This is a story about novels...

I wonder why I don't write more fiction. I wonder why I haven't retreated into a fantasy world. I think it's because my reality has been stranger than fiction; my life has had more drama than any fable I've read. I wonder why I'm not compelled to delve into the realm of science fiction. I think it's because I'm entranced by the mysteries of the universe - the possibilities of scientific discovery are far more interesting and important than made-up stuff, even if it does fire the imagination.

The first novel I wrote was important, because it allowed me to explore the hardest thing in my life: my addiction. I felt like I was trapped into a destiny that could only lead to health problems, getting in trouble with the police, being locked up on psych wards and in prison, and a premature death. I felt like it was all my fault - because of bad choices - and that there was no escape. In fact, the solution was to take things to their ultimate conclusion in a fictional world. In writing the story of Neil and his descent into the world of addiction, I was forgiving myself. By telling the story, I could understand that addiction is not about moral weakness, stupidity, bad character and individual responsibility. By telling Neil's story, I could see that he was as trapped as I was and that it wasn't his fault that circumstances led him to the brink of the most awful death imaginable.

The second novel - almost but not quite completed - allowed me to play out a fantasy instead of acting it out in real life. I needed to move from an individualistic to a social mindset. I needed to think about people other than myself. Having a cast of characters to play with was important to take me back to a time when I had healthy friendships and a sense of purpose. I was undecided whether to write a utopian novel or a dystopian one. In the end I decided that it would be both, because life is messy. I was very strict with myself, trying to keep things grounded in reality and not fudge awkward details. It was very hard. Some of the point of writing fiction is to allow the author to fantasise about whatever they want and construct the back story to conveniently fit the world they want to create. I didn't allow myself that artistic freedom - I wanted the reader to understand how hard it would be for somebody to create a better society.

I wonder why I write. In my mind I've been writing every day for three years, but the reality is that I've skipped a lot of days and it's more like two and a half years. In my mind, I've written a million words, but the actual word count is 844,000 and it's more like 750,000 if you subtract the word count of my two novels. In my mind, this blog tells a clear and consistent story of rags to riches, and explains the complexity of mental health and addiction. In reality, I've written 750,000 words of self-centred drivel and a very great deal of it is quite vindictive and passive-aggressive. Undoubtedly though, it's a project I feel proud of, despite the realisation that a lot of what I've written is garbage, spewed out when I was very unwell. It makes me cringe to read stuff I wrote when I was high or otherwise strung-out due to sleep deprivation and drug abuse. It's very difficult to re-live periods when I was extremely distressed, due to bad jobs, financial woes, housing insecurity, depression, anxiety and lots of other awful things.

I have regularly proclaimed that I'm going to make a change, only to fail spectacularly to enact one. When I stopped writing my blog during November of last year to write my second novel, I found it really hard to live without my daily blog post. I write because it's a habit and a coping mechanism, and without it I struggle. I write because it gives me stability in an otherwise unstable life.

It surprised me how little traction I was getting in terms of getting readers and Twitter followers, until 6 months ago or so. My social media engagement - likes, comments and shares - was abysmal. Why on earth was I pouring my heart and soul into a project when so few people were reading? Who would spend two years of their life writing stuff that hardly anybody wanted to read? Turns out there aren't any short-cuts; there's no easy way. If you're not writing regularly then you're not going to get regular readers. It's hard damn work to build something that anybody thinks is worth reading. I don't think that my stuff is "worth reading" but I'm glad that I exist in the form of these words on the page; I'm glad I've put myself out there for the world to judge me.

I regularly read quite a few blogs and I enjoy the sense of participation in the lives of those people. I like knowing what's going on in their worlds, and what the history is that led them to the present day - what makes them tick. To begin with, it's easier if a person writes short and sweet little updates and a relationship is formed slowly over time, but then I'm often left feeling I want more - I wish people wrote more. I'm always surprised by how infrequently some people write and how reserved they are. I guess we can't all have verbal diarrhoea like me, huh?

A friend describes how he listens to the radio or watches Youtube vloggers because he's used to the voices, the personalities - it's company. I hope that if I can be consistent that I'm providing a kind of company for my readers - I'm a familiar voice too. I worry that I'm droning on and that I transmit far more than I receive, but it's helpful for me to keep this regular thing going. At least I'm still here in the land of the living if I'm writing. It serves as a kind of heartbeat if nothing else - if I go quiet then people will worry, and not without good reason. Thinking "what am I going to write about today?" is a purpose, in the absence of another. A purpose is important, in life.

If you wanna be a writer, you've got to write. I'm not sure if I want to be a writer, because they're very badly paid and their artistic freedom is restricted by the need to write commercially-viable pieces. In fact, I am a writer, first and foremost. I have a job that pays the bills and gives me plenty of time to write - I'm one of the best paid writers you know. I'm not sure I'm a novelist, but I'm definitely a writer. I'm definitely going to continue until I've reached my 3-year anniversary and a million words published on this blog, later this year.

I'm not particularly motivated to write fiction at the moment because I want to know how my own story ends. My life is going through an exciting period with some very real "will he?/won't he?" jeopardy. It's a nail-biter.

Tags: #writing

This is a story about the gravy train...

If you think that I'm in a cyclical pattern that I need to break out of, you might consider that we are all in a cyclical pattern - Monday to Friday, 9 to 5, weekdays and weekends, morning and evening, summer and winter. Round and round we go.

It occurred to me that I'm repeating so many things I've done in the past - buying a car, starting a new job, renting an apartment, getting through the working week. The paycheques will start to get queued up and one month will look very much like any other. I'll be well and truly back into the never-ending cycle, but the 'good' one.

Renting an apartment is going to be stressful, and the last time I did it I was left exhausted and financially exposed, which tipped me over the edge - I presented myself at my doctor's surgery and said that I was afraid that I couldn't keep myself safe. I was hospitalised after 13 hours of waiting. Could I be risking a repeat of that?

