banking – Nick Grant

Nick Grant

Tag: banking

  • 5 Year Blogging Anniversary

    This is a story about writing…

    Platform 9.75

    To date, I have written and published 1,357,076 words on this blog. Today is the 5 year anniversary of me starting this blog. I have published 1,086 blog posts, which is an average of 4 per week. I think many writers would be pleased to write and publish something at least 4 days a week. I’m quite proud of my achievement.

    Here are some facts about the past 5 years, in chronological order:

    • I was homeless when I started, on September 6th, 2015
    • I was £21,000 in debt when I started
    • I rented a super cool apartment by the River Thames in late September, 2015
    • I was locked up for a week – voluntarily – on a secure psych ward in October 2015
    • I flew to San Francisco to visit the Golden Gate Bridge, at the end of October 2015
    • Hospitalised for a few weeks with kidney failure, caused by DVT, January 2017
    • Moved to Manchester in July 2017
    • Suicide attempt on September 9th, 2017. Hospitalised in a coma in intensive care
    • Sectioned and held involuntarily on a psych ward, waiting for an appeal for 12 days
    • Won my appeal, but stayed on the psych ward voluntarily for another two weeks
    • Became homeless again
    • Moved to Swansea in October 2017, still homeless
    • Lived in a load of AirBnBs in London midweeek, due to work
    • Debt reached its peak of £54,000. I only had £23 left to spend.
    • Rented an apartment in Swansea with lovely panoramic sea views, in March 2018
    • Moved to Cardiff in March 2019
    • Suicide attempt on December 18th, 2019
    • Hospitalised with kidney failure for almost 3 weeks – discharged January 2020
    • August 2020 my peak of £54,000 debt is fully repaid. I am debt free.
    • I have £300 of savings, having subtracted all taxes and other monies owed

    Here are some other interesting facts about the last 5 years:

    • I’ve worked 44 months out of 60 (73% of the time)
    • I’ve earned £530,000
    • I’ve paid £240,000 in tax
    • I’ve paid £83,000 in rent
    • I’ve paid £50,000 interest on debt

    The numbers are actually pretty impressive, for somebody who’s been so sick, homeless and generally suffering a very chaotic stressful life. I’m surprised I’ve been such a generous contributor to the economy, actually. I’ve philantropically handed out vast sums of money to banks, governments and landlords. I am, truly, a ragged-trousered philanthropist.

     

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  • My First Jobs: Defence and Banking

    This is a story about guilt…

    Conscience

    The ethical benchmark by which I try to judge myself is that of a schoolfriend who’s a renowned thinker and writer, and an exceptionally clever and thoughtful person; a real inspiration. I’m occasionally reminded that he reads my blog, which is an incredible privilege, but also makes me more acutely aware of my shortcomings in the ethical department.

    As the title of this essay suggests, my first job was in defence. In my defence – pun intended – I was 17 years old, and my motivation was to achieve some degree of independence such that I might later be able to choose what I wanted to do with my life. I don’t feel like I ever had the opportunity to think “what do I want to do with my life?”. It seems fairly commonplace amongst the sons and daughters of middle-class families, that their children find a subject that they find interesting, which they pursue academically at university. I never had any financial support from my family, to pursue any dreams, so I was forced to make pragmatic decisions. There was the opportunity to study for a degree while I was at my first job, but a job’s a job… I had no passion for making weapons of mass destruction, so I wasn’t motivated to study the subject academically.

    I distinctly remember imagining a day when I might find out that a vessel had been sunk by Spearfish or Tigerfish torpedos, and I considered how I would feel if there was loss of life, directly attributable to my work. I suppose I should have thought about it beforehand, but I didn’t – I just wanted and needed a salary; I needed to pay my rent and bills.

    In all honesty, I didn’t quit my job in ethical protest at the defence industry. I quit because I was getting ripped off – I was very underpaid for my skills and experience, and I resented that.

    Where could I get paid the most?

    Banking.

    I’m not proud of it, but my thought process really was as simple as asking myself: where can I get paid the most?

    I suppose just about anybody would think “investment banking” when quizzed on where a person might find the highest salary. The late 1990s was not quite the loadsamoney heyday of the yuppies, which was ushered in by Margaret Thatcher, but the City was still awash with money. My motivation was pure greed and avarice, one might say. I put little or no thought into the ethics of my career decision, I freely admit.

    In my defence – pun still intended – I was leaving the defence industry, so surely anything I chose would be more ethical than that; more ethical than designing and building weapons of mass destruction.

    With hindsight, usury inflicts as much misery and suffering as war.

    But.

    It would take many years before I understood that.

    My first job in the City of London was everything you would expect it to be: an extremely macho and male-dominated environment, with plenty of booze, drugs, strippers and escorts. Awash with cash, our lifestyles were offensively lavish. It was pure vulgarity, writ large.

    I was still young, of course… only my second job, but you must also remember that I skipped university because I couldn’t afford it when I was 17. But then… but then… I was wearing golden handcuffs.

    I kept thinking about going to university to pursue a subject I was interested in. Psychology or psychopharmacology, perhaps. I applied and was offered a place at some very prestigious institutions. However, I couldn’t face being poor again. I couldn’t give up the lavish lifestyle, once I’d had a taste of it.

    It was several more years before I found myself working on a project related to the confirmation and settlement of credit default swaps for the investment bank which processed 70% of all trades. Quadrillions of dollars of credit swaps flowed through systems I designed and built. I didn’t really think about it too much, as I was too busy being an engineer: Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That’s not my department.

    I was laid low with depression, which kicked in at the exact same time as the credit crunch and the global financial crisis of 2007/8. I often say I was at ground zero, because it’s true.

    I still don’t ask myself whether what I’m doing is ethical: I’m an engineer, and I like to build stuff; it’s only with hindsight that I see the ethical problems. A schoolfriend suggested I sabotage the project I’m working on, which is ‘big government’ stuff, but it seems benign to me… perhaps I’ll see things differently, when it’s too late.

