually reserved for juggling multiple conversations with people around the world in different time zones, to maximise my chances of finding a special somebody and minimising the amount of time wasted on an unpleasant search.

It places colossal demands on me, having set myself an aggressive target like this and pursuing it so relentlessly, but the results that it yields are astounding. I can have more conversations with people in a 5 mile radius of my home in the space of 24 hours, than I could hope to have in a lifetime of waiting for cupid's arrow to work its magic. I have moved from a place of despair - feeling incredibly alone - to feeling as though I made a good decision in moving to the centre of a capital city. I can sense great potential in this place, and this technology - these apps - have put great power into my privileged hands.

I'm not a dick. I'm not looking to have one night stands or hookups or find a friend with benefits, or any of those other vulgar things. I'm simply a lonely new arrival in a city, single and looking for love. Perhaps not even expecting to find love... just glad to be making connections with local women. I've played my ace card and I have not been disappointed, although the battle rages on and no victory is in sight.

I am now off to meet two people in a pub, which is a considerable improvement on staying alone at home, which is what would have happened if I hadn't started using a dating app last night. This is a big deal in my life, which is so lacking in face-to-face social contact, lacking in local friends.

Tags: #sex #relationships

This is a story about having a pity party...

My memory and perception of time are very badly affected by strong medication. Every day ends the same for me - swallowing 6 pills and falling unconscious - and every afternoon and evening the fog clears and I'm overwhelmed with anxiety, due to the medication effects wearing off. The routine is useful because it helps me stay functional and earning a lot of money, but I'm stuck in a loop which only contains working, sleeping and eating. Days are indistinguishable and time passes incredibly slowly.

I write repeatedly about suicidal thoughts because I'm very trapped. I've become physically dependent on medication and the withdrawal effects are intolerable. I struggle to recognise the pattern in my moods, because my memory is impaired. I function perfectly effectively at work because of the monotony of what I do, and the fact I'm using skills I grasped as a child, long since mastered and turned into muscle memory and reflex. Everything in my life is something I've done a million times before. There are no new and novel challenges in my life. There is nothing which I could embark upon as a voyage into the unknown, except for death I suppose.

I think about getting a girlfriend, making friends, finding a new hobby. I think about buying more furniture and generally making my home more comfortable. I think about getting on top of my mountain of administrative bureaucratic tasks. None of these things are new or interesting to me - they're simply chores.

I'm blessed with a large amount of people who I'm in contact with via the internet. I'm never short of somebody to talk to via message or email. Some friends have stayed in contact and I've even made some new friends quite by accident. Perhaps I take all this for granted, but I'm just stating the facts.

I see my situation as unavoidable. I see my choices as so limited that I actually have no choices at all. The claim might sound unlikely, but my analysis is invariably correct. I'm in the process of creating choices for myself, while the world works exceptionally hard to thwart, frustrate, delay and annoy me. I'm not so paranoid that I believe that anybody's "out to get me" but in my lifelong experience there are always setbacks which far exceed a person's capacity to insulate and protect themselves. We live with the constant peril of our car breaking down or some other unexpected financial disaster wrecking our carefully laid out plans.

In other ways, my life is frighteningly random. I was almost bankrupt when a friend recommended me for a job, which rescued me from certain ruin. One year later, that friend killed himself. Another friend recommended me for another job, which has led me indirectly to where I am today. My improving financial situation is entirely a fluke and it's likely to end up in financial disaster at any moment. I've been maximally leveraged for far more years than I care to remember. My avoidance of homelessness and destitution is thanks to blog readers who have offered assistance. These rescuers have appeared in my hour of need, not through any coherent cries for help which I've communicated, but instead through the randomness of life.

Similarly, I expected to die in September 2017. I had planned and premeditated my suicide attempt. I had been systematic. I had done my research and I was sticking to the script. Again, random people off the internet intervened in collaboration with old friends and I was saved... just.