How many times have I managed to start a new job and get myself into a place of my own without having some kind of breakdown? 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017... every year I managed to keep a roof over my head and enough money to pay the bills, although I got into debt when I got sick. I don't think it's the wrong thing to do, to get a job and rent an apartment. One of these days things are going to go smoothly for me. One of these days I'm going to have a run of good luck.

Yes, there's a lot of repetition in my life. There's repetition in your life too - you eat three meals a day, sleep in the same bed every night, drive the same car, go to the same job, sleep with the same partner. It's not the repetition that makes my life have repeated crises. In fact it's the disintegration of good things - social groups, stable accommodation, secure employment, healthy finances - that prompts and gets intermingled with the problems... cause and effect are hard to unpick, but you need a whole host of things if you want to have a sustainable and liveable life. You should try living in a hostel, losing your job, losing your friends, running out of money... those things are horribly stressful and destructive to anybody's mental health. When you get a whole clusterfuck of issues all at once, that's more than anybody could ever cope with.

I tried to focus on money alone, knowing that other things would slot into place more easily with money behind me. It was three months of hell, but I built up enough of a financial cushion to make some big changes, like getting a girlfriend, buying a car and getting a local job. Next is getting a place of my own and building up some more cash reserves. Life is more tolerable, now that I'm no longer having to work in London, live in AirBnBs and be isolated and alone. Life is more tolerable now that I work with a nice team of people who I see every day.

My week was very relaxed, except for the early morning starts. The early mornings have their perks - it means I can leave early and beat the evening rush hour. I was home by about 4:30pm this afternoon, which is phenomenally good. I'm very lucky.

A couple of weeks ago I dreaded going to work, I dreaded going to London and I had hit the wall - I couldn't go on anymore. I'd reached the limit of what I could endure anymore. Now, I've actually finished the working week feeling really good about how things have gone. It was a rough start to the week, but things have steadily improved. I can't quite believe how quickly and easily the week has gone. I've managed to work 40 hours instead of the dismal 16 that I was managing in the previous job, and the time has flown by. It was such a struggle in the previous job and the time really dragged, but this week's been so great in comparison to my working weeks in London.

Things are so damn relaxed in the new job. Yes, people get to work early but they leave really early too. My colleague left the office at 2pm. I left the office at 4pm. I've really not been working very hard at all, but yet I've achieved plenty - I'm exceeding expectations. I'm quite comfortably able to meet the demands of my job without much effort, which is actually a good thing. I could do with coasting for a bit. I could do with some easy laid-back living for a while.

Round and round I go, stuck in my cyclical pattern, but hopefully I'm getting into good habits now. I'm going to bed early so I can get up early to get to work. I'm cutting down my drinking and I've stopped taking sleeping pills. I'm socialising. I'm shopping and going to the cinema and having meals out. My life is very rapidly becoming quite pleasant. Monday morning was shockingly awful, but Friday afternoon has been every bit as good as it should be - a good job well done and a load of money earned... another step closer to getting back on my feet.

As always, I'm a little paranoid that something's going to go wrong. I don't want to be completely crushed if something doesn't work out. I don't want to be psychologically destroyed if things don't go as planned. I'm trying to be cautiously optimistic, and not allow myself to get carried away. "Don't spend it until you've earned it" is a mantra I've always subscribed to, but you don't get to be financially prudent when your life and your health disintegrates. I've always kept rainy day money aside and not over-stretched myself. I had a life that could withstand a lot of shocks, but so much stuff got broken that I've ended up in pretty deep shit, but I'm on the mend. I'm not going to relax until I have a substantial financial cushion again, plus the friends, girlfriend, job, apartment etc. etc.

So, it's Friday evening and my work is done for the week. I'm not dreading Monday morning, which is great. Maybe I'll get that sinking feeling on Sunday. We shall see.

Tags: #career

This is a story about life in the provinces...

For four years I tried in vain to get back my old life where I was an eligible bachelor living in the Angel Islington, zone one, and I could walk to work in the City and all the trendy bars and restaurants on Upper Street or skateboard into the West End. I used to park my car right outside my flat and go kitesurfing on whichever beach tickled my fancy on any given weekend. I used to jet off to exotic locations for several holidays a year. I was living the dream, and I tried to recreate that dream but I failed.

The closest I ever got to being happy in London was when I was homeless. Sleeping rough in Kensington Palace Gardens will be a memory I'll treasure forever, as will the hostels where I made friends with heaps of junkies and alcoholics. I started to rebuild a social group amongst my fellow homeless, and that made me happy; secure.

Blending a 'normal' life with one of homelessness and fraternising with the homeless is not easy. Keeping regular office hours is hard when your friends work doing casual labour and as part of the gig economy. Living in a hostel dorm, but having to go to work suited and booted in a crisp shirt and sharp suit, is something that's quite difficult. In the end, I lost everything again.

I wouldn't opt for the high-risk, high-reward strategy again, in London. It's too much pressure to maintain a high-living lifestyle. It wasn't really my choice to rent a luxury riverside apartment... I asked a friend if he'd help me find a place to live - given that I was homeless - and he decided that 25% of my monthly salary didn't sound like too much of a big financial commitment.... except it was actually thousands of pounds a month that I *HAD* to keep earning after I signed the lease. I wouldn't do that again.

Everything's a little easier in the provinces. I can drive to work. I can park for free. The roads aren't congested as hell and I don't have to pay a congestion charge. People are more laid back and they work shorter hours. It's easier to impress the bosses and the work's really easy too. Things are less competitive. Things are less hectic; stressful.

I feel bad that my lifestyle's quite polluting, but I can drive into town and park to go shopping. I can drive to see my girlfriend and park outside her house. I can leave work at 4:30 and be home before 5pm. I can drive to the beach. It's not an energy-efficient global-warming conscious lifestyle at all, but it's a hell of a lot less stressful and exhausting than living in an overcrowded city.

I love the social aspect of London, where there are so many interesting people and fascinating cultural events, but I was always too stressed out and unwell to participate. I was barely surviving in London for most of those four years. I was able to hang out in my lovely apartment for two years, but I was completely withdrawn - I hardly ever left the apartment.

