relationships – Page 4 – Nick Grant

Nick Grant

Tag: relationships

  • Biting Off More Than I Can Chew

    This is a story about feeling overwhelmed…

    Rare steak

    My favourite movie is Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. I am almost able to recite the script, verbatim, from memory. I don’t re-watch films. I don’t re-read books. This movie is my one exception. I’ve seen it dozens of times.

    I don’t tend to use a lot of quotes or epigraphs in my writing. Why would I borrow somebody else’s words when mine say exactly what I want? I’m confident enough in my own thinking and writing abilities to avoid the insecurity of believing that my own words have less value than somebody else’s.

    I do however offer this one quote from my favourite movie:

    “Everyone gets everything he wants. I wanted a mission, and for my sins, they gave me one. Brought it up to me like room service. It was a real choice mission, and when it was over, I never wanted another.” — Captain Willard, Apocalypse Now

    Having spent vast parts of this year tormented by extreme boredom, I am now swamped. I have something to get my teeth into at work, which also has quite a lot of pressure associated with it. I have a creative writing project – my novel – which I’ve been struggling to write due to poor preparation. I have my blog. I have dating. I also need to get fit, resume some of my hobbies, collect my mountain bike from the other side of the country and make some new friends. My work routine is well established and I’m making excellent progress financially, but it’s time consuming and exhausting.

    I wanted to be busy.

    Now I am.

    Never a dull moment, presently, but there’s always something or somebody I’m neglecting. Sleep and a stable routine are early casualties, as I flit between many competing demands. Of course I’m having a lot of fun and I have boundless energy at times, but I crash down and become paralysed by anxiety.

    Earlier today I thought it might be easier to just kill myself, rather than have to get two taxis and a train, wash and dry all my clothes for the week ahead, and drive to the office at the crack of dawn. It was only a fleeting moment of suicidality and it wasn’t particularly serious because I didn’t start to plan the act, but I definitely couldn’t face the heap of tasks ahead of me. It depressed me that my novel and my blog were going to potentially become casualties – so much writing to do.

    I’m somewhat regretting having asked for so much, and been given it all eventually, all in a short space of time. For a while almost none of my needs were being met, and then suddenly I’ve been swamped by everything all at once.

    I can’t quite figure out how to balance all the things I need. Money, challenging work, sleep and intimacy are probably my top four priorities, but each one brings a swathe of other complications. The more things I add into my simple life, the more destabilised I become. I worry that I’m going to end up repeating the mistakes of previous years, when I became over-tired and over-stressed, which pushed me into a state of mania. Mania will be fatal to my career. Mania will be fatal to my relationships. Mania will be fatal to my financial stability.

    I wondered to myself if I’ve made a mistake in being unmedicated. I think I was just desperately sleep deprived though.

    My life violently see-saws between the dread of Sunday night and Monday morning, binge drinking on a Thursday and Friday night, stopping my sleeping pills and tranquillisers at the weekend and suffering dreadful insomnia and anxiety, and some other rather destabilising things, such as dating. I swing between the fear that my life is going to become over-complicated and stressful, and the fear that I’m going to die alone. I know that my simplified life brings vast financial rewards, but the lack of kisses and cuddles is almost unbearable. Living out of a suitcase is awful. Drinking alone is unhealthy. Changing my routine is destabilising and exhausting. Other people are unpredictable.

    It’s a difficult balancing act: trying to live a sustainable and stable life when I’m naturally prone to mood instability, and I am dealing with a number of things which are dreadfully broken.

    This sounds like quite a whinge-fest. On the whole, I have lots of things to be very grateful for. A lot of my problems are nice problems to have.

    I shouldn’t complain.

    I’d rather be busy.

    I wanted a mission.

     

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  • I Am Ridiculously Exposed

    This is a story about laying it all on the line…

    Glasses

    My livelihood, any realistic prospect of me being able to pay back my mountainous debts and the impossible dream of restoring myself to health and wealth – escaping the nightmare – hinges upon successfully blending in as a part of an organisation which is particularly noted for being intolerant of anybody with bad character.

    I’ve been required to fill in a 66 page form which legally obliges me to disclose criminal convictions, psychiatric problems, the abuse of drugs and alcohol, partners from the last 3 years, marriage, divorce, bankruptcies, loan defaults, debt repayment agreements, financial conduct and details about my parents. Most employers are only entitled to know about any unspent criminal convictions, under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, but I work for an organisation that knows everything.

    Of course, I’m ahead of the game, because I’ve already publicly declared every single unflattering thing about myself.

    Luckily I’ve never been convicted of a crime, but there are still some things I’m legally bound to disclose which would portray me in a less-than-ideal light to the powers that be, who will judge me based on what they see on paper. My life and my future will be reduced to a few scribbles on a form.

    Many people have been through rough breakups and divorces and had breakdowns. Many people suffer from mental illness. Many people have had periods where they’ve drunk too much or dabbled with recreational drugs. Nobody is squeaky clean.

    I’m in the ludicrous situation where I’m more-or-less managing to plod along and keep my mouth shut, and demonstrate that I’m a competent and capable valuable team member at work, but I’ve continued to write and publish this blog using my real name. I’ve continued to write with unflinching honesty about some of the terrible stuff I’ve been through and the aftermath of problems I’m dealing with, as I desperately attempt to get back on my feet.

    I’m in the ludicrous situation where my hard work is beginning to pay off and my debts are getting rapidly repaid. I’m in the ludicrous situation where there’s an end in sight, provided nobody screws me over.

    It appears to be self-sabotaging that I would continue to write and publish stuff which makes me so exposed and vulnerable, but in fact my online presence has been one of the big factors in my recovery. Without being able to share my story and connect with kind supportive people, I couldn’t have gotten this far. Without having the sense of identity, pride in my achievement and the structure and routine that daily public writing gives me – the scrutiny – then I would have been destroyed by my problems and would have perished in obscurity long ago.