    I absolutely do not pass the ethics test. I feel like my defence is a flimsy version of: “if I didn’t do it, somebody else would have done”. I feel like I’m a Nazi saying “I was just following orders”.

     

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  • 8 Years Of My Life In 5 Pictures

    This is a story about peaks and troughs…

    Cambridge

    My story begins exactly 8 years ago, on May 4th 2011. I was the CEO of a profitable startup with prestigious clients paying to use my product. It was my idea, I had designed & implemented the system and I had successfully done deals with big companies. I had just started a TechStars accelerator program in Cambridge, run by Jon Bradford and Jess Williamson, and I was about to meet 46 mentors in week of “mentor madness” which is like speed dating, to hook up startup founders with experienced successful people from the tech industry, who were kindly offering to help 10 lucky teams on the TechStars program, along with my co-founder and I.

    I was surrounded by super-smart people in Cambridge. My startup was growing very fast and I had done a great job of getting the company to where it was with very little help. I was hot property – a pin-up for the UK startup scene.

    My co-founder was a much more likeable and charismatic guy who once ran a karaoke bar and had a far better temprament for being CEO, but I wanted the glory of having that coveted job title for myself. I emphatically rejected the suggestion that it might be better for the company if we were to switch roles, and I was to take the position of CTO. Fundamentally I’m good at technology, but not necessarily the best people person: I had, for example, already managed to make my co-founder cry in front of a Google executive. As CEO, I was pretty vicious and ruthless, because I was so desperately ambitious.

    This particular May 4th, in 2011, was a moment when my potential net worth was at its highest. This was my golden opportunity to make my millions.

    London panorama

    This next picture is taken exactly 5 years ago, on May 4th 2014. I had just woken up in the Royal Free Hospital, Hampstead, London. This is the view from my hospital bed. I was surprised to be awake, because my kidneys were failing, my liver was damaged, there was a lot of fluid on my lungs and my heart was not functioning healthily – I had arrhythmias and my blood pressure was dangerously low. I hadn’t expected to survive the night, so it was nice to be greeted by such a pleasant view in the morning.

    By this point, I’d had to resign as CEO, sell my share of the company that I founded. The company still continued to trade very profitably without me and was getting big-name clients, but I had failed, personally. My co-founder stepped in and did a great job of smoothing things over with our investors and our clients, but my own reputation was damaged and I was heartbroken; ashamed.

    I had just gotten divorced and sold my house.

    My dreams were destroyed: I lost my company, my wife and my house. I tried to kill myself. That’s how I ended up in hospital. I was lucky to survive.

    Single speed

    Exactly 4 years ago, on May 4th 2015 it seemed like I was getting my life back on track. I had been doing consultancy work for Barclays, which was very lucrative. Jon Bradford – the guy who ran the TechStars startup accelerator in Cambridge – had written about how I’d “sold out” and gone back to the world of banking and the easy money that was to be made in the Square Mile and Canary Wharf, which was hurtful. I was not happy. I knew I had sold out, but I needed money to pay the bills. I was couch surfing and living in AirBnBs. My life was chaotic. I loved being in London, but it was tearing through my dwindling savings and I was still heartbroken about my divorce and losing my company.

    This photo is interesting, because it predates one of the most insane moments of my life. I was so exhausted and sleep deprived, that soon after this photo was taken I started hearing voices and generally suffering a major psychotic episode. My mind completely capitulated and I was lost to madness, briefly. It seems very strange now, writing about it, when I consider myself to have pretty good mental health, but at the time – 4 years ago – I was extremely unwell.

    London beach

    Exactly 3 years ago, on May 4th 2016, I was skimming stones into the Thames on this little rocky ‘beach’ on the banks of the river, by my apartment. A lucrative contract with HSBC had allowed me to get an apartment with the most stunning views over London and my life was starting to improve.

    I had been an extremely passionate kitesurfer, which had taken me all over the world, seeking out the best wind and waves. During my divorce, having to step down as CEO of the company I founded, and the period when I was very unwell, I hadn’t been doing any kitesurfing. Living by the river on a part which was tidal gave me back the connection to water which had been missing from my life. A friend came to visit and was even brave enough to kitesurf from this ‘beach’ despite the Thames being a particularly treacherous waterway to navigate, especially without an engine – the wind was gusty and unpredictable, but he managed to kitesurf on a ‘beach’ right in the heart of Central London.

    Soon after this pleasant evening skimming stones into the Thames, I went away on a kitesurfing holiday to a desert island off the coast of North Africa, and had a very enjoyable time. 2016 was a good year. I made a lot of money and I had some very nice holidays, as well as meeting the love of my life.

    California rocket fuel

    Exactly 2 years ago, on May 4th 2017, I managed to trick my doctor into prescribing me an antidepressant combo called California Rocket Fuel. I’d had a rough winter where I nearly died from DVT which caused my kidneys to fail, and consequently I had lost a lucrative contract with Lloyds Banking Group. My life had been miserable, with a great deal of pain from the muscle and nerve damage from the DVT. I hadn’t felt well enough to be able to work.

    The love of my life was doing amazingly well in her career – in politics – and was appearing on an almost daily basis on TV, while I was limping around on crutches and taking a lot of very powerful painkillers. I was depressed and I wanted the very most powerful antidepressant I could get, which I discovered was “California Rocket Fuel” by doing some internet research.

    I have bipolar disorder. People with bipolar disorder are not supposed to take antidepressants without a mood stabiliser. Doctors are not supposed to prescribe antidepressants to people with bipolar disorder. I had to be extremely sneaky to obtain this prescription, and it was rather cruel how I manipulated the poor unsuspecting doctor into seperately prescribing me the two medications, which are combined to create “California Rocket Fuel”.

    The result was predictable: Mania.

    I went incredibly manic and my behaviour became erratic. I broke up with the love of my life.

    . . .

    That’s the end of the pictures

    . . .