I never quite got back to having everything I needed in London - there was always one thing that was badly broken in my life. When I had the apartment, I lost my job. When I got a girlfriend, I ran out of money. When I had money, I lost my friends. It's really hard to get and keep the things you need in London, mostly because everything's really expensive and takes a lot of effort and energy. You need to run just to stand still in London.

I commuted home from work just now and I sat in a big queue of traffic, but it was moving slowly and it didn't take long before I got through it. The sun was shining and I was in my little car, which is actually thoroughly decent for the money I paid for it, and it was alright. I could've phoned somebody for a chat. You can't phone a friend for a chat when you're stuck on an underground train.

Life's a hell of a lot simpler outside London. Things are within the realms of possibility quite easily. It won't totally bankrupt me to rent a nice apartment locally. Buying, taxing and insuring a car hasn't completely bankrupted me. The cost of living is substantially cheaper than London, to the point where money should hopefully quickly accrue. Tomorrow I will have earned enough money to pay for 6 months rent, which is great because I'll soon get to the point where I have more financial security. I need to have more security. It's been too long that I've been hustling like hell, trying to get back into civilised society.

I wish I could've made it work in London because I'm a proud person and it feels like I failed, but I made a few wrong choices and mistakes are costly in London. Everything's costly in London. At least London's big enough that you can make some really big screw-ups and get away with it.

There's pressure in the provinces to not screw things up, because your nosey neighbour is gonna know about it and never let you forget if you make a mistake, but life's a hell of a lot easier. Yes, you might have to hide your face in shame; you might have people gossiping about you behind your back; you might become a 'known' face, rather than just an anonymous member of the seething masses, like you are in London. I'm glad I went through all my troubles in London, where nobody will ever remember me - in theory, I live my life without prejudice, because I've been able to leave that part of history behind. That's one of the reasons why I've not gone back to Bournemouth - because of my messy divorce and the fact my ex-wife still lives there... it's her place now.

My life's got the potential to be delightfully simple and straightforward. I can almost sense the possibility of having a work:life balance. Things might become sustainable - it's certainly within the realms of possibility. I earn bucketloads and the cost of living is so much less here in the provinces, there's a good chance I can quickly get back on my feet.

I've only worked a week in the new job, but I'm making good progress and I'm managing to cope with the early morning and the lack of sleeping pills. I've managed to get where I wanted - local friends, local girlfriend, local job, car, roof over my head, money in the bank. There are things that still need fixing, like having a place of my own and getting more job and financial security, but those things will come soon enough as long as I can keep turning the pedals; keep getting up in the morning and going to work.

The guy I work with works a snail's pace, but that's OK. It's a marathon not a sprint. It's good for me to learn to work at a slower pace - it's more sustainable. I can't believe that we've achieved so little in the best part of a week, but who cares? The pace of life is slower in the provinces. We'll get there in the end. No rush.

If things go wrong, I'll probably end up eating my words and rushing back to the capital, because there's bucketloads of easy money to be made there. Here in the provinces, there are fewer choices. Of course I'm going to go back to London, chasing girls and big money contracts if this provincial life doesn't work out for me. London has rich pickings, where the provinces have only a few options that you'd be really happy with. I'll try to make it work, but it'll be more heartbreaking out here in the sticks, where it's hard to be philosophical about things not working out - there are only a few companies that you'd want to work for, and there are fewer potential soulmates.

At the moment, I'm quietly optimistic. It's Friday tomorrow, and despite the dreadful Monday morning, the trajectory of the week has been one of steady improvement. It bodes well.

Tags: #homeless #london #career

This is a story about being alone...

Who do I turn to if I need to confide in somebody? Who will be nonjudgemental, accepting and supportive? Who will fight my corner and defend me? Who will help me to feel better if I'm attacked; bullied? Who's got my back?

My life fell apart, so what I have now is this blog. Here's where I come when I'm feeling hard-done-by. Here's where I come when I need somebody to listen to me. Here's where I come when I need a shoulder to cry on. Here's where I come when I need some love. I don't trust anybody else to be there for me when I need them. I've found myself all alone far too many times, so this blog is my safety net... it's my connection to the world.

I can't even write about what I want to write about. There are strings attached in my life. I have unwittingly agreed to a kind of contract where I pay an intangible price. There are expectations placed upon me and a kind of intrusion into my life that most people don't have in their adult lives. There's a certain amount of arse-kissing and ego massaging that I have to perform, seemingly in repayment of a debt that I didn't know I'd incurred. I have to watch my step; watch my words.

My blog is where I come when I'm hurting. Writing is what I do when I'm frustrated and angry, or insecure and upset. Without this outlet I don't know what I'd do, because I doubt I could have healthy relationships without being able to vent. The fact that I'm venting publicly is good - read if you're interested and don't if you're not. Writing publicly is important, because it means scrutiny. If I'm being an arsehole then everybody sees that I'm being an arsehole. If I'm making a fool out of myself, everybody sees that I'm making a fool out of myself. If I'm a horrible person, I've got nowhere to hide.

Important friendships have fallen into disrepair. I don't have regular healthy social contact. I don't have a big enough circle of friends. My life was profoundly dysfunctional, and it still needs a lot of work. I don't have anybody much who I'd pick up the phone to... and less so than ever before due to an event that affected a couple of friends.

I write at length about my distress, but I'm treated like I'm unaffected by anything. My instinct is to withdraw from life completely; to cut myself off. If you've got problems, I'll leave you alone. I'm just trying to survive in my little corner. I don't come and bother you, so don't make out like I'm a problem in your life. I'm just trying to cope in my own way, which boils down to pretty much just my writing. I've got an incredibly small footprint, when you think about it. I live mostly in complete isolation, and I'll keep it that way if it's so problematic for me to exist.

I think a lot about suicide. I think a lot about extracting myself. I think a lot about disappearing. It's not my mission in life to ruin anybody's day. I'm already feeling insecure enough. Sorry for existing.

