This is a story about tedium...

I left work at 4:15pm. I got home at 4:30pm. I'm lying on the sofa writing my blog at 4:45pm, having gotten changed out of my work clothes, fixed myself a drink and a snack and opened my post. This is the life, surely?

Night owls would hate my job. I aim to be at my desk at 7:45am.

Anyone who's a people person would hate my job. I can spend days, weeks and even months without having any human interaction - if the specification is clear, I can just sit down and churn out software without speaking to a single soul.

There is absolutely no room for creativity in my job. If you're a creative person, you'd hate my job. There's no room for artistic expression or artsy-fartsy waffling in what I do - it's binary. Right answer; wrong answer - nothing in-between. No shades of grey.

If you like being busy and you like variety; stimulation, then you'd hate my job. I've been solving the same few problems over and over and over again for the whole of my 21-year career. I already mastered all the skills I needed to do my job well before I started my career. In fact, I already mastered most of the skills I needed to do my job before I learned them in formal education.

If you want to work doing something you're passionate about, you'd hate my job. The kinds of things I'm asked to do will achieve nothing. Mostly, my clients want me to write systems that are just like their other systems, which have already demonstrably failed to effect any meaningful improvement to the human condition.

I like* money though. Money is good*. Money is useful*.

If you want money and you want it fast, you should definitely get the most boring job imaginable. Banking is boring. Accountancy is boring. IT is boring. Get a boring job and money will quickly follow. Where there's boredom there's money.

So, I've spent most of the day trying not to fall asleep at my desk, and I've been bored, but it's been a profitable day. There aren't many jobs where you can earn so much doing nothing.

I don't love my job but I don't hate it. It's a good job. I'm lucky to be able to earn money being bored.

Boredom sucks, but it's profitable. I'm paid very well to be bored.

Tags: #career

* - money is actually evil and completely useless. We should return to barter.

This is a story about insecure housing...

She said she wanted to be a widow. She marked my suicide note with red pen, filling it with abusive language. I didn't feel safe in the house with her - she would rage and kick and punch the door I'd put between us to protect myself. I was afraid to use the toilet or otherwise leave the room I'd barricaded myself in for my own protection. I wasn't eating. I wasn't afraid without good reason - she'd battered my face not once, not twice, but three times. She'd had her three strikes and I'd had to go to work saying "I walked into a door". I'd had to make excuses for her violence to her parents... to explain away my black eyes, my broken nose.

The abuse had caused me to start self-harming. Later, I started smashing stuff up. We had blazing rows, but, it was always me who ended up locked in the spare bedroom, afraid for my own safety. It was her who got stronger and stronger, while I got weaker and weaker; sicker and sicker; more and more afraid; more and more isolated. I was suicidally depressed and I was trapped. How was I going to escape this abusive relationship? Where would I go? I'd lost so many friends because of her. I'd lost my identity. I'd lost my self-confidence.

She said she'd rather that I died rather than go into hospital. I needed to go to hospital. I was suicidally depressed, but she said if I did go into hospital she'd divorce me. I said that it was life or death... that my suicidal thoughts were so bad I couldn't keep myself safe. She said she'd rather be a widow.

My friends in London took me in. They tried to keep me safe during an incredibly acrimonious divorce. They supported me. They cared for me. I stayed in their spare bedroom until the house was sold and the divorce had been through the courts.

Then I tried to kill myself.

I moved out of my friends' house and I immediately tried to kill myself.

I couldn't kill myself while I was living under their roof - it wasn't right, because they'd helped me so much. They'd helped me escape my ex-wife, but I'd lost my house and what little self-esteem I had. I'd nearly lost my new business. I nearly lost everything. I had just about enough money and energy left to move out, but then I tried to kill myself because I was jobless and sick, living in a shitty shared apartment in a crappy part of London. I was all alone.

Things got worse. The hospital discharged me into a hotel. I said I didn't want to go back to that town where my ex-wife lived. There couldn't have been anything worse psychologically than being forced to go back to that town where she lived. The hospital took pity on me. They discharged me to a hotel. I had 2 weeks to sort out my life.

Inevitably, I became homeless. It was impossible. I was sick. How was I supposed to navigate the complex bureaucratic nightmare that is the UK housing system? I was refused a hostel bed. I was refused supported accommodation. I was told I could get housing benefit, but no landlord will take somebody who pays their rent with "DSS". Housing benefit doesn't pay enough to rent a place in London anyway. What was I supposed to do?

I ended up sleeping rough in Kensington Palace Gardens, and later Hampstead Heath. I bought a tent and made camp in dense undergrowth far away from the main paths. I used all my expeditionary experience to hide myself and sleep under the stars.