    When I later regained my mental stability and reflected upon what I had done, I realised I’d made a terrible mistake and I tried to get back together with the love of my life, but my behaviour while manic had been so inexcusably awful that I had ruined any chance of that happening. Agonisingly, she said she still loved me and wanted to take me back, but her family, friends and work colleagues would’ve been apalled that we were back together again. “If you love them, let them go”… it’s been devastatingly hard, but I’ve tried to come to terms with losing the love of my life, and acknowledge that it’d have been very unfair on her to pursue her after what I put her through.

    I left London doubly heartbroken, having lost the love of my life, and leaving the city I’ve spent most of my adult life in. I love London, but it was time to leave.

    Since leaving London, my life has been erratic and unstable at times, but putting the pieces of my broken heart back together again and rebuilding myself to a position of health, wealth and prosperity has been a lot easier than it was in the capital. London placed an enormous amount of stress and strain on me, to generate vast quantities of cash to maintain a high standard of living.

    Today, May 4th 2019, I have a fabulous standard of living. Maybe I’m not going to be a millionaire CEO. I’ve loved and lost a wife and a love of my life. I’ve nearly lost my life during some very bad medical emergencies. I’ve nearly lost my mind. However, despite all the adversity, I’m wealthy, I live in a beautiful big house and I’m reasonably successful when I’m dating, so I see no reason why I’m not going to end up with a very enviable life. In fact, I already have a very enviable life.

    We expect our lives to take a linear path; continually improving as we get older. My life has been chaotic and unpredictable. My life has been through boom times and and bust in the most extreme way imaginable. I’m 39 years old and I didn’t expect to be alive this long. There have been devastating moments, which I thought would destroy me, but they haven’t. I thought my bipolar disorder would make my life so unstable that I wouldn’t be able to regain control and have a good quality of life, but my life is really awesome and it keeps getting better, although it does take a lot of hard work to maintain stability.

    I suppose this overview of an 8 year period of my life, told using 5 pictures, is not going to do justice to the complete story, which is full of hair-raising gory details, as well as some moments of sheer delight, but this brief synopsis does at least give the reader a little insight into who I am, without having to read all the [literally] million words I’ve written and published on this website.

    May the fourth be with you.

     

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  • Burn Rate

    This is a story about buyer’s remorse…

    Ikea bed

    A large part of my day was spent buying things of a very boring domestic nature. I bought curtains. I bought a vacuum cleaner. I bought an iron, ironing board and washing airer. I bought some plastic bins which organise my recycling into plastics, paper & cardboard and glass.

    I got a bit carried away and started buying things which I have no urgent need for. I bought a coffee table. I bought a couple of lamps. I even bought two deckchairs for the garden, because it’s been a beautifully sunny day and I thought I should be enjoying the brief period of nice weather in the UK, instead of being indoors.

    I bought extra glasses, plates, cutlery and other little things, like nice wooden coat-hangers and some tiny shelves to put my toiletries and things on in my bathroom. I bought a new toilet roll holder, because the suction pad on the old one seemed to have failed completely.

    I bought pillows and bed linen.

    Who knows how much I spent.

    While I was in Ikea I was looking at a sofa-bed which cost £140, which sounded very reasonable to me. I am not a price sensitive person. Whether something sounds “expensive” to me has been shaped by the privileged wealthy existence I’ve led. More than £20 on a bottle of wine is “expensive” from a wine merchant, but does not seem expensive in a restaurant. My purchases are generally categorised as either approximately £1,000, less than £500, approximately £100, or less than £50.

    When buying something for around £1,000 I simply ask myself “is this a valuable thing?”. For example, my laptop cost me £1,400, but I bought it without hesitation because I use it every single day and it’s a tool of my trade – why would I even think twice about buying the very best available?

    When buying something for under £500, I think much more carefully. Generally at this price point I make a lot more buying errors. I bought a £200 vacuum cleaner today, simply because it was a good brand. I have no need for a good vacuum cleaner – I only hoover once a month and I live alone so my house doesn’t get very messy – so I could easily have managed with a £60 hoover, but my wonky thinking says “why worry about the £140 price difference? Just get the Dyson”.

    When buying products for circa £100, I don’t make a lot of buying errors. My coffee table cost £90 and it’s definitely worth £90 to me. To spend time trying to find a cheaper coffee table I like just as much would have been a waste of time. My curtains cost £90 and they’re perfectly good curtains. In fact, the curtains block out the light really well and it was a really simple purchase – they were the right size and I didn’t even check the price – I knew that they’d cost somewhere between £50 and £150. Perhaps if I’d got to the checkout and they turned out to be £200 I’d have felt like I made a mistake and should have thought about the purchase more carefully, but at £90 I feel like I’m much happier that I have curtains in one of my guest bedrooms, rather than no curtains – the value is hard to measure, but I’m definitely getting more than £90 worth of value out of the curtains.

    Most of my purchases are less than £50, obviously. There are subtle gradations not worth exploring – for example, if I was charged £6 for a takeaway coffee I would think “damn that was expensive I won’t go there again” but I wouldn’t worry about it too much, but if the coffee was £4.50 then I wouldn’t care. Similarly if I bought a sandwich and it cost £4.50 then I would pay the money and not worry about it, but if it was £6 then I’d be thinking “damn that’s an expensive sandwich”. To think about my price insensitivity at this level is too much detail to write about in the scope of this essay.

    So, with the sub-£50 purchases, I spend more time thinking about things than the purchases which are circa £100. If I’m choosing a really nice bottle of wine, I’ll agonise over the choices and probably buy a bottle costing no more than £25. Similarly, if I see some bed linen that I like but it costs more than £50 then I’ll see it as overpriced and gravitate towards items which are priced less than £50. I bought a set of plates and bowls for £25. I bought a set of cutlery for £25. Comparable items could probably be bought for £10 less – saving me £20 overall – but I still feel like I got value for money. When I was unpacking all the knives, forks, spoons, etc. then I was thinking how much of a difference it’s going to make to my life, to have an adequate amount of stuff to fill my dishwasher without leaving myself with nothing to eat with. Every purchase I made today under £50 felt like very good value for money, including an iron which will get very little use. Why do I need a fancy iron and a fancy ironing board, when I do so little ironing? It simply seemed like good value for money that I was able to buy high quality items for under £50.