I'm tired; so tired. You can't even imagine what it's like to lose your support network and have the very fabric of existence crumble around you. I have friends who I'm occasionally in contact with via messaging apps. Once a week or so I speak to friends. Compare that with the vast numbers of people you speak to at work and otherwise in your rich and varied existence. Compare my isolated existence with your own. I can go for whole weeks at a time without speaking to another person. I've lived my life out of a black holdall for longer than I care to remember. I never unpack. I never get settled. I can't remember what it's like to feel like I'm home and I can just relax - I'm always a guest; an interloper.

Exhaustion leads me to warped thinking. I imagine that the best I can manage to do is kill myself without making too much mess. I think about all the different ways I could kill myself, and what I could do in preparation to make it easier on those who'd have to deal with it. It's exhaustion that drives me to this. No matter how hard I work, it isn't good enough. I might as well give up.

I wonder about how far I am away from being able to live independently and regain my pride and self-esteem. I wonder how much stress and effort and time and money and energy it's going to take. I wonder if I can do it, or if it would be my final act before I hit the wall - I'm right at the limit. If you think I'm rushing things, you're wrong. Things have been shit. I'm trying to get away from intolerable and unsustainable situations. I want to collapse and not feel guilty about it. I need to collapse. You might not see the effort that's been put in, but that's your problem not mine. I couldn't write about my distress any more clearly than I have been doing. I couldn't communicate any more clearly.

I take constant risks. What will my girlfriend think if she reads this? How will this affect other relationships? Am I jeopardising the charity I receive? Of course, I've crossed a line that I didn't want to with regards to writing non-corporate-friendly stuff too. I'm risking this being read by some corporate drone intent on fucking me over.

I can't even care about that stuff. I'm at my wits end. I'm so close to making some breakthroughs, but there's still so much hard work to do. I can't cope with having to filter and self-censor. I can't cope with being all alone. I have to write. I have to confide and cope in the only way I know how. I have to get these feelings out of my head and down onto paper.

I'm not in a routine. I've not got anything to fall back on. The consequence of failure is destitution and death.

I'm random and I'm disjointed and I'm hard to follow. My writing is purposeless, but yet it seems to be causing a few ruffled feathers. You know what? Fuck you. My writing was here first and it'll be here long after you're gone. My blog is reliable, dependable - it gives me a sense of security. Fuck off and whinge to one of the many members of your extensive support network. Fuck off and meddle with somebody else. Fuck off and leave me alone. My blog is my consistent reliable friend, when I need one most.

What I write here might seem a little passive-aggressive, but here's where I work stuff out that would get worked out with my extensive social support network, if my life was all sorted and perfect, which it's not. I'm not going to have some kind of overnight transformation, because it would be impossible to instantly get all the things I need. What you're looking at is a work in progress. What you're peering into is the muddy water that hasn't cleared yet. If you want to judge me on this stuff, why don't you fuck off?

I don't know where this stuff's coming from and I don't know where it's directed. If you don't like it, don't read it - simple.

Tags: #writing

This is a story about anonymity...

I work somewhere doing something for somebody. I have a date of birth, a place of birth, parents. I have previous addresses and previous employers. I am the sum total of the data you can gather about me on a form.

Am I single, co-habiting, married, divorced, widowed? Do I have any dependents?

I'm being urged to tear down my digital identity, for the sake of what? Is it right that we should allow our work to occupy such an important role in our lives that we must create a sanitised identity that purely exists for the purpose of putting food in our bellies? Is it right that we're so desperate to exist that we erase parts of who we are which are not corporate-friendly? Is it acceptable that we have to paint a certain image of ourselves that's more compatible with the expectation of any cyber-snoopers who might come looking for dirt on us online, who could scupper our career objectives?

I don't drag my profession in to disrepute, except to ask whether the distribution of wealth is unfair, and whether the encroachment of work in our private lives is too much, when we live lives of quiet desperation; hiding our distress lest we make ourselves unemployable. I don't write anything that's confidential or would otherwise cause any difficulty for my employers, except that I have a strong position on the fact that the remuneration which most of us receive does not adequately compensate for the suffering.

Yes, it would be most prudent to tear down the digital identity that I've created, because I'm the little guy - I can get squashed like a bug and nobody will notice. It would be easy to find myself muscled out of 'civilised' society because I've been brave enough to speak out. It's easy to weed out any detractors. I need to learn my lesson - step out of line and I'll starve.

The power of the socially coercive effects is profound. It's remarkable how we're conditioned to put up and shut up. The economic incentives to cower in silence are inescapable, if you wish to live in the way that so many of us do - it's hard to go your own way. You'll be both gently and aggressively nudged into conformant behaviour patterns.

I'm not sure what I'm going to write about and what my writing style is, now that I am entering a period where I have a gun to my head - conform or die. Perhaps this is a little hyperbolic, but those who choose to live their life as part of alternative society will find it tough going. Fit in or fuck off.

While we believe that we're living in an era of unparalleled personal freedom of expression, the reality is that we are perhaps coerced and controlled more than at any time before in history, because it's so easy to dip into people's private thoughts and creative outputs, via the internet and social media. Since the death of letter-writing and journal-keeping, we are inadvertently wearing our hearts on our sleeves through our Facebook walls, Instagram feeds and other publicly accessible mediums through which we express ourselves.

I don't feel like I made a mistake and that I should tear down everything I've written, lest it be discovered, but I'm aware that I'm facing a difficult period where I have to re-evaluate what it means to "be myself" while retaining compatibility with my chosen source of income. It's undoubtably desirable to be very well paid doing what I do, rather than switching to a 'lifestyle job' where I'd be free to wear a green mohawk hairstyle and adorn my face with myriad tattoos and piercings. Life is a lot easier when you have loads of money and don't have to work very hard, although I disagree with how much the corporate world imposes itself on peoples' identity.

It would be nice to express myself without self-censorship. It would be nice to be able to have a single unified identity that's compatible with any situation and not have to think about what's NSFW (Not Safe For Work). I'm trying to be brave, while also not burning my bridges.