    Whaddya want to know about me?

    Trouble with the police? Sure. I got caught with legal highs a couple of times.

    Psychiatric problems? They don’t call me Nick “Manic” Grant for no reason. I make no secret of having bipolar disorder.

    Drug and alcohol abuse? Not the former anymore but the latter is a bit of a problem, although my drinking doesn’t seem to be any more abusive than that of most of my colleagues. Arguably I’m successfully self-medicating, because I’m functional and unmedicated.

    Partners from the last 3 years? I haven’t co-habited since separating from my wife.

    Marriage and divorce? Tied the knot in Hawaii. Divorced 18 months later.

    Bankruptcies and other debt problems? I pay my bills. I’ve never defaulted. I’m a good debtor.

    Financial conduct and credit score? I need to pay back half my credit card debt ASAP but that’s the only bad thing on my credit file.

    Parents? They’re not seditious traitors. They’re not Russian, Chinese or terrorist sympathisers. They’re not political agitators.

    What about my character in general? I’ve had a successful career spanning more than 2 decades, working for some very big organisations on important projects. If I was some kind of fraudster or con artist, my true character would surely have been unmasked by now.

    There’s a lot written down here which could easily be twisted and used against me by somebody intent on casting me in a bad light. I write a lot of things about myself which are very unflattering and wouldn’t usually be publicly declared by people. I spend a lot of time asking people to take the things I voluntarily tell them and to decide for themselves how they want to judge me.

    It’s a ridiculous thing to do.

    For one reason or another I’ve become easier and easier to find, for anybody who bothers to look. Because of a recent mistake I made I’ve become even easier to find than ever before. All the effort that I’ve put into projecting myself into public consciousness, because I’ve been on the verge of suicide for so long, is finally gaining traction and I’m becoming a victim of my decision to make myself exposed and vulnerable.

    Every time I write and publish I have to consider the consequences to my life. I have to make a decision between my ideological belief that we have a right to live with the freedom to be proud of our identities and to be open and honest, without fear. If we really live in a free country I should be free to be candid and not suffer persecution and tyranny. If we honestly believe in equal opportunities and our laws forbidding discrimination, then we need to take the brave and bold step of speaking without fear of repercussions.

    This vast repository of information that I’ve created is the polar opposite of a 66 page form, designed to distill me down to a few ticks in boxes. This 1.1 million word document is intended to frustrate the reader who is looking for a convenient pigeon hole to stuff me into.

    Do your worst. I’m not afraid.

     

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  • Notes From My Disastrous Dating Experiences

    This is a story about romantic aspirations in the provinces…

    Nick in pink

    It would unforgivable of me to kiss and tell but I feel the urge to share with you – dear reader – the trials and tribulations of an urbane metrosexual man’s attempts to find love outside the capital city, in places which might politely be described as: the arse-end of nowhere.

    The first thing that becomes immediately apparent, when venturing onto the dating scene in the provinces. is the priority which young adults have placed upon having rampant quantities of unprotected sex and producing as many unfortunate single-parent children as possible, with no economic means to pay for them. Did these people never receive any sex education? Have they never heard of condoms, the pill, the rhythm method, anal sex, oral sex or simply pulling out and ejaculating in any direction away from the the birth canal? What the fuck were they thinking?

    Accidents don’t “happen”. We aren’t organisms with pea-sized brains. We have birth control, the morning-after pill AND abortions. Why the big hurry to bring an innocent child who didn’t ask to be born, into a world where you can’t afford to pay for its upbringing? Idiocy.

    So, there needs to be a certain amount of sifting through all the cretinous idiots who are no more intelligent than a herd of humping beasts, spawning offspring without any restraint, planning or any semblance of rational thought.

    Relationships can break down irreparably, I accept that. Despite 8 long hard years banging my head against a brick wall, my own longest relationship was broken beyond repair and I got divorced. My ex-wife and I didn’t have any children, which was my choice because I wanted to stabilise my mental health before making an irreversible life-changing decision to procreate. However, I can imagine that some perfectly decent nice intelligent people have had children, only to later find out that they’re met with irreconcilable differences and their relationship cannot be salvaged, even for the sake of the children.

    I was unquestionably influenced by my parents’ relationship, which was toxic and abusive. I use the word “abuse” with a little caution, because it means a lot of things to a lot of different people, but what I mean is that my parents were absolute assholes to each other and everyone around them. They were co-dependent alcoholic druggies; selfish cunts. They stayed together, perhaps correctly sensing that mean-spirited selfish self-centred people who drink and take drugs, and have failed at life, are not highly in-demand people. They clung together because they were the only people who’d support each others’ lies and fantasies, justifying their obnoxious treatment of everyone around them.

    I grew up believing that a person should be loyal and work at a relationship no matter how toxic it is; to put up with any amount of abuse.

    I guess that’s why I ended up in an abusive relationship myself.

    This is how I remember things progressed:

