Nick Grant

This is a story about fitting in...

I'm on holiday now. This required a very considerable amount of effort, including a hasty dash to the airport two days earlier than planned, and a couple of very expensive COVID-19 tests: one PCR and one LAMP.

Anyway, with all my COVID-19-free credentials in place, I was able to travel and reach my destination. The stress about whether or not the winter second wave [of COVID-19] would overwhelm the hospitals, and necessitate more lockdowns and travel bans, was almost unbearable, given how hard I've been working, for such a prolonged period. Although you might say it was foolish, I was pinning a lot of hopes on a Christmas getaway, as a reward.

Who am I to get a reward when so many people have lost their jobs, can't pay their rent/mortgage and/or bills, are using food banks and are otherwise suffering dreadfully?

Nobody. I'm a nobody. I'm not entitled to it. I just have it and that's the way it is. I'm a have and most people on the planet are have nots, and it really sucks. I didn't choose the time and place of my birth. I didn't choose my parents. I didn't choose most of the important stuff, which yielded this result: I am on holiday, in a hot and sunny location, with a few dollars in my pocket and no particular worries about keeping a roof over my head or food on the table.

I did ask for this. I did want this. Did I feel entitled to it? Only as much entitlement as is proportional to the effort and emotional energy expended, I think. Only as much entitlement as is proportional to the psychological damage which would have been inflicted.

There are people who've had their life savings wiped out. There are people whose lifelong dream business has been bankrupted. There are, of course, many people who've lost loved ones, who they had planned to spend many more happy years in the company of. Entire industries - like cruise liners - and their ancillary businesses, have been wiped out. Hospitality was pretty much wiped out. Cinemas, theatres... the performing arts, like theatres and live music venues... wiped out.

I can't speak for those people, who have suffered those misfortunes and hardships. I can empathise with them, sure, but I have my own unique situation.

I've been writing "the world's longest suicide note" for five and a half years. That time period has included no fewer than four life-threatening suicide 'attempts'... I write the word "attempts" in inverted commas, because none were particularly well planned or executed, but instead they were provoked by circumstances beyond my control.

This year, I decided, things were going to be different. My preparations have far exceeded anything I've done before.

Some years before I started writing this "suicide note" I had obtained some potassium cyanide, which comforted me, knowing I had the option of a reliable exit method. Then, during an acrimonious divorce, I made the decision to safely dispose of it, believing that a clean break and a fresh start, would lead me away from suicide. I was wrong.

I've had some difficulty obtaining potassium cyanide again, but the synthesis of sodium cyanide is not beyond the abilities of a keen amateur chemist, with a decent budget to purchase some very specific pieces of equipment. Dealing with molten salts at 600 degrees centigrade, and indeed, any handling of an extremely potent poison, outside of a laboratory, and without professional training and supervision, was bound to be extremely dangerous, but it seemed viable.

Somewhat daunted by the task of synthesising my own sodium cyanide, I then explored the more obvious route: although there were challenges, obtaining compressed inert gas was, comparatively, easy. I have resolved never to detail the precise paraphernalia and method, because the "barrier to entry" is a useful obstacle for the impulsive... I am alive, because my impulsive suicidal acts were far less likely to succeed.

It comforted me to know that, whatever happened, I would not have a repeat of previous years when I have found myself hospitalised; surviving. It comforted me to know that I had control, no matter what circumstances arose: if I was blocked from travelling to somewhere hot and sunny, then I would have everything I needed to end my life, already in place.

It seems a bit like a childish temper tantrum, when I write it down, but if you've followed the story, then you'll know that I've spent a very long time bordering on suicide, and it should not be seen - in this context - as a rash or tantrum-like act, to end my life, due to a "final straw" being too much to bear.

Thinking about it now, lying on a sun lounger, drinking an ice cold beer, enjoying gorgeous hot weather and clear blue skies, looking at the sea... it seems unthinkable that I would have the paraphernalia to swiftly, painlessly, and reliably commit suicide, sitting at home, ready to be used whenever it's needed. As thought experiment, I asked myself "how would I kill myself, right here, right now?" and the answer was easy: there are some really massive cliffs I could throw myself off. However, unsurprisingly, the positive psychological effect of a long-overdue holiday finally arriving, has completely changed my mindset: why shouldn't I enjoy a nice rest, and go back to the UK feeling refreshed, and keep working for as many years as I feel able to, before I 'retire' by killing myself? For sure, sitting in the sun, drinking ice-cold beer, I put an optimistic upper-bound estimate of 10 or even 15 more years, before it's time to go. I had probably not got 10 or 15 weeks, or even 10 or 15 more days left in me, when I attempted to leave the UK.

