This is a story about the easy option...

I took a sleeping pill last night. Sunday nights are hard and so are Monday mornings. Lots of people struggle but I've got a fairly legitimate set of reasons why I'm struggling: mountainous debts, soul-destroyingly boring and slow work, social isolation, mood disorder and having recently gone gold turkey on a zillion addictive drugs and medications. Normal people who've been through the ordeal I've been through - including the homelessness and the hospitalisations - are not working a full-time high-pressure demanding job. I find my job pretty easy, but it's still a lot of pressure and very demanding to turn up and appear like I've got my shit together as opposed to having just dragged myself off the streets and gotten clean.

Take a look at the people who are getting clean and recovering from a severe mental health crisis. Take a look at the people who are recovering from suicide attempts and addiction. Take a look at the people who are getting back on their feet.

Are they working full time jobs, miles away from home?

So I took a sleeping pill.

So. Fucking. What.

It's not the slippery slope. It's not the thin edge of the wedge. It's not the beginning of the end.

I will have a proper relapse at some point. I'm bound to. It's inevitable.

When I've finally got my debts paid off and I'm finally free, the relief is sure to be overwhelming. I've struggled so hard for so long to reach that milestone of repairing the damage of divorce and everything that went with it, that I think I'll be happy to sleep rough at least knowing that getting off the streets and working to earn money was the easy part which I've done a million times before. The hard part has been that it's been so unrewarding. I've worked so hard for so long and I've got nothing to show for it. Where's the payoff?

I took a sleeping pill and I slept well.

I woke up feeling refreshed.

It was easy to get up.

Dread = gone.

That was amazing to wake up and not be filled with dread about the day ahead. In fact that reduced feeling of dread lasted all day and I was reasonably happy at my desk, rather than bored out of my mind. Is that a co-incidence, or is it linked to the fact that my brain was getting something that it was missing?

I don't really want to go back to being dependent on all those pills, but I did go cold turkey very abruptly, and the re-adjustment has been brutal. So many little things make me stressed and anxious, which is not a choice to catastrophise, but a perfectly rational and logical thing for a person who's suddenly found themselves living life without copious quantities of nerve-soothing tranquillisers, sedatives and painkillers. Medication adjustments aren't something that can be done in days, weeks and months. It takes a very long time to adjust to harshness, and the world is a very harsh place.

It's so tempting to pop pills at the moment.

Pills don't have any calories. Good quality sleep is so valuable. Life without anxiety is so much better.

Why would I want to suffer?

I need to sleep well, wake up refreshed, not dread going to work, not be anxious and miserable at my desk and not feel hungry and wanting to comfort eat all the time. Of course I want pills.

The rebound insomnia and rebound anxiety were terrible, and it's still a problem, but without tea, coffee, energy drinks, cigarettes or some other vice to overcompensate with, I've snacked like crazy and put on weight. I'm stressed and anxious about my weight, which is a self-perpetuating vicious cycle.

The solution is to not have to get up at the crack of dawn every day and go to an office and be bored out of my mind. The solution is to not be in debt up to my eyeballs and unable to stop working as hard as I can. The solution is not to live with job insecurity, money insecurity, housing insecurity, social isolation and all the other problems which come about as a result of the pressure on me to simply chain myself to my desk.

Those options are not available to me.

Those solutions are denied to me.

Make hay while the sun shines.

I never know when I'm going to lose my job, lose my mind, suffer health problems or get fucked over by somebody. I never know when I'm going to get totally fucking screwed so I've got to work as hard as I can for as long as I can, because somebody always screws me in the end.

All I can do is take pills.

I take pills so I can keep going in the fucking miserable merry-go-round which is my life. I take pills to prop me up. I take pills to pep me up. I take pills instead of taking a holiday. I take pills instead of taking a break. I take pills because I can't afford to stop pedalling as fast as I can. I take pills to help me cope with this never-ending nightmare.

I take pills.

I hate taking pills.

I'd rather take a break.

But I can't.

Not yet.

The day never seems to come.

Always just out of reach.

Round and round.

On and on.

Forever and ever.

If I do come out the other side of this, I need to make sure I'm not too fat, not too addicted to things, not dead. It's pretty hard, balancing things. It's pretty hard judging things just right.

This is the last time I do this.

If this time doesn't work out, I'm through with life. I'm done. I've had enough. Either it works out for me this time or I'm checking out. I'm history. The end. See you later. Goodbye.

Tags: #medication #addiction #relapse #depression #suicide #bipolar #career #debt

This is a story about maintaining equilibrium...

I started the year £52,000 in debt, with no home and no car. I started the year addicted to painkillers and sleeping pills. I started the year in a very dire situation. The odds were stacked against me.

I managed to quit those addictive medications. I managed to avoid bankruptcy. I managed to rent a place to live. I managed to buy a car. I managed to earn and save enough money to repay half my debt.

That's right. I'm halfway there.

In actual fact, I'm being a bit premature. My total outstanding debt is £43,250 and I've managed to save up £23,400, which is more than 50% but I haven't actually made a substantial repayment yet, because I'm terribly afraid that I'm going to get sick. I'm on the brink of having a nervous breakdown. It's been unbelievably stressful and exhausting to get to this point.

Did I mention that I quit addictive painkillers and sleeping pills?

A little over a year ago I was physically addicted to vast quantities of Valium and Xanax, as well as everything else.

How the hell does a homeless, bankrupt, drug addict, with mountainous debts, go from being sectioned in a secure psych ward, to being able to repay nearly £25k of debts as well as renting a house, buying a car and holding down a good job?

Compensation.

To compensate for the horrific withdrawal of all those medications, which caused massive problems with anxiety and insomnia, it has been necessary for me to compensate. To compensate for the stress and the misery of being flat broke and having the threat of bankruptcy, homelessness and destitution hanging over me; the stress of having to work really hard to service debts and save up money to get back in the black - that's required me to compensate.

I've been compensating for the horrendous things going on in my personal life; the incredible stress.

I've compensated by over-eating and drinking too much.

The stress has been off the fucking charts.

My drinking has been out of control.

I've put on weight.

If you think I should eat less, eat healthy, exercise more and generally look after myself, I ask you to re-consider what I just told you. Somehow I've managed to quit 5 physically addictive medications, move house twice, service debts of over £50k, save up £24k, work 3 jobs, please my clients, zoom all over the fucking country and generally live a miserable austere life with no reward for my efforts.

My mealtimes and my alcoholism are all I've got to live for at the moment. Getting fat, unfit and destroying my health with alcohol isn't my idea of a great way to live - it's a reaction to my extreme circumstances, and the horrible suffering associated with the stress of being massively indebted, skint, insecure and withdrawing from very addictive medications.

A lot of people aren't able to tolerate the horribleness of the anxiety, the insomnia and generally feeling like you're going to die, when you stop taking medications like Valium and Xanax. A lot of people will be hooked for life on their antidepressants, sleeping pills, tranquillisers, sedatives, painkillers and other such medications, because they can't stand the withdrawal.

A lot of people are destroyed by their debts. So many suicides are precipitated by financial problems. When you're deep in a debt hole and bankruptcy seems to be like the only option, that's a life-ruining thing to happen, because a bankruptcy is a black mark against your name for the rest of your life. Try renting a place to live as a bankrupt. Try getting a good job as a bankrupt. Try living any kind of life in this modern debt-driven society as a bankrupt.

My way of compensating for the difficulties in my life has been to comfort eat and get drunk.

I hate it.

I'm getting fat and unfit. I'm destroying my health.

It's a race against time.

I need to clear my debts before my unhealthy eating and abusive drinking kills me.

Don't tell me to eat healthy, eat less, drink less, exercise and otherwise make my life any more fucking miserable than it already is. I know what I'm doing to myself and I know what I'd do if I wasn't under such extreme pressure and stress; so distressed and living a life of such abject misery. I'm taking a very calculated but extreme risk, to escape from the trap - the trap of debt, the trap of addiction, the trap of homelessness, the trap of poverty, the trap of mental health problems, the trap of misery and hopelessness.