    1. Date one: She liked me lots; I was full of confidence. She wanted more. I held back because I had serious feelings about her.
    2. Date two: She thought I was great. She ‘accidentally’ invited herself into my place.
    3. Date three: I treated her like a princess
    4. Date four: She left me waiting for 30 minutes outside her place. I told myself I was going to leave after an hour, because it was a shitty thing to stand me up. She turned up after 45 minutes. I said I was going to go because it was no way to treat somebody. She begged me to stay.
    5. Some dates later: she got in a strange mood when we were out with friends. When we got back home to her place she told me to leave. I asked her why. She wouldn’t tell me. She threatened to call the police, which I said was unnecessary, I just didn’t understand… could she explain? She flew into a rage, destroyed some curtains and slammed some doors. Then she calmed down and said she was glad I stayed. She thanked me for being loyal and patient We made love and everything seemed OK.
    6. We went on holiday together. I casually suggested living together and she was enthusiastic. She openly said she was swept off her feet by my open-hearted romanticism.
    7. I gave up my apartment paid for by JPMorgan to be closer to her workplace. She was angry and aggressive a lot. I cried a lot. One time when I was crying, she punched me in the face several times.
    8. When she got angry, I sliced my wrist open with a knife. She briefly got more angry, but it temporarily stopped her rage in its tracks.
    9. When she got angry, I smashed a mirror; a bed.
    10. I asked her dad permission to marry her. I bought her the engagement ring of her dreams.
    11. Two of my best friends came to visit. She flew into an inexplicable rage. I threw her engagement ring out of the window.
    12. She raged with anger about everything in my life I held dear: kitesurfing, my friends from London and all over the UK. Nothing I could do would make her happy. I isolated myself. I gave up everything. I became a prisoner of her unpredictable rage.
    13. We fought. She’d had her three strikes. She’d broken my nose, given me black eyes. I’d lied to my work colleagues about my black eyes. I’d lied to her parents about my black eyes. I’d lied to our friends about my black eyes. Now we fought. Two of us, fighting. We beat the shit out of each other.
    14. I went back to self-harming; smashing stuff. I was suicidal. She cheated on me.
    15. I caught her cheating. She was nice to me. I forgave her. It was nice that she was being nice to me.
    16. She was strong and I was weak. I needed to get out of that toxic relationship before I died. She said “I’d rather be a widow than divorced”. She knew I had 2 grams of potassium cyanide. She knew she stood to gain a vast sum of money from my life insurance and the value of my house. She marked my suicide note in red pen and told me if I went to hospital she’d leave me.
    17. I went to hospital. We separated. We divorced.

    That’s my long-term relationship experience.

    My first girlfriend was the nicest person in the world – which was an on-off relationship spanning a couple of years. I remember my second girlfriend fondly – a relationship lasting about 18 months. Then, there was 8 years of hell, which I feel completely equally responsible for: I should have walked away. Subsequent girlfriends were all relatively short-lived, but they were all wonderful. My longest relationship since my wife was with the love of my life, which lasted 9 blissful months, ending in calamity when I was driven insane by sleep deprivation and a toxic cocktail of prescription medications and other things, such that I temporarily believed that she didn’t care about me and I decided to break up with her in a very regrettably – and irreparably – public manner, given the fact we both have Twitter accounts with reasonably large numbers of followers (although, many work colleagues are followers of her, causing the unforgivable reputational damage).

    “What the fuck are you doing with that madman?” her colleagues must have asked.

    She would have defended me.

    She was loyal.

    I loved her. She loved me.

    But I was stubbornly ridiculous. At the time, my brain said to me “I’ll never end up in another abusive relationship” but my thoughts were horribly twisted and corrupted; unreliable. To say anything bad about my poor ex-girlfriend would do her a terrible disservice. My amazing ex-girlfriend was incredibly attentively and at my bedside constantly for weeks when my kidneys failed. She was faultless, always.

    Presently I’ve been consigned to the provinces, where I’m punished; cursed to suffer for my foolishness. Wimmin, wimmin, everywhere, and if none of them seem to meet my exacting standards then it’s only because of the awful way I’ve treated – particularly – my last serious girlfriend. My ex cared for me so much, loved me and and demonstrated the loyalty I so desperately craved, but I threw it away during a hyper-complex period of joblessness, debt, mental health issues and drug abuse relapse, when I felt like an complete-and-utter failure. Insecurity destroyed me, despite her making me feel great about myself and working really hard to make sure I was OK. She looked after me. She put so much effort into looking after me.

    So, now, today, I’m a 39-year-old man who’s gotten badly out of shape and carries a whole heap of baggage.

    “What car do you drive?”

    “What job do you do?”

    “Do you own your own house?”

    “Show me your bank balance”

    “What’s your net worth?”

    “Do you think you could afford to provide a life of idle luxury for me and my fatherless children?”

    These are the questions which I face in the provincial dating game.

    When I’m not looking my wallet is slipped from my pocket and felt for its fatness.

    I’m not-so-silently judged as the sucker who’s gonna pick up the tab for all that badly thought through unprotected sex and all those irrational decisions to not terminate unaffordable pregnancies.

    This is my penance for not walking away from an abusive relationship – and admittedly becoming a so-called consensual partner in co-dependency – and also for throwing away relationships with some amazing women. This is my penance for my wrongdoing: to be somewhat trapped in the provinces, where every woman’s dating profile picture has a Snapchat filter applied to her face, sending barely-literate messages saying: “If you’re ex-girlfriends we’re so great then how come there no longer wiv U? Their a bunch of snooty bitches wot kno grammar innit. Your fucking up youself U posh twat. They’re’s the truth layed out for you bear.”

    They do not mean “bear” in a cute cuddly way.

     

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  • Nick Grant

    This is a story about secret identities and alter egos…

    Nick Grant's glasses

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

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

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

    The last 36 months could be summarised thus:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

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  • Paradoxical Rage

    This is a story about losing my temper…

    Ruined shoe

    I’m blessed with the ability to observe reality and analyse it using pure reason and logic; in fact it’s a prerequisite of my chosen career – to be able to decompose the world into systems which can be modelled mathematically inside a computer. Computer science is good science, because in its very essence it’s repeatable. If an experiment is not repeatable it’s not science. So many experiments in psychology, biology and fringe pseudosciences are not repeatable at all – when those experiments are re-run, the supposedly statistically significant findings cannot be reproduced. Even many so-called scientists are prone to being led by their gut instincts and preconceived ideas – they draw completely incorrect conclusions from their data, and publish findings which are simply bad science because they’re based on small sample sets and incorrect assumptions.