I feel sorry for myself but I can't decide how much of my situation is of my own making and how much was preordained. It certainly seems that whatever I try to do, my life appears to be running on invisible rails. If I try to ruin my life, I cannot, and if I try to improve my life, I cannot expedite or hurry things along.

Every day at work earns considerably more money than I spend. Every month my financial situation improves. However, my risk and exposure are steadily constant. I live with zero security. I live with very real and tangible threats to my home and my income, which also threaten to then cause a catastrophic chain of events that would see me cast from my profession and barred from accessing everything which middle-class people take for granted: bank accounts, mortgages, car loans, house rentals and other things requiring a credit check. Even most jobs with big companies are barred to bankrupts nowadays.

Money ebbs and flows through my accounts. Vast amounts of my wealth is hoovered up by the idle and lazy, who arrogantly expect to be paid money because they already have money. The turnover of money is beyond my capacity to track it. To monitor my accounts would be an exhausting waste of time and energy. Instead I see the vast wastage as preferable to the miserly task of bean counting. At least I know that some of my money ends up in the pockets of people who need it - it flows to me and it flows outwardly again, but at least it is flowing. I have no time or respect for people who cling to money, denying it to the economy.

I've lost count how many times I've lost everything but earned it all back again plus interest. I must have spent several lifetimes' fortunes. The aggregate value of my productivity must be a very big number. I certainly haven't been idle.

My life is very straightforward. Get the money, spend the money.

The straightforward nature of my life is the root cause of my unhappiness. I feel like a rat who has had electrodes implanted deep into its brain, so that it can stimulate the reward pathways by depressing a lever. It's very easy to press the button and get the thing which I'm supposedly living for. Don't have sex, press the lever. Don't have children, press the lever. Don't eat, press the lever. Don't drink, press the lever. I can press the right buttons and get the things which everyone covets - money, houses, cars, boats... whatever.

When you've been in the situation where you can buy whatever you want, including a lifetime's unlimited supply of drugs, then you have become the rat who presses the lever until it dies, because it doesn't eat or drink - it just presses the lever, because the lever is the best that life can possibly be. If you've ever thought "I could die right now because I'm so happy" that's what the rat is thinking when it presses the lever. Nobody should ever experience that... it's too much to handle.

Ultimately, I have reduced life to its most fundamental and primitive components. I understand mortality. I understand the lever. Life has boiled down to a choice between three things for me: pressing the lever, killing myself, or seemingly interminable boredom and suffering; repetition.

I had to make the choice to stop pressing the lever. I did so because of guilt about not repaying a debt to a friend. I could see that I was going to die of thirst, like the rat pressing the lever, and that I would die with a considerable lack of dignity. I turn 40 this year and it's pure pride that drives me towards confounding all expectations that I should end up a dead homeless bankrupt junkie.

I repeat myself so endlessly, but this is how I keep myself on-track. The speed limit of the universe is maddening, because I can see where I want to end up and I can see the route I need to take, but there's no way I can make the journey pass any quicker. I'm very much wishing my life away because I can picture so clearly where I want to be. I see everything that's not on the critical path as superflous. I've jettisoned girlfriends, friends, hobbies and interests, intellectually stimulating work, social contact and - strangely - drugs and alcohol. My life is austere. My life is brutal simplicity personified.

I wonder if perhaps I am on the autistic spectrum. I have rigid and fixed routines. I wear certain clothes on certain days at work, from a pre-planned wardrobe. I eat the same things. I have a place for everything and everything must be in its place. I follow a sequence for everything. I have routes that I always follow. I have a single unwavering approach to life; a single way of getting money and getting what I want. My life is designed to fit a designated path; everything is controlled down to the level of minute details. I have memorised unusual things, such that my words and actions seem to flow out of me automatically, despite the complexity of a task or seeming impossibility of memorising a sequence of keystrokes.

I blend in well enough now in adulthood. It's been a while since anybody called me a weirdo. In fact, I portray a convincing facsimile of a normal person, outwardly.

