This is a story about wanting to be noticed...

This is not a pity party, and everyone has an equally valid claim to misery and depression, but it's important - to me - that I relate this part of the most influential period of my life.

At home, I could do nothing right, and was largely ignored other than as an ornament; a clothes horse; a performing animal, let out of its cage to delight the adults, as a party trick, and otherwise told to be quiet and keep out of the way.This, I think, is not unusual, but was greatly exacerbated my lack of a sibling until the age of 10, and my parents' extreme anti-social behaviour, which left me isolated in the extreme: often in very remote rural areas; far from friends and schoolmates.

At school, I could not avoid attention of the wrong kind. My parents' obsession with training me as their performing animal, for their party tricks, meant that I was either alone, or doing my routine for adults. I had no relationships with children, before school. If you want to fuck up your children and ruin their lives, it's quite easy: do everything in your power to make them different so that they don't fit in; deprive them of every opportunity to socialise; force them to act like little adults, instead of allowing them to be children - that will guarantee that they won't fit in at all at school, and they will be bullied from dawn to dusk, every. single. fucking. day.

Good manners and confidence in the company of adults did, briefly, confer an advantage in the workplace. This supposed 'maturity' was useful for making a good first impression. Employers certainly mistook me for a person who was mature beyond their years, but this was entirely superficial: a party trick learned, because it was the only way I was able to receive praise as a child - from the small amount of adult company my parents kept; those rare occasions when I was trotted out and expected to perform. However, I had no maturity at all - the social isolation, the neglect and the deprivation, was masked and hidden behind impeccable manners and precise diction; expansive vocabulary, learned from books.

As life has worn on, my age relative to my peers has become less obvious, less remarkable. Instead, those deep wounds inflicted in childhood have come to the fore. Exacerbated by extreme stress and intolerable circumstances, the socially isolated child, deprived of a social life and otherwise ill-equipped to face the world with the same skills and experience of his peers, has resurfaced. I feel as though I'm suffering the same horrors again.

In extreme circumstances, we revert to 'type'... our 'true' personality surfaces, and our mask slips.

I wonder to myself, as I write stuff which is read by thousands of people who are suffering a life-and-death crisis in their lives, whether I am flirting with infamy. Why do I not implore them to seek professional help and bombard them with crisis counselling phone numbers?

Maybe I'm evil.

[Note: I lost a few hundred words here, because of an auto-save glitch, but I can't be bothered to re-type what I wrote. I hope it still makes sense without the conclusion, as I originally wrote it]

Tags: #childhood #parents #writing #suicide

This is a story about writing prompts...

During a more exciting and varied, but also chaotic period of my life, I habitually made a note of writing prompts for myself. I was able to stay somewhat on top of these sparks of inspiration, and turn them into essays, but the list still grew longer and longer.

I've started writing a list of writing prompts again. Currently it has 10 items on it, which have inspired me to write 3 completed essays, which I've now published.

The other thing which inspires me to write, I must admit, is my readers. My readers write to me, which I'm very grateful for, but even those who do not are inspiring me by reading, because there's nothing worse than feeling ignored, irrelevant or otherwise non-existent. However, there's also a temptation - which I try to avoid - of writing stuff which I know will bring me more readers. What's the point of making art, if you're doing it just for popularity and notoriety - surely that isn't art at all?

The majority of my readers - thousands per day - are new readers. Perhaps [most of] my social media followers and [most] friends have tired of the repetitive nature of my writing; the repetition of my story; the lack of any dramatic change in my circumstances. There isn't much narrative in my writing, because there isn't much narrative in my life. In the adventures of employee man, one day looks very much like the next.

Of course, I am grateful that I have a semi-secure source of income - albeit only in the short term - and I have stability and routine. My health and wealth are thriving, relatively speaking, thanks to the boring repetition which is the backbone of my life.