    A lot of scientists invent a hypothesis and devise an experiment to prove or disprove the theory, then when they find that their experimental findings do not support their theory, they look at all the data and attempt to reverse-engineer a theory from the results. For example, let’s say that it’s my theory that people with red hair have anger issues, and so I go out onto the streets and ask anyone with red hair to complete a survey for me, as well as a number of control subjects. When I crunch the data, I find that there’s no evidence that the redheads are more angry than the control group. Instead of abandoning the research as fruitless, I look again at the data and I find out that a lot of 18 to 24 year olds have scored highly on the “anger scale” based on the surveys they filled in. Thus, I conclude that this age group has anger issues, and publish my findings as if that was the original theory being tested. This is flawed science, because there was no underlying theory or hypothesis which existed before I did my experiment, and my experiment was not designed to prove or disprove the theory which I’m publishing. I’m pretending I’ve discovered something profound and important, when I haven’t. If the experiment is repeated the results vary wildly – at prestigious universities, the 18 to 24 year olds are not angry at all, and in former industrial towns with high unemployment the 40 to 50 year olds are even more angry than the original group. Thus, the experiment is not at all repeatable and the published conclusions are worthless.

    We are often so eager to reach a profound conclusion that we believe we have discovered a universal truth, when in fact we’ve discovered nothing. We are keen to talk in absolute terms and declare things to be fixed and immutable, when in fact the world around us is constantly shapeshifting, making it virtually impossible to tease out cause and effect – feedback loops obfuscate the fundamental laws which govern reality, so it’s ludicrous to talk about macroscopic matters as if they can be examined in isolation and behaviour will be consistent no matter what the surrounding circumstances are.

    Human mood, perceptions and behaviour are particularly fickle, and to believe that a person can be simplified to the point where they behave in a predictable manner according to a convenient model or label, is laughable. To say a person is “an angry man” or to damn somebody’s character with a label like Borderline Personality Disorder, is not only useless but also leads to completely incorrect beliefs, in much the same way that the 12 signs of the zodiac tell you absolutely nothing about a person’s character and temperament. Not only is each individual unique, but their character and behaviour will be different dependent on their ever-changing circumstances. It might be possible to corner a person and bludgeon them to death, but it really doesn’t tell you very much if you limited their options and inflicted atrocities upon them. So desperate are a group of powerful elites to believe that their theories are correct, that they’ll physically restrain and force vulnerable people to comply with their flawed belief system, learning only that the more artificial constraints a person suffers the more frustrated and dysfunctional they become.

    Rage can be paradoxical, but so can positive reactions and behaviours. We might believe that if somebody draws a knife or a gun, our only response should be to draw a weapon of our own in defence, which will then neutralise the situation. It seems fairly obvious that in fact there are a range of available options, some of which will have much more positive outcomes than “comply or die” diktat. Of course, somebody can pull rank or badge and say that they are acting with authority in imposing their tyranny on another human being – claiming it to be in the best interests of an individual or society – but in fact we can surely see from the available evidence that this is not successful at all.

    I’ve suffered bouts of paradoxical rage. I’ve become obsessively and disproportionately angry about things, and my anger has been completely misplaced. The crap on the side of my leather shoe – pictured above – was from a walk through a garden in winter time, so far as I could remember, but I suddenly became angry about it the following summer. I apportioned blame, becoming more and more entrenched in my belief that some compensation was owed to me. I got increasingly angry and frustrated about the issue, and I was soon completely consumed by an obsession that the matter had to be settled immediately. It felt at the time as if I’d suffered the most terrible injustice imaginable.

    That the matter of the ruined shoe was resolved was somehow the very last thing I wanted. My rage was nonsensical and my demands were unreasonable; my blame was misplaced. I was completely in the wrong and I suppose I knew it all along, but my world had inverted and rational thought eluded me. I suppose I’ve lived most of my life with the burden of being the rational person who’s been forced to suffer other people’s illogical bulls**t, so very occasionally I flip out and cross over into the world which most people inhabit, where fuzzy-headed dunces perpetrate unspeakable acts of violence against anybody who doesn’t do what they want.

    I received a pair of replacement shoes, which immediately caused me to return to my senses. I was flooded with disbelief, shame, embarrassment, guilt and regret. Not only could I not believe that – for once – the world had bent to my nonsensical will, instead of vice-versa, but I was gobsmacked that I’d been so obsessed and insanely angry; my anger was completely ridiculous and misplaced. My logic and reasoning had evaporated and I’d behaved just like an average ordinary person; I perpetrated a terrible tyranny until the result complied with what I stubbornly believed; until I got what I wanted. As soon as I got the result I thought with horror “what have I done?”. As soon as my point was seemingly proven, I knew with certainty that the very opposite was true – I had acted abominably and my thinking was plain wrong all along; my behaviour was outrageously unjustified.

    If we step back and consider the bigger picture, we might consider that I was involved in an abusive relationship for many years, where rage and violence trumped logic and reason, and I was viciously tyrannised. I had never known known love, as my parents sought to impose their iron will over me and thought of me as an animal to be made obedient, compliant and robotic in its behaviour, through abuse. I spent about 8 years in a relationship with an aggressive psychopath who completely tormented, dominated and subdued me. Considering this, the shoe incident can be understood thusly: the most important relationships in my life had never contained any love or care for me or my feelings. The shoe incident caused me to completely reverse my stance when the reaction to my unreasonable behaviour was clearly an act of love and care; an act of kindness, the likes of which I had always hoped to receive but had never gotten from my parents or ex-wife. I had demanded proof that there are decent people in the world, and I had not been disappointed – at last – despite all the years when I had the very great misfortune of being tortured, trapped and tyrannised by abusive bullies.