    Cumulatively, I’ve burned through a ridiculous amount of cash getting myself set up in my new house.

    Most people, when they move into an unfurnished home and they don’t have any kitchenware or other things like that, will buy things little by little. Most people will spend a lot of time choosing every single thing they have in their house. I’m not like that.

    Of course, I’m particular about what I buy. I’m fussy about things. I’m house-proud and I like to think I have good taste. I very much wanted to share photos of all the little things which are slowly turning my house into a lovely home, but that will have to wait for another day – I don’t want to spoil the surprise.

    The catalyst for my money-spending and nest-making is that I have two beloved friends coming to visit soon, and I’m a house-proud person. I got this gorgeous house because I knew that it would immensely improve my self-esteem to be surrounded by some material representation of the hard work that’s gone into getting myself this far in life. It might sound superficial and flawed, but it’s very upsetting to be a smart person who’s worked hard, but seemingly has little to show for it. If I’m showing off to my friends – that I have good taste – then I don’t care. I want to look after them and make them comfortable in my home. I take enormous pleasure from being a host.

    I can’t stop to think about how much money I’ve spent getting my life rebuilt. I don’t see the value in totalling up all the money I’ve burned. What use would it be? I could have scrimped and saved a little here and there, but I’ve not been profligate. Every single stupid domestic item brings me a little bit of joy, even if it’s a washer/dryer, a vacuum cleaner or an iron… all these nice things cumulatively give me a nice life, which seems to correspond with the dedication to my career.

    I rode my bike to meet a friend earlier in a local park for a picnic – a bike which is worth more than my car – and it brought me such a huge amount of pleasure to ride a bike which has been so heavily customised by me. The bike was one of the last purchases I was able to make before I became totally homeless, and yet I never regretted spending a significant sum of money on it. As I cycled home this evening, there was indescribable joy in the enjoyment of a bike which had spent a long time unused – when I was very sick – but has now been fixed up, and I’m able to use for the purpose I designed and built it for: urban life.

    My colleague commented that my bike was “exactly what [he] expected [me] to turn up on” and that’s completely the point. My home and my bike, for example, are an expression of my identity, and it’s a deeply unhappy situation when we’re forced – for example – to wear clothes which don’t fit us and are not to our tastes. We should not underestimate the psychological damage that’s done when we’re forced into situations which clash with our identities.

    My burn rate is obscene, but I’m aligning my identity with my surroundings, after a very long period where I was caused a great deal of distress by the economic limitations imposed upon me. Of course, I slept rough, slept in hostels and wore the cheapest clothes I could lay my hands on, in order to be alive today, but we shouldn’t underestimate how intolerable that situation was at times. We shouldn’t dismiss the self-esteem damage which drives people to commit suicide, as something which we can easily get over by simply suspending our identities and our need to choose our clothing, our home furnishings and decorations, which seem like such superficial things, but on closer examination, I can tell you for certain are vitally important.

    I’m sorry if you’re on a low income and what I have written seems disrespectful towards money, and indeed towards you and your struggles. Perhaps the money I “waste” is offensive to those who would gladly trade places with me, and would make much more considered decisions about spending… they would spend much more time bargain hunting, scrimping and saving.

    I have a very unusual attitude towards money, perhaps because I can tell you precisely what exactly money is and where it comes from, because of my many years working in the banking industry, and of course because I’ve experienced long periods where I had more money than I needed… but please remember that I’ve also lived at the other extreme, where I was homeless and penniless. I do know how to live on a very tight budget, and indeed live on no money at all – I’ve run out of money plenty of times.

    I shudder to think how much I’ve spent recently, but I know that it’s been a long time since I made a foolish frivolous purchase. Sure, I have a lot of nice things but all my recent spending has been on very humdrum domestic items.

    My approach to live is the same as it’s ever been: high risk, high reward. As I slowly recover from years of illness and chaotic life, my surroundings do not look humble and ordinary. Why the hell should they? One slip-up and everything comes tumbling down, so perhaps I shouldn’t be splashing the cash, but at the same time, why would I want to settle for mediocrity when I’ve worked so hard to achieve something special? It would be the most miserable thing, to end up with a life I could’ve easily had, without any hard work.

    Of course, in conclusion, I must add that I know how much of a charmed existence I live. Lady luck has been kind to me. I hope that if you were to really get to know me – what I’ve been through and how hard I’ve worked – and you were to see the life I lead, then you’d say that I’m not entitled or spoiled; that my lifestyle is not excessively lavish, luxurious or recklessly profligate.

    I’ve written three times as much as I intended, whilst sipping a glass of red wine from a bottle which cost somewhere between £5 and £35… but I can’t tell you how much it cost because I’m pretty price insensitive in that price range.

     

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  • Debt Made Me Rich

    This is a story about borrowing money…

    Private bank

    If you speak to anybody on low and middle incomes, they will tell you that debt is bad. Particularly, poor people are made incredibly poor through money-lending practices. Amongst the economic bottom 50% of people, you will hear them say things like “watch the pennies and the pounds look after themselves” and “don’t borrow money” and generally disparaging comments about the whole business of going into debt.

    Poor people are wrong about debt.

    Borrowing money can make you rich.

    The problem is that the terms on which poor people are offered borrowing facilities are grossly unfair. The richer you are, the cheaper it is for you to borrow money. The poorer you are, the more expensive it is for you to borrow money. At a certain inflection point, it becomes uneconomical to borrow money, because the terms are so bad. Generally, poor people can only borrow money on such incredibly bad terms, that it’s a trap – they shouldn’t take those loans, because they’ll end up worse off.

    Thus, we have a paradox. If you’re rich, you should take the cheap loans you’re offered. If you’re poor you shouldn’t take the “credit” that you’re offered, because it’s always a really bad deal which will leave you worse off.

    We are living in an era of ubiquitous legal loan-sharking, where tiny debts can ruin lives and cause suicides.