Having lost 12kg (26 pounds... the best part of 2 stone) in weight and substantially improved my fitness through regular exercise, plus spent almost half of 2020 completely sober, it gladdens me greatly to drink beer and wine, and stuff my face with french fries smothered with cheese & bacon. If you don't think I have paid for what I am enjoying, you are a fool. Am I entitled to it? No. Of course not. I was prepared to die for it, but that's all; nothing much. And of course, I never forget, that 97% of the world will work much harder and risk much more for their shot at happiness, and most will fail... but I'm not them, am I? I'm me.

Exceptionalism and individualism, exemplified by the idea that "the rules don't apply to me", is writ large at the moment, with Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic showing just how idiotic the nations of the USA and UK can behave, thinking that they can go it alone, and that through Ayn Randian "rational self-interest" anything other than a hellscape will emerge, has now been proven, beyond all reasonable doubt, to be wrong; unbelievably wrong. I'm well aware that my words are full of hypocrisy, but I actually don't care: my plans are different from yours. You are attempting to make copies of your genes, via breeding, and I am resigned to my fate: suicide.

I probably won't write again for a while. My routine now involves sun loungers and ice-cold beers, so my need for this coping mechanism has been almost eliminated.

In my concluding comments, I should at least make this unambiguously clear: I feel very fortunate to have been able to slip the bonds of the plague-infested United Kingdom, and make my way to a hot and sunny country, where I am enjoying fine fare; relaxing and otherwise somewhat unencumbered by the weight of my responsibilities, temporarily. A holiday is probably not a universal cure for major depression, but it fucking helps. If you had any worries that you would learn that I was in hospital or dead, at some point over the festive period, you should be reassured that I'm 99% certain to be sipping cold beer in the sun, in a relaxed mood.

It was a 50:50 coin flip, but things turned out just fine.

Tags: #suicide #holiday #depression #mentalhealth #bipolar #work #career #capitalism #politics #philosophy

This is a story about estrangement...

I had a theory, a couple of months ago, that if I chucked all the spammers off my website and stopped allowing public comments, it would be 'better'. What I meant by 'better' at the time, was a combination of a better image in terms of not having tons of spammy bots, filling up the comments section, but also, I was fearful that my site would be algorithmically marked as spammy, and therefore expelled - or at least very harshly punished - from search results, burying my writing... making it impossible to find.

My theory backfired. From a peak of 7,000 visitors a day, I am back where I started: I can make an educated guess about who most of my regular readers are.

Of course, we can talk of sour grapes and self-serving arguments, until we're blue in the face, but for one reason or another, a second of my current work colleagues openly admitted to reading, which was very kind of them. So, amongst my [presumably] regular[ish] readers, I can count two colleagues who I work with on regular[ish] basis.

I notice that the first people I told, on Christmas Eve last year, that my kidneys had failed and I was on dialysis in hospital - very sick - were my work colleagues.

I spoke to some people on the phone, like my sister, and a very dear friend from Bournemouth. A friend from London was going to come and visit me. A work colleague - not one of the admitted readers - did actually visit. Another friend who I'd only met in person twice, but have spent a long time talking to online, and who has read my blog, came to visit.

It does concern me, that I have spent a lot of this year, a hair's breadth away from ending my life, and this Christmas is shaping up to be particularly stressful, when I so desperately need it to be relaxing; I so desperately need the opportunity to recover, rest and recuperate, after a pretty hellish year.

I think things were a lot worse earlier in the year. Presently, I have plenty of money and good credit, so I'm prepared to go to any lengths to keep myself safe this Christmas, which basically translates as: not being home alone in a City where I don't have a social support network, the weather is terrible, and where I nearly died a year ago... quite deliberately.

My colleagues never quite, but still, quickly forgot that I nearly died of multiple organ failure, because that's the way I wanted it: I went back to work and carried on as if nothing happened. What almost none of them know is that I deliberately poisoned myself, I knew my kidneys had failed for many days, and I just lay down on the floor - in great discomfort - waiting to die. Dying is not quick, I'm afraid, unless you do it right: overdoses are tricky things.

I did very recently attempt to obtain a potent poison, but it proved slightly more difficult than it first appeared to be. I'm not a stupid man, and of course I have an almost infinite number of avenues I could pursue, to end my life, but death by poisoning seems to be the most preferable: ideally something which quickly brings unconsciousness, and is painless.

Twice in three years, I've been saved in the nick of time. Once, the emergency services got me to the hospital, just before I started having seizures... 15 or 20 minutes later and I'd have been dead. It was a miracle they discovered me and got me to hospital so promptly. The most recent time, I had lain on the floor, with kidney failure, dying very slowly, for a few days... I'd had time to try a few different ineffective overdoses... it was not a well planned or executed suicide at all: I knew that my only chance was to remain undiscovered until I had a cardiac arrest, which my blood toxicity when I arrived at hospital, showed that I wasn't far away from, due to extremely high potassium levels - a side effect of kidney failure, which I knew.