I lived in hostels. The hostels brought me into contact with a social group. Socialising made me feel better about myself  - people liked me; I was popular. My self-esteem started to improve.

I rented a little room in a student apartment. It was cheap, for London. They were nice kids, but they were messy students - they were trashing the place. They were partying all the time. It was hard for a thirty-something man with a full-time job at a bank to mix those lifestyles. It was hard when I left the homeless community. It was hard when I transitioned from being homeless to re-entering civilised society. There was a culture clash. I lost most of my friends.

I went back to living in a hostel.

I rented an amazing apartment on the River Thames with panoramic views over London. It wasn't my idea. A friend thought it'd be a good idea to spend a hefty portion of my monthly income on a super-luxury apartment. "You deserve it" he said. Seemed like a good idea at the time. He wanted to live there rent-free, of course. Other parasites came, wanting to live there rent-free too. I found it hard to turn them down, because I'd been homeless. I was a soft touch. I was taken advantage of. I'm owed thousands and thousands of pounds in unpaid rent and bills.

I spent the best part of 2 years living in the same amazing apartment. It was stable, but it wasn't. I had to have an incredibly well-paid job to pay for the rent. It was well beyond my means when I wasn't working. When I was well enough to work, it was a nice reward for my efforts, but the pressure to maintain the lifestyle wasn't sustainable. I got into debt, just so that I could have a place to live and not end up back on the streets. Moving is stressful. I didn't want to have to move again. I had the threat of financial ruin hanging over me the whole time.

I took a contract in Manchester because it came with a relocation allowance - an apartment. I never wanted to live or work in Manchester, but I was desperate. Out of sheer desperation - I was almost broke - I accepted the job and relocated. I didn't know anyone in Manchester. I tried to kill myself.

Of course I tried to kill myself. It was all too much to bear.

I ended up in hospital in Manchester. Of course I ended up in hospital again. I'm so vulnerable; my life is so fragile. I needed that safety; that security.

A stranger contacted me via email to say they'd read my blog. Did I want to live with them in Wales, they asked. At the time, I was living on a psych ward in a dormitory. Of course I wanted a bit of peace and quiet; a change from the insanity of the psych ward. Of course I wanted a stepping stone to a better life... the revolving doors of the institutions and welfare benefits have little to offer, except for days spent dribbling while watching daytime TV, doped up to the eyeballs on incredibly strong psychiatric medications.

I rented another apartment.

The stress peaked and I wanted to kill myself. I thought that the local job was going to fall through, I thought that the apartment was going to fall through, there was conflict with some people. Everything was falling to pieces. The stress was too much to handle. I was going to kill myself.

The stress peaked and now I'm lying on my sofa writing this, in my own place. I've got my own roof over my head, which is affordable. I've got the things that most people take for granted: money, a place to live, a partner, a job, a car. I've still got stuff that'll take time to fix, but it's so much easier when your living arrangements are acceptable, rather than impossible. Living in a hostel is OK when you're unemployed and single, but I've tried working a 'straight' job while living in a 14-bed hostel dorm, and it's impossible... trust me on that one.

You might think I'm spoiled and privileged. You might think that it's unfair that things are working out OK for me, when there are so many people who have things so much worse than me. Vulnerability is vulnerability though, and I've been so close to death so many times. How many times have I been in hospital, in the Intensive Treatment Unit (ITU) or high-dependency wards? How many times have I been on the brink of bankruptcy? How many nights have I slept rough? How long have I lived in hostels? Do you begrudge me my recovery?

There's more work ahead. I still need to dig myself out of a hole. I'm not out of the woods yet. I ran up debts just staying alive, which I need to repay. I need my income, to allow me to pay down my debts and build up a financial cushion in case I get sick again. I've got bipolar disorder, which means depression, mania and hypomania can all cause major problems in my life - there's no cure for this, and it can be really destructive when I have an episode. I need to stay well, but I don't have any choice in the matter.

So much of my precious stuff was lost, stolen, broken or has otherwise disappeared, during my lengthy escape from that abusive relationship. It's caused so much damage to my life, getting away from my ex and that horrible situation. I jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire. Yes, it's true that at times in London I felt like I was making some progress, but there was too much pressure on me... too much pressure to maintain an unsustainable lifestyle.

Here in Wales life seems simpler; easier. There's less traffic, less crowding, less congestion, less pollution, fewer people, less competition, less crime, less noise... it's just a lot calmer. I feel like I'm calming down.

I can see the sea from my apartment. I can see the sea.

I used to own a house by the seaside.

I'm happy by the seaside.

Now, I'm starting to get my life back. I live by the seaside again. I'm not far from the beach. I can see the sea.

This is the journey I've been on. From domestic violence - domestic abuse - to domestic bliss. I'm a lot happier now I'm not having to barricade myself behind doors to protect myself.