    Small loans – interest-free or at very low interest rates – can make an incredible difference to a poor person’s life. The costs associated with being poor are horrifyingly unethical: the poorest in society will have to pay numerous punitive charges and borrow money at extortionate rates of interest, as they desperately struggle to meet very basic day-to-day costs, which would require borrowing facilities of a very meagre amount.

    Imagine if we gave every poor person a £1,000 interest-free overdraft facility, for the purposes of cashflow. Of course, the worry is that people would borrow that money and spend it frivolously – on consumables – but if we study the behaviour of the poorest members of society, we can see that they are incredibly economical with their money. It’s amazing how the poorest can make so little money go so far, and generally when they get into a financially distressed situation, the sum of money which has tipped them over the edge is pilferingly small.

    How we stop people from using their £1,000 borrowing facility to buy themselves a stupid gadget, or spend it on drugs and alcohol, is not a question I think we need to answer. I think that we are all equally capable of being financially reckless and irresponsible, and the answer to the risk of a few, is not to impose a horrible life on vast swathes of society.

    It angers me that the richer I get, the more money I can borrow, and the cheaper it is for me to borrow it. It’s unjust. The poorest segment of society is being harshly punished for no good reason, except they’re unfortunate enough to be poor, which is not their fault.

    In fact, being able to borrow enough money to live for 2 months without a salary, and pay rent and deposit on a new place to live, would allow people who are trapped in low-paid jobs in deprived parts of the country to be able to relocate. A temporary bridging loan to cover those expenses, while the person has a gap in their earnings and extra expenses, would allow people to move, who otherwise are completely trapped because they can never miss a paycheque, and they can’t afford to save up the rent and deposit necessary to move from one home to another.

    Debt made me rich, because I’ve been lucky enough to go into debt while pursuing financial opportunities. Through borrowing, I’ve been able to move to find well-paid work. Without credit facilities, I’d have been bankrupted and therefore unable to work through any temporary dip in my earnings. On average, my earnings are great, but once you’re in the situation where each monthly pack packet is immediately spent on rent and bills, you are completely trapped and it’s impossible to escape.

    Debt is dangerous, for sure, if you’re using your credit cards to live an unsustainable high-roller lifestyle, but I doubt that many people are so foolish as to do that. Should so many people be made to suffer a horrible existence, because we’re so afraid that people will be financially reckless if we give them the freedom to move around and get better jobs? It seems as though it’s another example of capitalism not being efficient at all – people are not free to sell their labour to the most competitive bidder, because they are so horribly trapped.

     

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  • My Friend The Alcoholic

    This is a story about unorthodoxy…

    JPMorgan

    This time last year I saw my old friend from JPMorgan in Warsaw. He’d just gotten me a job. I was almost bankrupt. Some years ago we had been propping up the bar at 4am, the last remaining men standing after all-day-drinking to celebrate me leaving the investment banking world… temporarily. We have the same attitude and approach to life: Everything to excess.

    I’m writing this with a little haste, because I’m in a compromised situation.

    I need to tell my friend not to kill himself – having received a number of worrisome messages and a call recently – but I can’t do so in a direct manner, because it’s barely more than a year ago that I tried to take my own life. I know that nobody could have talked me out of it. When I communicated, I did so to ensure that my intentions were clear: I did not want misadventure or an open verdict to be recorded by the coroner.

    But.

    This is not about me.

    This is about a friend who sounds like he’s about to end his life.

    I have no idea what the emergency setup is in Poland. I have no idea whether a person can be located by their smartphone. I have no idea what the crisis intervention services are like. I have no idea what it’s like to be ‘sectioned’ or otherwise interred for your own safety – ‘committed’ one might say – in Poland, and whether I might be unwittingly unloading a whole unwanted extra pile of shit on my friend’s head, by raising the alarm.

    I’m not ungrateful to those who contacted the emergency services on my behalf, who undoubtedly saved my life, but I’m aware that my decision-making power was taken from my hands. In fact, I clearly said at the hospital that I didn’t want any medical intervention, but they decided I didn’t have the capacity to make the decision to refuse treatment.

    Does my friend have capacity?

    He says he’s drinking 2 or 3 bottles of vodka per day. I’m a borderline alcoholic, and I’d say that my judgement is pretty impaired when under the influence. I doubt I’d have so readily swallowed all those tablets during my suicide attempt last year if it wasn’t for the Dutch courage of a gutful of booze.

    It’s easier to make the final decision when intoxicated.

    Perhaps this gives me the moral authority to intervene and save my friend from himself. Perhaps it’s my duty to inform the emergency services, such that my friend can sober up and then see how he feels about killing himself once he’s got a clear head. How’s he going to feel about being forced to sober up and face the decision to go on living in the cold light of day, with a dreadful hangover?

    I can tell you all the answers to these questions.

    I can tell you exactly how it feels to regain consciousness when you had hoped you’d be dead.

    So can my friend.

    I can’t patronise him. I can’t talk him out of what he wants to do. I can’t approach the subject.

    Strangely, I hope he has capacity enough to read this.

    If he does – and I might try to prompt him into reading it – then what do I want him to know?

    He needs to know that almost exactly one year ago, I was convinced that my life was totally beyond any hope of salvaging, but he salvaged my life. He got me a job, which rescued me from certain bankruptcy. He got me a job in the nick of time. He saved my bacon.

    What can I do for my friend?

    I remember he told me how buoyed he was by all the support I get via social media. I remember how emotional it made him feel, reading the comments section on my blog.

    I want him to feel that outpouring of love from all four corners of the globe. I want him to feel anchored by connections.

    My friend and I tend to value our sense of self-worth by the number of dollars, euros or pounds that somebody will press into our sweaty palms for a day’s labour. My friend and I both feel valued when we’re paid a lot and a company is chasing us for our skills.

    It’s disturbing to me that my friend knows that he can get a highly paid job in any investment bank in the world. He knows that he’s needed and wanted in the corporate sector. It’s worrisome that he knows that, but it’s somehow not enough. I can relate. I know what that feels like.

    I don’t know what to offer him.

