This is a story about having a place to call home...

Here's a picture of what it's like being of no fixed abode. The pins mark the 12 places where I've stayed in the last three months, with the exception of a hotel in Warsaw and my friends' place in Wales. You might not think of me as homeless because I've not been sleeping rough, but I've not enjoyed the security of owning a home or having a tenancy agreement. The process of evicting somebody onto the street is not that difficult if they're in rent arrears or defaulting on their mortgage, but things are even more insecure if you're no fixed abode. You have no rights if you're sofa surfing. This is not a criticism of the wonderfully kind and generous thing that my friends have done, letting me live with them, but it's still a form of homelessness to not have a home of your own.

It's really expensive being homeless. If you can't raise the money for a deposit you'll pay a premium for a hostel bed or to rent a room. It cost me an absolute fortune in train fares, travelling back to Wales every weekend because Friday and Saturday nights are more expensive than staying midweek in London, and there's less availability.

You might think it's laughable that I consider myself to be homeless, but I've slept rough and I've lived in hostels. I know what homelessness is. I know what being down and out on the streets is. I've lived it. I'm still homeless - one argument with my friends and they could ask me to leave. I don't have secure housing. That makes me homeless. Yes, my friends are incredibly kind and charitable, but can you imagine what it's like living without the legal protection that you take for granted? In Maslow's hierarchy of needs shelter and security are the foundations on which our entire sense of happiness and contentment are built. Can you imagine not having a home of your own, but instead being reliant on the ongoing charity of perhaps one single person? Can you imagine how insecure that would make you feel?

Undoubtedly my life has been saved by my kind friends taking me in and making me feel incredibly welcome in their family. Undoubtedly my recovery, my stability, my improved situation can be credited to the kind family who took me in. Without their love, support, food and shelter I'd have been shoved into to some godforsaken B&B in the Greater Manchester area and probably have gotten stuck in the revolving-doors of the mental health system, seen as a basket case and a drain on society; an undesirable. With support I've been able to get myself back on my feet, almost.

I'm really not biting the hand that feeds me. I'm incensed that it's so hard to find security in British society. All I want is a secure place to live and a tolerable job that pays enough money for a modest little life. Why is it so hard to re-enter civilised society? Why are there so many gatekeepers and obstacles, stopping people from pulling themselves by their bootstraps and getting themselves back on their feet?

The stress and anxiety of the bureaucratic nightmare involved in getting a job and renting an apartment is a utterly dreadful. I've had to produce so many documents, fill in so many forms, answer so many questions and have my life poked and prodded by an army of nosey parkers, intent on discovering any black mark that might give them an excuse to reject me. I don't know why people even bother subjecting themselves to such an ordeal. I can see why so many people find themselves homeless - it's just so awful and stressful to keep the plates spinning and the wheels turning and remain a member of civilised society. There's an enormous barrier to entry, and I'm one of the lucky ones because I don't have a criminal record or a bankruptcy that makes me one of society's rejects.

One week today I might get the keys to an apartment that I can call my own if I'm lucky. I'm going through a tenancy *application* process. It should be noted that it's seen as an application - I'll only be allowed to hand over my hard-earned cash to somebody who's not going to work for it if I'm lucky. I'm only allowed to be a slave of the rentier class if I'm lucky. I shall have to doff my cap and kowtow and pray to the sky monster that I am allowed to have something that should be a basic human right.

It's awful that property is seen as an asset. It's awful that we have to mortgage ourselves up to the eyeballs or pay rent for all eternity, to line the pockets of the capitalists. Property isn't something we should profit from. Property is essential for life, and to attempt to profit from it is wicked and evil. It's no different than buying up all the insulin and then price gouging, because the alternative to not having it is death. Profit and capital gain is not driving efficiency, it's driving misery. Property speculation is not rewarding hard work and useful contribution to society... in fact it's rewarding the most antisocial people in society.

While the headline news for the best part of two weeks has all been about a man who got sick but hasn't actually even died, have we forgotten how many people are living in poverty? Have we forgotten about the mental health epidemic that's ruining so many lives and causing so many suicides? Have we forgotten about how many people are just about managing, or in fact are not managing at all - those who are on the brink of financial ruin, poverty, destitution - and are having a thoroughly miserable time? Have we forgotten about the tens of millions of British people who are living lives of quiet desperation, because the media has an agenda to push - that we should supposedly give a shit about one former spy who hasn't even died yet - instead of the very real suffering of a vast and ever-growing proportion of society?

I can understand why they call the magazine sold by the homeless The Big Issue. Why aren't homelessness and housing issues top of the political and media agenda? I couldn't give two fucks about a half-poisoned spy when so many people are freezing to death on the streets.

Tags: #homeless

This is a story about anniversaries...

Today is my niece's 5th birthday. A year later I woke up from my general anaesthetic to this - the emergency repair of a muscle, 4 tendons and 2 nerves, when my leg was guillotined by a huge piece of broken mirror glass. The start of 7 years bad luck, perhaps.

My leg was mostly repaired and back to normal. I went kitesurfing in July 2016 and my leg was fully recovered. Then I got DVT and it caused that leg to swell up to twice its normal size and both my kidneys stopped working. Since then my foot has either been numb or very painful, although the nerve damage has started to repair itself again since I stopped taking powerful painkillers.

This day isn't about me, but in some ways it is. It's my niece's birthday, but I haven't been a very good uncle because my life's mostly been in bits since she was born. Divorce, moving back to London, rehab, homelessness, near-bankruptcy, two suicide attempts, more hospitalisations than I care to remember, psych wards, breakups, people owing me thousands of pounds, getting jobs, working jobs and getting sacked, moving flats, moving to Manchester, drugs and medications, trouble with the police, mental health problems... it's been a rough ride.

How does anybody escape from a shitty situation and get themselves back into civilised society? It takes time and it's really hard. I'm trying to rent a flat and it asks whether I'm renting or living with parents at the moment... the answer is neither. The form asks if I've ever declared bankruptcy... no, but I've been living with the threat of destitution for a very long time. Presumably if I managed to get a couple of black marks against my name I wouldn't have a job or a place to live - a criminal record and a bankruptcy would mean I'd be jobless and homeless and unable to get a job or rent a place to live. I've been so close to finding myself completely shunned by society; marginalised.

I write this stuff and it's really risky. I'm taking a big chance writing this honest stuff about the difficult journey I've been on, but people need to understand how hard it is to get back on your feet after a destructive event like a divorce. Why should I be punished? Why should I be marginalised; rejected by society?