Perhaps I'll dig some more hair-raising tales of near-death and destitution out of my memory banks, to amuse and entertain my readers, but I did promise myself that I wouldn't dwell on the past, and I would attempt to start a new chapter. I would very much like it if I had a substantial period of boring "this is what I ate for breakfast" type typical run-of-the-mill yawnfest blog vapid bullshit, to put some distance between the chaotic, traumatic and nearly fatal period of my life, and the stable, secure life which seems within touching distance; tantalisingly close.

It feels a little odd to not be in the mood to write, because of low social media engagement, given that I almost exclusively transmit - never receive - and otherwise do not engage myself in discourse; do not engage with the community; do not socialise on social media, per se. A cynical accusation that I want to take, but I never give, could be levelled at me, and I would have little defence; I admit that I don't spend a lot of time keeping up with the lives of my Twitter friends, although I am extremely grateful for their continued support, and the occasional message or cat pic.

Also, I'm a little burnt out. I've been working very hard on a demanding project, and I'm extremely emotionally invested; I've been working with maximum intensity. In addition, of course, I pour my guts out every day onto the pages of this website. Writing and publishing a halfway-decent essay every day is not trivial. Those who say I'm not generous with my time and effort, are being unnecessarily cruel and unkind, if not downright wrong.

I'm not out in the community helping little old grannies cross the road or picking up litter, but people do write to me from all around the world every day, to say that my writing has been helpful - in some way - to them. I'm not saying that what I'm doing is particularly praiseworthy, or patting myself on the back in general, but I do put a lot of effort in, and that effort is not entirely a fool's errand.

Anyway, that was today's essay. I hope you liked it. Even just a teeny tiny bit.

Tags: #writing #socialmedia

This is a story about delusions of grandeur...

The problem with slinging pseudoscientific mud, is that sooner or later you're going to come up against somebody who knows what they're talking about; they're able to rigorously follow the scientific method, and they can see right through the dumbed-down pathetic attempts to create popular ideas, which prey upon our preconceived notions, our biases, our vanity and our insecurities.

If we look at applications for university places, there are vast numbers who want to study arts and humanities subjects. Then, the social 'sciences' are the next most popular. Bottom of the pile, in terms of popularity, are the difficult, dry, technical subjects: mathematics, engineering, chemistry, physics, computing. You cannot 'blag' that you know what you're talking about in a technical subject: there are right answers and wrong answers, and no amount of blagging will convince anybody that you're right, when you're wrong, and you're provably wrong.

The social 'sciences' - anthropology, sociology, psychology etc - are not sciences. Science follows a strict prescriptive methodology, and anything which doesn't adhere is not science. The social 'sciences' produce nothing but worthless crap, because it's not science - the results of experiments cannot be reproduced. Any experiment which doesn't have reproducible results, is a non-experiment; a waste of time; absolutely useless.

In an attempt to appear like real medical science, psychiatry has attempted to apply statistical methods, to make the diagnosis of pathologies of the mind, into a supposedly objective exercise. In theory, the patient's symptoms are all that are needed in order to make an accurate diagnosis, via the power of statistics - so, in theory, there's no need for psychiatrists any more. We should, in theory, be able to diagnose ourselves and then simply obtain the required medication from a pharmacist: no doctors required.

No. No. No. The psychiatrists say.

You need us to interpret these hard statistics, and add our own opinions. Say the psychiatrists.

So, what happened to this being a scientific process, driven by data and statistics?

The truth is that everyone will use their knowledge and position of authority in order to pursue their power games. Psychiatrists will never use a scientific statistical method, because then they become redundant.

Unfortunately, psychologists have latched onto psychiatry's attempt to become more scientific, and lend some credibility to their profession. Psychologists are probably more obsessed with statistical methods for 'diagnosis' than psychiatrists are. Psychologists, who, let us remember, were not clever enough to become doctors, engineers, mathematicians etc, opted for a profession where there are no right or wrong answers; anything you say is equally dumb and meaningless. Of course, psychologists would want to pretend like there was any kind of rigour, any kind of methodology, data or statistics, behind their work.