    To remind him of his value and how much he’s cherished is a cliché. I can’t patronise him by talking about how much he’d be missed and what a huge hole he’d leave in all the lives he touches.

    We’re talking about the man who quite literally reversed my fortunes, exactly 12 months ago – from bankrupt to bankrolled; from rags to riches.

    What can I say, except that I’ve written these 900 words with as much speed as I can manage, because from the tone and content of my last phonecall with my friend, he’s in a very bad way. I’m very worried about him. I’m acting as swiftly as I can, in an unorthodox fashion, because I want to do something to interrupt and disrupt his behaviour, which looks to be on collision course with disaster.

    I know that if anybody said to me that I lacked capacity, or was so patronising as to believe that they know better, and I should be relieved of the decision-making power to end my own life, then I would become doubly stubborn and bloody minded. I’d kill myself just to prove you wrong. Of course I would.

    What can I say? I need to publish this, urgently.

    I hope my friend reads this. I hope my friend – who helped me get back on my feet almost exactly a year ago – is somewhat moved by my desperation to try something, anything to move the conversation towards positive exciting plans for the future, and our next adventures.

    I haven’t been writing regularly, and of course I tend to be very self-centred, but I hope that I can continue to write, and include my friend as a living member of the tiny little world in which I inhabit. There are quite literally only two people who I speak to on a regular basis, one of whom is threatening to make an early departure from the party.

    He might feel a little uncomfortable that I’ve made references that almost made him identifiable. Good. I’d rather have him angry and upset with me, than having missed an opportunity to get his attention. I’m being deliberately disruptive and provocative.

    Please, mate, don’t put me in this position!

    Don’t make me decide whether I have to call the emergency services or not!

    This sucks!

     

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  • I Work Hard: The Proof

    This is a story about brainwork…

    Graphite piano

    In 2008 I became suicidally depressed. I’d been part of the project which had been at the centre of the global financial crisis: namely the trading of quadrillions of dollars worth of credit default swaps (CDS) which had grown in notional book value to be manyfold greater than the aggregate value of all the tangible things, such as precious metals, rare gemstones, property, factories, oil, gas, coffee, coins, banknotes and anything else which you could point at and say “that’s worth something”.

    The world had lost its mind.

    I knew it was coming of course. I had bought gold in 2005. I had negotiated a great mortgage in 2007 knowing there was a credit crunch on the horizon. In some ways I had tangible proof that I had been doing something valuable because I owned property, cars, boats and other things, as well as considerable amounts of liquid assets. In short: I was rich.

    I got rich from data and software. I got rich off the back of investment banking and derivatives contracts. I got rich off a whole lot of nothing.

    In 2008 it really felt like I’d presided over the most awful crime ever perpetrated against humanity.

    I’d worked hard and I’d done my job very effectively. I thought about the bigger picture and I knew – deep down – that what we were doing at JPMorgan was wrong, but I’m an engineer and I like delivering engineering solutions. If somebody asks me “can you do this?” then I want to be the problem-solving can-do guy who comes up with the solution and delivers a working system. Often times I stop and take a step back, and think about the context of what I’m doing – I consider the ethics – but that’s not really my job. I just design and build software systems.

    The whole “I just work here” or “I was just following orders” thing is how the Nazis managed to kill 6 million jews, so I’m not going to hide behind that flimsy defence.

    I know what I did was wrong.

    So, I decided to completely ditch investment banking. I decided to do something that was the polar opposite of investment banking. I retrained in the building trade.

    Instead of working in an office, I worked in customers’ houses. Instead of working to devise arcane and impenetrably complicated ways of moving imaginary wealth around the globe, I helped build houses for people to live in. Instead of working for a massive faceless global corporation, intent on destroying the worldwide economy and plunging us all into the deepest and longest recession in history, I worked for myself – I was a sole trader; a man with a van.

    I discovered that what I’d always suspected was true: I work hard.

    It’s hard to prove that you work hard, when all your hard work is hidden away behind the scenes. You have no idea how hard it was to build all the websites and apps that you use every day. You completely take for granted all the facets of the modern world, where you can speak to your phone and express your unique special snowflake personality on social media. The geeks and the nerds are derided as autistic-spectrum weirdo scum, who are all potential paedophile predator perverts who deserved to have a miserable childhood getting bullied at school.

    While we celebrate the doctors, nurses, firemen, policemen and suchlike, because their contribution to society is conspicuously obvious and easy to understand – like a game of cops & robbers – questions such as “what is the internet?” belie the hideous complexity of that innocuous 4-word question. If you’re looking for a convenient Google-provided soundbite synopsis that you can parrot to other people, in the vague hope of sounding intelligent, you’re doing a disservice to those geeks and nerds who you persecuted at school, who are the architects of the fourth industrial revolution.

    It’s very hard for me to prove to you that I’ve been working very hard during my 21-year full-time career. You’re quite likely to accuse me of not working very hard at all, because there are people out there who do a lot more physical labour, and what they produce is a lot more tangible and more easily understood in a childlike brain.

    It was immensely frustrating to me that I had no easily understood empirical evidence to prove how hard I work; to prove that I’m a busy bee.

    I started to write.

    I’ve written the equivalent of 22 novels over the course of 3 years.

    Of course a lot of what I’ve written is manic rantings, but one should be mindful that during the course of the 3 years I’ve also written a lot of software, and software doesn’t work if it’s wrong. One missing semicolon in millions of lines of code and the whole thing will be kaput. You should consider the fact that it’s a facet of my profession to write with coherence and attention to detail, because my editor has zero tolerance for mistakes: the computer can’t handle errors.

    It pleases me that I’ve produced 1.1 million words in my spare time as proof that I’m not an idle drug addict loser. It pleases me that I have a tangible asset, which vastly exceeds the length of the King James Bible.

    Would you accuse an author of a bestselling series of novels, as being unproductive and not working for their living?

    I say again: I’ve been writing in addition to my full-time day job.