The gatekeepers would have a field day if they found this stuff out about me. I'd be unemployable and homeless, for sure. I'm pretty undateable given the fact I'm not your average regular guy who collects stamps and works in the glue factory. I don't fit neatly inside a box. I'm a "computer says no" kind of guy, if I was to give the honest answers to the questions on the forms, not that I'm exactly lying or being misleading either. I wrote "OTHER: Living with friends" on the damn form.

So, happy birthday to my niece. Maybe I'll be a better uncle in subsequent years if I can get back on my feet.

Tags: #family #sister #accident #homeless

This is a story about intolerable pressure...

I have to start this piece with a lengthy preamble. To write about the difficulties faced by men in modern society could be misconstrued as sexist, chauvinistic, misogynistic and unsympathetic towards the suffering and struggles of women. To breathe a word about the struggles that men face, could be seen as a slap in the face to women who receive unequal pay, or suffer sexual discrimination, sexual harassment and far greater rates of rape, murder and assault perpetrated against them by men, than by women. In short: I am not writing in any way to perpetuate the inequality and suffering that women have to deal with every day. My piece is simply about the pressures that modern men are dealing with.

Further to my list of caveats, I write from the point of view of the experiences and knowledge I've been able to gather up to this point in my life. I accept that I will never know the agony of childbirth. I'll never know what it's like to be pregnant. I'll never know what it's like to be a woman. This isn't a piece about women. I'm not seeking to address ANY of the difficulties faced by women. I know nothing about being a woman, and I'm not going to write about it. I'm not depriving anybody - man or woman - of their opportunity to share THEIR story and have equal airtime and consideration. I'm not shouting anybody down. I'm not shutting anybody up. I'm not offering a viewpoint that says that what I think is more valid than what anybody else thinks. These are my thoughts and my thoughts alone, shaped by my experiences as a white, middle-class, hetero man, in no way intended to compete with the experiences of any non-white, poor, LGBTQ+ women, who are obviously going to have a remarkably different set of views from me.

I am sympathetic to the plight of women. I'm unlikely to be equally sympathetic, because I have an inbuilt bias towards being able to empathise with those who've had broadly similar experiences to me, because they're also white, middle-class hetero men. I don't choose to feel less gut-wrenching sympathy when I hear about - for example - unequal pay in the workplace... it's just not as emotive for me, because perhaps I haven't been affected by it. If I'm not part of the solution, I must be part of the problem, but my writing is not about how guilty I feel for the circumstances I was born into; my writing is about things I can directly relate to. I do not seek to discredit, devalue or otherwise detract from some very real issues faced by women. I mean only to comment in an area in which I feel qualified to do so.

So, 500 words of preamble. Now I can write with a little more precision on the topic that concerns me.

I decided that I wanted to write a bullet-pointed list of all the things that a guy - someone like me - faces during their life, presenting significant problems. I'm trying to add up all the little things that whirr away in a man's psyche, driving his behaviour and causing him distress. I'm just going to write these things down in the most succinct way, because I want to explore everything I can possibly think of.

Here we go:

• "Boys don't cry" / "man up"
• Inheriting the family name. Following in your father's footsteps
• Mummy's boy / suffocating
• "You're the man of the house" - expectation of maturity
• Boys develop more slowly than girls, both physically and academically
• Oldest & biggest boys in school year bully and physically dominate
• Societal obsession with sports and sporting achievement
• "Get married and start a family" is not a career choice
• Breadwinner
• Provide for the family
• Protector
• Boys can't hit girls, even in self defence / retaliation
• Encouragement of violence - bullying, boxing, fighting, sport
• Discouragement of sensitivity - "soft", "wimpy", "homosexual", "effeminate"
• Hypocrisy and contradiction - violence is both heroic (e.g. war) and vilified
• Hooligans / vandals / gangs - provide fraternity, but demonised
• Lack of sporting ability = social exclusion
• Interest in sport a necessity for social bonding
• "Make the first move" - guys do the chasing - "ask her out"
• Knock-backs / rejection / misread signals
• Assertiveness, persistence - important to "pull" a girl
• Sexual conquest is seen as adversarial - a game
• Impotence concerns - "can I get hard?" / "will I stay hard?"
• Premature ejaculation concerns - "can I last long enough?"
• Bedroom performance concerns - "can I make her cum?"
• "Treat 'em mean" - appearing aloof and unattainable
• Neediness and vulnerability - insecurity and need for security
• Peer approval - bragging and bravado
• Status symbols - the car, the house, the job
• Professional identity - coveted job titles, doctor/lawyer etc.
• Fear of failure - bankruptcy, homelessness, joblessness, redundancy
• Fear of rejection - loneliness
• Doing stupid things to show off / impressing others
• "All men are rapists"
• Suspicion / trial by media / allegations
• "Men are violent"
• "Men are dangerous"
• "Men are paedophiles"
• Get rich, or die trying
• Risk of homelessness
• Low-priority for help - considered not vulnerable
• Identity issues; body dysmorphia - use of steroids, huge muscles
• Need to look masculine, avoid gender ambiguity
• Weight of expectation. Assumption that advantages will lead to great success
• "It's a long way down" - falling from grace; loss of status
• Hide pain. Don't talk about problems
• Self reliance
• Isolation - man is an island
• Most idolised and revered men are athletes - worship of physique
• "Loser" - no job, no money, no career, no skills
• Thief / junkie / criminal / bankrupt / dosser / tramp - always a man
• "It's all your own fault" / personal responsibility; accountability
• Passivity = homosexuality
• House-husband = not an option
• Succeed or kill yourself

That's all I can think of for now. The list is all over the place, but I wanted to cover as many different things as I could think of in a short space of time. To see it written down like that is somewhat alarming, because it doesn't seem to convey the struggle that I believe men face, and that causes so many men to end their own lives. It's strange that I can write a single word like "provider" and that succinctly sums up a whole heap of pressures and responsibilities that a man shoulders, but it's just one word.

So, I'm going to leave it there. Half words of caveat and half words that are powerfully charged for me, as a man. I leave it to you, dear reader, to expand each bullet point and decide whether it's all a lot of fuss about nothing. I had to write this today, because of an event today that I can't write about. It's complicated.

Tags: #suicide

This is a story about disadvantages...

There are a number of ways to get a black mark against your name. Every exam grade that's lower than a "C" is not going to be looked upon favourably. A degree of class 2:2, a third or - heaven forbid - a pass, is something that's going to follow you around like a bad smell. Any gaps on your CV are all damning indictments of your character. These are some of the least bad disadvantages that could be working against you in life.

Police cautions become spent on the day they're issued so you don't have to declare them to any prospective employer - unless you are subject to enhanced checks, because you work with children or vulnerable adults - but a criminal record has to declared up-front. Bankrupts are often compelled to admit to their financial misconduct and being a former bankrupt is often grounds for not employing a person. It even seems commonplace to perform credit checks on people now, as part of vetting for a job.