I'm going to keep writing, but my blog posts are going to be very cautious pieces where I avoid talking about any identifying details of who I am and what I do, let alone the gory stuff that goes on in my head. The idea is to create a series of blog posts that would bore any would-be cyberstalker from the corporate world, intent on digging dirt on me - those wage-slaves are hopefully going to demonstrate a spectacularly lacklustre dedication to the job, as they do in everything they do, which will mean that I'll be safe from any lazy glance that might be paid to the pages of this website.

This could be a very costly mistake, but the experiment continues.

Tags: #writing

This is a story about national security...

"I've decided to take my work back underground, to stop it falling into the wrong hands". I suppose any of our creations can take on a life of their own and have unintended consequences, and I'm certainly catching some flack as a result of my 3-year daily writing experiment at the moment, which is not entirely unjustified.

My daily writing habit is a useful exercise for me, so I'm sure I'll continue to write in some capacity, but I'm almost at the point where my blog has given me the therapeutic benefit of restoring me to stability, health, wealth and prosperity, and I have to tread carefully so that I don't undo any of the good work.

I started writing when I had my back to the wall. I started writing when I didn't feel like I had anything particularly to fall back on. I started writing when I didn't feel proud that I'd achieved anything - my life was incredibly fragile. Nobody could argue that this blog hasn't anchored me in the world, bringing me into contact with many lovely people and providing me with a creative outlet, a sense of accomplishment and some routine in my otherwise chaotic and stressful life.

I doubt very much that I'll be able to change my habits completely, but I do need to adapt to my present paradigm - I can't keep writing as if I've got nothing to lose, because it's not true at the moment.

Perhaps I'll have to start keeping a private journal, because I've been using writing as a mechanism to flush out all the bad and stressful thoughts that have threatened to overwhelm me, but a large part of my present worries revolve around imposter syndrome. I make no secret of anything, but I'd still prefer it if my colleagues and other important gatekeepers in my life didn't read what I write - with my defences down - and leap to the wrong conclusions. It's been hard enough to date girls when I'm so easily cyber-stalked.

Given the choice between a digital identity, or a healthy set of local relationships, I would have to choose the latter if I was forced, although having the former is very useful as a fallback option. Three times I've lost a lot of friends due to a break-up, with one of those times very nearly costing me my life, and the other two not exactly faring much better either. I've not been very successful at building robust local social networks in the last few years. I need a group of friends I see and speak to regularly, that wouldn't be affected by any breakups. I need that safety net. In the absence of the time, money, energy, transport and a number of other things, I've not progressed things very far yet, so I'm very grateful for my online social network and I always will be, but I do need healthy local face-to-face relationships too.

Getting a girlfriend can be a quick-fix when you're lonely, as it's so easy to be the +1 and tag along to all of her social events, and ingratiate yourself into her social circle, but it's a dangerous strategy. It's too much of a dependency on one person. It's a mistake. Thankfully, I have valuable and important local friendships that predate any of my dating shenanigans. I need to continue to make friends of my own, and establish a pattern of social engagements which are not couples-only events.

Work colleagues and a great team environment can make a huge difference, and sadly that's been lacking in my life recently. Hopefully that's going to be rectified really soon. There's a slight danger in mixing personal life with work too much, when you're in the position I'm in, where I'm trying to get myself back into the respectable world - some of the recent events in my turbulent life are not office-gossip friendly. I've not got anything to hide, particularly, but I'd rather not challenge anybody to be open minded, if it's at all avoidable.

I'm treading a fine line between trying to do what I have to for my own sanity and stability, balanced with the needs of those who I have relationships with and my responsibilities regarding confidentiality, secrecy, discretion, professional conduct, respect of privacy, not causing shock, alarm or distress. It's a fine line between keeping my support network informed of what's going on during a time when I'm very vulnerable, and saying things that're going to paradoxically make me more vulnerable. It's one thing to confide in friends behind closed doors, and quite another to write publicly on a website.

Me being me, I doubt I'll be able to make a sudden overnight change, and I don't want to lose this valuable therapeutic tool, but I do need to start changing my behaviour in light of my new circumstances.

I doubt I'm going to be writing about what I ate for breakfast and live-blogging about the fresh paint that's drying on the walls, but things might have to turn a little more pedestrian for a while... at least until things are more settled.

Presently stressed out of my mind with the transition from one life to another, but hopefully everything will work out and go smoothly.

Tags: #writing #socialmedia #career #friends #relationships

This is a story about the limits of human endurance...

It'd be easy to believe that everything comes very easily to me when I need it; that I get everything I want. It'd be easy to believe that I live a charmed existence and that my life is all puppy dogs, rainbows and candy floss. It seems churlish to write about my struggles, when on paper my life seems quite straightforward - when I need money, I go and get a really well paid job; when I need a place to live, something miraculously falls in my lap; when it looks like everything's screwed and I'll never be able to recover from a setback, things somehow seem to work out for me in the end.

There's a toll that this rollercoaster ride exacts upon me - it's exhausting; emotionally draining. I really would like to just give up and to prostrate myself at the mercy of the state. It would be so much less energy-sapping to stop striving... to abandon my ambitions of getting back to health, wealth and prosperity. For all the hard work, there doesn't seem to be the commensurate rewards. Why did I bother? I often ask myself.

I have a banging headache, a chesty cough, cold sweats and shivering, aching legs, runny nose. It's just a cold, but it's the final straw. All I seem to be able to do is sleep and cry at the moment. I find myself on the verge of tears all the time, or actually crying. I cried through the whole of a rugby match I watched on the TV, but I don't know why. I cried while taking my shoes off. I'm crying for no reason at all, seemingly.

The pieces of the puzzle that make a liveable life - a home, some money, a job, a girlfriend, a car - are tantalisingly within reach. There are some things that I can compromise on, such as living with my friends, but there are some things that I can't, such as continuing to work in London without any work colleagues to talk to or a project to do. Why do I need a car? When you live and work outside of London, a car is essential for getting to your job, and generally getting around. It's been exhausting using public transport. Yes, there are lots of people who get around on the buses and trains, but they've chosen a different life strategy - I need to be at my desk from 9 to 5, Monday to Friday. I can't deal with unreliable, expensive and slow public transport on top of everything else. What's the point in working if it's going to cause intolerable levels of stress and misery?