Tags: #homeless #divorce #relationships

This is a story about not fitting neatly inside the boxes...

I'm trying to rent an apartment. The apartment rent is £675 a month. I earn approximately £7,000 a month after tax, although my take-home income for the last 3 months has been a mere £10,716.91 because I've had to work in London which has been awful. Yet, I'm still not able to rent an apartment that costs just £675 a month.

To prove my income I've provided my full bank statements for the last 3 months. To prove that I'm a reputable individual who will have no problem paying the rent, my chartered certified accountant has provided a reference. I've provided proof of address, proof of identity, proof of residency, proof of eligibility to live & work in the UK. I've proven everything, yet I'm still not able to rent an apartment that would cost £675 a month.

I don't pay any income tax. I pay £0.00 income tax. It might seem a bit morally objectionable to not pay any income tax, but I pay plenty of corporation tax and dividend tax. My productive endeavours bring in 20% VAT, 20% corporation tax and 7.5% dividend tax for HMRC - the taxman - so the UK benefits quite handsomely from my work, but still... I don't pay any income tax. Income tax is a very bad way to prove my income.

I currently earn £600 a day, which is £3,000 a week, which is £13,000 a month, which is £156,000 gross per annum. It really is gross just how much I earn. Of course, I have to pay my VAT bill, corporation tax bill and dividend tax bill. I get to keep 4.5% of the VAT and I can earn £11,500 without paying any tax at all.

With 8 weeks of holiday and sick leave per year, including bank holidays, my gross income works out to be £132,000. After tax, that gives me an income of £11,500 salary plus £68,820 in dividends, which is a take-home pay of £6,693 per month. I'll pay £51,680 in tax this year.

That's worth repeating.

I'll pay £51,680 in tax this year.

But, I pay zero income tax, so I can't rent a £675 a month apartment. I've been through the arduous tenancy checks and I don't fit neatly in their boxes. They can't wrap their head around the fact I don't pay any income tax, even though I've proven that I have an obscene amount of income.

The whole process of trying to work my way out of poverty, get myself off the streets and get back into civilised society has been exhausting. I'm fucked off with it. I've provided the most intimate of personal details. Every single item of my spending has been pored over and gone through with a fine-tooth comb. I've been poked and prodded and examined and found wanting, because I don't pay any income tax and the closed-minded drones who are responsible for determining whether I'm eligible to no longer be homeless have decided that I'm not allowed to have a home of my own for some reason.

It's made me really suicidal. Why did I put myself through all this shit? Why did I work so hard and struggle? Why have I been subjected to such an ordeal? Why bother?

I'm presently considering various suicide options. This shit is keeping me awake at night and I'm fucked off with it. I've had enough. This isn't acceptable.

It's not acceptable to block somebody from working their way out of poverty. It's not acceptable to stop a homeless person from getting themselves back on their feet. It's not acceptable that society should marginalise people like this. I've had enough.

I've had enough and I can't stop thinking about killing myself.

It's pushed me to the brink of suicide.

Tags: #homeless #suicide

This is a story about being put through the wringer...

Why did I fly to Warsaw to start a new job - 1,200 miles from home - and then live out of a suitcase in 12 different AirBnBs in London? Why did I put myself through the stress of spending every single spare penny I have on flights, hotels, AirBnBs, train tickets and other business-related expenses? Why did I have the miserable lonely experience of commuting hours from home and living in temporary accommodation, most of which was throughly dreadful? Why did I work so damn hard to impress my new boss; my new team? Why did I go through all the stress of going though security vetting and background checks? Why did I put up with all the anxiety of having the details of my life pored over by so many gatekeepers?

Having narrowly avoided bankruptcy and a nervous breakdown, I managed to reach the end of one contract and start another one. I managed to get through the transition from one job to another. I managed to deliver one project and start the next one. I did a good job and my client was happy. Now I've started in a new job and I've managed to make a good first impression yet again. I bought a car. I got myself into a financially OK position again.

Now I'm trying to rent an apartment. I'm not asking if I can practice open heart surgery on somebody even though I've got no experience or qualifications. I'm not asking for a favour. I'm offering to hand over my hard-earned cash so that the landlord doesn't have to work. I'll be paying rent up front and a deposit up front AND buying a tenant liability insurance policy, so the landlord is 100% de-risked - there is absolutely no risk in renting the apartment to me. It's my hard earned wages being handed over, because the landlord has wealth and assets and I don't - that's the exchange. My labour and their capital. I'm fine with this. That's the way of the world. That's capitalism, and I'm part of capitalist society so that's just the way things work.