These are the disadvantages that people have, arguably because they're victims of circumstances beyond their control. The education we had, the friends we made, the wealth we've enjoyed... these are luck, not good judgement. We don't choose our parents. We don't choose to be born into poor uneducated families with a history of criminality, living in poor neighbourhoods - council estates and the like.

Then, we come to matters that are more obviously in our control - the choices we make as an adult.

What are all the things you'd think about when considering whether to get a tattoo or not? If you're a sensible chap or chapess, you'd think about all the bad fashion decisions you've made over the years, and rationally you would think that you wouldn't be able to choose a design that you'd be happy to wear for the rest of your life. Many 'tattoo fixers' are asked to erase the name of an ex - the ink was committed to skin when the relationship seemed as if it was going to last forever, but it didn't.

If you were still intent on making a permanent mark on your skin, you might consider where you're going to do it. If you get something on your foot, it's going to be visible when wearing summer shoes. If you get something on your arm, it might be visible when you roll up your sleeves. Why would anybody get a tattoo on their neck or face?

To all intents and purposes, I come up smelling of roses when the usual background checks are done. I have a fine set of academic qualifications, I have an all-star cast of multinational corporations on my CV, I don't have a criminal record, I've never been bankrupt. I enjoy a considerable advantage over many hopeful job applicants, who are paying a hefty price for something that happened years and years ago. To look at me, to study me on paper and pore over the vetting checks that are routinely done, you would see no evidence of any problems that the checks are supposed to find.

Did I say "look at me"? The careful observer might detect one little clue that I've not led an entirely blemish-free life. I have a black mark that clearly advertises that I've had problems. I write this blog, but you'd have to search for it to find it - you'd have to cyberstalk me - but there's a mark on my body in a totally visible place that you should be able to see, whatever clothes I'm wearing... I can't cover it up.

What the hell is a 35-year-old man who works in offices for prestigious organisations doing getting a tattoo in a visible place? Surely it would be career suicide? Everybody knows that people with visible tattoos don't get hired into positions of professional responsibility. Everybody knows that people with visible tattoos are not made of the right kind of stuff to enjoy positions of senior management responsibility. Everybody knows that people with visible tattoos are trash; scum; the dregs of society.

Getting a tattoo was stupid, of course, but it was also brave. Getting a tattoo was direct action: a protest about my sister having a hard time from my parents about her inked body. Getting a tattoo has been the best way to thumb my nose at bosses who desperately want my skills and experience, but who would never dream of giving an opportunity to somebody who's been less fortunate in life. Getting a tattoo is a running gag - a joke - which attacks all the gatekeepers who are seeking to keep the riff raff from getting ahead in life. When I sit down for an interview, my tattoo can't be seen face to face - it's behind my ear. It's usually too late - I've been hired - when the bosses first notice it. So many people don't get their foot in the door, because there's a black mark that causes them to be dismissed out of hand as an unsuitable candidate.

Why a semicolon?

If I was ever asked by a colleague, my answer would be that it's a programmer thing - I finished every line of computer code I've ever written with a semicolon.

The truth is that I'd been trying various ways to restabilise my life, which mainly revolved around earning bucketloads of cash as an IT contractor. The pressure and stress of one particularly nasty IT contract had pushed me to the brink of what I could survive. I'd asked to be hospitalised for my own safety. I flew to San Francisco, leaving myself just 4 hours to get to the airport from the time I booked the tickets, and went directly to the Golden Gate Bridge. I was erratic. I had no idea what to do, so I did everything. There was one thing that was constant: writing. The idea of the semicolon has come to mean that my story - this suicide note - could have come to an end, but I chose not to end it and keep writing. I jumped on a popular bandwagon. I joined a movement. I copied something that other people were doing. I tend to zig when everybody else zags, so getting a tattoo like other people's felt really good; it felt right.

Everything seems to piece together and make sense when seen as a whole. Writing under my real name and writing without a filter - completely candidly - and declaring my every fault is career suicide. Having a visible tattoo is career suicide. Those things together are the only way that I was going to cope when constantly dealing with gatekeepers who want to check my criminal record, check my credit rating, check if I'm a bankrupt, check my academic qualifications, check my references, check my passport and birth certificate. If the gatekeepers could, they'd pry into every single part of my private life... so I'm letting them. Here it is - come and fill your boots!

Who knows where this experiment's going to lead me. Perhaps I will suffer more discrimination. I've already lost two lucrative contracts as a direct result of living my life as an open book. Perhaps the disadvantages will continue to stack up and I'll be derailed from the fast track and shunted into the sidings, like so many people who've had the misfortune of accruing a black mark against their name.

If I seem at all disrespectful towards those who don't have any choice - they have criminal records, bad exam grades, a CV full of gaps and roles that don't have fancy job titles - then I apologise. Perhaps my little game can only be played by me because I'm so privileged.

I hope that what's going to happen is a move towards a more open society, where we can be honest about our past transgressions.

Tags: #tattoo

This is a story about the hands of time...

I have a breadcrumb trail of images that allow me to retrace my steps and understand where I've come from and attempt to estimate whether I'm spiralling downwards or slowly recovering. If I look through my photo library at the images and videos that I captured exactly one year ago, there are three strange videos that I recorded, which clearly indicate that I'd had a major relapse. Three days later both my kidneys had failed, my left leg had ballooned to twice its normal size due to DVT and my blood was toxic enough to kill me at any moment.

Every year for the past four, I've had a Jinxed January. It's true that depression, hypomania and addiction have reared their ugly heads year-round, but January is a particularly awful time. I cured the November wobbles by writing novels. I cured the December wobbles by cutting my toxic parents out of my life. The next problem I've got is how to solve Jinxed January.

My present strategy is to shackle myself to my desk, doing a job that I absolutely hate and is completely incompatible with my mental health. If I can survive this January without doing anything stupid and self-sabotaging, I should have the wind behind me and a downhill stretch of road to help me coast into the spring. The odds will be increasingly in my favour as the days get longer and the weather improves.

I'm emerging from the fog of addiction, intoxicating medications and copious quantities of alcohol. It was impossible for me to really comprehend how bad things had gotten, while I had so much toxic crap in my body. I'd lost all perspective and ability to perceive reality. I struggle to relate to a lot of what I've written in the last few years, because that person who was under the influence of such vast quantities of drink and drugs feels like somebody else. I can read my own words, I can see the distress and I can remember the things that were driving my thoughts and emotions at the time, but not everything in my world was entirely real and grounded in reality. I'm not seeking to distance myself from the things that my body did - including saying and writing things - but it's a little bit hard to imagine that it was me. If you want to get obsessive about blame and responsibility, then f**k you, buddy... go read somebody else's blog you tiresome bore.