I should make it clear, I do not plan on committing suicide this Christmas. I am doing everything in my power to keep myself safe. I'm not sure what compelled me to try to obtain the highly potent poison, very recently, but I suppose I felt like having the option, ready, at hand, was prudent preparation, because I refuse to have another bad year.

Of course, as I said, I'm not a stupid man: if I make that very definite final decision, I will execute it, and I will not change my mind. Things get a little harder at Christmas time, in terms of options, but there are still a near-infinite range of options, if I really do feel that I absolutely have to end my life immediately.

Things feel a bit different this year. I feel like there are people I would talk to, if I was getting close to attempting suicide. It's been a long time since I've felt like there was anybody who I'd talk to first... before putting plans into action.

Things feel a bit different right now. I feel like I can solve problems, as opposed to feeling like there's an endless procession of insurmountable obstacles, with each one threatening to destroy my life. Ultimately, I have plenty of money and I'm in the right frame of mind to find solutions other than just ending my life. There isn't anything, except a tragic event involving my sister, niece, friends or cat, which would be enough to provoke me, I think, beyond my general state of depression that my life must inevitably end prematurely anyway, simply because that's my [early] retirement plan.

I feel like I've got people who care about me. I feel like I've got people who understand what I'm going through. I feel like I've got [short-term] options. That's enough to keep me alive this Christmas, I think.

Tags: #suicide

This is a story about social isolation...

In this age of social media, it sometimes feels like we've got more friends than ever, given that it's easier to meet new people online, and to maintain some degree of friendship over any distance, remotely.

However.

There are a set of tests, which I hope you would agree with, which establish your true friends, from the people who you were once 'kinda' friends with, but aren't friends with anymore:

• Does your friend visit you, in person?
• Do you speak to your friend, on the phone or via video chat?
• Are those visits and/or chats regular?
• Would your friend visit you if you were in hospital?
• Would your friend let you sleep on their couch, or in their spare room?
• Would your friend help you move house?
• Would your friend feed your pet, in an emergency?
• Would your friend lend you £1,000... even if they had to borrow it?
• Would your friend testify to your good character, in a court of law?
• If you went missing, for 4 or 5 days, would your friend notice?
• If you phoned up your friend, in a desperate situation, would they go out of their way to help?
• Would your friend rat you out?
• Could your friend's opinion of you be changed, almost instantly, by one-side [another person's side] of a story?

Turns out that it's a longer list than I thought it would be, but I think the questions are all important ones, in order to find out who your true friends are.

Of course, we might say that for most of this, it'd be the job of family to provide support and unconditional love, which meets the conditions of many of those things on the list. I've got one thing to say to that: fuck you, you cunt. We don't all have wealthy, kind, caring families around us. For some of us, our friends are our family. For some of us, there's nobody to fall back on; nobody looking after us.

This is not an attempt to guilt-trip any friends. This is not a veiled criticism. It's just a fact, that if you don't have a friend (or family member) who ticks every single one of those boxes, then your life is precarious; you live on the edge of life and death.

I'm going to go through the list, and think about whether I have that minimum viable social support network, or not.

I do have friends who have visited me in person this year. I do speak to two friends regularly on the phone or video chat. I do have a friend who visited me in hospital, most recently. Past experience tells me that my friends would gladly see me sleeping rough, but that might be different today... I definitely had one offer, kinda, to stay with a friend, his girlfriend and their very young baby, in a tiny bedsit, which is definitely something worthy of consideration. I'm not sure I'd ask for help moving house, but none would be forthcoming. None of my friends would feed my pet. I could borrow £1,000 from a friend. I would hope that at least one friend, of good social standing, would be prepared to testify to my good character in court. I could easily go missing for 4 or 5 days, or more, and my absence not be noticed. I would struggle to persuade a friend to help me, in a desperate situation. Yes, I have friends who would rat me out... but I think one or two would not. A few of my closest friends would want to hear my side of the story, before making their final judgement.

In summary, I think it's fair to say that I live a precarious life and death existence, without hyperbole.

How many friends do I have, who are true friends? 3, 4... 5 at the most? Maybe that is more than most people, but the litmus test, for me, is the number of friends who made the trip to hospital when my chance of survival was so low: just one friend, each time. There were more friends who came to see me, when I was hospitalised the time before, thanks to a wonderful ex-girlfriend who helped make that happen. Also, I should say that I did tell my sister and another friend not to bother making an exceptionally long journey, during my most recent hospitalisation, when it was clear that I was going to recover.

We might, in a particularly mean and cynical way, say that I have been hospitalised a lot during the past 6 or 7 years. It hasn't been "a lot" and I've got one thing to say on the matter: fuck you, you cunt.