The thing that's really upsetting me is that I'm going through yet more gatekeepers. There are all manner of checks and things that are being done on me - my credit rating, my previous landlords, my birth certificate, my DNA, my sexual preferences, my subconscious thoughts... my private life is being thoroughly poked and prodded. I'm not asking for a fucking favour. I'm exchanging my hard-earned wages for a place to live is all that's happening.

I hate the language of the whole thing - that I'm applying to be a tenant, like there are landlords out there who don't want to earn money for nothing... my money's no good for some reason. I hate the implication that I could be found wanting and rejected. I think it's inhumane. I find it offensive.

What happens if I AM rejected? Presumably it means that I'm well and truly stuck being homeless. If I can't rent a home from one letting agent, who's to say that things would be any different with another? They all have more-or-less same process of weeding out the bad eggs - those who are deemed unfit to be able to return to civilised society. There are significant barriers to entry. It's remarkably difficult to simply get a job and a place to live.

In short, why bother? Why put myself through such a degrading and horrible existence? Why should I beg and grovel and kowtow? Why am I being put through the wringer? Why is it so awful, when all I want to do is work, earn money and hand it over to somebody else for a place to live? Why bother? Why suffer this shit?

It's making me very upset. It's keeping me awake at night. I don't need this shit. I don't deserve this shit.

Tags: #homeless

This is a story about daily routine...

I'm a little superstitious. When you've been on the journey that I've been on you can start to have some pretty strange ideas about what makes the difference between success and failure. If I'd ever been so afraid and desperate that I'd turned to religion you can be pretty sure that I'd now believe that the sky monster is responsible for the improvement in my situation. If I'd sold my soul to the devil then I'd be Beelzebub's biggest fan right now. It's easy to attribute credit to the wrong things when you're in a desperate situation.

Should I credit my veganism? Should I credit giving up sugar? Should I credit drinking 2 litres of water every day? Should I credit jogging? Should I credit yoga? Should I credit mindfulness? Should I credit antidepressants? Should I credit mood stabilisers? Should I credit a faith healer? Should I credit acupuncture? Should I credit homeopathy? Should I credit quitting alcohol? Should I credit my voyage of self-discovery? Should I credit being single for years? Should I credit my vow of celibacy? Should I credit my vow of silence? Should I credit any of the myriad charlatans who claim that they have the cure for the agony of human existence?

I'm writing today because I'm superstitious. I believe that I've got to write every day, because my daily writing habit provides stability in my life. Who are you to say I'm wrong? You probably believe in sky monsters or have weird eating habits. You're just as superstitious as me. You're just as much of a creature of habit.

I'm not going to write much because I'm busy. I'm having quite a nice time at the moment. I'm stressed as hell that something's going to go wrong - such as my attempt to rent a place to live failing spectacularly - but perhaps that's because things are going OK and I'm a little paranoid. I'm loathe to change anything. I'm loathe to stop doing something that I've been doing regularly, because I've become a little superstitious.

I take a photo of the plant on my desk every single day. Routines are awesome.

Tags: #writing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tags: #homeless

This is a story about three snapshots in time...

Here's a picture of what my life looks like tonight. That pile contains almost everything that I need each week. In a single holdall, I can transport my work clothes, my regular clothes, a few toiletries and a handful of other things that I use regularly. I live out of this bag. This is my mobile life.

This is what my life looked like 6 months ago. Here are my bags in the psychiatric intensive care unit (PICU) where I was locked up for a week. I was discharged from my section at tribunal after 12 days. I stayed in the psychiatric hospital for about 3 weeks in total, most of it voluntarily. Note: it's the same black holdall as pictured at the top.

This is what I managed to reduce my life to so that I could leave my apartment in London, when I was forced to take a job in Manchester because I was close to destitution. This is everything that I took with me when I left the city I've lived in for most of my adult life - in fact longer than anywhere I've lived in my entire life - to go to a city I'd never visited before and a flat I'd never set foot inside.

Most people take a stable home for granted. Most people have friends or relatives who they could live with if they fell on hard times. Most people find moving house to be one of the most stressful things they ever do, and they don't do it very often.

I was no fixed abode. I slept rough and I slept in hostels. I slept in dorms with up to 13 other farting, snoring people, making noise around-the-clock. I've been either on the streets or on the verge of being back on the street for longer than I care to remember. I've either been homeless or had the threat of homelessness hanging over me for an unbearable amount of time.

I viewed an apartment this evening. That's the view from the lounge. Yes, it's really soon to be thinking about renting my own apartment, but I've been on a hell of a long journey. I was born in Wales. I've come home to Wales. I want to live here. I want to put down roots. I want to stop moving from place to place. I want to stop living out of a suitcase. I want to feel like I have a place I can call home that's mine.