    My eternally optimistic hope that my strategy of being unguarded, open, trusting and loving, despite the very great risk of getting hurt, has been very successful since I cut my parents and ex-wife out of my life. I suppose I carry more baggage than I’m aware of, and it’s certainly alarming that my behaviour has on a couple of occasions, mirrored that of the horrible tyrants who I suffered at the hands of. However, I on the other hand, respond immediately and positively to love and kindness, unlike my parents and ex-wife who’s only objective was to subdue, control and abuse me… they never felt guilt or regret for dominating me and crushing me under their heel; they never saw their own behaviour as abhorrent, even though it was undoubtedly so.

    My life’s had maybe just three incredibly uncharacteristic fits of seemingly inexplicable rage, under the most extreme circumstances imaginable. Logic and reason eluded me and I fleetingly believed crazy things and acted in the most extreme and unreasonable way. My misbehaviour became quickly apparent to me – with sudden realisation – and has left me with nothing but sorrow, regret and guilt. I have no entrenched stubborn belief that my thoughts and actions could be explained or justified, unlike the total assholes who abused, traumatised, tyrannised, bullied and dominated me for far too many years of my life. If it sounds like I’m excusing my behaviour, I’m not. I live with my guilt, unlike those assholes.

    I would say that alcohol and benzodiazepines play a very important role in disinhibiting thoughts, feelings and behaviours, which potentiates paradoxical rage. I don’t think I would have meandered so far from the path of logic and reason, and been so stubbon and unreasonable – closed minded – if my brain chemistry hadn’t been substantially destabilised by psychoactive substances.

    I firmly believe that if you want to defend yourself you should lower your guard. If you want to de-escalate a situation you should be kind, not aggressive. If you want love, love.

     

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  • One Year in Pictures – a Photo Story

    This is a story about the last 12 months…

    London sunset

    The story begins in London, looking out at the skyline of the capital from my balcony. This is the last photo I took from my apartment in London before I had to leave to go chasing cash… I was practically bankrupt.

    Self storage

    That’s everything I own all boxed up and put into self storage. That’s all the stuff I’ve managed to hang onto through the past few years. I’m amazed I even managed to accumulate and retain this much stuff, considering that a few years ago I was homeless and even sleeping rough. In a way, it’s liberating that my life can be boxed up and moved so easily.

    Packed suitcase

    That’s all I could manage to carry on the train to Manchester, leaving my beloved home city of London. I’ll always think of London as home first and foremost, because I’ve spent more time there than anywhere else. Yes, I got my ass kicked, but the place was relatively kind to me. I’ve still got plenty of friends there, at least.

    Manchester apartment block

    Here’s the apartment block where I was moving to. I’d never set foot in Manchester before in my life. I’d never been inside the apartment. I didn’t know anybody in the city. In fact, I hardly know anybody in the North of England. In retrospect it was insane to move to Manchester, but I was desperate – I was bankrupt and I couldn’t afford to pay the rent in London anymore, so homelessness and destitution were imminent. I did what I had to do.

    Ironing board

    I was lonely but there were girls. I was so busy with my work that there wasn’t a lot of time for making new friends. I was really gutted about a breakup a couple of months earlier – she was such an amazing girlfriend – and it seemed to make sense at the time to meet somebody new. It made things more bearable, having a partner.

    Tramadol capsules

    Things were fragile; delicate. I was under so much pressure and I’d been through such emotional upheaval leaving my home and moving to a new city, as well as the exhaustion and the stress of it all. I often thought about killing myself. I even took this photo of one of the boxes of capsules I used as part of my massive overdose suicide attempt.

    Psych ward

    Psych ward. Not just any psych ward – this was a PICU (Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit) and my fellow patients were very sick. I arrived here after my suicide attempt, having spent days in a coma on life support.

    Nettles

    Wales. What the hell was I doing in Wales? I might’ve been born in Wales but I’ve never lived here. The hospital were going to discharge me into some kind of supported housing, but I had no idea where in the country I was going to be housed. I’ve got no local connections anywhere. I could have stayed in hospital and taken a gamble on social services finding me somewhere tolerable to live, but instead I accepted the kind offer from a doctor who read my blog – I moved into their converted garage. I was homeless and it was the state’s responsibility to house me because I was vulnerable, but there was too much danger I’d end up housed somewhere where I didn’t know anybody. It turned out the doctor was married to somebody my friend was friends with… there was a connection.

    Warsaw snow

    Warsaw. What the hell was I doing in Warsaw? I needed money and I needed it fast. An old friend put in a good word for me with his boss and the next thing I knew I was packing my bags for a business trip to Poland.

    Busy underground

    London again. This time I was commuting from Wales and living in AirBnBs. I stayed in 12 different AirBnBs. It was a horrible existence, spent on trains and in really crappy accommodation. I nearly ran out of money. It was unbelievably stressful, having to pretend like everything was OK and normal, when in actual fact I’d already been through 6 months of hell and things were worse than ever. I was no fixed abode, living off the charity of a doctor who read my blog and emailed me, and I was almost out of cash but I still had to get to work every day and pretend like everything was normal.

    Train cancelled

    Dating again. I decided that there was no point in dating in London because I didn’t plan on staying in London for any more than another couple of months… I couldn’t stand the commuting and the AirBnBs. I was dating, but I still didn’t have any money, or a car, or an apartment – I was still virtually bankrupt and no fixed abode. What the hell was I doing dating?

    Garage

    I got a local job. That meant I needed a car so I could get to work. I had a horrendous chest infection, but I needed a car and I needed one fast. I barely had enough money for the car, the road tax and the insurance. In fact, I didn’t have enough money – I had to go into even more debt in order to get myself back on the road.

    Apartment keys

    I managed to rent an apartment. That was stressful. They were asking for the whole 12 months rent up-front at one point. I was struggling to prove that I was able to pay the rent, of course… I’d spent the past 9 months on the brink of bankruptcy so of course I was worried that my credit score was destroyed and I wouldn’t be able to rent an apartment. Once again, I spent every penny I could lay my hands on and went deeper into debt, but I desperately wanted some security… a place to call home with a legally binding tenancy agreement… no longer dependent on the charity of the kind people who’d let me live in their converted garage.