It takes two to tango, so I must ask myself: have I been a very good friend? It's true that I could bolster my superficial friendships, but that seems like wasted effort. When it came to the biggest test of friendship I've ever faced, I dropped everything for that friend: I made them my number one priority; I did everything humanly possible for them. I can say, hand on heart, that I pass all the tests that I have listed: I might not have almost any true friends, but the ones I have... they can count on me during the most difficult life events.

To those who say I might be pleasantly surprised, if I found myself in hot water: fuck you; you're wrong. I've been homeless, slept rough, penniless, locked up, hospitalised, left for dead and completely fucked over by situations I've had to deal with all on my own, so I know who my true friends are, and I know how precious few they are.

If you think I'm ungrateful for the lazy "chin up" social media messages I get from time to time, I probably am. "Chin up" doesn't put a roof over my head. "Chin up" doesn't make the difference between life and death. The sentiments are worthless; worse than worthless: they are valuable to you in making yourself feel better about not doing anything, but of no value to me.

However, it must be admitted that my situation has been made worse by needing to move away from my ex-wife, and my parents incessant hard work in lobbying against me; spreading lies and disinformation; maliciously attacking my character and exhaustively portraying me - falsely - as of bad character; evil.

My parents incessantly changing the school I was in - 8 different schools - and moving around, disrupting every childhood friendship, was the coffin nail in any chance of me forming lifelong bonds. Yes, I am still in contact with old school-friends via social media, but my constantly disrupted childhood provided no opportunity to cement friendships which last substantially into adulthood, although I was immensely grateful when a handful of old childhood friends contacted me in recent years, unexpectedly.

I've written far more than the daily word count limit I have set for myself, but that is in no small part, because I am so socially isolated. The misery of my childhood haunts me more and more, like a post-traumatic flashback. The sins of the father - in my case, an unemployed lazy druggie, who selfishly didn't care about the damage to my childhood schooling and friendships - are visited on the son, namely me, of course. I don't write this in the sense of saying "I blame everybody else for my problems" but as a factual explanation of why, in due course, I will end my life prematurely.

The friends who are keeping me afloat: Oxford, Worcester, Croydon, Prague, Fareham, and maybe an honourable mention of Newport and Pa Tong, maybe a bit of a mention of Portishead... Bournemouth & Poole, kinda. Cardiff and Bridgend maybe, but it's complicated. How many is that? 4 or 5 actively. Another couple occasionally. Another few much less frequently, but old enough friends that I think they'd pick up the phone if I was in the shit. Is that enough? Evidently not, but I'm grateful for what I've got. In fact, if you see where you live on the list, you should know that if you've been in contact recently, I'm incredibly grateful, and you're the difference between life and death... no exaggeration.

In conclusion: that's it. That's all there is. It sounds like it's more than it actually is, during an average month. A few phone-calls to Oxford. One or two to Worcester... that's it for regular social contact. My guardian angel is there, but a long way away; we hardly speak. My friends in other countries.... visits are hard. I spend as much, if not more, time speaking to friends who I've never met in person, than I do to old friends... that's an alarming situation.

Anyway, it is what it is: I'll work, get my money, then kill myself. That's that. I know now: my social needs will never be met, and I'm trapped in an unbearable situation. All I can do is hope that my enormous effort to document who I was, and the impression I've left on most of those who've met me, has been on the whole more good than bad, and that my true friends will defend me from people like my parents, who maliciously want to paint me as an evil character; a demon.

Tags: #friends

This is a story about wanting to die...

I've wanted to commit suicide for years and I've made several attempts, all of which have ended up with me in hospital, either in intensive care, and or high dependency, for weeks... months and months if you add up all that time. You might say that you think that I don't want to die, because I haven't succeeded [yet] and you would be correct: I want to want to live; I want to not want to commit suicide. But I did want to die and I did want to commit suicide. When I came out of a coma in intensive care in hospital, a doctor asked me if I was pleased that they saved my life. Honestly, I was not pleased at all.

More often than not, depression - as a mental illness - has no rational explanation. Grief and other circumstantial depression, although devastating, can be explained with relative ease; can be well understood. Stranger, it seems, is depression where the cause is not so immediately obvious.

Examining my own depression and wish to commit suicide, we can see a number of obvious circumstantial problems:

• Estranged from family
• No social support network
• Very small number of close friends, none of whom live nearby
• Enormous debts
• Single
• Can't remember the last time I had a hug
• Boring, unrewarding and unchallenging profession [at times]
• Physical illness, making me unable to work [at times]
• No [realistic] prospect of escaping my predicament
• No hobby/passion
• Isolated, hermit-like existence
• Troubled past; guilt, shame and regret; some bitterness

So, if we take all of that in aggregate, it seems like no wonder that I would be suicidally depressed, discounting even the irrational and almost-impossible to explain depression, which inflicts so many people whose lives do not have these problems (although they might have their own set of problems).