In theory, I'm just a few months away from financial security and having my life back in good order. In theory, if the job I've been offered works out OK, then I'll be feeling quite secure and wealthy, within a couple of months. In theory, my life's going to be a lot easier when I can drive to work, instead of travelling for hours across the country, and living out of a suitcase. In theory, my working week is going to be a lot better when I'm working with a team of interesting people, and I have the social interaction that's completely absent in my current job.

In theory, everything's just peachy.

In practice, I'm exhausted. In practice, I've suffered too much and for far too long, and it's broken me. In practice, I've got nothing left to give. In practice, I can't suffer any more setbacks, because it'd destroy me.

Yes, fine, I concede that some fantastic opportunities have fallen in my lap, but things are by no means a done deal. There's still so much hard work and stress ahead. There are still so many obstacles to tackle. Yes, fine, I can see that there's a slim chance that things might work out, but the anxiety of the situation is unbearable.

I have *just* enough money to buy a car and insurance. I have *just* enough money to last me until my invoices hopefully get paid. I have *just* enough time to get all the ducks lined up. There's the slimmest of chances that everything might go to plan, but there are an infinite number of ways that things could go wrong.

I've had enough. The pressure and the stress has been too relentless for too long. Yes, I've caught some 'lucky' breaks, but you really don't know just how hard I've worked, and just how psychologically torturous it's been. You think it's been easy to get to this point? You think it'll be easy to carry on; to keep up the good work?

If anything, the stress is getting worse, not better, because I know I'm really close to getting a bunch of things that will really improve my life. I'm struggling with insomnia because I'm so stressed out about all the possible reasons why I might lose the things that are within my grasp. I'm itching to throw everything away and give up, because the anxiety is unbearable.

Yes, it looks like I've got nice problems to have, but it's not like that at all.

Tags: #career #mentalhealth #recovery

This is a story about barriers to entry...

I'll admit that as a child I took the path of least resistance. Instead of dentistry, which I realised was going to be monotonously boring - if you've seen inside one mouth, you've seen them all - I chose a route that would lead to getting rich quick. Soon, I had a wonderful lifestyle and I never really had to kowtow to any gatekeepers or doff my cap in deference to the slave-owners.

I thought about what I was going to write tonight and I thought I'd come up with a really great blog post title, but it turns out I already used it. In fact, I've written so much that somewhere there's something that perfectly captures everything I'm going through.

I wrote at length about the indignity of being subjected to external scrutiny, when I consider that my 20-year career should have now put me beyond the awfulness of such a process - who the fuck are you to judge me? Of course, if you were hiring somebody for their specialist skills, how would you be able to judge whether they are competent or not, unless you yourself are an expert? One does not have a dog and bark oneself, etc. etc.

Thus, we rely mostly day-to-day on a web of trust. Somebody who is recommended by a friend is much more trusted than a total stranger. Friends of friends are our friends. We stick together. Homo sapiens is a social animal.

What happens when our social network disintegrates? How do we ever rejoin civilised society?

Speaking from personal experience, re-entering the game is very difficult. It's nigh-on impossible to get anybody to take a punt on a talented nobody, versus a talentless fuckwit who knows how to play the game. I don't begrudge the fuckwits - so long as they stay the fuck out of my way - and perhaps it's me who's got things wrong. Many colleagues of mine are qualified for nothing more than keeing a seat warm, reading the news, listening to the radio, watching videos online and counting down the hours minutes and seconds until it's time to go home. If you were hoping to get ahead in life on merit, you're going to be sorely disappointed and frustrated.

It would be unfortunate if I was mischaracterised as somebody who's not a team player. I love my colleagues and I need human interaction, although it seems like my work has a kind of purity that means there's always a right answer and a wrong answer. I'm a fucking wet dream for greedy bosses, because I deliver early and under budget, which is unheard of in my industry, but perhaps it's me who's letting the side down - I should deliberately work at the pace of the slowest worker, because of worker solidarity.

I'm rambling, but I've reached the ragged limit of what I can handle. Either things go my way, or I feel like life's not worth living. I'm blackmailing life to give me what I want, using my own life as an expendable hostage.

Whether I deserve to succeed or not, given the rough ride I've had and the effort that's been expended... these are questions of worthiness that you should answer by having two tramps fight to the death over a half-bottle of wine, just for your own sick amusement. All I can tell you is that having worked my way back from the brink of death and destitution, all I've got to say is fuck you, buddy. You think I should curtail my efforts and scrub toilets for minimum wage, living in some shithole? Fuck you. I'd rather die.

There are matters concerning loss of status and loss of dignity - these are not trivial. If somebody lives the high life and they fall from grace, it's not realistic to expect champagne and sportscars any more, but what about some dignity in labour? What about being paid a wage that reflects a person's skills and experience?

Of course I'm raising the wider question about whether anybody is really paid what they're worth. Of course, we all know full well that the value that we deliver in terms of pure pounds and pence that we put into the pockets our slave-owning capitalist tyrants, does not at all reflect our effort and our productivity, but you know what? The question still has to be asked and has to be answered.

I might seem like some bleeding-heart left-leaning-libtard who thinks they're owed a living, but the evidence doesn't support your assumption. Through all my turbulent times, I've never claimed incapacity benefits, job-seeking benefits, housing benefits, tax credits or any of the myriad forms of state support that are supposedly available to me. I'm trying to play an honest game. I'm trying to play by the rules of the conservative politics that seem to rule the day. I'm trying to work my way out of poverty and back to a position of health, wealth and prosperity.

If I fail, what does it mean? Failure could be utterly catastrophic for me. Even though I have friends who somewhat underwrite my risk, offering to give me a roof over my head, can you imagine working your bollocks off through a 20-year career and having nothing to show for it?... not even some kind of state handout. I thought it would be awful to be dependent on the welfare state, but it's actually more awful to be dependent on out-and-out charity, which could end on a whim.