That I've managed to almost escape so much that threatened to destroy me, is remarkable. The only way I've managed to achieve it is by compensating with over-eating and drinking too much. My health is getting fucked up. My appearance is getting fucked up. I hate everything about my life, but I'm halfway to freedom.

I did intend on writing this once I've finally managed to make a great big £24,000 downpayment on my debts, bringing things down to an amount I can pay back in 3 or 4 months, which seems much more achievable.

I've achieved the fucking impossible.

I had to write this now, because I can't hold on much longer. Every week is unbearable, but every week inches me a little closer to freedom.

Getting to the end of September will be a huge milestone.

October I need to take some well-earned and very overdue rest.

November and December I need to make sure I stay sane and healthy and keep my job.

2019 is potentially the year I turn my whole life around.

Still so far to go.

It fucking sucks.

But there is a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.

Tags: #debt #homeless #capitalism #banking #suicide #addiction #medication

This is a story about numbing the pain...

I remember a time when I used to plan my weekends to make sure I was busy and socialising. I used to throw parties, take friends out on my boat, go out for dinner and otherwise ensure that I was engaged in the lives of the people around me. I put a great deal of thought and effort into bringing people together. When I had free time I'd scroll through my list of contacts and phone people who I hadn't spoken to, to maintain the bond of friendship.

I don't do any of that anymore.

My life became chaotic and collapsed, due to relationship breakdown, mental health problems and drug addiction. I was highly embarrassed that my picture-postcard perfect little life had become pockmarked and blemished. I was deeply ashamed that I was seemingly failing; fucking up. As addiction began to dominate my life I was no longer reliable. I bailed out on attending the stag do of one of my best friends, simply because I was too deep in addiction hell. I nearly bailed on my own stag do because I was struggling so much with addiction.

That was a transformative period of my life, from around 2006 to 2012 or thereabouts.

Friends travelled from all over the country for the combined birthday and engagement part of my [now] ex-wife and I. She threw a tantrum, because I had a huge number of great friends and perhaps she was feeling insecure, who knows? She said it was the worst night of her life, so I called a cab for us to go home. She wanted to stay. Why does anybody want to stay at the "worst night of [their] life"? It didn't make any sense to me.

My whole life no longer made any sense. Instead of being the guy who arranged for huge groups of people to come together and travel all over the world; instead of being a socialite who arranged gatherings and generally threw wild parties, I slowly allowed myself to be beaten - quite literally - into submission. I curtailed my gregarious and outgoing nature, in the face of the stroppy tyrant who I was trying to placate.

Of course, I should have walked away.

I was trying to change to please somebody. I was in love and I thought that it was the grown-up mature and sensible thing to work really hard to please the person you love. I thought that hard work would conquer the day. I was wrong.

I tried so hard, sacrificing so much that was important about myself, and becoming more and more isolated and depressed, because she took such objection to the fact that I was generally liked by a lot of people and seemingly able to inspire get-togethers. She threw tantrums about all the things I loved doing: organising group holidays all over the world; arranging to meet up; arranging parties and generally being a social butterfly. She worked hard to socially isolate me and break my spirit, and I let her do it. It was my mistake. I messed up.

I didn't realise that you could just break up with awful people.

I didn't realise that you should just give up on horrid people.

I didn't realise that walking away was an option.

I ignored my friends when they told me to dump the "poison dwarf".

Writing this now, I sound a little bitter and twisted about it. It happend. I can't change it. It's history and there's no point dwelling in the past. I need to move forwards and get on with my life.

There's a whole clusterfuck of stuff to do with my loser druggie parents and their selfish fucked-up selfish shit that they perpetrated agains me, ruining my childhood, that I'm very bitter about. I'm never gonna get to re-live my childhood. It fucking CUTS ME UP that I speak to so many people who fondly remember their childhoods and generally reminisce about things from their childhood that were completely denied to me because my parents are a couple of selfish bullying druggie alcoholic fucktard losers, completely devoid of any sense of responsibility towards their children or otherwise able to act with a shred of human decency. That shit FUCKS ME UP. But, whatever... it was a long time ago. I need to move on. I'll never forgive. I'll never forget. But it's no use clinging onto the bitterness and knowledge that my childhood was unnecessarily and brutally fucked up by that pair of selfish self-centred druggie cunts.

Don't talk to me about personal responsibility.

I take personal responsibility to a level you couldn't even comprehend.

You have no idea how much I lay awake at night thinking about my place in the world and how to make things right and do the right thing. You have no idea how much I deny myself my bestial instincts to rut and reproduce, like the rest of you filthy fucks, not giving a shit about the consequences. You have no idea how hard it is to live a life with as little hypocrisy as you can muster, and the guilt for the hypocrisy that you're fully aware of but is seemingly unavoidable.

The only way to live a life free from the original sin of being born a white man in wealthy western middle-class society, is to kill myself. The guilt I feel because I'm not a starving African paraplegic lesbian, is enough to drive me insane. I genuinely feel empathy for anybody I come into contact with, and I want to make a difference in the world, but I'm also cursed with a rational mind and a kind of brutal pragmatic realism, which means I cynically see every attempt to improve the human condition will be quickly thwarted by the ubiquitous greed and selfishness... but that doesn't mean I don't try really hard, through the avenues which are available to me.

Ultimately, I earn a lot of money which doesn't feel like a fair reward for my contribution to humanity. I'm cursed with cynicism and a realist's depression at the state of the world. I drink. I've drunk for as long as I can remember. My parents are alcoholics, so why the hell wouldn't I drink?

As I puffed and panted my way up the steep hill, walking home with a bag full of bottles of wine, I felt my chest tighten. I know that I'm killing myself.

I drink and it's killing me.

I drink A LOT.

My heart bleeds for the world. I'm a hand-wringing Guardian reader. I'm a lefty-libtard snowflake. I still believe that a better society is possible, and it upsets me that a tiny elite are stopping the will of the people from being realised.

I'm attempting to deal with my mountainous personal responsibilities, while also reconciling my heartfelt values in a world which economically incentivises me to screw everybody else over. Why not sell deadly drugs? Why not work for a bank which helps launder the proceeds of crime? Why not generally sell your soul to the highest bidder?

It. Fucks. Me. Up.

I've tried to be kind and generous, and all that's ended up doing is bankrolling some of the most selfish fucked-up awful people to perpetuate and perpetrate misery-making onto humanity.

It's a messed up situation.

I drink because otherwise I'd kill myself. I drink because it's a long drawn-out way of killing myself. I drink because maybe I don't have the guts to do the ethical thing, and immolate myself in protest at the shit I see all around me.

It seems foolish to injure myself in this way, by choosing to drink so much, but how else am I supposed to cope? How am I supposed to get through the day and suffer the bullshit which I'm all-too-able to perceive with a mind which has been developed into a hyper-rational thinking machine. I see the cognitive dissonances everywhere. The sickening stench of bullshit is overpoweringly strong.

I'm sorely tempted to make a grand gesture instead of allowing myself to be written off as another "natural causes" death, when in fact the truth is that my physical health has suffered dreadfully because of the awfulness of the world I see around me. My mental health is dictated by the bullshit of meaningless jobs and unfair wealth distribution, and the senesless selfishness; lack of anybody who wants to change the world for the better. The suffering directly correlates with the urge to reach for the bottle - why the hell not?

Why the hell not? I see no reason to be miserable, sober and fit. I'd rather be dead.

I can't imagine anything worse than having to face the bullshit of existence without intoxication, and without the hope that I might suddenly drop dead from a heart attack.

I honestly think that I'll feel relieved when I know I'm about to die. Finally some fucking peace.

Tags: #suicide #alcohol #addiction #parents #childhood #divorce

This is a story about being thwarted...

If I was prone to paranoia, I could swear that I've had more than my fair share of bad luck while trying to get back on my feet. Things should have panned out for me several times, but I've so far been thwarted by some asshats.