Let's revisit my circumstances, today:

• Money in the bank; savings
• No debt
• Plans to see my sister and niece
• Two friends who live nearby, although one is locked down due to COVID-19, so we can't meet
• Rewarding and challenging work
• Well-paid work; feel respected and valued
• Physical health is OK, just a little unfit
• Have managed to escape enormous debts, and become debt-free, against the odds
• Have a hobby/passion: mountain biking
• Leave the house to go mountain biking

Okay, so there are still some areas which need improvement but it's an incredible turnaround from my situation, which I've had to endure for years. I have to pinch myself to see if I'm dreaming. Nobody should have been able to escape from the homelessness, near-bankruptcy, crushing debts and the total destitution which I faced alone. It's like I had my death sentence commuted; it's like I received a royal pardon.

The picture at the top is of my muddy feet. Nobody goes out in the mud and the rain, in the cold autumn/winter of the UK, unless they are in a good place in terms of mental health. I'm not saying that I'm 'cured' or even that I'm 'happy' but I'm making some real tangible progress. I have hope for the first time in years and years.

My mental health is incredibly fragile. My 'recovery' (hate that word) is incredibly fragile. I have no idea whether my mood is going to crash, worse than ever, and I'll be back to being suicidal. Every time I attempt suicide, there's a very good chance I'm going to succeed. You might think that I'm just being melodramatic and/or attention seeking, and that I have no intention of committing suicide, and never did, which is why I didn't succeed. If you like, I will share my medical notes from the emergency department and intensive care/high dependency: I didn't succeed because I was incredibly lucky; for example, the medical team gave me about a 30% chance of survival, last attempt. The time before, I had even less chance of survival. There's no denying the truth: when I have attempted suicide, it's not a cry for help, nor has it been 'botched' by me... it's been pure blind chance that I've been discovered before I died. I've never phoned emergency services or phoned for help in any way whatsoever; quite the opposite.

So, on World Mental Health Day, I'm really sorry for all the people in the world who are suffering. I feel your pain. I share your pain. It makes me very sad that mental health problems are so prevalent in the world. I wish we would do something to help improve the circumstances of people's lives, because that can make a huge difference. Instead of giving trillions of dollars/pounds in bailouts to banks, we should be giving each and every family a life-changing amount of money, so that they can afford to live without debt, in secure housing, and not have to work shitty soul-destroying jobs; we need the time to connect with our community and maintain a social support network; to make [and keep] friends.

Look after yourselves today, and every day. Email me if you're feeling suicidal.

Tags: #suicide #mentalhealth #depression

This is a story about technical stuff...

Of all the hobbies I thought about getting into, most of them were sedentary; indoors. I thought about getting some kind of retro games console. I thought about getting a new games console. I thought about getting a gaming PC. Then, I thought about maybe doing something really geeky. I started looking into software-defined radio, with the intention of making a home-made radar, perhaps, or doing my own mobile phone base station. All of this, I decided, was expensive and wouldn't help me with my need to get outside and exercise.

I did some of the projects on the cheap. I managed to turn my 5 year old laptop into a pretty decent retro console, with nothing more than a cheap game controller pad. I got a whole buttload of electronics experiments I could do with a super cheap tiny little computer (pictured). I managed to make a home-made sonar. Not quite radar, but not too bad for a bodger.

Still, I found myself spending most of my time looking at a screen, indoors.

Also, although the projects have provided some intellectual challenge, they haven't really opened up any social avenues. I'm sure that if I got really involved in - for example - the software defined radio community, online, then I would kinda get 'social' contact out of that, but I already get more than enough online social contact. The thing I'm missing is real world social contact.

I know from past experience that when I've done something ridiculous, like suddenly deciding to get into kitesurfing, it's taken my life in a brilliant direction. I've travelled the world, in search of the best wind and waves, and made lifelong friends along the way.

My life is very nice - enviable - in a lot of ways. My beautiful cat keeps me company, and she likes company too; always wants to be nearby, getting involved with everything I'm doing, which is not always ideal when working on a microelectronics project, for example. For sure, I have options and opportunities which a lot of people can only dream of.

However.

I am also more socially isolated than you can possibly imagine. Estranged from my family, far from friends, without a support network. The litmus test is this: if you're hospitalised for a major medical emergency, who's there for you? I can answer that question. I can answer that question very well, and the answer is not good, although mercifully I did have a work colleague and a friend who happened to be visiting from abroad, who were kind enough to visit me, hooked up to a dialysis machine for 4 hours a day; a hospital stay of more than 2 weeks; a medical emergency that pretty much nearly killed me.

That's not a dig at my friends, of course. They've become used to leaving me sleeping rough or otherwise homeless. They've become used to leaving me in hospital, dying, alone. That's fine. I've come to terms with that.