There isn't.

The problem with psychologists latching onto the work of psychiatry, is that they try to import theories and apply them. Psychologists - especially amateur wannabe psychologists of the armchair variety - love to throw around labels like "psychopath", "sociopath", "narcissist" etc. when in fact, those labels were only intended to ever apply to the tiniest fraction of humanity. How can it be meaningful to call every man you've ever met a "pathological narcissist"? How have rare medical conditions gone beyond that of an epidemic, to now become things which affect the vast majority of humanity?

It hasn't happened.

Only a tiny fraction of the human race suffer from pathologies such as narcissism and sociopathy.

You can't just label people you don't like with psychiatric pathologies.

It's dumb.

Amateur psychologists are dumb.

Psychiatric language is ubiquitous in our culture. We use terms like "crazy", "mad", "loony", "loopy", "wacky" and every other flavour of term for 'insanity' to mean everything on the spectrum, from upset and angry, to schizophrenic psychosis. We call ourselves "OCD" when we just mean neat, tidy and clean. We call ourselves "bipolar" when we just mean moody. Meanwhile, depression and anxiety are so common, and so many of us are medicated, that we hardly even bother to talk about the fact we've been diagnosed with those illnesses anymore - we make memes about killing ourselves; we make memes about how dysfunctional we are.

To talk about a 'superiority complex' in the present day, is like giving out speeding tickets to the competitors at the Silverstone Formula One grand prix race. To talk about 'narcissism' is something that you really should do on your YouTube channel, or on your Instagram Story, or on your Facebook page, or one of your TikTok videos. Utterly nonsensical. Unhinged. Mad.

Yes, there are people who are so affected by the Dunning-Kruger effect that they are unable to comprehend the limitations of their abilities: they will never be a mathematician, engineer, chemist, physicist, software engineer or suchlike; they're not clever enough. Those over-confident people's ignorance is not as good as my knowledge. We are, unfortunately, living in an age where vast numbers of people think that their 'life experiences' and 'gut feel' qualifies them to opine on subjects, which they are utterly, dismally ignorant about, exposing their appalling stupidity, much to the chagrin of anybody with half a brain.

So, anyway, I'm sick of pop-psych 'magazines' (especially online) publishing articles about narcissists with superiority complexes. They don't exist... you're just pedalling word-salad, put into the mouths of your readers. Your readers will use that word-salad to attack people they don't like.

Tags: #psychology #psychiatry #bipolar

This is a story about dreams...

Here is money. Don't spend it all at once. A starving African child would be grateful to have this money. A boomer could buy a house, go out to the cinema, get a taxi home and still have change left, from this money.

A conversation I keep having with a friend who also suffers from existential angst, ennui and general loathing of the rat race, is what I'd do if I was free from the tyranny of rent/mortgage and career considerations. My friend thinks that things would be no different, except perhaps I would be bored. I disagree, but I don't have an easy answer. I have no burning desire to re-train as a landscape gardener or a vet. I have no desire to swap one career - profession - for a different one.

Having had a 23 year long career, and previously - as a child - suffered the consequences of my parents being lazy loser drop-out druggie bums, who refused to get a job and stop scrounging off their parents. My childhood experiences certainly made me want to go a very different way with my life: to be a valuable, productive member of society; to make a contribution; to have a career and a profession. Now, I want to drop out. I want to drop out of the rat race. I want to be a bum; a tramp even.

The time I spent homeless was chaotic, traumatic and stressful at times, but I have very fond memories of a lot of the time, where I connected with people, community; I had a social life. Life was enjoyable. Now it is not.

The friends who I have, who are free from the tyranny of a bullshit job which they can't afford to lose, lest they lose their home, their money, their credit rating and their dignity... they are not bored. They are busy. They spend time talking to people, about stuff other than how horrible the commute to the office is, and other job-related stuff. They find people they like and they hang out with them, instead of being coerced into spending the vast majority of their waking hours, corralled together with people who are equally resentful about having the prime years of their lives robbed so cheaply.