    It’s true that sometimes I find my day job very easy and unchallenging, but there are other days when there are gremlins in the incomprehensibly huge and complex computer software systems, and those problems are very hard to diagnose and fix. Manual labour is governed by a simple and well understood set of physical laws: the energy requirements to lift and move heavy objects is quite easy to calculate. The amount of brainwork required to fix a problem with one of your beloved apps or websites – to give a facile example – which might affect millions of people, is not an easy calculation at all. If you think what I do is unimportant, you should see the public response every time Instagram stops working or Snapchat introduces a major change.

    My motivation for writing this is, of course, insecurity. I struggle with feelings of inadequacy and guilt. Imposter syndrome asserts itself and I wonder what the hell I’ve been doing with two decades of my life, with nothing to show for it except a lot of crummy software which almost nobody is aware even exists. I would struggle to explain to either of my grandmothers what I do for a living, especially now they’re dead.

    I exist in a strange part of the world. I’m a ‘tame’ geek who can speak plain English. I don’t surround myself with other technologists and I’m cursed with a bleeding-heart liberal streak and an inquiring mind, which causes me to question whether I’m part of the problem or part of the solution.

    Because of my guilt, work ethic and insecurity, I feel like I have to create a very conspicuous and public display of my productivity, which can be easily understood. Here’s the headline: 1.1 million words in 3 years.

    I write because I’m afraid that you’ll write me off as a lazy junkie waste-of-space loser who doesn’t do anything productive or useful. I write because I don’t see much other evidence that I ever existed or did anything notable; that I ever contributed to society.

    “Use your talent and energy for good” I hear you say. Yup. That’s working out really great for the oppressed workers, isn’t it? I’m so glad that charity has been so successful that it’s made itself completely redundant as a concept.

    I write because I haven’t decided what else to do, but I’m still thinking, of course. You might think that thinking is useless, but what is writing except for thinking on a page?

     

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  • Vile Hateful Little Man

    This is a story about misanthropy…

    Lift selfie

    On this day 5 years ago, I tried to help a homeless alcoholic called Frank. I made a lot of notes. As my divorce disrputed my attempt to get my life back on track in London, dragging me back to Bournemouth to empty and sell my house, it destroyed my fragile new life and plunged me into the very world of homeless hell, which I had usefully compiled notes on. I did manage to help Frank, but ironically crosssed paths with him later on – as I was descending into hell, he was well on his way to recovery.

    On this day 4 years ago, I got myself off the streets, out of the 14-bed hostel dorm, and back into banking. I went to Barclays, which quickly dug me out of debt and restored some long overdue health, wealth and prosperity to my life.

    On this day 3 years ago, I went to HSBC and repeated the same magic trick of managing to get myself back off the streets, out of the hostel, into a lovely Thameside apartment, and out of debt. Feeling like my life was going well, I went to a hackathon to create technology solutions to the refugee crisis.

    On this day 2 years ago, I was lying to my girlfriend and my guardian angel, because the project I’d been working on had ended prematurely and I hadn’t bothered to get another contract. Instead, I had tried to treat my own depression with medication prescribed by an online pharmacy, destabilising my mental health – inducing hypomania – and causing a subsequent relapse.

    On this day last year, I woke up as a resident of Wales for the first time since being born here. The day before, I had been discharged from a psych ward in Manchester, England, following a suicide attempt which was very nearly successful.

    I’m pretty upset that divorce was such a destabilising distraction at a time when I desperately needed a clean break, and I’m struggling to forgive and forget my ex-wife and parents sabotaging all my hard work; destroying my chance to follow through with well thought out plans which were subsequenty proven to be correct and successful.

    I can blame the Barclays thing not working out on a couple of idiots who got fired for trying to screw me over, but in all truth, I wasn’t very stable. I was too outspoken. I didn’t keep my mouth shut. I made mistakes in my personal life. I had lapses.

    I can blame the HSBC thing not working out on the sheer pressure and workload of working on their number one project, while also dealing with homelessness and cripling debt. I can blame a friend who asked me to help him get a job. I can blame a few loafers who benefitted from my hard work. But, again, I was too outspoken. I wasn’t at all stable. I was so exhausted and stressed that I was very strung out and very manic.

    I can blame not wanting to immediately get another contract 2 years ago on the fact that the project had been so mind-numbingly spirit-crushingly boring, and I’d been so de-skilled, that I’d lost all self-confidence. I really couldn’t face any more of the same awfulness without taking a break. However, it was still my so-called ‘choice’ to relapse and I knew the consequences were likely to be dire, although I kinda “got away with it” that one time.

    I can blame attempting suicide and nearly dying on the fact that I knew instinctively that I was in deep trouble. The contract in Manchester didn’t pay enough to get me out of debt. I knew I was going to get shafted by a very unpleasant and immoral wannabe Labour MP, who embodies none of the values of socialism. I was working too hard for too little reward, but I also made bad so-called ‘choices’ such as getting mixed up with a social group who mostly bonded over recreational drug abuse. There was no way I was going to be able to quit physically addictive sleeping pills, tranqulisers and neuropathic painkillers, as well as working a very demanding job which didn’t even pay enough to make any kind of dent in my debts. Suicide was my choice, in the face of overwhelming odds stacked against me.

    So, here I am in Wales.

    What’s going to be different this year?

    I’m in approximately the same financial position that I’ve been in all those previous years. My mental health seems to be the same, swinging between suicidal depression and mania.

    Just gotta keep my mouth shut.

    Gotta make sure I don’t go on any crusades, trying to save anybody.

    Put on my own oxygen mask before helping others.

    This year is different because I’ve been working for 10 consecutive months without a major fuck-up. Of course, there have been fuck-ups, but they haven’t caused me to lose my contract or otherwise let my client down. I’ve delivered a couple of projects quite successfully, to the great satisfaction of my clients.

    This year is different because I’ve had an affordable place to live of my own since March, and I don’t have anybody mooching off me or otherwise trying to ride my coat tails. I don’t have anybody pressurising me to subsidise their laziness and inability to make good on their financial commitments. I don’t have anybody using my gas, electric, water, sewerage, council tax and broadband, and running up thousands of pounds worth of rent arrears.