I don't want to hold a gun to my own head and make my demands, but I came a long way since rough sleeping in a bush. If anybody ever had any doubts about employing an ex-homeless, ex-junkie, washed up loser weirdo who's lost everything, then haven't I proved the case for my fellow unfortunates and myself? When's a guy gonna catch a break?

I'm not trying to elbow my way to the front of the queue. I'm no more deserving than the next person who's equally needy and in distress. To the casual observer, I enjoy a whole host of advantages over the struggling masses. It's not a competition. It shouldn't be a competition.

If you think life's all about survival of the fittest and "it's a jungle out there" then fuck off and de-evolve already, you knuckle-dragging c**t.

Tags: #politics #capitalism #career #suicide

This is a story about cyberstalking...

Things are starting to happen faster than I thought they would. I'm not prepared. I didn't think things would slot into place so easily. There's a slim chance I might get a couple of things I really want and need, but the very existence of this blog jeopardises those things. Being sensible, I'd just cut the power and abandon this blog, because the stakes are too high.

How much digging are people prepared to do? There's the best part of 825,000 words here, if you wanted to read it all. Would you be able to say that you reached the right judgement about me, unless you read absolutely everything? Is it really fair to judge somebody on the chapter of their life you walked in on? Can you claim that a small random sample would be representative of who I am?

The easy answer, for most, is not to make so much stuff public. It's simple: Don't write a public blog. Keep things so utterly boring that nobody would get any further than the first few words. I should write about what I ate for breakfast. I should write about things that nobody can relate to. I should write about things that nobody's interested in except for me... well, maybe I do that already.

I'm really badly exposed. I could lose a couple of things that are really important to me. I have the opportunity to build a nice quiet little life in anonymous obscurity, but the cat's out of the bag - my whole psyche is on display on the pages of the internet, for anybody who wants to take the time to Google me, although mercifully I'm a little bit buried thanks to a rapper who shares my name.

I'm changing mindset. In London there are so many people that you can do anything you want and nobody will recognise you or remember anything you've done. In London there are so many people that there's anonymity in the crowd, even if you're doing something that would ordinarily draw attention to yourself. I need to change my mindset to get into the small community mentality, where my face and my deeds are more likely to be remembered. I'm still an nobody; a nothing, but I want to keep it that way - there's no sense in making a fool of myself. I've gotten so used to saying and doing whatever the hell I want, because there are no consequences in London, but in a small town that's not the case. I could end up making myself undateable and unemployable.

I'm trying to tread a fine line between the humble assumption that nobody gives a shit who I am and nobody cares what I've got to say, versus the very real possibility that somebody somewhere might notice me - I really don't want to mix my blogging identity with my professional identity, for the sake of my career. I'm quite careful not to drop the names of my clients or any details of the projects I work on, but I'm not anonymous - I use my real name.

This blog is an experiment. I don't want to be anonymous, but London forced anonymity on me. I could have died in a ditch and nobody would've noticed. I wrote this blog because I wanted to raise my profile. I needed to raise my profile, because anonymity had led me to the point where I felt like nobody cared whether I lived or died, and nobody understood what was going on.

I have ethical objections to anonymity and the pressure to maintain a spotless corporate-friendly immaculate CV with no gaps, and a whiter-than-white social media image. I think it's too much pressure, to ask people to hide their faults. I think it's bullshit, to pretend like we don't have mental health problems, or have made any mistakes in our life. I think anonymity is a fate worse than death. Fuck anonymity.

I hope that one day, I can unify my dating profile with my CV and my LinkedIn and this blog. I hope that one day it's socially acceptable to announce my faults along with my achievements. I think that too many talented people; too many valuable lives are squandered because we insist on presenting such a bullshit image of perfection, when humans are anything but perfect. I think it's making us sick and anxious, having to wear a mask all the time, for the sake of our pathetic salaries.

It's me who's going to end up buried, potentially, if I'm not careful and I don't shut up. One slip, and you're labelled as undesirable, unemployable, undateable... the wrong sort of person. One slip, and you can find yourself shunted into the sidings. There are so many gatekeepers who are looking for a reason to reject you.

So, I challenge those who would skim a tiny fraction of what I've written and decide that they've read enough to judge me, to either read more, or not to bother trying to leap to any quick conclusions. If you want a synopsis of me, it's there to be found in the form of my CV, my LinkedIn and my other sanitised bullshit that you see every day. This is something special that you don't normally get to see, so treat it with respect. Everybody has a real life which doesn't fit onto 2 pages of A4 paper, and contains mistakes as well as all the good stuff, but you don't get to read about the bad stuff, normally.

I think what I'm doing is brave, and it helps me so I'm not going to hide it. I think that we should be moving towards honesty, transparency and authenticity. I think we've been living for far too long, with an encroachment of the workplace that forces us to present ourselves in the very best possible light. I think that society is facing an incredible amount of problems because we can't talk about our mental health problems; our stress levels, for fear of being seen as sick, weak and unreliable by our employers. I think that I'm living life the right way, even though it could potentially be very costly for me. Somebody's got to be brave enough to do it first.

This is my 'baggage up front' declaration, and I refuse to back down even though I'm scared. I'm scared I won't be able to get a girlfriend. I'm scared I won't be able to get a job. I'm scared that people will judge me and think that I'm a bad person. It's scary, to write down everything that goes on in my head like this, but it's also cathartic and helpful to me. There's an epidemic of mental health problems and most people are just about managing, and this seems to be the antidote to me - to write with candid honesty about what's really going on, rather than the usual "I'm great" bullshit mask we have to maintain. It's hard work, pretending to be a perfect human being.

So... let's see what happens. I might go broke and be single. If nobody does the experiment, we'll never know the outcome.

Tags: #writing #career

This is a story about a functional nervous breakdown...

I'm sleeping 12 to 14 hours a day, yet I don't feel refreshed. I'm commuting and I'm working, but I'm spending less than half as much time in the office as I'm supposed to, and when I'm there I'm not productive. I reach the weekend and all I want to do is collapse in a heap. I get stressed out about seemingly trivial things - buying a train ticket, booking a hotel, buying some birthday presents, social engagements, the pressure to be a good friend, the need to stay in contact with people. I feel like I'm going to burst into tears when I'm in the shower, or just before I walk into the office. I'm a complete wreck, but to an outside observer I'm a picture of good health and a productive member of society. My colleagues seem to have been duped - they compliment me on the work I've done and they want me to stay longer; they want to give me another project to do.