The gap-year-university-I-built-a-school-in-africa-yah-boo-jolly-hockey-sticks brigade are perhaps happy with their lives, because they had pleasant privileged upbringings, in private or selective schools, surrounded by other socioeconomically advantaged kids at all stages, including when they went to university, which continued into first jobs... marry the girl of your dreams and you've always got plenty of money for a house, car, holiday, and school fees for the next generation to carry on doing what you've always done - the best of everything, always.

We must consider that I never went travelling and I never went to university. Couldn't afford it.

I enjoyed a bit of the London young professional scene, but it's quite an uphill battle if you don't have your group of university buddies as a social group.

I found a group of kitesurfers, who became my social group, which was wonderful.

But it all went wrong. They've all got kids now, but I'm divorced. The childless man, who doesn't fit in anywhere. People have moved on with their lives.

Being homeless was great. Homeless people are a community. It's important to be part of a community.

Obviously I don't aim to be homeless, but I am considering it. Such is the extreme level of my misery, that I feel like I'd be happier homeless; cut loose from the tyranny of capitalism, rent/mortgage, career, salary, job, office, commute and all the rest of it, which makes no sense when none of the rewards are there - I'm not supporting a family, I'm not raising children, I'm not benefitting from any work-related social life.

What next? Seriously, I just want to drop out, and to find other drop-outs; other people who couldn't stand the rat race so much, that they ditched their mortgages/rent, careers and other things which are like a miserable trap, unless you are coerced into that system, because you need to provide a decent home for a child to grow up in, which my parents never did. I can be a nomad and at least I won't be fucking up any children's lives.

Tags: #career #homeless #capitalism #friends

This is a story about begging for forgiveness...

Relationships are brutal battlegrounds. Relationships are full of push-and-pull; games; mindfuckery. Relationships are an energy-sapping, life-force-sucking, second-guessing, head-wrecking, confusing and altogether mostly time-wasting exercise.

Sure, I love company. Sure, I love to socialise. Sure, I like my friends. Sure, I like companionship.

However.

I don't need the hassle of anyone disloyal. I don't need any backstabbers. I don't need any parasites. I don't need any spongers. I don't need anyone who's going to give me grief, when I'm just going about my business; trying to get on with my life.

From what I see, including my own first-hand experience, an extraordinary amount of time is wasted on people who are undeserving of our time and attention; people who are manipulative time-wasters.

I've screwed up a relationship, or maybe two, which were really worth saving. Through my own stupidity and foolishness, I've thrown away a really good relationship. I regretted it, for a short while, and I admit that I tried for a short while to see if it was salvageable, but I quickly realised that I was wasting my time... it was too late. I haven't wasted any time on regret since then, but I do think it's a shame. If I could live my life over again, perhaps that's something I might do differently, but I can't, so I don't waste time on impossible hypotheticals.

Not living with regret is liberating. Instead of being made to crawl over broken glass by despicable shits, who aren't worth the time of day, instead, I move on with my life. Nobody's got any hold over me. I don't owe anybody anything, except a debt of gratitude to kind and loving friends, and exes, who offered their love and care unconditionally.

I've been a very lucky guy. I've had some lovely girlfriends. I've been loved.

Only a couple of my ex-girlfriends have been... difficult; unpleasant. I've been treated very well.

I find myself estranged from my parents, which has been such a huge improvement to my life that I struggle to find the words to express how liberating it's been to cut those sociopathic, antisocial, alcoholic, addict, selfish shits out of my life. I'm on good terms with my sister, so I can do family... provided it's not toxic.

I'm divorced, but I've had plenty of fulfilling, rewarding, happy long-term relationships. I can do relationships... provided I'm not getting punched in the face.