Of course, I feel very bad about the way I treated - for example - my lovely girlfriend who gave me a wonderful Christmas with her family, cared for me when I was in hospital, and was extremely nonjudgemental and understanding when addiction got its hooks back in me. I didn't treat her well in the end. I regret it and I'm sorry. I did that. I'm to blame. I'm responsible.

However, in the context of unpicking everything, I can see that there are repeating patterns and things that trigger other things - cause and effect are very complicated to understand. To fully understand the likely consequences and plan ahead, like playing a thousand simultaneous games of chess against grandmasters, is a completely unreasonable and unrealistic thing to expect of me.

Searching back through my photo archives, I can see that I obtained a prescription for an antidepressant - bupropion - shortly before one relapse. I can see that I obtained another - California rocket fuel - shortly before an episode of hypomania where I broke up with the aforementioned brilliant girlfriend. In fact, whenever I seek chemical relief from depression, that's usually an indication of a desire to feel better at any costs, having suffered weeks and months of suicidal thoughts. Am I to blame for seeking relief from my intolerable feelings of depression?

Scanning through my library of images, I can see how I become obsessive over sleeping tablets and tranquillisers, as I rely upon the pills in order to cope with dreadfully stressful situations, which would send even the least-anxiety prone amongst us running screaming in the opposite direction from the source of the stress.

This time last year I was about to start work doing yet more IT consultancy for yet another bank. I was not incredibly enamoured at the prospect, but I needed the money. Circumstances conspired to force me back into an unhealthy environment.

Sadly, I'm not rich enough to do whatever I want, and I'm not even financially comfortable enough to do something tolerable - I've got to do the thing which pays the bills, and that's IT consultancy for banks, unfortunately. It's a fact of life that sometimes we have to do things we don't like very much.

So, I've avoided the antidepressants this time, because they always seem to send me loopy. I'm white-knuckling it to the end of Jinxed January, because I just need to get through this god-awful month, come hell or high water. I'm constantly reminding myself that even to dabble with so-called recreational drugs or get mixed up with girls in a big way, is likely to be destabilising. I live like a monk - work, eat, sleep, repeat.

Because of the extraordinary quantity of benzodiazepines I was abusing, I have huge holes in my memory. It feels like such a short time ago that I was hooked up to my own dedicated dialysis machine, on a high dependency ward. It feels like only yesterday that I regained consciousness with a machine breathing for me in intensive care. I managed a spectacularly terrible sum total of just 11 weeks at work in 2017, and virtually all the rest was pure insanity. I spent about 7 weeks in hospital, so with that 11 versus 7 ratio, you can see that my year was pretty messed up.

This year is brutally drug-free and medication-free. My brain screams in agony at the unbearable levels of depression and anxiety, but I've seen that to reach for any kind of substance for relief is opening the flood gates to fully-blown addiction. I'll convince myself that whatever chemical I'm using to feel better is not effective, and I need to take more, more, MORE! Before I know it, I'll be back on the supercrack.

It might seem obvious to an outside observer that my cyclical life is due to bipolar disorder, and I should rush to my psychiatrist and beg to be given mood stabilisers immediately. However, those who superficially observe me would remark that I'm very stable: I get up, shower, get dressed, have breakfast, go to my job, spend my evening watching TV and writing and get eight hours sleep. To the casual observer, I seem like the most functional and stable person who you could possibly hope to ever meet.

The reality of my existence is one of continuous battle with depression, anxiety and a craving to spectacularly self-sabotage with addiction. Getting out of bed in the morning and overcoming debilitating anxiety are comparatively easy, having built up the mental strength to overcome the urge to take one of the most addictive substances known to man. I'm not meaning to compete with those who find their lifes to be completely unliveable due to depression and anxiety, but merely to say that I've found it easier to overcome things which would have kept me bed-bound, after having been through what I've been through. Every cell of my body screams in protest at the bullshit I'm putting myself through at the moment. Every bit of my brain yells in agony at the daily punishment I suffer, but what does an extra bit of suffering matter compared with the endless comedowns and drug withdrawals I've been through?

As I look back on the last year, I realise I've been through opiate withdrawal from tramadol, codeine and dihydrocodeine; through benzodiazepine withdrawal from diazepam and alprazolam; through stimulant withdrawal from crystal meth and supercrack; through withdrawal from pregabalin and alcohol; through withdrawal from sleeping tablets like zopiclone and zolpidem. In terms of detoxes, I've had the detox from hell. In terms of quitting addictive medications, I'm a Guinness World Record holder. I really do deserve a medal.

As I look back on the last year, I realise I've been through so many health issues, housing issues, financial issues, legal issues, employment issues, relationship issues and everything else that would wreck your head and rob you of your sense of stability, comfort, contentedness and happiness. I'm surprised I'm not sleeping in a cardboard box, just to escape the clutches of a society that wants its pound of flesh at any costs. I'm exhausted by the constant stress of it all.

If I make it through Jinxed January, I have little to look forward to. There's nothing jump for joy about. Anybody who tells you you'll feel better if you quit the booze and the drugs and the pills is a fucking idiot. Anybody who tells you that you'll have improved self-esteem and all the other good stuff, if you get yourself off the streets and into a job, is a fucking idiot. I'm an extremely rare example of a judge, policeman and a social worker's wet dream - a bankrupt homeless mentally ill junkie who's got themselves scrubbed down and gone back to civilised society, but I've got to tell you in no uncertain terms that it's awful and I hate it. My life is a living hell.

Perhaps this is the ultimate comedown. Perhaps all the chickens are eventually coming home to roost. Perhaps this is the payback, given that I somehow miraculously avoided prison, a criminal record, bankruptcy and permanent health damage. Perhaps I'm finally paying the price for all that partying.

But, I haven't been partying. It's not like I haven't paid the price every time I fucked up. It's not like I haven't tried hard to do the all the right things and contribute to society. It's not like I've robbed, and manipulated and been a parasite on society. I've already paid for my transgressions. Where's the reward for getting myself sorted out? Why did I bother?

As I look back, I have rose-tinted glasses. As I look forward, I see the world through a blue filter. The past wasn't so bad and the future looks bleak. Perhaps this is the final stage of recovery from addiction, when my memory of the horrors of the past is becoming faded and I fondly reminisce about the few moments that were OK in all that insanity. It was certainly an easier life, to be on a rocket-ride to hell.