For a person with a mood disorder, I appear to be remarkably stable, and all the more so considering that I'm not taking any mood stabilisers. I stabilise myself with self-medication and strict routine. It's hell, but it's an internal hell which I manage to hide from my work colleagues.

It pleases me that I've been able to blend in. It pleases me that I've been able to pretend to be normal for lengthy periods of time, and to prove that I can hold down a job, pay my bills and otherwise conform like a regular guy, for sustained periods. It pleases me that I stop and start drugs and alcohol whenever I want - I can be clean and sober whenever I choose, without difficulty.

Everything is a loop. Round and round I go.

The present loop is one of the most boring and most suicide-inspiring.

Tags: #bipolar #suicide #depression #career

This is a story about predictions...

Bookmakers and actuaries are extremely good at predicting the future. The profits of these well-established enterprises depend upon accurate predictions, based upon a vast amount of historical data. Better statistics lead to better predictions, which lead to accurate odds and sustained profitability. If it wasn't possible to predict the future in this way, there wouldn't be a business model for life insurance or gambling.

Unfortunately for individuals, generalised predictions are fairly accurate while individual predictions are not. It is no use asking an actuary when you will die, so that you can plan your life accordingly. The actuary will not be able to tell you whether you'll die of a heart attack age 45, or whether you'll die in your sleep age 95. Those extra 50 years present a considerable problem for the individual, but the actuary does not care, because they spread the risk of having to pay out on life insurance across a large group. On average, the insurer will win. However, none of us can know whether we're going to die prematurely or live unusually long.

It might seem prudent to avoid smoking, drinking and consumption of excessive calories. It might seem prudent to go to the gym every day. It might seem prudent to eat a balanced diet, containing a mixture of fruit and vegetables, full of amino acids, vitamins, minerals, trace elements and other chemical compounds your body needs to repair itself and stay healthy. However, while we can say for certain that smoking and obesity will lead to health complications, none of us can make choices to assure ourselves of a long life.

One day you might just drop dead.

The temptation to use statistical analysis to make predictions for an individual is overwhelming in a world where we have discovered the classical laws of physics. We presume that we are able to predict the future as easily as we can predict the trajectory of a missile. Unfortunately, individuals do not follow simple parabolic curves. While there are statistically significant correlations - good predictors - this does not mean that we can know the future life of a human, after gathering a few crummy data points.

All we have managed to unearth so far about the mysteries of human life is that we can understand risk not destiny. You might have genes which appear to doom you to a certain fate, but those genes are not always expressed in the way which we expect. The sequencing of the human genome has failed to provide the crystal ball that it was promised to deliver, but instead revealed the unimaginable complexity of epigenetics. No clear genes have been found for things such as diabetes and depression. There is no gene which hard-wires our life expectancy into every cell.

Who could have predicted that smoking would be banned in public buildings and the workplace, drinking culture would become diminished, supermarkets would import food from all over the globe, such that strawberries would be on their shelves all year round, and the workplace would become so safe and so sedentary? Who could have predicted that mental health problems would reach such epidemic proportions that the leading cause of death amongst 20 to 40 year old men would be suicide?

Ultimately, the biggest thing affecting my life expectancy appears to be a choice which I'm free to make.

I've never smoked and I quit drinking 4 months ago. I eat a balanced diet and I'm a healthy weight. These things are happy accidents. Every afternoon my anxiety builds to an increasingly intolerable level and every evening I feel suicidal. I live alone and have no friends or family nearby. I have no children, pets or partner.

My life is on a knife-edge.

If you were going to bet on the statistically probable outcome of my life, you'd have lost a lot of money already. I'm afraid to say that I'm an outlier and I have refused to conform to the predictions. I'm a single data point and as such I'm not statistically significant on my own, but the significance of my own life and its outcome is, unsurprisingly, important to me.

It's a hard life being an outlier. Literally, almost everyone is betting against you. It will be harder to get an education, get a job, get a home, borrow money, find a partner, get life insurance, get a pension... all of these things are thwarted by people who believe that they are able to predict my destiny. I'm continuously confronting people who believe I'm a lost cause, and therefore not worth taking a risk on.