I do have some VERY good friends. I am lucky enough to have one or two friends who would help me, if I asked. The rest... I'm not sure if I can even call them friends... more just people who I used to know, but now they're just strangers who I happen to see updates from on Facebook. They might as well be celebrities who I read about in tabloid newspapers or gossip magazines.

This wasn't supposed to be a dig at my acquaintances [former friends]. This is about what I'm doing to sort my life out, to make it bearable.

Possibly, by getting back into mountain biking, I have opened up the possibility of making some friends and building a support network; having a social life. We'll have to see. "Social life" might just be something which I'll never regain; I'm too old to be able to [re]build one now, having lost my old one. Anyway, I remain optimistic.

For the first time in forever, I felt motivated to start to plan for the future, in a way that's not just planning for my suicide. I've been planning what to do when my backside isn't so sore, and I can ride my new mountain bike again - where am I going to go?

Suddenly, winter doesn't look quite so bleak. I have good winter clothes and a reason to be outdoors, in the wind, the rain, and the mud. Not many people have the strange twisted kind of brain that I do, where I love extreme weather: keeps the fair-weather tourists away. On the bike ride I went on, on Saturday, there was not a single other soul on the mountain. I'd hardly describe it as "perfect conditions" but in the forests around the summit of the mountain, I hardly noticed the rain; I was going to get covered in mud anyway. It was delightful; ecstatic; euphoric... to be hammering down deserted mountain tracks, without having to worry about crashing into anybody. A far cry from the queues to get into shops, which seems to be something that the ordinary folks are spending their time doing.

Of course, everything's more fun when there's a social aspect, so I'm hoping to find some people to go mountain biking with, but people are already contacting me (which is unheard of) to arrange some biking trips, which is a good sign; a sign that I might get the healthy habits which I need in my life, along with a truckload of fun and adventure.

Tags: #bike #depression #isolation #mentalhealth #cat #kitten

This is a story about survival...

If you're an intelligent-sounding posh middle-class chap, dressed presentably, who has the outward appearance of having their shit together, doctors trust you more than other more disadvantaged members of society. Because I appear, to all intents and purposes, like a functional, productive, fine upstanding member of society, I was able to obtain six boxes of the maximum strength of tramadol. Each box contained 112 tablets.

My need for the tramadol - a strong opiate painkiller - had originally been legitimate, but I had weaned myself off it and managed to cope with the pain, without these painkillers. Instead, I stockpiled my prescriptions, with the intention of killing myself.

I managed to accumulate 672 of these incredibly strong opiate painkillers, with 50 milligrams of tramadol in each capsule.

The lethal dose of tramadol, which will kill 50% of rats and mice in laboratory experiments, is 350 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. Assuming that my body weight is 80kg, then the lethal dose which would give me a 50/50 chance of survival, would be 28,000mg.

6 boxes, with 112 capsules, with 50mg of tramadol, equals 33,600mg.

33,600 is a bigger number than 28,000.

672 capsules is a heck of a lot of capsules.

* * *

On the 9th of September, 2017, I swallowed 672 capsules containing 50mg of tramadol. It was a time consuming exercise. Filling my mouth with capsules and gulping them down with wine - because alcohol would increase the lethality - meant that this was a quite drawn-out exercise. With each mouthful of capsules I swallowed, I was acutely aware that I was slowly reaching a dose which would almost certainly be fatal, but I had plenty of time to think about what I was doing. If I was going to hesitate, there was plenty of time to hesitate.

I did not hesitate.

Then, I waited.

To be precise, I set a timer on my phone. I knew that after a certain amount of time had elapsed - at least an hour - then the capsule shells would be fully dissolved and their contents would be dumped into my stomach and intestines, where the tramadol would start to be absorbed into my bloodstream. I knew that if I could avoid being discovered for an hour, then I would almost certainly die.

After 45 minutes, I felt that I was beyond the point of no return. I was extremely overwhelmed by the powerful painkillers entering my bloodstream, killing me. I decided to send a final tweet, saying goodbye.

* * *

I woke up in a hospital intensive care bed.

I didn't realise I was in hospital.

I didn't know what the hell was going on.

I had been in a coma for days.

* * *

So, I survived that suicide attempt.

I've never felt that I was glad to survive that suicide attempt.

I've definitely felt that I wish I didn't survive that suicide attempt, on many occasions.

* * *

If we want to prevent suicides, which I very much do, then we need to first understand why people commit suicide. We need to acknowledge that there are reasons and that very often there are not - in fact - any other choices available. Imagine if you met somebody suicidal and you asked them what's wrong, and they said to you "I'm thousands of pounds in debt", you wouldn't say, "well, it's your lucky day because I have thousands of pounds of savings". No. What you would say would be "have you tried phoning the Samaritans?". Nobody really wants to prevent suicide. Sure, some people would like it if there wasn't any suicide, the same way that people would like it if there wasn't any man-made climate change, but nobody's actually going to fucking do anything about it.