I'm incredibly grateful to my friends for letting me live with them. Taking in a mentally ill homeless junkie alcoholic thief beggar bankrupt loser murderer baby-eater was a brave thing to do. It was so kind and generous of my friends to risking having a horrible monster like me in their family home. It shouldn't be understated how much of a big risk it is to take in a homeless person and give them a chance to get back on their feet. My friends have nursed me back to health.

The journey isn't over. I need to keep all the plates spinning. I need to continue to maintain my friendships, keep doing a good job at work, keep developing my fledgling romance, keep my car running and the money flowing... it's not easy. Theoretically, I have enough money to pay 12 months rent. In practice, cashflow is going to be really tight. It's going to be super stressful going through all the hassle of renting a place to live... like, how do I explain that I haven't got a reference from a previous landlord? Perhaps I can show them the excellent feedback that I've got on my AirBnB profile from all those different places I stayed in London during the last few months.

Oh my god it'll be so good to finally unpack. It'll be so good to have my own place. It'll be so good if I can get a bunch of the pieces of the puzzle all in place at the same time.

Tags: #homeless

This is a story about a boring and uninteresting life...

I hate writing with constraints. I hate having somebody looking over my shoulder while I write, commenting on my half-formed sentences - writing is not a spectator's sport. I hate rushing to finish a piece of writing; I hate trying to squeeze in the time to sit and write. I hate having to consider who's going to read what I write and to second-guess what they're going to think. I hate having to write with a filter and to write in anticipation of how people might interpret things if they were to take my words out of context.

The context is that writing has been my stable and secure companion - my trustworthy and reliable friend - during some very turbulent times. The context is that during the period which I have been writing almost every day, I've been on one hell of a journey. With writing as the only constant in my life, the progress that I've made becomes more apparent - if you read my earlier writing then you can dip into periods where my life was quite profoundly different, although the words on the page don't really give that away at first glance.

To me, sitting down in front of the keyboard feels the same today as it did at any time in the past. To me, I'm every bit as coherent and articulate and compos mentis as I ever was - I can't perceive any difference in myself between who I am today and who I was at any previous time when I was writing this blog. If there have been changes, they've been to subtle to perceive in myself, given I have to live inside my own head for 24 hours a day. "You're looking well" or "you sound well" my friends say to me - they have the benefit of dipping into my life periodically, so they can see the trends, but I can't do that.

I suppose there is a great deal of improvement in my life, even if a lot of it remains merely potential at the moment - there's still a lot of hard work to do. I suppose if I was to think back to where I was a year ago or so, things are a great deal better than they were.

I didn't write yesterday but it's rare that I skip a day. Two years ago I accidentally destroyed an iPhone and a Macbook, on this day. A year ago I didn't even write for a whole week and when I started writing again I told some random tale of historical events from my divorce, seemingly to nobody in particular. It looks as if I was wrestling with the feeling that I was letting my [ex-]girlfriend down. I know what was going wrong - every single winter for several years, I've struggled.

I can see from the archives that I was away skiing back in 2008. March used to be a great time to be kitesurfing in Venezuela. This would be the perfect time of year to spend a couple of weeks lying on a beach. I wonder how far I am from those better times, when the years fly by because my life has regular holidays to hot countries. I wonder how much more hard work it's gonna take before I get back into a sustainable pattern of work, which largely depends on being able to have nice holidays to look forward to. I've chosen a lifestyle that is mostly miserable during office hours, but does carry substantial rewards during leisure time.

I'm not sure what to write about. I'm pretty sure what not to write about, but it's hard. To not write anything that's personal and could make me identifiable is really hard. To not write any of the detail of recent years is difficult, when I'm still processing those events. To break the habits I've gotten into and to lose the catharsis of writing about what I went through, is a big change. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to be entirely forward-thinking and live in the future when it comes to this blog, because the future mostly holds anxiety for me. I'm anxious, for example, about the day when this blog is stumbled upon by somebody who I'd prefer not to read it.

This is a weird transitionary period. I presume I'm writing with reasonable clarity, except for the fact that I'm being cryptic and omitting any of the gory details that already exist in the archives. I presume that my life - which seems stable to all outward appearances - is now becoming something valuable that I don't want to damage. I'm getting the things I need quite quickly now - there has been a lot of very rapid change; improvement.

Potentially, I'm shifting from the intolerable and unsustainable, to a life that's liveable. Potentially, the destructive patterns of the past have been vanquished - I've overcome some pretty insurmountable obstacles and I'm beginning to get a whole load of things lined up in my favour. Life is getting easier.

Historically, I've done a lot of moaning. The archives contain a lot of complaining. I've whinged a great deal about how awful things have been, but now my luck appears to have changed. I'm terrified that something's going to go wrong, but at the moment things seem to be going right.