    Cod and chips

    A brief moment of domestic bliss. I had a car, an apartment, a local job and a local girlfriend. We were a “dinky” couple – dual income, no kids. We ate out or had takeaway nearly every night, or cooked luxury ready meals. We were planning a holiday together.

    Baked beans

    Easy come, easy go. I broke up with my girlfriend. The work project had been completed and the local company were letting me go. My windows were covered with paper so nobody could see in and I was eating cold baked beans out of a can with a business card as an improvised spoon.

    Holiday

    Instead of a week lying on a sun lounger by the swimming pool, on holiday, I managed to snatch a weekend mini-break to a European city with an old friend. It was exhausting, but of course great to see my friend. My week-long holiday was cancelled. I haven’t had a proper holiday for 2 years.

    Leaving gift

    A leaving gift from my local job. They got me a card and everything. The gift was alcohol. It was a nice gesture. I like alcohol.

    Time to talk

    Another day another dollar. I got another job. It’s still in Wales but it’s 90 minutes drive away in rush hour traffic. My mental health is destroyed and I find it ironic that there are posters everywhere in the office saying “it’s OK to talk about mental health” but there’s an unwritten rule that says I’m supposed to be a reliable, steady, dependable worker who never complains and just gets on with the project… I’m not allowed to take sick days. I’m back living out of a suitcase again. I’m still a long way away from where I need to be.

    Pint in the pub

    This is my life now. Drinking in the pub next to the hotel, which is near my new office. My new colleagues are nice – and super smart – and the project is interesting, I guess, but I really need a bunch of local friends, a local girlfriend etc. etc. and I could really do without the loneliness and the boredom and the isolation and the pressure and the stress, which are all as present as ever.

    A pretty crazy 12-month rollercoaster ride. I’m very surprised that I’m still alive.

     

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  • Leave my Art the F**k Alone

    This is a story about bullies and abusers…

    Thought bubble

    I only have a couple of months left to go and I’ll have hopefully achieved my ambition of writing a million words in 3 years – the world’s longest suicide note – and the most comprehensive, candid and unflinching glimpse inside the mind of a dead man walking.

    “We didn’t know” and “he seemed fine” and “what could we have done differently?” are the kinds of things that haunt the people after somebody has committed suicide.

    Well, there are no excuses here – I’ve made my very best attempt to write on a daily basis, all the things – most of which are very practical – which have driven me to attempt suicide. Eventually, I will die at my own hands.

    To imagine that there’s a doctor, psychiatrist or other charlatan out there who’s got the f**king cure, means you’re more delusional and insane than I am. Take a good look around you – things are getting worse not better; more and more people are feeling depressed; suicide has gotten so bad that it’s the number one thing that’s gonna kill a man like me, yet there are no pills that work, psychological treatments which are available to anybody but the extremely wealthy or indeed any offer of safe sanctuary for those of us who can’t guarantee our own safety… we’re a danger to ourselves. Check the data – we are suffering an epidemic of mental health problems. Every piece of objective data you can gather says the same thing: so-called ‘medicine’ is not making people better, and things are getting worse and worse.

    Writing this blog is my therapy. It’s the rock I’m clinging onto, shipwrecked in a storm as the rain lashes down and giant waves threaten to drown me. This blog gives me pride in what I’ve achieved, despite the adversity I’ve faced. More than anything else, this blog is MY PRECIOUS ARTWORK which is 90% complete, but it’s fragile… don’t fuck with it.

    I was attacked by proxy. A horrible person got a muscly bully to invade my home and force me – with threats and intimidation – to delete quite a lot of blog posts. That coward is using their macho friends, colleagues – whoever – to coerce me to submit to their will. You can beat the living shit out of me if you like, vandalise my car, smash up my stuff, but don’t f**k with my motherf**king art. If you’re hiding behind your muscly bullies, thinking you can fuck my art up and you’re safe because you’re protected by your macho ‘protectors’ then you’ve underestimated how much it’s hurting me… beyond a certain point you’ll have hurt me so much that I don’t care if your thugs kill me; the treats and intimidation won’t matter any more. You’re such a coward and you’re so horrible for trying to f**k up the one thing that’s most precious to me, via your proxies.

    Hands off my art. It means so much to me that I’m prepared to suffer whatever the consequences are for standing up to the bullies and those who threaten me; invade my home; intimdate and force me – literally standing over me making threats – to destroy my art.

    I’m not sure how many thousands of words were lost when my home was invaded and I was threatened, intimidated and forced by a macho proxy to delete parts of my artwork, but even a single word is too many. I was forced to delete a picture of a sausage, for f**k’s sake. Having that level of control over somebody’s 3-year project, while thinking you’re safely protected and your macho proxies are doing your dirty work… that’s despicable. Words don’t come easily. 1 million words don’t come easily. 3 years on a single project is not easy. If you f**k with it you’re hurting me more than you can possibly imagine.

    If you think there’s a vindictive vengefulness bubbling under the surface here, think about how you’d feel if somebody took a knife to one of your children and left a scar across their face – that’s how I feel about this artwork being f**ked with. Every time I look at this blog, I’m reminded that there’s a scar… when a thug forced their way into my home and threatened and intimidated me, and wrecked my artwork.

    I’m a desperate man with nothing to lose. All I’ve got is my art – my 3-year project – so the hurt you cause me if you f**k with it is incalculable.

     

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  • Good Job

    This is a story about decay…

    Decaying plant

    Here is a photo-diary which records the decay and decomposition of my little local life. It’s the perfect metaphor.

    The plant was a gift, meant to cheer me up when I was unhappy in London. Soon after receiving this gift I got a local job – a “good job” – and I kept the plant on my desk.