We can see that this attempt at prediction becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. When racial stereotypes become pervasive - for example - then we see that minorities are harshly and unfairly prejudiced, which harms their chance of success and reinforces the correlation between uncorrelated factors. Skin colour should not be a good predictor of socioeconomic outcome, but the data overwhelmingly shows that it is.

From the moment you enter the vast educational system, you are being sifted and sorted in a way which tests you and gathers data on you, in order to attempt to predict your future. Something as random as getting an illness will affect your school attendance data, which will be used against you as a predictor of supposed future failure. You are constantly at risk of flagging yourself as a "disaster waiting to happen" and suffering lifelong prejudice due to the systemic attempts to analyse individuals statistically.

I suppose I now revel in the fact that I'm a living contradiction. My problems with mental health, addiction, alcohol, hospitalisations, psych ward stays, trouble with the police and refusal to be sifted and sorted by the mainstream education system, are not in agreement with the predictions that I should end up bankrupt, in jail and/or dead, having lived a life with no useful contribution to society, and in fact having been a burden. I'm the guy your mother warned you about. I'm the one who isn't supposed to be allowed to freely roam the streets. I'm the one who all the gatekeepers have in mind - I'm the one they want to keep out, but yet I'm very much on the inside.

If those who think they can gaze into the future by studying my data had their way, I wouldn't have a job, a house, any money. The system has tried very hard to railroad me into certain outcomes, because it's what was expected and predicted.

I genuinely don't know whether I'm going to kill myself or if my depression is going to lift and life's going to become pleasant and bearable. I've lived with depression for long enough to know that my choices will have little effect on the outcome. No amount of prescription medication, therapy, yoga and other such things will have the intended effect. It has always been the least expected things in my life which have wrought the most important changes.

If I was betting on myself, I suppose I would bet that I'll die at my own hands. If I was betting on myself, I suppose I would bet that I won't be able to escape the debt trap. If I was betting on myself, I suppose I would bet that I will crumble and break, because that seems like the obvious thing I would do, from looking at the black marks against my name. If I was going to bet according to statistics, I would definitely bet against myself.

However, we know that fundamentally the universe does not obey classical physics, when we study the underlying laws, but instead there is inherent uncertainty. Outcomes are nondeterministic. Knowing my past does not allow anybody to know my future. There is a nonzero probability of every possible outcome, no matter how unlikely it may seem.

My day-to-day life is dominated by a single question - am I going to kill myself? - but despite being the best placed person to answer that, I do not know the answer. Events unfolding are as much a surprise to me as they are to you.

Tags: #suicide #depression

This is a story about flashbacks...

Once upon a time I was in love. Once upon a time I lived in a place where I knew lots of people. Once upon a time I lived somewhere familiar that I called home. Once upon a time I was in the Goldilocks zone: everything was just right.

It often looks as if I start worrying about things too far in advance. I remember I was very anxious about getting another job during the winter of 2016/7. I had money in the bank to pay my rent for many months. I had the financial support of my girlfriend. Really, there was nothing to worry about, but I didn't feel secure.

Nobody could have predicted that I'd get a blood clot in my leg, causing a lot of damage to nerves, blood vessels and muscle, which would trigger my kidneys to fail. Nobody could have predicted the consequent need for dialysis and pain medication.

For sure, I contributed to my own problems, but then the problems multiplied all on their own. It was my fault that I got more sick, didn't get a job and broke up with my girlfriend. Having to leave my home and move to another city was something I already predicted and worried about. Getting into financial difficulties was something I was already losing sleep over. My luck ran out in the end.

There was unimaginable stress and effort required to move from London to Manchester, Manchester to Swansea, Swansea to Cardiff, and stave off bankruptcy. There was an incomprehensible amount of trauma caused by breaking up with the love of my life - even though I instigated it in my madness - and leaving the city which held almost my entire social support network.