I've fallen out with friends, which was sad, but inevitable given how chaotic my life was; how unwell I was. I've drifted out of contact with friends, which was inevitable given that they are consumed with spawning brats to replace themselves with. I have old friends and new friends, so I can do friends... providing we stay somewhat within sight, and within mind; I know from being moved around 8 different schools in my childhood, that no friendship really survives geographical hurdles.

I don't have enough friends. I don't see my sister enough. I don't have the social life and support network that I need. However, I've learned to cope. My shitty childhood taught me to cope with my relationships being ruined by my alcoholic, addict, waster, loser parents, who kept moving me around; 8 different schools.

I think to myself "that's a shame" when I think about "the one that got away" but... I'm used to rebuilding; I'm used to starting over again.

Tags: #relationships #childhood #friends

This is a story about FOMO...

Saturday night. Saturday night is supposed to be the highlight of the week. Saturday night is supposed to be special. For me, I dread Saturday night, and indeed the whole weekend. I used to live for the weekend. What happened?

In order to dig myself out of a desperately dire situation, I had to knuckle down and work super hard, for a very prolonged period. I was sick for 9 months out of 12, for a few years, which cost me a fortune in rent and bills, when I had no income to pay with. I've been paying a heavy price for simply being alive. I was being crushed under the enormous financial burden of breathing, sleeping and eating.

I've dug myself out of the hole now.

However, I'm still running scared.

In order to get well and truly out of the hole, I've not been on holiday, I've not travelled, socialised, or made any purchases. I've been living a monastic life.

Seriously.

In the space of nearly 6 months, I saw three people. That's about half a person per month. I've been seing less than one person every month, for half a year. That's crazy.

It's not that I haven't wanted to socialise, but my life got pretty smashed to bits, plus lockdown made things complex. Lots of people endured lengthy lockdowns, seeing very few people, but nobody's had a lockdown quite like me. Nobody who's working and seemingly functional, I must say... I'm sure there are lots of elderly people who have a greater claim to loneliness and isolation than I do.

Why aren't I doing anything about it?

Well, it gets difficult in later life. I moved away from London and Bournemouth, where I have most of my friends. Making friends in a new city is hard at the best of times, and worse still when you're 41 years old; worse still in the middle of a global pandemic.

I have my cat. She's lovely. She's my companion; my furry friend. She keeps me company.

A friend invited me out on Saturday evening, and we met a mutual friend. It was extremely nice. Total surprise, to be out socialising on a Saturday night. I hadn't planned for it at all. I was at home getting drunk; drowning my sorrows. Poor me, poor me; pour me another drink... lol not really, I don't feel sorry for myself except the near-impossible task of digging myself out of the aforementioned hole, but at least I have the opportunity, unlike some.

I'm not antisocial, I'm just under a lot of pressure; I'm fighting for my life; I'm trying to get back to a position of financial security - health, wealth and prosperity.

I don't suffer from Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) because my life has been dysfunctional for so long. When I do go out socialising, I enjoy myself immensely, but I can't see an easy way to get a social life at the moment. I'm lucky that I have a handful of local friends who make the effort to invite me out, from time to time.

I'm not antisocial. I'm getting back on my feet, slowly.

Tags: #friends

This is a story about Twitter boycotts...

A loathsome gammon was abusing me on Facebook for anti-racist, anti-transphobic things that I was saying. I was accused of virtue signalling which is a ridiculous charge, when the very basic minimum of human decency is to not be racist, homophobic, transphobic or otherwise persecutory towards minorities. Sure, if I was lecturing people - unsolicited - on why they shouldn't eat red meat, and boasting about what a fine person I am for being vegan, then it would be possibly a bit much, but no... I was just sharing some very non-contentions opinions about the notorious transphobe, J. K. Rowling, and otherwise anti-racist sentiment; nothing that should have drawn a vicious personal attack.

Anyway, I need to break my routine for a couple of days and not post this on Twitter.

Why?

Well, it's not because of virtue signalling.