    You can see that by the third picture in the sequence (bottom left) that my plant was struggling; unhealthy. I tried to revive it by putting it on some wet tissue paper, so that it could suck up some much needed moisture.

    I think the combination of air conditioning and no natural light eventually killed my plant, just like it drained all the life out of me, just like it killed my local relationship and just like it somehow killed my “good job”.

    I now have neither the relationship, the plant or the “good job”.

    Somebody should chuck me on the compost heap.

     

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  • I’m Sick of Moving

    This is a story about putting down roots…

    Cardboard boxes

    It looks like the smartest short-term decision for me right now is to go back to London. Third time lucky, maybe.

    London was amazing the first time, so I guess third time lucky is not really accurate.

    London was pretty amazing when I went back, but my damn acrimonious divorce and evil ex-wife conspired to disrupt and destroy my chances of re-establishing myself back in the capital. I’d reconnected with lots of old friends, incorporated a company and had started doing business. The last thing I needed was the distraction of the divorce, so I went and sold my house to a cash buyer – I had the sale organised within a few hours, and should have completed with cash in the bank in about 6 weeks…. except my evil ex-wife sabotaged the whole thing and put it back on the market with the worst estate agent she could find, and accepted an offer – for the same amount as I’d already agreed with the cash buyer – from some clueless idiots who were part of some horrible chain.

    Said same evil ex-wife then tried to screw me over with the division of the house sale proceeds, which was a more than fair and reasonable 50:50 split. The contracts had been exchanged and the deposit had been paid. I was quite happy to have us both get sued if she wanted to drag things on any longer… she’d already delayed everything by 3 or 4 months. My final signature was needed for completion and if I didn’t give it, we’d have breached our contract. So, I didn’t give it until I had it in writing that she’d take her 50% and let me get the hell on with my life. She’s an idiot, because I’d have gladly paid more if she’d just let me get on with rebuilding my life in London.

    So, that changed the complexion of my second jaunt back to the capital completely. Gone was the momentum of my new business. Gone was my new girlfriend. Gone was a holiday I’d been planning on treating myself to. Gone was every bit of optimism and energy, wasted on worrying about cashflow and legal wranglings with one of the most thoroughly unpleasant individuals I’ve ever had the misfortune of dealing with.

    I never quite caught up. You need a lot of money behind you if you’re going to get ahead in London. If you haven’t got the working capital – the comfortable financial cushion – you’ll never be able to handle the challenges of the city AND fret about money.

    Out of pride and stubbornness, I tried and failed and tried and failed again. I kept almost but not quite reaching the point where I was financially comfortable, only for the stress and effort of it all to finally scupper me, plus some bad luck too. I lost a contract simply because I refused to kiss the arse of one guy who thought he was indispensable. They terminated my contract, and then the guy who did it got the sack for getting rid of me. Another time, I was just too exhausted from living in a hostel while working on one of the most demanding projects – and indeed important projects – I’ve ever worked on in my life. I got myself out of the hostel and into my own apartment, but the stress and exhaustion of it made me very unwell. I tried to get myself sacked while I was on holiday in San Francisco, so I could stay for longer, but they didn’t take the bait – I got sacked as soon as I walked back into the office, which I knew I would.

    I took a shitty contract in a shitty part of Greater London. That was awful, but I did it out of necessity.

    Finally, I got a great contract, great team, great project, great company… then my kidneys failed and I was on emergency dialysis on a high dependency ward for weeks. DVT in my leg. Nerve damage. Unbelievable pain.

    That was me done for. Broke. Game over. I was lucky to escape bankruptcy.

    Now, I’ve had a little taste of small town provincial life, and it’s OK. I liked it when I could drive to work and walk to my girlfriend’s house. I liked it when my income was 20 times as much as my rent, and I was living like a king… or at least I’d have been able to if the gravy train had continued to run on it’s scheduled timetable.

    There’s no opportunities here. It’s a small place. I was lucky to have a few months when I had it all, but I always knew that when it came to an end, there wouldn’t be anything else here for me that’s comparable.

    No girlfriend. No job.

    Gone off the place a bit.

    I had a look at what London has to offer and I’ll be increasing my already obscene income by 50% if I go back there. Make hay while the sun shines. Get rich quick, or die trying. The number of jobs I’d be a perfect match for was quite staggering… so reassuring to know that I’ve got the right skills that still command such high remuneration.

    There’s nothing round here. At least, nothing for somebody who’s trying to get ahead. I’m sick of being behind. I’m sick of playing catch-up.

    If I go back to London and keep this Welsh seaside town as my primary residence, I can live on expenses – my rent, meals, travel… all that will be reducing my tax bill as well as giving me a lovely lifestyle. No more shitty AirBnBs and pot noodles. I can have my own little central London apartment and eat takeaway every night. I can take black cabs everywhere and even reclaim the expenses of having my suits dry cleaned, shirts laundered and shoes shone. What the hell am I doing, having to cook, clean and do laundry, in this sleepy seaside town where I don’t know anybody except for my ex-girlfriend and some of her friends, who all hate me.

    I can go on Tinder and there will be gazillions of drop-dead gorgeous highly educated well travelled professional career women, who are pretty up-front about what they want. Tinder in this Welsh seaside town has 15 identical looking Snapchat filter photos of women who look like they’ve put make up on with a trowel and can’t string a sentence together, and then that’s it – you’ve swiped them all left, and there’s no more to swipe.

    I shouldn’t do the place down, because it makes sense if you’ve got your wife & kids sorted and mortgage paid off, plus a big fat wedge of cash in the bank, but it makes no sense at all for me to be here, single and still struggling to get back to a position of financial security.

    So, at some point I’m going to push the button and the calls will come flooding in and the contract negotiations will start, and before I know it I’ll be on the train back to London, except I’m not slumming it this time.