I try to look back and remind myself just how bad things were, but I find myself smiling and laughing in a way that I just don't when I think about the eight hours I spent going through hell at my desk today. In my mind, I perceive the present unpleasantness as far greater than anything else I've been through in the last year. That's strange, isn't it? To have suffered multiple organ failure, loss of my home, loss of my job, a suicide attempt, incarceration, getting sectioned, psych wards, addiction, loss of my girlfriend and all the other atrocious things that I went through in the last year, and the very worst thing is my current working arrangements.

Obviously, I think that my perceptions must be warped by my state of semi-recovery from addiction and other mental health problems, but I don't think it explains everything. There is something awful about being all alone in an AirBnb, working a job I hate because it's boring, easy and doesn't bring me into contact with a single soul... it's so lonely and isolating.

I'm churning words out into the ether, because I'm in such discomfort and I'm so afraid.

It's strange that I'm not afraid of ending up back in hospital, isn't it?

Tags: #addiction #recovery #mentalhealth #depression #bipolar #medication #career

This is a story about being caught on camera...

There was a time before digital cameras and Facebook when it was thrilling to see photographs of yourself that other people had taken: this was the pre-selfie age. There was a time when creating a digital identity was hard - social media wasn't dominated by the big players, and maintaining a homebrew website required expert technical skills and a significant investment of time & effort.

Some enterprising tech boffins created free software that allowed bulletin boards to be created by relative novices - these were forums where internet users could discuss topics, under the banner of a certain hobby or interest. Originally, bulletin boards were telephone numbers you could dial up from your computer, to do the kinds of things we do on the internet today, except that these bulletin boards were isolated communities.

Facebook and Twitter have taken the bulletin board - where we build a community around a common interest - and allowed us to build a community around our personal identity, with the bait of seeing ourselves tagged in photos or mentioned in tweets. On forums, there was a thrill in seeing a thread of discussion getting many views and replies - to be the original author of a popular thread was something to take pride in. We covet 'likes' of our updated profile photographs and our pouting selfies, as we preen our digital identity.

With the ubiquity of smartphones that are capable of capturing and uploading photos and videos, making them instantly available on social media, we are amassing a huge library of images of ourselves, as well as projecting an identity that goes well beyond the people we see on a daily basis, face-to-face.

Our skill in presenting ourselves as we want to be seen - Facebragging - is something that we have had to recently learn, especially as we increasingly mix work colleagues with our close friends, online. Our digital identities can overspill unless we are careful to manage the audience with whom we share things.

A sinister and creepy cyberstalker made a horrifying boast to me:

"I know"

I'm sorry, what? What do you know?

"I've read your blog. I know"

What? What do you know? Have you really read my blog? There's the best part of three-quarters of a million words here - I seriously doubt you've read much, and I seriously doubt you know much.

Those words - "I know" - were said to me by somebody who was making a very important decision. Because of the sheer volume of noise on social media, I'm relatively hard to find. Thanks to my concerted efforts over a number of years I can laugh at anybody's attempt to "know" me - stalkers only scratch the surface. Yes, I am applauding myself for writing so much that even the most determined cyberstalker would be exhausted.

I live in fear of cyberstalking.

Don't we all live in fear of cyberstalking a little bit? There's probably a sex video of you and somebody else that's hidden somewhere on your computer or smartphone. What about all those sexts that you sent between you and your sweetheart? What about all those paedophiles who want to molest your children? What about all those rapists who are following your every move on social media? The world is out to get you.

My fear of cyberstalking is a little different.

I'm now convinced that almost everybody is far too wrapped up in their own self-centred little world, to give two fucks about much of what anybody else is doing. The cyberstalker who said "I know" in a very sinister and horrible way, was intent on harming me just as much as you'd expect of any stalker - zero fucks were given about my health and wellbeing, and a very great deal of harm was rendered to me.

Perhaps I should set my privacy settings to the maximum and erase everything that's personal and accessible to malicious attackers?

To protect myself from a determined cyberstalker would be nearly impossible. Our lives are lived online nowadays - to reject social media and not cultivate a digital identity, will leave me isolated and without access to online communities. To have to always consider how anything I share could be used against me is exhausting, and how am I supposed to ask for help or otherwise indicate to my friends that I'm in trouble? Pretending that my life is awesome and I'm totally OK is ridiculous, if I'm doing it just in case a cyberstalker goes digging.

I'm not suggesting we all post our mother's maiden name, social security number, credit card details and other data that would lay ourselves open to fraud... or maybe I am. In an open and trusting culture, the bad apples are easier to spot - nothing to hide, nothing to fear.

The fact that I've suffered significant financial loss due to a cyberstalker is akin to a kind of fraud that has been perpetrated against me. I'm no fraudster: who I am is plain for all to see. That somebody would steal my data and use it against me is criminal. Why should I be persecuted and discriminated against, because of what dirt you think you've dug on me? It's like a kind of blackmail to use my digital identity against me.

I wonder what kind of person would think that whatever I choose to write on my blog is more important than the facts, which have included things such as being in intensive care in hospital with a 50/50 chance of living or dying. Wouldn't you care about the person - i.e. me - and not about the digital identity? "Are you feeling OK because I was really worried you were going to die?" would seem like the more appropriate human response, rather than the extremely creepy and sinister "I know". I mean, what the actual fuck?

So, I've been cyberstalked, and the stalkers have caused significant harm to me. Just hearing "I know" from somebody who seems to be a respectable member of society, does show that there are some downright evil fuckers out there. However, I stand my decision to be brave and publicise who I am and what makes me tick.

In my experience, it's better to be brave and bold, even if it feels scary and nasty people try to fuck you up.

Tags: #writing #socialmedia #career

This is a story about being counter-productive...

95% of my fellow patients smoke cigarettes. There's nothing to do on the psych ward, so I can see why they would. Cigarettes are a way to pass the time; to deal with boredom; to relieve some of the stress of being locked up with a load of mentally ill people; to self-medicate for all manner of problems.

Nicotine is fiendishly addictive and a psych ward is not the right environment to kick the habit. As a non-smoker I'm well aware that I'm not involved in the activity that dominates the lives of my fellow patients - obtaining tobacco, rolling cigarettes and harassing the staff to be let outside to smoke.

There is a small outdoor area which can be accessed via some steps, enclosed in a cage so that nobody can jump and injure themselves, or attempt to escape. Every hour, the door to the steps is opened for 15 minutes, and the smokers all cluster around the top of the steps, getting their nicotine fix. Nobody goes down the steps into the outdoor area - they remain in the cage.

I challenge the staff - why don't they leave the door open the whole time? Nobody could escape from the outdoor area, because it's surrounded by high fences. The outdoor area is well covered by CCTV, and it's no harder to keep an eye on people than any other part of the ward.