    This year is different because I’ve had contract extensions and managed to have consecutive contracts, such that I’ve hardly stopped working at all.

    This year is different because I’ve been working on my skills and making myself more confident and employable. I’ve felt increasingly capable and good at my job, without getting too deep into the territory of delusions of grandeur.

    This year is different because the pressure is markedly reduced and the stress levels are more manageable, despite crushing mountainous debts. There have been really awful times – such as renting a place to live – but I seem to be well established in a good routine now, such that I just need to keep turning the pedals.

    I drink too much. I’m unfit.

    However, in the space of 11 months I’ll have managed to buy a car, rent an apartment, pay off £21,000 of debt, and save up enough money to pay a hefty tax bill. I don’t enjoy living out of a suitcase, but I’m not slumming it anymore. I’ve been able to take a weekend break to see old friends in Prague and I have a week-long holiday to Turkey booked, which will be my first proper holiday for over 2 years. I stay in a nice hotel midweek and I eat in a gastropub. This is the self-care aspect, which didn’t really get taken care of in previous years. There’s no point working as hard as I do unless it’s delivering some quality of life; I might as well just kill myself if life’s going to be an unrewarding slog.

    I sometimes can’t believe what comes out of my mouth, in terms of the fucking rage which is somewhat pent-up inside me. This is a summary of the many false starts I’ve had, and nearly-but-not-quite moments, where it looked like I was going to make a breakthrough and get properly back on my feet. It’s incredibly frustrating to repeatedly do the impossible – quitting addictive drugs, getting off the streets, out of the hostels and back into mainstream civilised society, while also dealing with a major mental health problem – and to see that there’s nothing wrong with my approach per se. On paper, everything should go perfectly and quickly restore me to health, wealth and prosperity, but it does require a run of good luck, and that luck is very much dependent on the co-operation of other people.

    Who do I want to blame? Capitalism? Banking? Bad bosses? Wimmin? Parents? Even friends?

    I spend a lot of time writing very aggressive angry stuff.

    I can’t believe what I write.

    Maybe this year won’t be any different, because I’m a spoiled overprivileged vile bitter old man, who doesn’t take any personal responsibility; I’m too quick to blame others.

    We shall see. The story continues.

     

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  • In Debt

    This is a story about pride and self-esteem…

    Warsaw hotel

    At the start of December last year I was thrown a lifeline. A friend recommended me for a software project with an investment bank and I was awarded the contract. I flew to Warsaw using the last of my available credit. I ate sandwiches made in my cheap hotel room, spreading mayonaise on the bread with a shoe horn. The expenses of my business travel exhausted what little money I could lay my hands on, but I knew that it would eventually be a profitable gamble, even though it left me temporarily penniless. To be precise, for a whole month I had exactly £23 left available to me, having maxed out all my credit cards, my overdraft and my other borrowing facilities. I was flat broke.

    We don’t really talk about our debts.

    Men regularly commit suicide because of their financial problems.

    It’s such a shameful thing, to be in debt.

    It’s so destructive to our self-esteem, being in debt.

    The only reason why I’ve started to talk about my debts is because I see light at the end of the tunnel. Illness had reduced my average earnings to a pitiful level and the interest payment to service my loans was enormous, further compounding the problem. If you were to owe one penny at the time of the birth of Christ, with interest payable at 5% per annum your debt today would now be £9×1038. Nine quadrillion quadrillion pounds is only £9×1030 and there’s barely a quadrillion dollars worth of ‘stuff’ in circulation, which is only £1×1015. To be precise, if we added up the value of all the banknotes, gold, silver, diamonds, houses, cars. factories, livestock, land and everything else which is supposedly tangible, it only adds up to £183,000,000,000,000, which is 1.83×1014.

    This is why civilisations need to forgive debts, lest those civilisations collapse. Every civilisation that refused to forgive its debts collapsed.

    When we start needing to use quadrillions and powers of ten to express sums of money, and the very best science, technology, engineering and mathematics graduate brains are all diverted into the time-wasting exercise of counting all those imaginary beans, it’s time to wipe the slate clean.

    I have a debt to a friend which absolutely must be repaid, because it’s personal. That money was loaned without interest and was lent at considerable risk, as a vote-of-confidence in my abilities, and my friend’s faith in my trustworthiness to make good on my promises and act with integrity.

    The remainder of my debts serve as a barometer of how near to collapse our civilisation is. When our ordinary populace has to take on enormous amounts of debt just to live a normal life, it’s a bad sign. When those debtors struggle to repay their debts, then the collapse of civilisation is imminent. There’s no point repaying debts which are about to be scrubbed because money and the so-called economy have become surreal and ridiculous. There’s no point repaying debts which weren’t borrowed from anybody.

    The vast majority of money which has been borrowed is not secured against any tangible asset. Most money was simply invented out of thin air. It’s been a long time since we abandoned the gold standard: your banknote’s promise to pay the bearer on demand no longer has any meaning whatsoever. The idea that not repaying your debts is somehow robbing a pensioner of their life savings is a dirty lie perpetuated by capitalists and bankers, which is simply not true.

    It keeps me awake at night, worrying about how I’m going to repay my guardian angel, but I’m now at the point where I have saved enough money to clear my debt.

    The shame of owing that money was killing me.

    I couldn’t write about my financial distress, because I couldn’t see any way out.

    I’m one of the lucky ones. I’ve been able to work off my debt. Most people who have huge debts will never be able to afford to repay them, no matter how hard they work.

    We are at an inflection point. People are slowly realising that all their hard work does nothing except line the pockets of idle bankers, who invent money out of thin air, devaluing our currency to the point where the vast sums of so-called money in the economy is incomprehensibly vast except inside the electronic mind of a computer. Do you even know how many zeros there are in a quadrillion? It’s a madness which has got to end.

    This is a part of my story which is far more shameful and embarrassing than my homelessness and my drug addiction. To write about my debt is harder than anything I’ve written about to date.

     

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  • Compensation

    This is a story about maintaining equilibrium…

    Handful of pills

    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.

     

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