Mental health problems, alcoholism and drug abuse added to a toxic mix of moving house, moving city, moving jobs and never putting down any roots. I never felt settled anywhere.

The net result is that I've had to emotionally shut down. The person who I present to prospective employers, prospective landlords and other gatekeepers, is a calm, collected, well-dressed, polite and well-spoken individual, who appears to be handling everything quite well. Without this document, people would be very puzzled and surprised to find that I'd committed suicide. "He looked fine" people would say.

Nobody's really close enough to see the inner anguish and turmoil. Nobody's really close enough to see my mask slip. For sure, I write and publish every day, but my readers are scattered all over the country. At the weekend I saw two close friends, but the previous time I'd seen a close friend had been 5 months ago.

5 months!

Can you imagine that?

Picture yourself pretending like everything is A-OK for 5 straight consecutive months, without a shoulder to cry on and the comfort of opening up to a close friend. Picture yourself being surrounded exclusively by your work colleagues and other people who you need to put on a brave face for, for 5 long months.

My life is very odd. I saw old friends in Portugal, in the gastropub next door to the hotel I lived in, in Prague and near Bristol. I count four occasions when I saw old friends, in the space of a year. That's a staggeringly lonely and isolated existence.

My entire existence revolves around my attempts to avoid gaining a black mark against my name - bankruptcy - and being evicted from the privileged part of society which I'm fortunate enough to be part of. For 5 years I've attempted to muscle my way back into civilised society, while the demands of capitalism have wrestled me to the floor and punched me in the face repeatedly.

My approach to life is very simple: work hard and earn more money that I spend. On paper, it's easy to calculate how long it will take to get myself back in the black. Theoretically, it should be easy for me to restore health, wealth and prosperity to my life.

In reality, I've had to suspend almost everything 'human' about myself and become a robot.

I don't have the time or the money for feelings.

Everything feels very wrong, but conceptually it's right. My feelings tell me that things are painful and unbearable, but on paper I must bear these things, because on paper it's clear what the benefits are. I do not feel any benefits. I very much feel all the horrible unpleasant things. I force myself to live with the intolerable, because it seems logical in theory.

Look around: life seems to be about earning money, paying bills and then dying. I'm making a very passable imitation of those I see around me.

I would desperately like to switch off my feelings, switch off my brain, and just wake up in a year or so when this unpleasantness is over. I'm paid to sit in a chair not saying anything, so it would be very nice if I could be put into a kind of suspended animation, so that I'm unconscious while sitting in that chair. Wake me up when the sitting is finished.

Something unlocked some feelings for the first time in a very long time, and I found myself crying a little bit last night. I cried about breaking up with "the one who got away". It's strange that those tears are almost 2 years overdue. I didn't really cry very much. My feelings are kept very well subdued - the lid is kept on that jar very tight.

I think about the ease with which I could calmly get a sharp knife from the kitchen drawer, walk upstairs to my bathroom, draw a warm bath, immerse myself in the water and open some major blood vessels with the blade. I know how unhesitatingly I would act, once making the decision. I know how little doubt or anxiety would trouble me. I know I wouldn't call anybody or otherwise raise the alarm.

I suppose I could give up the other way. I could allow myself to be ejected from the privileged part of society. I could refuse to partake in the rat race anymore. I could allow my card to be marked and my name to be tarnished. I could let the circling vultures swoop in. I suppose it might actually be more pleasant than the sitting in the chair, quietly doing nothing, just waiting, while in agony.

Regret is the problem.

I cried because I lost the love of my life and it was clearly all my own fault. I cried because I was in the Goldilocks zone but I sabotaged it all. She was just right - not too hot, not too cold - and so were many other things in my life at that time, but I threw it all away.

I don't particularly feel regret, because I don't particularly feel anything. My feelings are all bottled up. There's no time or money for my feelings.

It's been a long time since I cried, but I did cry a little bit last night.

Tags: #relationships