    When I sign on the dotted line for my third attempt at making things work in London, I’ll be going to live in a serviced apartment, and I’ll be living there for the duration of the contract. I’ve got my little seaside retreat – my second home – where I can leave most of my stuff, but I’ll also have a permanent base in the capital, where I can leave my suits and shirts and smart shoes and everything else I need midweek.

    If I hesitate, I’ll just burn through all the cash I’ve managed to tuck away during the last 6 months of nonstop hard work. If I hesitate, I’ll lose all the ground I’ve gained. If I hesitate, I’ll lose momentum. If I hesitate, self-doubt will creep in and I’ll dither and dawdle.

    I might be sick of moving, but as long as I’m able to keep on sending my invoices every month, and every month my net worth moves rapidly from the negative to the positive, there’s a tiny glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. I might be sick of proving myself over and over and over again, and having the stress of yet more reference checks, security vetting, credit checks and criminal records checks, but in London if one contract doesn’t work out, there are literally hundreds of others. If one relationship doesn’t work out, the London is literally jam-packed with mind-blowingly beautiful intelligent women who have dedicated themselves to their careers, and are making themselves known to be single via the Tinder app.

    I have friends in London. I know my way around. There’s a drinking/socialising culture, instead of the “going home to the wife and kids” culture of the provinces. What am I doing here in this place where I suddenly feel so out of place?

    In the blink of an eye, I’ll be available again – back on the market.

    In 2 or 3 weeks, I’ll be meeting my new team and learning about my new project; my next opportunity.

    It’s actually quite exciting. It’s a fresh start in a place I already know and love. It’s another opportunity to stick two fingers up at my ex-wife for ruining my chance to have a clean break and rebuild my life back in London. It’s another roll of the dice – maybe I’ll be lucky this time and I’ll prove I can make it work. I’ve certainly tipped the odds massively in my favour.

    I’m sick at the moment, of course. My mania must be plain as day to anybody who has any dealings with me. My colleagues kindly and patiently indulge my endless stream of ideas and words, delivered so fast they can’t keep up, but it’s good timing: things are late and everybody’s stressed. To the uneducated eye, it just looks like I care a lot about the end of the project, as opposed to being in a fully-blown manic episode in the middle of an office full of mild-mannered civil servants, who normally move at glacial speed, as is the way of the public sector.

    I’m sick, but I haven’t pissed anybody off or burnt any bridges yet. I’m sick, but I do remember to shut up and try to act normal once in a while. I’m sick, but I obviously made enough of a good impression that I’m being given the benefit of the doubt.

    I’m sick and I’m sick of moving, but move I must. I must move and I must maintain momentum.

     

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  • Break Up With Bad People

    This is a story about relationship strategies…

    Image is not related

    If somebody treats you really badly, break up with them. If somebody is disrespectful about the times in your life when you nearly died, break up with them. If somebody makes character slurs and generally trash talks you, break up with them. If somebody talks shit about you behind your back, break up with them. If somebody treats you like a second-class citizen – like there’s something wrong with you – then break up with them.

    I really can’t recommend it enough.

    In fact, sometimes I don’t know why I don’t do it sooner, when all the warning signs are there. When somebody starts getting abusive and horrible and vile and disrespectful and insulting, and starts to say humiliating and untrue things, those are the warning signs. When somebody implies you’re broken and you need to be fixed; that you’re faulty; that you’re a freak… that’s a warning sign.

    I really can’t urge you strongly enough to break up with those people who give off those warning signs.

    If somebody’s not introducing you to their family, but they’re happily talking about you behind your back; if somebody’s talking about you behind your back with their work colleagues; if your emails and text messages and other things like that are getting shared behind your back; if they’re stalking you and gossiping about you and generally judging you, comfortable and cocky in their gang, while you’re completely isolated and alone…. break up with them.

    I can’t emphasise this enough: if it feels wrong, break up with them as soon as you can.

    Nobody could accuse me of not working really hard at my relationships. Nobody could accuse me of not being tolerant and kind and having a range of different strategies to deal with the various ups and downs of a relationship. I’ve had relationships that have lasted years and years. I’ve spent more of my adult years in a relationship than I have single. I know about relationships.

    My big mistake has been in trying too hard to make things work with bad people.

    Bad people are the ones who make us feel distressed and humiliated; who make us feel worthless; who make us feel insecure; who make us feel like we’re a freak or a weirdo. Bad people are the ones who tell us we should be grateful to have a partner, because nobody else would have us. Bad people are the ones who keep bringing up the worst things that happened to us, again and again and again and again. Bad people are the ones who imagine us at our worst, rather than seeing our full potential and imagining us at our best.

    Bad people will attack the thing that’s most precious to you, and pick on you using your most intimate vulnerabilities.

    If somebody’s reading the really personal stuff I choose share – because I’m brave – and using it against me, they’re a bad person. If somebody is taking advantage of the fact I’m vulnerable, they’re a bad person. If somebody’s got a problem with my blog, which is 3 years of daily writing and 900,000 words – it’s my labour of love – then they’re a bad person.

    I was very angry and hurt about the way I was treated by a bad person. I’d let things build up. I should have broken up with them sooner. I should’ve walked away. I let things build up, and then the distressing, humiliating, traumatic, threatening, alarming aftermath, where I was ganged up on… that was truly awful.

    I should’ve broken up with them before things got so emotionally charged. I should’ve broken up with them before I ended up – unfortunately – with a lot of unresolved resentment and pent-up frustration about the unjust and horrible treatment I’d been a victim of.

    I’ve got a lot of work to do. I have to repair the damage to my blog – done by threats and intimidation, unwanted visits, stalking, harassment. A lot of damage was done to my blogging project by that horrible person and their gang, and I have to repair it, because my blog is the thing that keeps me alive; it’s my proudest achievement.

    I need to find my voice again: The voice that isn’t tainted by the distress I’ve been feeling; the voice that isn’t controlled by the threats and intimidation: My voice.

     

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