The standard response from the staff is that it's "promoting health" to deny nicotine addicts access to the only place they're allowed to smoke. I call bullshit on this, because there's no data to support the hypothesis. "Look around - everybody smokes... nobody is smoking less because of this rule" I say. The staff argue that the NHS can't be seen to be "promoting" smoking. This is a completely ridiculous idea. The nurses and support workers hand out the cigarettes and cigarette lighters - the NHS is intimately involved in the whole process of smoking, far more than if the patients were given the choice as to how they dealt with their addiction.

I'm in a dorm with 3 other men. It's a lot quieter than the single room right next to the TV - the TV blasted out for 19 hours in every 24 at full volume. The noise was unbearable. My fellow patients in my dorm report that they're lulled off to sleep by the rhythmic tapping of my keyboard, as I pound out these words. I was concerned that I was being a noisy nuisance, but they reassure me that it's quite the opposite - it's a kind of white noise that's relaxing, like hearing raindrops falling on the roof or hitting the windows, driven by the wind.

A guy is coming out of my dorm, but he doesn't sleep in my dorm - he has his own room. What's he doing down at this end of the ward? Then, my nostrils are assaulted by the smell of smoke. I push the door to the bathroom open and it stinks - there isn't even a decent extractor fan to get rid of the smell. I write a note and secretly pass it to a nurse, pretending to pass her my laptop to be charged in the office. I scurry away down the corridor but she yells after me "tell XXXXX about the smoking in the toilet" waving the note, right in front of the guy I'm dobbing in. I cringe - does she not know that snitches get stitches?

Another nurse comes to our dorm and she starts accusing one of my dorm mates of smoking in the toilet. I leap to his defence. "Who was it?" she asks, and then bellows out his name when I whisper the answer. The fact that many of my fellow patients have a criminal past and have been in prison, does not seem to concern the staff members. Perhaps there aren't fights in here. Perhaps they never see any violence. Perhaps my fears are unfounded. Am I being paranoid?

The fire escape is padlocked shut, there are no fire extinguishers or sprinklers, the break-glass buttons are enclosed in plastic boxes that prevent the fire alarms from being set off - a fire in here would be catastrophic. Yet, I am certain that there are at least 2 cigarette lighters that are being used in my dorm. The patients smoke openly when the staff are doing their handover between shifts, when there's absolutely nobody around.

I make subtle enquiries with my fellow patients - how do they feel about the restrictions on smoking? Everybody agrees that the restriction on access to the outdoor area is more about control than it is about "promoting health" - they feel that the staff have created a system that allows them to exercise dominion over their inmates. "Smoke time!" demands one of the more aggressive patients, banging on the window of the office. "Calm down! Stop shouting!" yells back a staff member. This is an artificial and avoidable situation - why does it exist, when it's creating conflict between staff and patients, and making people stressed and unhappy?

When I was confined to the ward I would have made use of the outdoor area to walk around, get some fresh air and get some natural light. However, I couldn't get past the gaggle of smokers clustered around the top of the steps. To leave the door open all the time wouldn't create this ridiculous situation, where all the patients are fixated on this controlling aspect of their lives.

It's saddening, to see 19 men all hanging around waiting to be given a lighter and be let out, like they're animals; pets.

In defiance of the pointless draconian controlling bullshit, a handful of patients have smuggled cigarette lighters and tobacco into the ward - it's not hard when some patients are allowed unaccompanied leave from the ward. "Have you got any bottles or lighters on you?" a nurse asks me when I get back from an outing - I'm not breathalyzed or searched, even though I'm carrying a bulging bag.

I suppose the privilege of being allowed to leave the ward could be revoked, as a punishment for misbehaviour. The chance of being discharged early and allowed home is also under threat, for any patient who's troublesome. Most patients are here for a 6-month stay. It's up to 6 months, but it's more often longer, not shorter. The reaction to not being allowed to go home is rarely handled well - can you imagine that people who are unwell are able to remain calm and represent themselves clearly and articulately, when their liberty is at stake?

In terms of mental health, nothing could be more stressful, adversarial and paranoia-inducing, than having doctors and nurses discuss you behind your back, having been peeked at through the curtains every 15 minutes - patients are literally spied on and judged. Life, liberty and free-will are all interfered with in an institutional environment that's a cross between a prison and a school. Notices on the wall tell us they promote "independence and well-being" while also telling patients the very strict times that they need to be at the dispensary hatch to get their medications. At 8:54am I'm harassed by a nurse to go for my 9am meds... I'm well aware what the time is and also well aware that to be early is to be turned away empty handed. At 11:54am I'm harassed to go and stand in line for some food which is not even being served until 12 noon at the earliest, and is often delayed.

I'm aware that I'm lucky to have a sought-after psych bed - many people who are having a mental health crisis will have no access to inpatient care. To bite the hand that feeds me seems churlish, but I do feel sorry for my fellow patients who can't articulate their frustrations effectively.

The only patient I know to have attempted to file a complaint is the guy who's relentlessly trying to get 8mg more Subutex out of the doctors... unwilling to go along with the treatment that will wean him off his opiate addiction and quite determined to sabotage his recovery, perhaps.

Nobody's stopping smoking because of the "health promoting" rules around access to the outdoor area, but I'm certainly missing out on exercise and fresh air because of it.

It all looks rather counter-productive to me.

Tags: #addiction #hospital #mentalhealth #nhs

This is a story about subservience...

It's grim up North. I didn't think it would be but it is. Here's Coronation Street. Beautiful, isn't it? Presently, that discarded sofa would be where I'd sleep if I discharged myself from hospital.

Without the crutches of alcohol, benzodiazepines and sleeping pills, I feel overwhelmed by stress and anxiety, because of the precarity of my position. Without a home; without a job; without financial security - there's plenty of rational reasons to be distressed.

People implore me to sit back and relax, but they don't realise that I've got loan payments to make; credit card payments to make; overdraft interest to be paid. To have to spell this out multiple times is frustrating.

"Why don't you just go bankrupt?"

Yeah, nice one, Einstein. Did you know that I do a lot of consultancy for financial services organisations? It's imperative that I have a clean credit record - prospective employers will do credit checks on me. You might as well suggest that I go out and commit a crime and add a criminal record to my list of woes.

"It's too soon to be thinking about going back to work"

Well, unless I'm accepting that I'm abandoning all hope of ever repaying my creditors and suffering a life of poverty at the mercy of the state, then no, it's not too soon. There's a concept called runway that I talked about at length during the first half of this year. I was unwell, but during my convalescence I was running out of runway. What happens when a plane runs out of runway?

In short, I'm driven to seek income, to prop up my depleted finances and keep servicing my debts.