I had prepared myself psychologically for 6 weeks work in London, but it's been 3 months. I had prepared myself psychologically to get to the end of the contract, but not a single day longer. I'm barely managing to cover up the fact I'm very sick - I arrive in the office at 1pm most days, and leave just after 5pm. I don't turn up for whole days. I sit at my desk endlessly skipping through music, trying to find a song that will lift my mood, but I can't. Life's pretty torturous, even if there doesn't seem any reason why it should be.

Everything feels like it's going to require the expenditure of more effort and energy than I could possibly muster. I get exhausted at the thought of speaking to agents, or challenging myself to do something "new and interesting". What sounds like fun to you, is something that makes me feel even more anxious and depressed. I just want to curl up in a ball.

Those who are happy and healthy say things like "you're only one gym workout away from a good mood" or they suggest things I could do with my spare time. It doesn't look like much of a life, working and sleeping... oh I do quite a lot of moaning and complaining too, but surely I must want to learn to weave baskets or dance salsa, mustn't I? The truth is that I'm 99% shut down - I'm in survival mode, clinging on by my fingernails as I attempt to earn as much money as I can, as quickly as I can, so that I can afford to have a nervous breakdown.

"Nervous breakdown" sounds really shocking and alarming, but I'm actually quietly having a breakdown. I've had persistent paralysing depression for more months than I care to remember, but I'm somehow forcing myself to keep going. "You can't be depressed if you're getting up and going to work" you might say, but you seem to have forgotten that I'm bunking off loads of days, and going in to work 4 hours late on the few days when I do make it. I'm working the very bare minimum I need to, in order not to lose my contract. If I just collapse in a heap and refuse to leave my pit of despair, I lose everything. If there was any way in the world I could just draw the curtains and convalesce, then I'd do it, but I'm trapped by circumstances beyond my control.

I have a week and a half left to go, and then I've finished my contract in London. I have to do 4 more 3.5 hour train journeys. I have to stay in two more AirBnbs. I have to suffer two more Mondays (although I'm planning on bunking off at least one of them). It might not sound like very long - just 3 months - to have been travelling all over the place and doing a job that's been mostly isolating and lonely, and has left me twiddling my thumbs a lot of the time, but the time has really dragged... the time continues to drag.

When you're not feeling good, it really takes an emotional toll. It's really not nice to spend weeks and months, hating your life; hating your circumstances. Yes, I'm very well paid and there's no such thing as a perfect job, but the money really has not been great compensation for the psychological suffering it's caused. I'm perfectly capable of making a mercenary decision to earn a lot of money doing things I don't like doing very much, but it's damaging to my mental health. I really am at my wits end with the London contract.

Who knows what'll happen next. Maybe I'll have been made too unwell by the present contract to even think about the next one, until I've had some rest and recuperation time. You might think that I should be very well rested, because I've been having 3-day weekends and only working half days, but those things are a symptom of just how exhausted I am. It's very hard to explain how I'm emotionally exhausted, even though I seem to be physically rested. It's hard to explain just how draining things have been this year. Seasonal affective disorder, depression and a bit of residual rebound anxiety from medication withdrawal, have conspired to create a viciously awful low mood and sense of despair, which has been hugely exacerbated by being bored at work, with no colleagues to talk to or project to keep me busy.

Finding a new client locally is going to be stressful. I need to meet a whole load of new work colleagues and impress them. It's going to be exhausting. It's going to be destabilising. At the moment, I just want the current contract to be over, so I can curl up in a ball and not leave the house. I want to draw the curtains and turn off my phone. I want to collapse in a heap and yell "ENOUGH!"

It sounds to me like it's some kind of breakdown, but I don't understand why I'm still apparently quite functional. I don't understand why I'm not stripping naked and running through the streets, before smearing jam all over myself in the supermarket and talking in tongues, or whatever other image "nervous breakdown" conjures up in your mind. Perhaps you think of me uncontrollably sobbing, or going mute. Instead, I'm just kind of hollow and empty - I've got nothing left to give; the petrol tank has run dry.

The challenge, of course, is what I do next. Do I collapse and become so dysfunctional that there was no point in exerting myself? Do I lose all the gains that I've managed to achieve, because it was so costly to my mental health to push myself so hard? Have I stored up some kind of almighty breakdown, by limping along for so long?

I've been offered a contract extension. There's no way on earth I can do it, of course. Don't you understand? The money might be incredible, but I don't get paid if I'm not in the office, and I'm already almost at breaking point. Money's not going to get me out of bed. Almost no amount of money is worth the emotional damage that's being done; the emotional exhaustion of the situation.

Of course, there's an argument that I should have just taken medication to prop myself up artificially - to allow myself to be doped up and carry on with a job and a situation that's intolerable. There's an argument to say that it's me that's faulty, for not enjoying living out of a suitcase, working a project that I finished ages ago and just having to look busy, in an office all on my own with nobody to talk to. There's an argument that says it's me being a silly billy, and I should just pop pills and shut the f**k up and get on with life. That's life, right? Life absolutely sucks and it makes us want to kill ourselves. Life destroys every single ounce of happiness and wellbeing, and the only way to put it back is with powerful psychoactive medications.

On the flip side, I've been glad that I've kept my mouth shut and limped along to the end of contracts before, without making too much of a fuss. I'm going to get a good reference and I've earned quite a lot of money. This is the strategy: short-term pain for medium-term gain. I've left jobs on good terms before, and then found it's immensely improved my mood to free... free to do what I want; free from the oppression of a horrible job. I very much expect that my mood will improve massively when this contract is over.

There it is: I need to keep venting and complaining and whinging, because I've got another week and a half of hell to get through. It sucks, and I bet you wouldn't put up with it if you were in my situation.

Tags: #career