In September 2014 I was beginning to sort myself out after my divorce. I took a quick holiday before starting a new job. I was making good progress with the new project, but a couple of asshats took offence to me getting ahead and conspired to screw me over. Mercifully I took 'em down with me, although it was a hollow victory.

In September 2015 I'd had an eventful summer but I'd achieved a lot and proven myself to be a valuable member of the team on the project I was working on. It was a friend who rather unreasonably expected me to help him get a job and get out of the dive he was living in, which pushed me beyond my limits and made me unwell. There was also excessive pressure on me at work, but I could have coped if I'd have had a more settled personal life, such as having a secure place to live and some financial assistance.

In September 2016 I was starting to believe that I was finally going to get back on my feet, but the project I was working on was cancelled unexpectedly. With hindisight I suppose it was obvious that the project was going to get cancelled and that it was a dead-end job. It's my own fault for taking my eye off the ball. It's my own fault that I didn't immediately attempt to get another job, but I'd been so bored and miserable, and I felt like I'd been de-skilled by all the time off work I'd had. I hadn't learned anything, gained any new experience or developed at all on the project, so my self-confidence was at rock-bottom.

In September 2017 I was sacked because I was in a coma on life support and the asshat I was working with thought that unconscious people are able to make telephone calls to phone in sick. He still owes me a lot of money. Obviously I had a lot of different problems that year, but successfully delivering software projects was not one of them - never has been and never will be.

I've been working for 10 consecutive months without a holiday and I've delivered two software projects successfully into production. I got sick in May, but I was given the benefit of the doubt because I'd proven myself to be a valuable member of the team, like I always do. I was sick in January/February time and barely limping along, but because I'd already completed my project in record time nobody much cared. That's the way I work - I'm blazing fast when I'm well, but I get sick too. You don't get to have me only on my good days - you've gotta take the rough with the smooth - although I don't charge my clients for the days I'm not productive.

Even with all the gaps in-between projects and time off sick, I've still delivered a hell of a lot of software in the last 4 years and I've impressed a lot of clients and colleagues. I've achieved a huge amount, despite not being very well. What I've managed to do in the workplace is all the more remarkable when we consider that it's set against a backdrop of homelessness, near-bankruptcy, drug addiction, mental health problems, hospitalisations, being sectioned and kept on locked psych wards, suicide attempts, moving all over the country, being estranged from family, social isolation and a whole host of other things which are toxic to a person's chances of succeeding in life.

I don't want to pat myself on the back too much, but I deserve a break. It's time I made a breakthrough. It's time I'm allowed to make a breakthrough.

Every time I get close to making a breakthrough, something goes wrong which is beyond my control.

It's making me paranoid.

If I can get to the end of the month, I'll have hopefully proven my worth sufficiently with my colleagues on my current project, such that I'll be able to relax and take a holiday in October. It would be incredibly cruel and unlucky if something went wrong, such that I'm not able to go away on holiday and relax, knowing I've got a job to come back to. That's what happened to me earlier this year, when I'd booked a holiday in June but then my project ended and I found myself looking for work again.

It's good that I've been able to work for 3 different organisations on 3 different projects this year, without any asshats screwing things up, yet. Not having huge gaps between projects has been crucial to my recovery. Also, it's important to note that this year I haven't - yet - been screwed over by anybody and I've been recognised for my talents and experience which I have to offer. It's nice to feel confident in my own abilities and to feel like I have proven myself to be reliable and dependable, beyond any doubt.

Obviously, I'm very exposed - my colleagues have seen the semicolon tattoo behind my ear and must have wondered if and when I'm going to get sick, but hopefully they've now started to see that I'm very capable and productive; hopefully they're enjoying working with me and they value me as a team member. However, if I need to take any time off work sick, it will obviously raise doubts again about whether my mental illness makes me a useless loser who should never be allowed into civilised mainstream society or permitted the dignity of getting back on my feet.

I'm probably pushing things too hard for too long. I should probably have a holiday sooner rather than later, before I have a breakdown; before I burn out. However, I also want to get to the end of the month, because it's a significant milestone and it puts enough cash in the bank to leave me safe from any unexpected bumps in the road. I'm so desperate to get back to a position of security as quickly as possible, having been on this agonisingly drawn-out journey with so many dashed hopes.

Everything is set up very well for me to be able to continue working and improving my life, but I'm paranoid that something's going to go wrong and screw everything up.

I spend a lot of time thinking about the consequences of a work colleague discovering my blog. I wonder if I might be the architect of my own destruction by writing this. There's nothing here that's unprofessional though. I'm not naming my client or divulging confidential details about the project I'm working on. I'm not guilty of misconduct of any kind.

As you can see from the screenshot above, I've been trained to be paranoid. I've been trained to keep my mouth shut and pretend like I don't have any problems. Despite the walls of the office being plastered with posters which proclaim "it's OK to talk about mental health problems" they really don't mean ME. I'm expected to be faultless. If and when my faults are ever revealed, it will be the end of me. The tiniest blemish is career-ending for those of us who work in the corporate world, where we must maintain a fake professional façade of perfection at all times.

If I'm feeling optimistic I like to think that my valuable contributions would outweigh the stigma and shock of realising that my colleagues have been working with a homeless, junkie, alcoholic, bankrupt with mental health problems all along - I should never have been allowed to get past the gatekeepers and rub shoulders with those who inhabit the fit-in-or-fuck-off corporate world.

When I'm feeling paranoid I feel like I'm only tolerated because I'm reasonably good at pretending to be a regular guy - any hint of who I really am and what I've really been through, and I'll be swiftly ejected onto the street to suffer destitution and homelessness.

It's so frustrating right now, because I've almost but not quite got enough money to complete my transformation from homeless, junkie, alcoholic, bankrupt with mental health problems, back to somebody who's indistinguishable from any other corporate drone. I'm so desperate to prove that it can be done - to get back on my feet from a terrible situation. It'll crush me if I'm thwarted.

Keep your fingers crossed for me. The next few weeks are crucial.

Tags: #career #computing #divorce #homeless #mentalhealth #bipolar #depression #alcohol #addiction

This is a story about secret identities and alter egos...

I'm Nick Grant and these are my glasses, which are my cunning and infallible disguise to protect my real identity. It would be a disaster if anybody found out my real name - Nick Grant - because this blog is pretty unflinchingly honest and contains a lot of very unflattering things about me. I'm pretty damn exposed, hence why I wear my disguise.

Today I'm celebrating 3 years of blogging. I've been writing every day for 3 whole years, with only a few gaps due to sickness and near-catastrophic events in my personal life, which have threatened to see me bankrupt, evicted, homeless, penniless and destitute. To have kept writing regularly throughout all the ups and downs of the past 3 years is a huge achievement.

To date, I've written and published 1,013,091 words in that 3-year period.