I've written one of these blog posts every year, since my suicide attempt, which almost killed me on World Suicide Prevention Day 2017. I write one of these every year, but nothing much changes.

Nothing much changes, but I do now have a million readers every year, visiting my website, looking for information on suicide.

Nothing much changes, but I do spend all my waking hours thinking about suicide. Not just my own suicide, but also other people who are suicidal: I think about how to make some real, meaningful, tangible changes in the world, which actually reduce the number of people committing suicide. Not just the usual bullshit about crisis counselling phone numbers.

Tags: #suicide

This is a story about stamina...

It's been over 13 months since I had a holiday. My holiday plans for last year got really screwed up. I need to have a couple of winter holidays, for mental health reasons - Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) exacerbates my bipolar, and can make me suicidally depressed, as was proven last Christmas. I ended up spending Christmas and New Year in a hospital bed, instead of on a beach, because that's what happens.

Of course I can technically keep working for years, without a holiday. The problem is, I get tired and irritable, which damages my relationship with my colleagues. Nobody wants to work with somebody who's tired and irritable.

The past 13+ months haven't just been a continuous slog at work, without a holiday. The past 13+ months have included an enormous amount of work on a very high-profile project of national importance. There's a lot of pressure. Sure, I thrive on pressure, but not everybody's going to be a fan of my style, when I'm tired and stressed, which is to not suffer any fools gladly; I can be extremely impatient and intolerant of fuckwits.

Of course, if I get the chance to keep working on the project I've been involved with for a long time, then I'm going to have to look after myself. I'm going to have to take some holidays. My health - mental and physical - demands that I take some holidays.

In a lot of ways, it's great for colleagues to have the consistency of me being around, all the time. In other ways, it's bad for me to be around all the time. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and familiarity breeds contempt etc.

One of the bosses who I admired the most, even if I didn't particularly like him, was notoriously short-tempered and impatient. He was extremely quick-witted and blazingly quick at everything he did. I always swore I would never ape his demeanour, because it wasn't very pleasant for colleagues, but when I came to building and running my first startup, I admit that I had a very sharp tongue; I reduced my co-founder to tears.

The boss who I attempt to copy, is a guy who was a 'shit umbrella' for the team: he fended off all the pressure, and kept the workload and general demands at a reasonable level, so that the engineering team could work without unhelpful and annoying people hanging around saying "is it done yet?" constantly. He used to give estimates which were extremely conservative - being over-optimistic, over-promising, will always lead to stress, pressure, being rushed, and ultimately a poor quality, late and disappointing outcome. My ex-boss created a great environment to work in, and I'll never forget that.

As discussed at length, I'm desperate to achieve financial security, and as such there's a great temptation to never take any holiday, when I suffer a double-whammy financial blow when I take a holiday: the loss of earnings AND the cost of the holiday. Of course, it's a false economy if I end up getting sick or losing my job, because I've overworked myself, but I've always taken things to the extreme.

I have no idea how or when I'm going to take a holiday, especially in the context of a second-wave of Coronavirus and the subsequent second lockdown. Already, the UK has more new cases than the UK's own threshold for quarantining visitors from another country. I feel pretty certain that I would end up spending my entire holiday in the hotel room, under quarantine. Another consideration is that I'm now single, and as such, would be holidaying alone, which I would hate.

I do need to take a holiday, and I will always find a way to achieve something if I set my mind to it, but there are many reasons not to take a holiday - money, coronavirus - and the prospect of being abroad, alone, is not enthusing me to the idea.

Tags: #holiday #bipolar #sad #work

This is a story about writing...

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.

Tags: #homeless #debt #career #capitalism #banking #hospital

This is a story about treatment and therapy...

I write about my own personal experiences of depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, suicidal plans and suicide attempts, because that's what I would want to read if I was in crisis. There's a mountain of material on the web about the symptoms of mental illness, dealing with a crisis, coping with suicidal thoughts, counselling, crisis support, mental health teams, crisis teams, doctors, healers, witch doctors, shamen... and all the rest of it.

It's all been done to death.

So, here's what I'm doing: I write.

I've tried absolutely tons of medications, and all of them have undesirable side-effects, and ultimately didn't bring me a good long-term outcome. I refuse to accept that I simply haven't found the right medication, at the right dose, in the right combinations: personally, I've exhausted that avenue, and found it to be a fruitless exercise. That's not to say that medication won't work for you, and you shouldn't try it, but it didn't work for me.

I tried counselling and behavioural therapies. Nope. Probably OK if you're just 'a bit sad' but if you're reading this then you're probably well beyond being 'a bit sad'. That's not to say you shouldn't try therapy. Everyone's different. However, for me personally, I don't think 45 minutes a week is going to fix all my problems, sorry.