If you're really wanting to poke your nose into the darkest recesses of my life, then you should know that I can easily earn enough to replenish my savings and get onto an even keel, with just 5 or 6 months of contract work in London. That I ever left London seems like a mistake, but I had few options - what I did was the right thing in the circumstances.

Today, I'm detoxed from alcohol and benzodiazepines - the physical dependency has been treated - but it quite literally nearly killed me. In addition to the massive deliberate tramadol overdose, my hospitalisation meant I abruptly stopped drinking and taking benzos, which caused me to have loads of seizures - in short, you should never suddenly stop heavy drinking or taking large doses of benzos, because you could die.

So, one might argue that I'm in a better place than when I attempted suicide. Yeah, I guess the biggest threat to my life has gone - my physical dependency on medications and alcohol.

Now, the biggest threat to my life is me - the desire to be dead is an insistent nagging thought that won't go away. It makes so much sense to commit suicide: all I have ahead of me is stress.

The rebound anxiety - having ceased taking medications and drinking alcohol - is causing me to suffer an intolerable amount of unpleasant feelings. It feels like I'm going to feel awful forever, and who would want that?

Of course, my perceptions are probably warped - nothing lasts forever. However, should I really be living my life just hoping to die of natural causes?

I could be writing about how pleased and happy I am to have a second chance - I survived a very large overdose and other medical complications that really should have killed me: the team at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) were very surprised that I survived. Shouldn't I embody every trite contrived platitude you've ever heard? Shouldn't I be carpe diem'ing? Shouldn't I be counting my blessings? Shouldn't I be thanking my lucky stars?

Without stopping to consider all the reasons I tried to kill myself, my problems are not going to go away on their own, are they?

If my suicide attempt was an impulsive thing that I had any regrets about, then perhaps surviving would give me some long-lost appreciation for life. However, I'm spine-chillingly cold and rational about the biggest decision that anybody can ever make: the decision to die. Having been stuck in a never-ending cycle of attempts to get my life back together again, I was exhausted and unable to face rebuilding everything again. I'm still exhausted.

There was a fleeting chance that my suicide attempt could have been a minor setback, but I was completely shafted by the company I was working for. The mistreatment I suffered was inhumane; monstrous. I'm almost speechless that I could have been treated so badly.

I'm stuck between three things:

1. To act positively, and go and earn some more money
2. To act negatively, and pursue my legal rights
3. To simply attempt to kill myself again

To follow the first option is to repeat the behaviours I mastered a very long time ago. It was 20 years ago I got my first full-time job; rented my first apartment. It was 20 years ago that I learned about office politics and how to get ahead in life - a life of corporate conformity.

Instinctively, I reject the bullshit that made me unwell. For 20 years I've observed the rats in the rat race, and for 20 years I've observed the world become a shitter place - an exploding population is on collision course with mass starvation; unrestrained fossil fuel burning has led to runaway climate change, which is causing parts of the world to become uninhabitable, killing and displacing billions of people; deregulated free-market capitalism has raped the globe's finite resources and created a culture of wealth-worship where nobody gives a fuck about anything.

To be a principled, ethical man, is a kind of disadvantage - my political philosophies about social justice and a more fair and equal world, are exploited. I find myself screwed over by people who are willing to trample on anybody and everybody, in a desperate and disgusting scramble up the slippery sides of a mountain of dead bodies.

I've proven that I can play by the rules, but the whole game is bullshit and most people are cheating. I don't have anything to prove to anybody anymore; I've shown that I can wear the corporate mask and fit in with the herd; I've shown that I can live a life of subservient conformity, but it drove me to point of taking my own life.

I don't wanna play anymore, and the only way I can see to call time on this bullshit is to kill myself.

I think to myself that I've suffered and that I must turn that suffering into a piece of art - a monument to the stupidity of humanity. It's grandiose and ridiculous to think that a piece of writing could have any useful effect on the world, but this is my only legacy. Do you deny me the facts? To think that I would no longer live & breathe was a shock to many who've stuck with me and followed my story.

Of course, I'm sick and I've got "insight" into my illness - that is to say that I can consider an objective point of view. It's natural that I'd be feeling terrible, only 24 days after I very nearly managed to kill myself. It's natural that I'd be feeling terrible, given the clusterfuck of issues I've got to sort out if I want to go on living. I can see that I may very well be feeling unnaturally anxious, because my brain is re-adjusting to life without booze and benzos to soothe the stresses that are ever-present in the world.

A doctor suggests that I avoid the news, political protests and other things that I might get worked up about. Is this akin to a lobotomy? I think I would very much like a lobotomy... that's how I arrived at the brain-numbing chemical lobotomy that I swallowed every single day. Unfortunately, my brain is very much intact.

Why am I still so painfully conscious?

Tags: #suicide

This is a story about customer service...

Amongst a small group of my friends, we have all found that a medication called pregabalin - marketed as Lyrica in the UK - has been useful to us, but also has adverse side effects and is difficult to stop taking. Pregabalin is quite good at combatting anxiety and improving sleep, which are obviously the desirable effects: most of us have stress in our lives, and struggle to get enough high-quality sleep. Personally, pregabalin is an effective treatment for the phantom limb pain I feel, due to damaged nerves - I can't feel my left foot. Pregabalin is far better than the opiate painkillers, which left me sweating and nauseous at times. However, stopping taking pregabalin leaves me feeling anxious and gives me insomnia - what goes up must come down.

Soon pregabalin - "the new Valium" - will be scheduled as a class C controlled substance, which makes it much harder to obtain a prescription, and possession without a prescription could be punished with a criminal conviction.

Here on the psych ward, a man screams for a "blue tablet". Perhaps more blatantly obvious as an addiction, another man attempts to wheedle more Subutex (buprenorphine) out of the staff - he's been droning on about having his dose restored from 8mg to 16mg, because he is being weaned off the synthetic opiate he is addicted to. I can hear this guy, who is obviously no stranger to our prison system, chopping and snorting drugs his room. The man who screams for a "blue tablet" is actually asking for a 10mg diazepam pill - blue in colour - which is Valium. Our screaming friend decides he wants to leave hospital, and the staff tell him he can't leave because he's going to take heroin. "It's my body! I do what I want!" he screams. Then, he starts getting abusive.

Early on in my hospital detention under section 2 of the Mental Health Act, I ask a nurse if she can nip to the shop to get me a 4-pack of beer. We lock eyes for what seems like an eternity. I maintain a completely straight face. Then, we both snigger and she regains her composure. She jokes that we should have a big piss-up on the ward. With a different nurse, I tell her with a straight face that they have forgotten my methadone and she immediately unlocks the cabinet containing the opiates that are so coveted by some patients here... I hastily tell her that I was joking, but she still continues to search my medication chart. Do I look like a junkie? I certainly don't have track marks on my arms or other identifying features of an injecting drugs user, such as abscess scars.