I'm aware that there's a widespread movement to boycott Twitter for 48 hours, in protest at the length of time it took Twitter to remove anti-Semitic content and instate a temporary ban on the account involved. It's not virtue signalling to see something abhorrent taking place, and take action against it. It's not virtue signalling, to call out hate speech, for example. It's not virtue signalling to agree that we need to be anti-racist and to eradicate anti-Semitism wherever we see it. It's not virtue signalling to participate in civilised society, where we all have a duty to police hateful extremism. Hate speech is not OK, but criticising racists, bigoted people, is more than OK; it's encouraged to criticise the hateful extremists.

I'm aware that there are lots of fads which people get swept up with, like when everyone was posting plain black photos as part of a social media 'blackout' but I fail to see how it's negative or otherwise worthy of criticism. Of course, if the only aim and objective is to appear to empathise with the plight of an oppressed minority, then it's a bit pathetic, but it's better than being silent or ignoring the world around us. I'd rather be criticised for a rather pathetically easy gesture, such as not tweeting for 48 hours, than be amongst the racist bigoted bunch.

If you see virtue in my actions, and you think I'm signalling, tough titties. It's perfectly possible that you see virtue because there is virtue there to be seen. Shouldn't we be aspiring - as a human race - to be more virtuous anyway? Why would you celebrate those without virtue? Why is it a good thing to be barbaric and uncivilised? Why would you think that unvirtuous behaviour is desirable?

Donating a tiny fraction of my wealth to charity, or doing something fun that I was going to do anyway, but sponsored, is something that many people do in order to salve their conscience. Because of said acts of charity, we can feel that we're doing something to address the horrendous inequalities in the world... but it's not true. Charitable giving benefits the giver... charities have proven to be completely ineffective at bringing about any meaningful change in the world; they're an abysmal failure. However, those who give charitably and those who work for charities are trying at least; their intentions are good, even if the main beneficiary is themselves, because they can feel smug and comfortable about their contribution, even though it's ineffective and often downright counter-productive. I approve of the sentiment, even if it's misguided.

Nothing will ever change for the better because of a Twitter boycott, but that's not a reason not to take part.

Tags: #socialmedia

This is a story about school bullies...

Whatever happened to the people who I went to school with? My peer group - those friends who were academic high-achievers like myself - obviously went to university and became six-figure salary earning captains of industry, venture capitalists, tech startup founders, renowned scientists and academics, and all-round paragons of success.

What about all the thickos?

Well, firstly, I don't really count the thickos as peers. They were there in the same school as me at the same time, sure, but they weren't part of my peer group. They were languishing in the lower-set classes, resentful that they were legally mandated to attend school, just waiting to leave and go to prison and/or get pregnant.

Of course, some of the thickos didn't go to prison. They are stacking the shelves in supermarkets or sweeping the streets. Those jobs are very useful to society, so I'm grateful to them for their contribution... except on social media.

Yes, social media is the problem, which is the basis of this essay.

The thickos previously had no platform on which to express their retarded opinions, except to their mates down the pub, or to their girlie mates in the baby circle. Their opinions - mercifully - didn't enter public discourse. Their opinions were not dignified with a platform for them to be shared.

In the early days of the internet, when it came in down the phone with a sound like robots screaming, it was the sole preserve of geeks; a paradise. In fact pre-dating the internet were dial-up bulletin boards, which you had to phone up and some of them only had one or two phone lines, so if somebody else was using it then the number was engaged. You might dial up a bulletin board, leave a message, then not go back for a few days to check for replies - a far cry from the current era of instant notifications from a million different apps, the moment somebody replies or 'likes' what you posted.

The technical complexity of getting online "back in the day" was sufficient to keep the thickos offline. As such, most people you might encounter were highly intelligent and highly educated. Opinions lacked the diversity we see today, given that they were mostly white men of a geeky persuasion, but there was a refreshing lack of morons. Having suffered 13 years of full-time education with a vast horde of intellectually challenged thickos, the internet was paradise.