The last 36 months could be summarised thus:

• September 2015: working for HSBC, living in a hotel, dating a BBC journalist. Rent an apartment on the River Thames.
• October 2015: working for HSBC. Suicidally depressed. Hospitalised. Fly to San Francisco.
• November 2015: fly back to the UK and deliberately get sacked from HSBC. Dating a PA to one of the directors of a major investment bank. Meet my guardian angel.
• December 2015: protesting against bombing Syria. Sober for 100 consecutive days. Relapse back into abuse of legal stimulants and benzodiazepines.
• January 2016: self harm and drug abuse. Start drinking again. Destroy my bed.
• February 2016: abuse of sleeping pills and tranquillisers
• March 2016: poly-drug abuse, combining legal highs and medications
• April 2016: holiday to Southend with my guardian angel. Start dating again
• May 2016: working for undisclosed major multinational organisation, with 660,000 employees worldwide. Replace destroyed bed.
• June 2016: working. Suicidal. Bored.
• July 2016: holiday to Fuerteventura for my birthday with my guardian angel.
• August 2016: working. Suicidal. Bored.
• September 2016: project cancelled. Meet love of my life. Minor relapse. Lies. Antidepressants and tranquillisers.
• October 2016: in love. Mini-break to the New Forest. Weaning myself off tranquillisers.
• November 2016: in love. Drinking a lot. Writing my first novel.
• December 2016. in love. Christmas with her family. Eating and drinking a lot.
• January 2017: DVT and kidney failure. Hospital and dialysis. Working for Lloyds Banking Group. Neuropathic pain from nerve damage. Taking tramadol, codeine, dihydrocodeine and pregabalin for the pain. Abusing large amounts of Valium and Xanax. Lose contract
• February 2017: fully-blown supercrack relapse. Completely addicted to prescription opiates.
• March 2017: supercrack. Abusing sleeping pills and tranquillisers. Quitting prescription opiate painkillers. Drinking. Still in love.
• April 2017: supercrack. Still in love.
• May 2017: attempting to quit supercrack by staying at girlfriend's and taking dextroamphetamine. Not succeeding
• June 2017: drug and insomnia-induced mania, paranoia and general insanity. Break up with love of my life. Regret
• July 2017: run out of money. Get a job in Manchester. Put all my stuff into storage. Leave London. Fling with girl from work.
• August 2017: working for a startup in Manchester. Dating a different girl. Still physically addicted to painkillers, tranquillisers and sleeping pills.
• September 2017: breakup. Suicide attempt. Hospitalised. Sectioned. Locked up on psych ward.
• October 2017: move to Wales.
• November 2017: writing my second novel.
• December 2017: working for undisclosed bank in Warsaw and London.
• January 2018: working for same undisclosed bank in London. Dating a Welsh girl
• February 2018: bank. London. Girl.
• March 2018: working for undisclosed government organisation. Rent an apartment in Wales.
• April 2018: successfully quit all drugs and medications. Job, girlfriend and apartment all in Wales and very close.
• May 2018: relapse. Breakup.
• June 2018: government project finished. Mini-break to Faro, Portugal to see old friend.
• July 2018: working for another undisclosed government organisation. Living in a hotel.
• August 2018: government. Hotel. Single. Depressed.
• September 2018: still working for same government organisation. Dating again.

By my calculations, 27 out of 36 months have been relatively OK, but 9 months in the past 3 years I've been a complete and utter train-wreck. The damage that's been done in that quarter of the year where I've been struggling with addiction, has been enough to completely screw up my life the rest of the time, but not quite bad enough to lead to me becoming unemployable, bankrupt and homeless - I always find a way to bounce back.

Somehow I've managed to fit 5 serious girlfriends and 5 major IT projects into the madness of my day-to-day existence, as well as 3 hospitalisations for major medical emergencies, being sectioned, two psych wards, an arrest, two evictions, moving 5 times, 6 cities, 5 countries, 13 powerful prescription medications, 5 street drugs, 121 consecutive days sober, 56 consecutive days sober, 799 blog posts, 1 million words, 14 thousand Twitter followers and a couple of hundred thousand pounds... and all I've got to show for it is this poxy blog.

The story of Nick Grant and his ups and downs might be a bit repetitive, but I'm sure it's not boring. I would argue that it's pretty remarkable that I'm still alive and kicking, and able to string a sentence together. It's remarkable that I'm reasonably mentally stable and I'm working full time on quite an important project. It's remarkable that my colleagues don't suspect a thing. It's remarkable that I haven't made myself unemployable or otherwise ended up excluded from mainstream society. It's remarkable that I'm unmedicated and yet quite functional and productive.

Along the way, I managed to lose my original pair of glasses, but I had a new identical pair delivered today, which I'm wearing now. I had no idea when my replacement glasses would be delivered, because they were being hand made to order, so I find it deliciously wonderful that they were delivered on the day I'm celebrating the 3-year anniversary of starting this blog.

When I think back to my very first blog post 3 years ago - Platform 9.75 - it's amazing to reflect on the journey I've been on and marvel at how effectively my daily writing habit has functioned as a stabilising influence. I very much doubt I'd have been able to recover and continue my journey without the huge amount of help and support it's brought me. I feel really proud of what I've achieved, which gives me some all-important self-esteem in the times when I need it most. I'm sure I'd have killed myself long ago if it wasn't for the people who've engaged with me and what I write, and encouraged me to keep going. I feel loved and cared for even during some very dark and dismal days.

Obviously what I've written is not particularly palatable or compatible with dating and my professional life, but they'll never be able to find me - Nick Grant - because I've been so careful to disguise my identity and make sure that nobody could just Google me and find out all my closely guarded secrets. Nobody will ever be able to make the connection.

My next objective is to get through September 9th - the anniversary of my most serious suicide attempt - without incident. I plan on phoning a couple of the people who managed to get the emergency services to rescue me in the nick of time, to thank them for saving my life.

Tags: #writing #secrecy #privacy #nickgrant #socialmedia #blogging #career #addiction #bipolar #hospital #homeless #alcohol #drugs #sex #relationships #london #startup

This is a story about being observant...

I don't get out much. Working away from home, living in a hotel, then trying to cram all my chores into the weekend, I don't explore my local area very much. I don't know much about where I live.

I was walking up the steep hill from the town centre, back home, and I noticed a load of orange plastic things on the ground. On closer inspection these turned out to be safety caps for hypodermic syringes. There must have been 30 of these things scattered around the entrance to a kind of alleyway. I didn't look too carefully but I couldn't see any of the syringes. There was a police van with a riot shield covering its windscreen parked not far away. Smelling cannabis in the street is very common and hardly worth noting, but seeing the obvious detritus of heroin use is more telling about the character of an area.

In Manchester last year, I would overhear homeless people shouting to each other: "you scored? What did you get?" and "two Bs and a white" which means two bags of heroin and a rock of crack cocaine. I saw people standing in the middle of the pavement in a comatose zombie-like state because they'd been smoking Spice or Mamba - brands names of synthetic cannabis sold before the New Psychoactive Substances Act (2016) made it illegal to sell almost anything psychoactive.

Homelessness and drug abuse is less conspicuous here than in Manchester and London, although there are far fewer people living here.

In London earlier this year a female crack addict ran up to me and asked me for money. I said "sorry" and then she started verbally abusing me. She must have been "rattling" pretty badly but she kept up the pretence that she was "starving" and wanted money for "a hotel". I started to explain that I'd been homeless myself and she shot back that I should be more sympathetic, but she was simply enraged that I wouldn't immediately give her the money she was demanding quite menacingly, abusively and aggressively. She didn't waste any time finding somebody else to harass for money. We didn't converse. Literally the only words I managed to say were "sorry" and then "I've been homeless" before she decided that I was a waste of time in her frenzied attempts to gather enough money for her score. I saw her again subsequently having a blazing row with a homeless man about the fair division of the drugs they'd scored.

Recently, when walking somewhere with a friend and on another occasion with my ex-girlfriend, we passed people begging and they questioned why I didn't give them money. The presumption was - again - that I should be more sympathetic, given my prior experience with sleeping rough and being no-fixed-abode. I was almost rebuked for being callous and uncaring, which is a kind of stupidity reserved only for small-town small-minded idiots. I've seen enough Brasilian favelas, slums in India and of course spent enough time sleeping rough on the streets of London, and have attempted to help a few individuals. I know better than most people exactly what kind of a difference it makes.

To be clear, I do give money to alcoholics, junkies and the homeless, but I do it in a very targeted and considered way. If some guy with a dog is right outside a supermarket, sheltered by a doorway or a bus shelter, and I happen to be walking past, I'm very unlikely to give money to that person in prime begging position. If it's raining and somebody is getting soaked to the skin in the middle of winter, it feels like a more exceptional circumstance, so I'll sometimes walk to a cashpoint and get out enough money to pay for a hostel bed. If I see somebody suffering really badly with delirium tremens (DTs a.k.a. the shakes) then I'll get them a drink or enough money for them to buy one. If somebody asks me nicely for money for drugs, I tend to look at that more favourably than being abused for saying "sorry".