A doctor comes to take my blood. She doesn't shut my bedroom door. Three men, who I know were heroin users, peer into my room and I feel bad that I didn't ask the doctor to close the door or get up and close it myself - surely the sight of a needle going into a vein is going to be a terrible trigger. There's good evidence that addicts' brain reward pathways are activated when they see drugs and drug paraphernalia for just 33 milliseconds, which is less than the 40 milliseconds that a single frame of cinema film is shown for.

Having been detoxed from my physical dependency on benzodiazepines and alcohol, I find that I crave nothing more than a few drinks in the evening - some wine or some beer - to take the edge off the stress and anxiety of my situation and help me relax during what is a fairly dreadful clusterfuck of issues with employment, housing, accommodation and my health. However, I don't want to sabotage my treatment and recovery.

I'm incredibly grateful to the NHS, for accidentally detoxing me while they were treating my deadly deliberate overdose - my suicide attempt. Being physically dependent on a medication is to be shackled to it - to stop taking it would cause seizures and potentially death. There wasn't a 'buzz' that I was chasing with booze & benzos. I was using mind-altering substances to soothe my jangled nerves: self medication.

Am I glorifying drug taking, or making light of serious matters? Don't be so ridiculous.

An epidemic of illicit opiate use sweeps across the United States, with the number of overdose deaths and addicted babies born, skyrocketing in the past few years. An epidemic of mental health issues has pushed the services that are there to support those who become unwell, to breaking point. Only a wilfully ignorant person would turn a blind eye to what's happening all around us.

Carfentanil - a synthetic opioid - is so powerful that an aerosol of it could be sprayed in a packed metropolitan area and cause hundreds of people to die from respiratory arrest. This drug is being sold as an adulterant in bags of heroin, in the United States today. In the UK, carfentanil's less potent - but still deadly - chemical cousin, fentanyl, is quite common now in batches of street heroin. If you're worried about terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, these things have already arrived on the shores of the US and UK, in the form of incredibly deadly chemicals that are available for sale to anybody with the money.

My fellow patients are unrelenting. There's been a 2-day nonstop assault on the staff, as the patients attempt to get a tiny amount more synthetic opiate out of the doctor. There's not much else to do on the ward, and whatever medications the doctor has decided to write on their chart will remain fixed for a whole week. I guess they've got nothing to lose apart from their 30 minutes of escorted leave from the ward. One patient has done a runner, sensing that the doctor's decision has not gone the way he would prefer.

"You've not done anything wrong. You can come back and you won't be in any trouble" a stressed looking nurse is saying down the telephone, to the patient who has gone AWOL. Meanwhile, a patient takes breaks between harassing the staff for 8mg more Subutex, in order to chop and snort lines of white powder in his room - presumably he has a plentiful supply of his own drugs, which he wishes to supplement with a legal prescription.

I try to calmly await my section tribunal, despite the chaos outside my bedroom door.

It should be noted, that the quality of care does not vary with one's behaviour - the staff are supremely professional - but good manners are declared as the number one thing that every staff member wants, on a notice board that tells the patients a little more about the team of people who look after us.

Good manners cost nothing.

Tags: #hospital #mentalhealth #drugs #addiction

This is a story about panic attacks...

Am I thirsty or do I just want to get pissed? I feel like my world is falling apart, but maybe I just want to numb myself with medication. I feel like I can't cope, or is it that I crave soothing chemicals? I feel like the tasks ahead are impossible but my perceptions are clearly warped - I don't know which way is up and which way is down.

If somebody was to burgle my home, I'm not sure whether they'd be more pleased with the expensive consumer electronics that they could resell, the wad of Euros that they could convert into pounds or the massive bag of opiates, benzodiazepines, sleeping pills and other highly coveted medications, which would probably be the reason for their criminal trespass in the first place.

I stopped taking opiate painkillers earlier in the year. It was hard, but it wasn't that hard. Sweating and nausea and pain; constipation and loose bowel movements; sleepiness and blunted emotions - withdrawal was over eventually and I don't even remember it being that bad, in hindsight.

How long have I been drinking a bottle of wine every day for? Tonight I've had a tiny bottle of beer and that's it, but my drinking has raged out of control, as I've sought to calm my nerves and self-medicate for incredible stress and emotional pain in my life.

How long have I been taking tablets for? Certainly long enough that if I abruptly stopped, I would have a seizure. It's a miracle that I haven't had a fit, but the gaps I've had in-between handfuls of pills - lasting two or three days - could have killed me in a multitude of other ways anyway.

Almost every day, I wonder why my optimism and hope has turned to fear, doubt and despair - I become convinced that I'm unable to function; unable to face the future.

Like many addicts any alcoholics, I'm overwhelmed by negative feelings and I become convinced that the only way to ease my suffering would be to kill myself - quickly by suicide, or slowly with drink & drugs.

Without structure & routine - social contact and the prospect of a happy & contented life - it's a miracle that I've not plunged into the deep depths of fully blown alcoholism and an ever worsening drug problem. Today was a sink or swim day, but I made it through.

No bottle of wine today. No Xanax. My situation is improving. My unhealthy consumption patterns of alcohol, drugs & medication, continue to abate, despite the protestations of my brain. I was in two minds about committing suicide tonight. I was tempted by alcohol - of course - but the urge to drink was relatively easily resisted.

If you wished to categorise me as an alcoholic and/or a drug addict, I'm afraid your attempt would be thwarted by the facts. Alcoholics can't stop drinking and drug addicts can't stop taking drugs. Guess again, sucker.

I'm suffering unspeakable discomfort at the moment, but I'm forcing my body - including my brain - down a path that it's reluctant to take, but it's for its own good. It will be weeks, maybe even months before I feel the benefits of what I'm putting myself through, but I know that if I don't do it, the alternative outcomes are very undesirable, to say the least.

Eventually, I will sleep without sleeping pills, feel free from panic & anxiety without tranquillisers, be able to cope with my neuropathic pain without painkillers... perhaps my body will even repair its damaged nerves, without the interference of artificial compounds not found in nature. Two and a half million years of human evolution, and you think we got everything right in the last 70 years?

Would I take antibiotics for an infection? Yes. Would I edit my genes if I could get rid of any faulty ones? Yes. However, psychiatry doesn't have a lot of triumphs to crow about - if superbugs don't kill you, then mental illness will probably ruin what little quality of life you had anyway.

My brain tells me I'm about to die or that I should kill myself. I know - rationally - that my brain is feeding me unreliable information, and that I should ride out the storm, however, knowing this doesn't make me feel any different at all.

Eventually, it's too much.

Tags: #suicide #alcohol #addiction