I could erase my written records. I could expunge my digital identity. When I think about what I've written, I'm glad that I have created some evidence that I existed; I'm proud that I've documented my struggles. If I re-read what I wrote in the past, it's difficult for me to re-live that experience... I struggle to relate. There's a lot of stuff in the past that wasn't exactly brilliant, but I don't think that the answer is to pretend it didn't happen. No good ever came of pretending that I've got a blemish-free past and I've not got any baggage.

I feel reasonably well-adjusted, because I've exhaustively documented what's been happening to me. I feel more secure knowing that I've attempted to capture a little bit of myself at regular intervals. I feel like I understand myself, and that I know who I am. I feel like I have an identity.

It's a difficult changeover period. I'm moving towards a more 'normal' life that you would recognise. I'm moving from a profoundly dysfunctional place to a functional one, even if it appears like I've been getting on with life just fine. I can still have a disproportionate reaction to the most ridiculously mundane stressors - having to buy a birthday present, have a haircut, get to work on time - but these things can leave me paralysed... without help I'd give up and refuse to leave the house.

I don't know what my life is now. My life is still taking shape in its new form; there are big changes that are happening. I need to learn my new routine. I need to prove myself all over again.

Suddenly, I have a girlfriend, a local job and a car. Suddenly, my life looks worth living, but it's also something that I could inadvertently damage. I have to be careful that I don't say anything that might prejudice my future. Before, I was writing urgently because I needed to get as much of myself down on paper before I died. Now, my big fear is how I'll react if something major goes wrong, but it might be me who precipitates my own downfall. I'm starting to have to pretend like I'm Mr Normal and my past is absolutely perfect, like everybody else does. I'm starting to feel the pressure to present a sanitised version of myself that's fit for corporate consumption. I'm starting to feel the pressure to put on the 'boyfriend material' mask that's suitable for introducing to parents and the like. My 'good' life carries with it a great deal of fear of failure.

There's a small part of me that wants to continue to make changes really rapidly, and to continue to fix up the broken things in my life. I want to rush out and rent myself a place of my own, and move out from my friends' place so that I'm living independently - standing on my own two feet. Part of me is in a big hurry to regain the self-esteem that's been lost due to my atypical living arrangements. Part of me is in a big hurry to encumber myself with societal obligations - such as paying rent and bills - that I've been lucky enough avoid for a while, because my life was so dysfunctional. There was no way that I could cope with much stress and responsibility, and my friends helped me... they continue to help me. It's embarrassing. I'm ashamed that I needed charity.

My past is not compatible with my present. My living arrangements are not compatible with forms that need to get filled in - I'm neither renting nor a homeowner - and middle-class dinner table chit-chat. There's a huge contradiction between the work I do and the difficult personal circumstances that I've been escaping from. Work colleagues, girlfriend, new people I meet... they're not going to understand. I don't fit neatly in a box. How can I be so successful in some areas, and have other parts of my life that are still undergoing repairs?

This is not a case of "fake it until you make it". I've already made it. I know the way - I've trodden this path before. However, there are undoubtably a whole load of things that got very messed up and I'm in the process of fixing. People don't really like the idea of recovery, improvement or otherwise escaping our fate - we're very keen to label and abandon so-called no-hopers; we're very keen to leap to the conclusion that somebody's of a certain 'type' and label them for life.

I'm changing. You've caught me on the hop. You're peeking behind the curtain. You're ruining the magic. This is the trick, you see: to fix the unfixable.

I can't write any more at the moment. I need to keep fumbling through this difficult transitionary period. I need to find a new voice, which acknowledges the past but doesn't drag me back there. I need to make sure that my identity doesn't depend on a certain amount of drama and destruction. I'm certain that my future depends on a return to more tranquil times.

Tags: #writing

This is a story about anonymity...

I work somewhere doing something for somebody. I have a date of birth, a place of birth, parents. I have previous addresses and previous employers. I am the sum total of the data you can gather about me on a form.

Am I single, co-habiting, married, divorced, widowed? Do I have any dependents?

I'm being urged to tear down my digital identity, for the sake of what? Is it right that we should allow our work to occupy such an important role in our lives that we must create a sanitised identity that purely exists for the purpose of putting food in our bellies? Is it right that we're so desperate to exist that we erase parts of who we are which are not corporate-friendly? Is it acceptable that we have to paint a certain image of ourselves that's more compatible with the expectation of any cyber-snoopers who might come looking for dirt on us online, who could scupper our career objectives?

I don't drag my profession in to disrepute, except to ask whether the distribution of wealth is unfair, and whether the encroachment of work in our private lives is too much, when we live lives of quiet desperation; hiding our distress lest we make ourselves unemployable. I don't write anything that's confidential or would otherwise cause any difficulty for my employers, except that I have a strong position on the fact that the remuneration which most of us receive does not adequately compensate for the suffering.