I worry that I'm a "have" and others are a "have not" and perhaps it's simple logic to say that the "haves" should and must give to the "have nots" if and when they demand it. I worry that I'm a gatekeeper. I really don't want to become part of the paternalistic patriarchal sneering guardian class, who will dole out what people need provided the misfortunate wretches put themselves through the degrading experience of begging and portraying themselves as a worthy needy cause. It's not fair or right that I should sit in judgement over my fellow men and women. Believe me, it's not like that.

As a proportion of my wealth, I've given away an enormous amount. I've been extremely philanthropic. Indeed I've been so charitable that I've put myself into a financially distressed position. Anybody who thinks I'm cold and callous doesn't know what the fuck they're talking about, they can fuck off, and they're no friend of mine.

Ultimately, I spend a great deal of my time thinking about the fair division of wealth, lack of opportunities, how the welfare state should operate, and humanity's general attitude towards the less fortunate members of society. I'm no Mother Theresa but we should be wary of those who do style themselves as such, because it's very much in the interests of the ego of a person who proclaims that they "do a lot of good work for charity". Clearly, charity has had its opportunity to solve the vast social problems of the 21st century, and it's failed abysmally, except for making a bunch of wealthy twats feel very smug with themselves.

I'm greatly moved by what I see all around me, but not such that I give 50 pence to a person who I just happen to be passing, because that'd be buying off my guilty conscience very cheaply. It's only right and proper that those who have been fortunate in life should feel guilty about their luck, and that guilt should drive us to enact real and meaningful change to the whole of society... not just chucking some pocket change into a begging bowl and feeling good about ourselves for the rest of the day. The guilt is something we should live with while the grotesque problems in society are allowed to persist.

It might look to the casual observer as if I'm living a luxurious life on my 6-figure income, but in fact I live in a very precarious situation. It frustrates me very much that I'm in too much of a fragile position to be able to jeopardise my own recovery trying to help others. I tried that and it was a welcome distraction from my own problems, but it was also excessively costly to my own survival prospects - it nearly cost me my life. I think it's quite fair and reasonable that I should put on my own oxygen mask before helping others.

As this story progresses, you'll see a change in what I'm up to and where my focus is, but right now sadly I have to focus on digging myself out of the hole. This is not selfish - it's what I have to do if I'm going to remain alive.

It is frustrating that I don't have spare capacity or any money to help others, beyond what I already try to do by sharing my story, but that's just the way things are going to be for the next 6 months or so.

If you think I should be volunteering or working for a charity, you're an idiot. My life would collapse in a domino-like chain of events which would see me bankrupt, evicted, penniless and destitute in the blink of an eye. I myself would become one of the very people I aim to ultimately help. You have entirely failed to grasp the gravity of my situation and the difficulty of dealing with everything I've been dealing with, and indeed still am dealing with.

I find the kinds of comments from my former friend and former girlfriend about giving money to the homeless vastly more insulting than the crack addict verbally abusing me for not immediately giving her the money she demanded, although all have missed the obvious point: that I have the first-hand experience, and I'm the one who's doing what I can, rather than telling others how they should act.

Homelessness and heroin addiction are a huge problem in my local area. I'll do my bit to help as and when I can.

Tags: #homeless #addiction #drugs

This is a story about screen time...

The button to silence my smartphone has broken so I leave it permanently in "do not disturb" mode, which suits me just fine. Hardly anybody ever phones me except for agents and other cold caller sales types. My time is mostly spent in the 12 apps pictured above. Perhaps I'm not on my smartphone all the time, but essentially I'm context-switching non-stop throughout my waking hours, so I thought that warranted a little examination.

Starting with my 35,225 unread emails, my inbox has gotten rather out of control. Email has become such a victim of its own success that no IT professional I know even uses it anymore - we're all on Slack. Most communication is entirely transient and there's no need to have a record of anything except some kind of chat transcript to catch up on - anything old can be archived and forgotten. I spend all day every day chatting to my colleagues on Slack, including colleagues from organisations where I don't even work anymore.

Messages comprises SMS messages - mostly telling me about voicemails I haven't listened to - and a handful of iMessages from people who aren't using WhatsApp for some reason. WhatsApp deserves special note though, because of the group chats. I was removed from the only group chat I was a member of - discussion between cryptocurrency enthusiasts - and I was usurped by a guy who screwed me over last year when I was on my deathbed, which is kinda besides the point but it galls me.

Instagram I don't actually use very much. I live in a text-based world and the photos I take are in 4:3 or 3:2 aspect ratio, not 1:1. I don't take very many selfies.

Facebook Messenger is my most active chat app, but I only use it to chat to one person - my guardian angel - and we mainly exchange memes about suicide, mental health problems and the ruined economy. Facebook messenger also makes calls - as do many of the apps - and I occasionally speak to a friend in Poland, which is about the only time I speak to anybody on the telephone.

Recently I've been using Tinder and Bumble in an attempt to meet girls. It adds additional complexity to my context-switching life.

I'm not really sure what I use Facebook for. I do browse through the feed once a day - not on my smartphone - and I occasionally like and comment on things which are especially noteworthy, but I generally try to avoid over-investment in that particular walled garden. I used to share a lot and indeed I've managed to rather make a fool of myself in front of all my friends and scupper my chances of ever working in some organisations, because I dragged my own good name through the mud. I don't put my dirty laundry on Facebook much, only for it to be conspicuously ignored. Instead I write over a million words on my blog and broadcast my ups and downs to thousands of followers and anybody who does Google searches.

I don't use Twitter properly. I don't generally retweet stuff and I don't spend enough time reading the tweets of the 6,000+ people I follow. How anybody could sift through it all I have no idea - Twitter is a pretty noisy place. Generally I just look to see if anybody I know is tweeting about any of the trending topics, and I otherwise rely on an email I receive in the morning each day, which tells me what my favourite people have been up to. I must admit, it's sometimes a struggle to stay on top of my notifications and DMs and then I turn turtle and hide for a while until things quieten down.

I don't bother with LinkedIn much. I don't struggle to find work. I don't much see the point in ploughing much time and effort into my corporate image - I've got a perfectly professional CV and LinkedIn page, and otherwise I rely on my contacts, skills, experience and references to be able to get work when I need it.

I wake up in the morning and I quickly scan through my notifications - mostly Twitter - to see if there have been any comments, which I make a mental note to reply to later in the day. When I get bored around mid-morning, I have a glance at my inbox to see if there's anybody demanding money with menaces or otherwise harassing me. Approaching lunchtime, I might kill a bit of time with Facebook, but I don't want to get too engrossed in my phone when I'm at work. If I'm having a really dreadful day, I might reach out to a couple of friends via Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp and see if I can get them to send jokes, memes or anything that might provide a moment's distraction from the boredom. After leaving the office and generally before my evening meal, I write a blog post. I often scan through my website analytics to see if there's anything notable going on. If my mind is busy and distracted I frequently find myself flipping between half-watching something on Netflix and several tabs in my browser - a mix of Facebook and Twitter. Sometimes I read the news, but I find that I spend less and less time engaging with current affairs at the moment, because I've been stressed out of my mind with basic survival. A new part of my routine is chatting to girl(s) via the dating apps and if I'm ever lucky enough to get a phone number, then chatting on WhatsApp.