It's important to acknowledge, though, that following the treatment routes which have been resoundingly proven to be ineffective, can be a useful distraction which will eat up a few years of your life. Although I can say with certainty that the long-term outcomes are not attractive, in the short term, there's a lot to be gained from the process of learning about all the different medications and trying them out: it'll keep you busy!

Also, we shouldn't underestimate the power of having a kind non-judgemental person, listening to your traumatic story. Being heard is super important; super healing. Having somebody tell you that you did the best with the hand you were dealt, can be incredibly important, to forgive yourself and start to feel better about being unwell; not so guilty or broken.

I write because it's unlimited free therapy. Instead of only having 45 minutes a week with a therapist, my therapist - the blank page upon which I write - is available 24 x 7 x365, and I can spend as long as I want in a therapy session for free. The free part is not to be underestimated: therapy is really expensive (although it might be money well spent if it works for you). Also, the blank page is the world's best listener: it never interrupts, misunderstands, disagrees, challenges, contradicts, argues or otherwise talks back, which is *perfect* as a therapist.

Given that therapy is pretty much just guided introspection, there's no reason why you can't learn the techniques to explore your own thoughts and feelings, without a guide. Now I'm in the habit of sitting down in front of my blank page every day, I find it really easy to explore whatever's bothering me, or to dig into baggage from the past... whatever I want - it's my time and I'm paying for it!

From personal experience, not professional qualification, I really urge you to write on a regular basis, therapeutically. It's helped more than anything else I've tried, by far.

Of course, we would all love to find an authority figure - a doctor or similar high professional status person - who we can put our faith in to 'cure' us and take care of all our problems, but the reality is that depression and anxiety are modern epidemics, and medicine has failed to provide effective treatment; the problems are getting worse, not better. Ultimately, we are - unfortunately - personally responsible for our safety and wellbeing. Much though I wish there was a magic person in a magic building with magic beans, like a doctor in a hospital with some pills, it's turned out to be a massive disappointment... we're on our own.

Of course you should phone the crisis hotline if you're on the brink of committing suicide. Of course you should go to your doctor and take their advice. Of course you should seek professional help. However, if - like me - you've tried all that and found it to be a dismal disappointment, then I imagine that's why you're here, right now, reading this.

Try writing. It helps.

Tags: #suicide #depression #mentalhealth

This is a story about Kim and Kanye...

This is not a story about Kim and Kanye. I don't know anybody called Kim and Kanye. I wrote the title of this essay and the little introductory line because apparently it was newsworthy that somebody wrote something on Instagram. Anyway, I realised that I haven't written much about bipolar recently.

I have a diagnosis of bipolar, but I don't particularly have any symptoms which are bothering me. I've been unmedicated for years and yet I'm fully functional. This is not to say that I think anyone who does use medication to help them with their bipolar is wrong to do so, but it doesn't work for me.

I sure as hell have a mood disorder. I'm suicidally depressed a lot of the time, but I also have periods of extremely high productivity. Sure, I'm very good at managing my condition, such that my friends and colleagues don't really know I've got a major mental health problem, but it doesn't mean it's not causing me any difficulties, despite appearing symptom-free.

I suppose the main problem I'm dealing with is the risk to my life. Being suicidal so often is pretty dangerous, and it's landed me in hospital - in intensive care and high dependency wards - a whole bunch of times. Still, I don't want to be medicated. If I die, I die. I'd rather not have the side-effects of powerful psychiatric medications.

Did I mention how functional I am?

Until I'm not.

I can cruise along just fine for very long periods of time, but then I crash. I always crash. Crashing is inevitable.

I don't think medication is the solution to the crashes. "Mood stabilisers" do not do what they claim to be able to. In fact, "mood stabilisers" can be highly destabilising, as I've found many times from bitter and unpleasant experience.

Certainly, anti-depressants are destabilising, always pushing me manic or at least hypomanic. I want them - obviously - because it's so horrible to be suicidally depressed all the time, but I know they're too destabilising and will cause my life to become chaotic and unmanageable.

So, I struggle along with commonly available mind-altering substances, like alcohol, which is a dreadful substance but I've become very experienced with using it to limp along through life.

I'm persevering with so-called "clean living" where I use a number of techniques to achieve more mood stability, naturally. I keep very strict bedtimes. I keep very strict meal times. I eat a balanced diet. I exercise. I limit my alcohol intake. I avoid all drugs and medications. It seems to be a winning formula. Also, money. Having plenty of money, a low-stress job and secure housing, are all very important pieces of the puzzle. If any one single thing is wrong, it throws my world into chaos and instability; it makes me unwell.

It's pretty dull really, the current story of me and my bipolar. Things are kinda under control and the things I'm doing to keep myself stable are - by design - super boring.

Tags: #bipolar