Yes, it would be most prudent to tear down the digital identity that I've created, because I'm the little guy - I can get squashed like a bug and nobody will notice. It would be easy to find myself muscled out of 'civilised' society because I've been brave enough to speak out. It's easy to weed out any detractors. I need to learn my lesson - step out of line and I'll starve.

The power of the socially coercive effects is profound. It's remarkable how we're conditioned to put up and shut up. The economic incentives to cower in silence are inescapable, if you wish to live in the way that so many of us do - it's hard to go your own way. You'll be both gently and aggressively nudged into conformant behaviour patterns.

I'm not sure what I'm going to write about and what my writing style is, now that I am entering a period where I have a gun to my head - conform or die. Perhaps this is a little hyperbolic, but those who choose to live their life as part of alternative society will find it tough going. Fit in or fuck off.

While we believe that we're living in an era of unparalleled personal freedom of expression, the reality is that we are perhaps coerced and controlled more than at any time before in history, because it's so easy to dip into people's private thoughts and creative outputs, via the internet and social media. Since the death of letter-writing and journal-keeping, we are inadvertently wearing our hearts on our sleeves through our Facebook walls, Instagram feeds and other publicly accessible mediums through which we express ourselves.

I don't feel like I made a mistake and that I should tear down everything I've written, lest it be discovered, but I'm aware that I'm facing a difficult period where I have to re-evaluate what it means to "be myself" while retaining compatibility with my chosen source of income. It's undoubtably desirable to be very well paid doing what I do, rather than switching to a 'lifestyle job' where I'd be free to wear a green mohawk hairstyle and adorn my face with myriad tattoos and piercings. Life is a lot easier when you have loads of money and don't have to work very hard, although I disagree with how much the corporate world imposes itself on peoples' identity.

It would be nice to express myself without self-censorship. It would be nice to be able to have a single unified identity that's compatible with any situation and not have to think about what's NSFW (Not Safe For Work). I'm trying to be brave, while also not burning my bridges.

I'm going to keep writing, but my blog posts are going to be very cautious pieces where I avoid talking about any identifying details of who I am and what I do, let alone the gory stuff that goes on in my head. The idea is to create a series of blog posts that would bore any would-be cyberstalker from the corporate world, intent on digging dirt on me - those wage-slaves are hopefully going to demonstrate a spectacularly lacklustre dedication to the job, as they do in everything they do, which will mean that I'll be safe from any lazy glance that might be paid to the pages of this website.

This could be a very costly mistake, but the experiment continues.

Tags: #writing

This is a story about past performance as a guarantee of future performance...

In the space of a few photos - arranged chronologically in my album - we jump from my wedding, a Formula 1 racing circuit, skydiving and dawn breaking over London, photographed from Primrose Hill. These were the only things that seemed worthy of a photograph, sandwiched in-between my honeymoon and my separation from my wife. My niece was born in this period, but I keep my special photos in a different place from my everyday snaps - I photograph a lot of random things for my visual diary.

I was chatting to a friend and former colleague and he asked me if I'd "dealt with any of [my] demons?". I wonder what he meant. When we started working together I was nearly bankrupt, living in a hostel (i.e. homeless) addicted to drugs and having mental health problems. Yes, I suppose I've dealt with a few demons. I don't want to make excuses for past mistakes, or assume that everything's going to be plain sailing again in future, but that job we did together where I was working six and a bit days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day, and trying to get myself clean and off the streets.... it was a challenge.

There was that time that I moved to a city I'd never visited before, moved into a flat I'd never set foot in before and started work on an incredibly ambitious project, with no team supporting me. I had a tiny hiccup - also known as a medical emergency that left me in a coma in intensive care - which caused me to lose two days at work, and that was the end of that, even though I'd delivered 85% of the project.

A guy rang me up, asked me if I could do a piece of work for him. I said it would take me 6 weeks. He asked if it could be done in 3 weeks. I said it could, but the end result would be rubbish. I've been working on that project for 12 weeks and the result is great... in fact, I finished 6 weeks ago and I've been killing time ever since, because there isn't anything left to do but the guy wants to retain my services. This guy STILL wants to retain my services. One very happy client. I'm not good at being bored though.

Wherever I've gone, I've delivered value; I've improved things; I've earned my money. Wherever I've gone, I've made stuff work, on time, exceeding expectations. Wherever I've gone, it's been of substantial net benefit to my client. However, the mileage has varied.

During that period when I didn't take many photographs, I spoke to my boss. He'd rung me up to congratulate me on a really important piece of work that I'd done, and tell me that I was getting a special commendation award and a hefty extra unexpected bonus in my pay packet. Ironically, I was just about to go into hospital for a month-long stay. I knew I was sick. It was bizarre to be having this conversation, knowing that I was in the middle of a crisis.