The amount of context switching is pretty remarkable. In any given day I might have to switch between fully professional mode, with colleagues who I want to present with a squeaky-clean corporate-friendly version of myself, and a more relaxed but still guarded version of myself which allows a little bit of my personality to show, but hopefully keeps my bad not-safe-for-work (NSFW) stuff hidden. I might be chatting to somebody who I've known for a long time online who's in a different timezone - ahead or behind - and they'll know an incredible amount of personal stuff about me and we'll be talking very frankly and honestly about everything and everything... then I'll be talking to a girl who I've just started chatting to who doesn't know me at all... then I'll be chatting to work colleagues who I spend 40 hours a week in close proximity with and they think they know me but they don't [and I don't want them to know everything]. Then, there's the image I present and the interactions I have via my blog and social media. and all the people who I have frequent and infrequent contact with, and the different ways I know people. Facebook is a particularly weird melting pot, where former work colleagues mingle with people who I know through kitesurfing, my startup days, the time I was homeless and living in parks and hostels, people who I've just randomly friend requested when I was mentally unwell. Facebook is kinda the worst, because I never know which guise I should be in, so I'm probably too honest and I'm tarnishing my own reputation and good standing that I once had with friends.

My brain has to switch between survival mode - where I've been worried about money, housing, addiction, alcoholism, transport, sex, isolation, suicidal thoughts, self harm, depression, anxiety and odds that have been very much stacked against me - and professional mode - where I'm expected to perform at a very high standard and navigate extremely complicated large organisations and know all the ins and outs of massive and complex software systems and the infrastructure they're deployed on, plus all the many teams and the zillions of people and the processes and procedures - and my digital identity which I'm cultivating - which needs me to compose a blog post every day and stay on top of any replies, messages and emails, and generally keep in touch with an ever-growing list of friends who I've never met in person, but who've been amazingly kind and supportive during rough times - and Mr. Eligible Bachelor mode, which requires me to present myself in the correct sequence, so that I can be understood without at the same time being overwhelming and off-putting.

To some extent my life looks quite simple. I have a job and not much else - I don't socialise and I'm not in a relationship. To the casual observer, all I do is move between my home, the office and a hotel, and I'm always in front of my laptop, tapping away at the keys quite furiously.

I suppose my life is quite simple, if we imagine that my fixation is the screen and the keyboard, but the screen time is a red herring - it's a window to an unimaginably gigantic and complex world of thousands of interactions with people all around the globe.

The context-switching is pretty hard though. I've struggled to stay on top of everything during the last couple of days.

Tags: #socialmedia #privacy #writing #friends #career #computing #dating #sex

This is a story about daily habits...

The average amount of time my readers spend on my blog per visit is 3 minutes and 12 seconds. The average number of words in one of my blog posts is 1,318 and an average reader reads at 200 words per minute, so I'm writing double the amount that people want to read.

I'm lucky enough to have had a handful of very dedicated people who've actually read everything, from start to finish. It should be noted, however, that at least two of them were people who read as part of their profession, and they can probably read at about 1,000 words per minute.

The average casual reader doesn't want to read a 10,000 word blog post which was written in a state of sleep deprivation and mania, and published with very little editing.

Less is more.

People also want to read stories not rambling nonsense. When I was live-publishing a chapter of my first novel draft manuscript every day, my readers were hooked. During that period of November 2016 my blog became 'sticky' - visitors came and then stayed; they kept on reading because there was a story being told.

I've gotten into dreadfully bad habits during the past 25 days because I was so fixated on word count. Also, I've lost my way a lot this year, not really knowing what I was writing about, for whom and why.

I keep a list of writing prompts, which are generally just titles of future blog posts serving as an aide memoire of topics I want to write about. The topics are quite eclectic but usually revolve around social issues. Anti-capitalism, pro-socialism, anti-organised-religion, anti-natalism, anti-psychiatry and generally liberal and left-leaning sentiments are themes which often recur. I often write defensively about how people with mental health and addiction issues can participate positively in society and shouldn't be stigmatised, demonised or thought of as flawed or weak. I write a great deal about my frustration with the great futility and inefficiency of working doing bullshit jobs until the day we die. I often despair aloud about the total absurdity of wasting our finite mortal lives on utter nonsense. I can't hide my anger at being denied the opportunity to be an artist; to be creative. I feel trapped; I do not feel free at all and my resentment of the prison bars always seems to bubble to the surface.

I'm a writer. I create another little piece of my artwork every day. How could I possibly not feel free? Why do I want something I've clearly already got?

In fact, I'm an irrelevant commentator who's not even on the fringe, let alone participating in any political, social, artistic, creative, journalistic, literary or academic movement. I'm just a reclusive lonely isolated man who writes in obscurity, mostly unnoticed and unheard. I'm fighting what feels like an unwinnable battle, to have a say in my own life.

I'm practical and pragmatic enough to realise that art and writing is never going to pay the bills. I'm realistic enough to see that everybody is trying to get noticed and to promote themselves, with the hopes of being heard. I'm cynical and pessimistic enough to believe that there isn't a newspaper column, book deal or 'viral' event which would ever have enough of a life-transforming impact for me to be able to quit my day job. There's simply not enough room at the top for everybody who wants to be a bestselling author, award-winning journalist, entertainer, commentator, influencer, politician or otherwise have some impact on people's daily lives and a pleasant and rewarding career in the creative arts.

So, in my infinite frustration with the ways of the world, I'm taking what I want. I'm doing what I want to do anyway, even though it's costly to me and doesn't appear to benefit me in any obvious way. I spend my precious spare time writing, editing, proofreading and publishing my creative efforts, and giving away what I write for free. In many ways, I am an enemy of those who have enough trust fund money and inherited wealth to be able to be artists, because my contributions must surely devalue the commodity.

I write because there's only one thing I can possibly get: exposure. If I write enough, slowly but surely I get noticed. Writing and publishing a million-word suicide note is a ludicrously hard thing to do, so it's notable.

Have you ever noticed how overnight successes actually take very many years to perfect?

My next challenge is to try to make my readers feel that it was worth their while visiting and reading.

Tags: #writing #socialmedia

This is a story about three years of my life...

I was living in an ultra-modern hotel in Canary Wharf and working for HSBC at their head office. I was a member of the team working on the bank's number one IT project. Shortly beforehand I had been living in a 14-bed hostel dorm and I'd narrowly escaped bankruptcy and destitution. I was working 12 hours a day, 6 or sometimes 7 days a week. I was exhausted and the tiredness, stress and unsettled life was driving me literally insane. I was suffering with delusions of grandeur, paranoia and my behaviour was erratic and unpredictable; I was extremely tense and irritable. I was on the brink of having a breakdown.

I rented an apartment on the River Thames near the office. The rent was obscene - £500/week - but I was earning great money working for HSBC and I was working very hard, so it seemed affordable at the time; it seemed like a nice reward for all the hard work. It felt like justice that I'd been able to get myself off the streets and into such a lovely place to live; to have gone from homeless and sleeping rough in a park, to having a luxury Thameside apartment with panoramic views over London.

I was dating a BBC journalist. I was rapidly gaining a Twitter following. I felt like everything was happening for a reason. I felt like it was my destiny to do something important. I was consumed with mania; I was obsessed with the idea of a grand gesture. I had been deeply affected by my homelessness and near-bankruptcy and destabilised by the exhaustion of sleeping rough and in hostel dorms. The IT project was very stressful and I was under a great deal of pressure from HSBC management. My mind was a mess. I was very severely mentally ill.

I woke up one morning and I couldn't go on. I couldn't face the office. I wanted to kill myself. I went to my doctor who sent me to hospital. 13 hours later I was admitted to a secure psych ward. I explained that I was financially distressed and very stressed at work. The psychiatric team recommended I stay in hospital for at least 2 weeks, but I needed to be back in the office if I was going to keep my job, to be able to afford the rent.

I discharged myself from hospital after a week and flew to San Francisco. I figured that if I was going to kill myself I might as well do it somewhere iconic. A friend picked me up from the airport and I borrowed a bike. I cycled straight to the Golden Gate Bridge. Seeing old friends, however, made me change my mind about committing suicide.

I lost my job with HSBC and I "slept rough" in the shadow of the head office skyscraper in Canary Wharf. I thought that this would be the pinnacle of my journey. I thought that having been used and abused by HSBC then unceremoniously dumped out onto the streets to suffer bankruptcy and homelessness - having managed to get myself a job at the bank while of no fixed abode and living in a hostel - would be deliciously poetic. It was, but my journey had barely begun.

I quit drinking for 121 consecutive days. I starved myself. I thought that I would go on hunger strike. I thought that I would sleep rough on Christmas Day. I was really angry and upset with the world. Self harm and substance abuse dominated my life for several months. I got into heaps of debt just staying alive.

I survived the winter. I got another job. My life was OK except for persistent suicidal thoughts. I hated the project I was working on but I persevered because I was in a lot of debt. I loved where I was living - every day in my apartment was like Christmas Day because the view was so awesome. Living by the river was an incredible privilege. I took a holiday and went kitesurfing. My quality of life was improving slowly.

I met somebody very special and fell totally in love. She accepted me for who I was, including the all the bad bits, such as my prior issues with substance abuse. She was the first person I'd been in a relationship with who'd been able to read everything about me on my blog and to understand my flaws. We had a good relationship. The project I had been working on came to an end and I was jobless again. I wrote and published my first novel - she proofread it and helped me with the ending and other ideas. She was very supportive and I was confident I'd find work again easily.

New Year's Eve watching the fireworks over London, sipping champagne on my balcony with the woman I loved - it seemed like the New Year was full of promise, but I was worried about getting another job and I was still in a lot of debt. There was a lot of pressure.

Disaster struck. I got deep vein thrombosis (DVT) in my left leg, which swelled up to twice the size of my right leg. My kidneys failed and I ended up in hospital on a high dependency ward having many hours of dialysis every day. The potassium in my blood spiked to a life-threatening level and I was constantly at risk of cardiac arrest. I was very sick.

My stay in hospital caused me to lose my job. Losing my job caused me to collapse psychologically and become very depressed and despondent. The DVT had caused terrible nerve damage and I had a lot of neuropathic pain, as well as a numb left foot. I started to become dependent on painkillers. I sought powerful antidepressants for my low mood. Pictured on the table are: codeine, dihydrocodeine, tramadol, diazepam, alprazolam, mirtazapine, venlafaxine, dextroamphetamine, zolpidem, zopiclone and pregabalin, which are all highly addictive. Because of this cocktail of prescription drugs I suffered an episode of medication-induced mania - temporary insanity - and broke up with the love of my life.

I ran out of money. I had to pay a huge tax bill and I had to go even deeper into debt. I was virtually bankrupt. Out of desperation I was forced to put all my worldly possessions into storage and leave London to take a job in Manchester. The job in Manchester included an apartment as part of the package, which was lucky because I didn't have enough money to pay rent or a deposit - I was totally broke. Moving house and leaving London was incredibly upsetting and traumatic. The new job was extremely demanding and exhausting. I was very lonely and isolated in an unfamiliar city with no friends or family; no local connections.

I tried to commit suicide. I took a massive overdose: I'd been stockpiling my prescription painkillers and I knew that 8+ grams of tramadol was likely to be fatal. I sent a tweet when I believed I was beyond the point of no return. I thought nobody knew where I lived. I thought there was no chance anybody would get to me in time. I was wrong. I regained consciousness a few days later in a hospital's critical care ward on life support. I was later sectioned for 28 days and admitted to a Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU).

A doctor from Wales discovered my blog and invited me to live on their farm in a converted garage. I had no money, no car, no job. I had nothing.

I almost went bankrupt but a friend got me some work in Warsaw and in London. I was living in AirBnBs and working in the Square Mile from Monday to Friday and living in Wales at the weekends.

I bought a car, I got a local job, a local girlfriend and I rented an apartment. Briefly, I had everything I wanted and needed, although I went even deeper into debt. The pressure, stress and turmoil which I'd endured to get to this point was unimaginable; just to get to a position which most people would take for granted as the minimum acceptable things for a normal ordinary liveable life.

The local project ended and I was jobless again. The relationship ended. I papered over my bedroom windows and withdrew from the world. The journey had destroyed me. I was spent.

An obscene amount of money flows through my hands, but it all ends up in the pockets of those who I owe money to. I'm desperately trying to keep my head above water. The financial pressure is immense; unbearable. The journey has been incredibly long and arduous. There's still a very long way to go before I reach security and stability; before I'm comfortable, happy and content.

In the last year alone, I've managed to move house 3 times, work 4 different jobs, travel to 4 different countries, date 2 girls, survive a suicide attempt, be admitted to 3 different hospitals, quit addictive painkillers, sedatives, tranquillisers and sleeping pills, be arrested and locked in a cell, buy a car, rent a place to live, stay in 17 different hotels and AirBnBs, and somehow stay on top of my mountainous debts, not go bankrupt and even pay some of that crippling amount of money back. My only remaining vice is wine. I'm completely unmedicated and I don't abuse any substance other than alcohol. It's a remarkable journey for just 12 months, but the journey has been much, much longer than that.

In the last three years, I've written and published a million words and connected with thousands of people all over the globe.

To be precise, to date I've written exactly 1,001,020 words and counting, on this blog.

It's the world's longest suicide note.

If you want to understand why I'm suicidal you just have to read it all - it's all written down in exquisite detail. To save you the trouble of reading all 1 million words I've summarised the last 3 years for you right here.

The pressure; the stress; the exhaustion. Where is my reward?

I've travelled so far and I've achieved so much but yet I feel like it's gotten me nowhere. I should be rich but in fact I'm up to my eyeballs in debt. If you want to know where that debt came from, I just explained it to you. I didn't get into debt buying frivolous things and being profligate. I didn't make particularly bad choices. I'm not stupid. Where's the payoff for working so hard? Why did I bother?

My name's Nick Grant and I drink too much but otherwise I'm an ordinary regular guy. I do my job to a high standard and I'm liked and respected by my colleagues. I pay my taxes. I pay my rent and bills. I contribute to society as a productive member. I do ordinary stuff and have ordinary needs.

I'm 39 years old and I have nothing but debt. I have nothing much to show for my 39 years on the planet.

I'm lonely. I live a double life. The person I am in the office is different from the person I am in the comfort of my own home. Nobody at work would ever suspect that I've slept rough, been in trouble with the police, been hospitalised many times, been sectioned and had horrific problems with addiction. Nobody would suspect that my mental health has caused me horrendous difficulties when exacerbated by stressful life events, like divorce, moving house, losing jobs and everything else that's happened to me in the past 5 or so years.

My solution to the instability in my life was to create a backbone that has run consistently through my ups and downs: my daily writing. To have been able to write a million words has been immensely stabilising and has brought me into contact with so many wonderful kind and caring people. I quite literally owe my life to those who've followed me and my blog, especially via Twitter. Without this connection to the world I would be dead.

Today, I've crossed a seemingly arbitrary imaginary finishing line, in having written and published a million words in less than 3 years. It might seem ludicrous and pointless, but if you consider it in the context of the journey I've been on, you can see why I've wanted to document it.

If you've followed me on some part of this journey, I'm really grateful to have had your support. Thank you.

Tags: #writing #career #friends #socialmedia #publishing #homeless #mentalhealth #bipolar #london #suicide #depression #debt #addiction #drugs #nhs #hospital

This is a story about stage fright...

I'm annoyed with myself. I feel like I've let myself down. I've squandered another great opportunity. I've wasted a good chance.

For the past 23 or 24 days, I've been writing as much as I possibly can as fast as I possibly can. I threw caution to the wind and decided to increase my daily word count in a desperate attempt to reach a million words as quickly as possible, because the end was in sight. Nobody much wants to read 2,000+ words of rambling drivel from somebody whose sole intention is to churn out enough copy to achieve an arbitrary objective. I haven't given enough careful consideration to what I want to say before I've said it. I've gotten swept up in the numbers and abandoned my longer-term objective of writing little self-contained pieces on specific subjects. Quality has suffered.