Some people are steady Eddies. Some people will be consistently mediocre. Some people will never disappoint you, because they inspire such abysmally low expectations. I've never really had much interest in steadily and slowly plodding my way towards low quality, late, over-budget and depressingly below-average outcomes for projects that ultimately end in failure. Fail fast.

We're very afraid of failure in the corporate world. Nobody fails, in fact, we just succeed in unplanned ways: "think about all the lessons we can learn from this project" we say, as we realise that it's a pile of stinking crap that's never going to fly. It's not really in my DNA to be part of that culture.

Failure is a huge part of who I am. Failure to get to work on time. Failure to get through an entire year without having a single sick day. Failure to be content to just take my wages and ignore problems; not try to improve things; not to try to make things into a success. I fail. I can get sick. I can drink too much coffee and start shooting my mouth off - become overconfident, arrogant and deluded due to lack of sleep and too many stimulants - and I can become depressed and unable to get out of bed. Sue me. I get shit done. There's my consistency: when there's a deadline, I consistently meet it. I consistently deliver on time and on budget. I'm highly INconsistent when it comes to when I'm going to turn up in the office, or even IF I'm going to turn up in the office for a few days.

With this do-what-the-fuck-I-want kind of attitude, I've had a string of successful projects and happy bosses and clients, but it occasionally causes resentment amongst the morning-lark steady-Eddies whose only virtuous attribute is that they're always there at their desks on time, despite the fact they're fucking useless at their jobs. In fact, this statement is unfair. An organisation needs a mix of steady Eddies and sprint'n'coasts. I don't really sprint and coast... it's more like work my bollocks off and burn out a little bit, but it gets stuff done.

It's difficult for me, because there will always be some bosses who will gleefully receive the fruits of the labour from those incredibly productive periods, and then think that it's 'normal' and sustainable. When it becomes expected to work at a super high level of intensity, there's no gratitude for the incredible cost of such a feat, and there's no allowance for the fact that for every up there must be a down - people have to be given time to recover after exerting themselves.

I really don't think that there's a 'slow and steady' way to achieve some things. Fast is the only way to go, and the faster the better. The sooner you see something that's real and tangible and working, the sooner you know whether it works the way you expected it to or not. There's no value at all in something that's only half-built. I'd rather have people say "I wish it did this AS WELL" rather than "I wish it worked". Even if people say "that's not what I expected" at least they've got something that they can use, or can serve as a prototype.

A lot of managers don't really know what they want when they're recruiting. They'll hire a lot of folks who are very good at playing buzzword bingo, answering interview questions and keeping a low profile in organisations so they can keep getting paid - but those aren't exactly great qualities for getting projects delivered.

The precarity of my situation should have pushed me towards meek compliance - perhaps I too should have learned to keep my mouth shut, cover my arse and spin jobs out so that they last as long as possible. Perhaps I too should have learned the fine art of looking busy and coping with the soul-destroying nature of pointless work and projects that are doomed to failure. Perhaps I need to stop caring so much. Not my circus, not my monkeys, right? Not my money, so I shouldn't care, right?

I feel terrible imposter syndrome, because I've had a turbulent few years. I feel terrible imposter syndrome because it wasn't very long ago that I had a pretty horrendously insurmountable heap of problems. I feel terrible imposter syndrome because my past performance is no guarantee of future performance, despite a 20+ year career where my achievements completely eclipse and nullify any of the very few hiccups, none of which has meant that there hasn't still been a successful project outcome.

I don't know how to characterise myself. In the corporate world, nobody talks about any difficulties they've faced - everything is given a positive spin. In the corporate world, gaps in your CV and things like that are severely career-hampering blemishes; black marks. I think it's a huge strength, that I've made positive contributions to important projects, despite having to deal with some incredibly difficult things in my personal life at the same time. If the corporate world could wrap its tiny mind around it, I'd love to give the background context to my employment history.

Thus, mileage can vary. If you hire somebody who's never had a problem in their life, assuming that their spotless record is going to remain so forever, you might be disappointed if they ever face any difficulties, because they're probably not the kind of person who's ever had to deal with challenging circumstances. You might hire somebody because they've never had a mental health problem, but anybody can get depressed. A person who's experiencing problems for the first time in their life is going to be less able to cope and communicate and manage effectively, than the person who's been functioning with those kind of problems in their life for years and years. Every set of circumstances is different. Every set of pressures is different. Every time is different.

I just keep rolling the dice. As long as I'm allowed to keep rolling the dice, I'm winning more than I'm losing.

Tags: #career #mentalhealth #bipolar #depression