I decided I wanted to write about monkey dust because it was in the newspapers. Nobody much wants to read about addiction problems, because it brings out the ugly side of human nature. We all know very well, because of demonising tabloid news articles, that addicts can become desperate and depraved and can do dreadful things. It's impossible to write about addiction without a little of the stigma attaching itself to the author. People view you as a bit dirty and undesirable if you admit to having had substance abuse issues. It's often better to brush any addiction issues under the carpet and pretend they never happened, for the sake of avoiding stigma and demonisation.

I've written a lot about writing, which is far too meta. I've really gone on and on ad nauseam about my word counts and my million word goal. I've left my readers in absolutely no doubt about my unwavering and blinkered aim and objective, which mercifully will have been achieved in the next couple of days. 997,849 words to date, and counting.

I'm annoyed.

I'm annoyed because I write about all kinds of things, and sometimes I write things I'm really pleased with. Sometimes I write things and I'm pleasantly surprised to receive messages saying that I really nailed something and it resonated with my readers. It's amazing when I write something that's good enough for people to take the time to give me positive feedback. Feedback is a kind gift. However, annoyingly I've been writing for the sake of writing, just to achieve sheer volume and as a way of coping during a quite unpleasant period of my life where I'm living out of a suitcase.

What has particularly irked me is that I've suddenly had a flood of new visitors to my blog, reading my stuff at a time when I feel like I'm writing really badly. I feel like people are getting a really bad impression of who I am and what makes me tick. I feel like I'm representing myself very poorly, given my recent spate of rushed and voluminous but otherwise not-very-high-quality crap that I've just churned out for the sake of maintaining my daily target word count.

My 'pinned' Twitter post is something I wrote about my experience of regaining consciousness in hospital, after a suicide attempt. I thought it was important to pin it because I'm approaching the anniversary of that event and it weighs heavy on my mind just how crappy I'm feeling still. I'm finding it important to revisit key moments in the past few years of my life to gauge how I'm progressing; indeed to see if I'm progressing at all. I keep having moments where I feel like I'm not getting anywhere at all, and I lose hope that I'll be able to ever have better and happier times. When I lose hope, I lose the will to live.

I re-read my Surviving Suicide post and I was appalled at the quality. For some reason the punctuation was very strange and I'd told the story in a very odd way. It wasn't my usual writing style at all. I was embarrassed and frustrated that a lot of people had read it when it needed thoroughly proofreading and editing. It was a poor representation of both the experience and the quality - or lack thereof - of my prose.

It seems totally impossible to predict when and what will engage with people on social media. Sometimes I sit down and write something which seems rambling and ranty to me, but is very well received. Sometimes I write something that's throwaway and it sparks an unexpectedly huge response.

After my suicide attempt last year, I was very unwell. I found myself discharged from hospital with no support and a whole heap of problems to deal with - I was missing my wallet, mobile phone, laptop and other devices which would allow me to get in contact with anybody. My medications had all been taken to hospital and I had to go to my doctor to re-obtain prescriptions for everything. I had to use my passport - my only form of ID - to get cash and replace my phone. It was all a very big ask of somebody who'd just survived a suicide attempt and was totally alone in an unfamiliar city. The stress and abrupt cessation of the medications which were keeping me mentally stable, tipped me into outright insanity.

A great number of people had been worried - quite rightly - about my safety and wellbeing. For several days there wasn't a lot of information freely circulating about whether I'd survived my suicide attempt or not. I feel very frustrated and upset that I was then subsequently too unwell to communicate very effectively. The ordeal I went through post-hospital-discharge destroyed a lot of my opportunity to comport myself with any dignity and give a good impression of myself; to connect with concerned and caring people.

In the 11+ intervening months between then and now, I've managed to gain some rhythm and routine and greatly stabilise myself. My life is vastly improved. Although I'm still living somewhere with very few friends and no family - no local connections - I've got secure housing and more financial security, at least. I've spent almost all of the last 11 months free from medication and substance abuse and my mental health has been comparatively stable. To be unmedicated and functional, and to have been able to keep writing throughout the journey, is something I'm very proud of. To have worked hard, held down jobs and finished important projects is something which is great for my confidence. The achievements of the past 11 months give me hope that I'll be able to have a better quality of life in the not-too-distant future.

Another great big surge of blog visitors was precipitated by a tweet which unexpectedly seemed to hit a nerve. Again, I've been left feeling ill-prepared to capitalise on the opportunity which presented itself; I've not communicated effectively. I was thoroughly caught on the hop.

What I had wanted to do was to reach my arbitrary million word target, then to have a consolidation period where I'd write at a more leisurely pace and attempt to increase the quality. Only then would I perhaps start to talk about how I'd reached my million-word goal. I didn't want anybody to really see that the final sprint to the finish line was done in a rather ugly and ungainly fashion. I feel like somebody who's started telling a joke, only to realise that they've forgotten the punchline.

It's now 998,772 words, by the way.

What exactly is the punchline of this joke anyway? Clearly having a million-word suicide note is something that's caught people's eye, but it's not a suicide note unless I kill myself, is it? Irony of ironies, having a massive flood of supportive messages from all corners of the globe has turned my sense of isolation and loneliness into happiness that I've managed to connect with so many people. Nothing could be better than something so positive that's almost completely unexpected.

I'd psychologically prepared myself for a general "meh!" response to my million word achievement, but I hadn't imagined that I'd get a massive response before I even reached 1-million words.

From what I've experienced of the battle to be heard - noticed - things are always much much harder than you could ever have imagined, and when you do manage to get a bit of exposure that you think will propel you to stardom, fame and fortune, the result is always incredibly disappointing. Having something you wrote retweeted by an account with millions of followers doesn't result in a huge surge of readers suddenly devouring every bit of content you ever wrote. Getting mentioned in the media doesn't bring vast numbers of intrigued visitors; doen't generate hundreds and thousands of new fans. It's a tough gig getting noticed and being heard.

"What are you going to do when the spotlight's on you? What have you got to say that's so important?"

These are good questions. When you get your 5-minutes of fame, what are you going to do with it? Why should anybody listen to you? Why do you deserve to be on stage? Why should anybody share their platform with you? What have you got to say that's interesting and different and profound and original and witty and funny?

Of course, you might find that when you suddenly find yourself holding the microphone, your mind goes blank. BZZZT! NEXT! YOU'RE RUBBISH! GET OFF!! GET OUT OF MY FACE!! LOSER!!!

One of the reasons why I don't really tweet is that I like to compose my thoughts in reclusive isolation, and to then share them when I feel like they're fully-formed. Instead of delivering a series of 280-character soundbites and having the distraction of wondering how each one is being received, and the subsequent discussion that follows, I can dump 2,000 words out into the world in a single lump, and then forget about it. I'm getting things off my chest with very little discourse and dialogue. In a way, I'm lecturing. It's been easier to get to this point without getting sidetracked in the comments section.

I always had a strong belief that having the weight of a vast amount of published content behind me would give me more credibility. While I might have undermined my own credibility with periods when I've been writing rubbish, the sheer volume of my creative output is hard to overlook. To keep writing and publishing and not really worrying too much about the hit-and-miss nature of things, is the only way to keep moving forwards and to become prolific enough to be notable. Perhaps my writing is all of dubious quality, but through sheer perseverance I'm getting somewhere.

999,310 words.

Some time ago I decided that 700 words was the sweet spot for a blog post - not too short and not too long. Yes, sometimes people want the occasional long read, but most of the time they like to catch up regularly and stay up to date, and that requires nice short, sharp, concise and thoughtfully composed blog posts.

I am now within 700 words of the finish line.

This is amazing.

Tomorrow, I can reach my goal at a leisurely pace. Tomorrow is the day when I want readers to be with me; crossing the line with me. Tomorrow is the culmination of 1,082 days writing an average of 924 words. Tomorrow, my arbitrary goal is finally achieved and my "headline" number has been reached.

Tomorrow I will write something good, I promise.

The pressure.

So. Much. Pressure.

The spotlight is on me.

Will I choke? Will I have stage fright and be unable to utter a word?

I so want to write something good.

Tags: #writing #socialmedia