Technologists have been trying to make tech as "frictionless" as possible, which is to say that the thickos can now press the big child-friendly buttons on their Fisher-Price toy phones and share their racist, homophobic, transphobic, regressive and retarded worldview... which unfortunately is presented on social media as equal to the refined erudite educated considered musings of highly intelligent and respectable individuals.

Another thing is happening.

Given that the paradise world of cyberspace has been lost to the moronic hordes, we have reverted to playground rules: bullies are getting a toe-hold.

Donald Trump succeeded because he speaks idiot; he says the things that idiots say. Trump and his alt-right sycophants - who also include Nigel Farage and all the Brexiteers - are all cut from the same cloth; they all have the same moronic worldview. The thing in particular that I wanted to write about is how childish playground techniques employed by thickos, are being employed in the former paradise of cyberspace.

Gone is rational and reasonable debate. Gone is any attempt to discuss the difficult areas of politcal philosophy, such as attempting to wrestle with the meaning of life. In its place, barbaric morons simply repeat verbatim, various things said by Trump, Farage and other influential figures in their orbit. "Build a wall" and "Britain first" they blurt out, without the faintest comprehension of the deeper meaning and consequences of what they're saying... unable to comprehend the crimes against humanity that they are implicitly demanding, in order to serve their unspoken demand for a white ethnostate.

What I fear most, is that liberal outrage is fuel for the 51.9% of society who are racist cunts. That shower of shits failed abysmally academically and in life - now in prison and/or living on benefits - and like the bullying children who hated the clever kids, the only way for them to exact their revenge is to attack those who are smarter than them. The Trump supporters and Brexiteers love it when the liberal metropolitan intelligentsia squeal with frustration. The alt-right will feel triumphant as society crumbles and burns. "We really stuck it to you there, nerds!" they will yell as human civilisation descends into a barbaric dark age.

For my part, I will never stop taking the bait and fighting the moronic fuckers - wherever I find them - because even though I spent 13 traumatic years of my life, legally trapped in an education system which forced me to be proximate with abusive, bullying thicko moronic cunts who made every day of my life a living hell, I succeeded and they failed.

Tags: #bullying

This is a story about routine...

Despite the chaotic - and often traumatic - backdrop to my life, during the past 5 years... I have still managed to write on a very regular basis. I've written from a hospital bed on multiple occasions. I've written from a psychiatric ward on multiple occasions. I've written when I've been dreadfully sick - both physically and mentally - and I've documented the path I've taken, from near-bankruptcy and destitution, to stability.

It might not look very healthy, but it is - my writing is a healthy habit.

I skipped writing over the weekend because I was busy. That's OK. I'm allowing myself to skip the occasional day when I'm busy. I'm not going to force myself to write every single day, without fail.

I have decided that I need to get into the habit of writing fewer than 700 words - it's a limit which forces me to be a bit more focussed on what I want to say, and discourages me from aimlessly rambling. Given that I mostly just write my stream-of-consciousness, it makes sense to create an artificial limit, because my thoughts are unending.

As I have repeated oftentimes before - ad nauseam - I am aiming to try to be more forward-looking, and to not dwell in bitterness and regret from the past; to not wallow in my life's misfortunes and my shitty childhood.

I can tell you for certain that I WILL NOT be writing any kind of "things I'm grateful for" vomit-worthy rubbish. Of course I have things I'm grateful for, and I have a great deal of perspective - I know I'm fortunate in many ways - so I don't need or want to have to write down all those things; it's pretty boring.

I'm glad that my skin isn't all peeled off and dipped in salt and acid. I'm grateful my eyes haven't been gouged out by rusty spoons. I'm grateful that my penis hasn't been cut off and stuffed in my mouth...

No.

I spend a significant proportion of my day reading the news, and whenever I see starving African children - etc - then I think "poor starving African children. We should improve the living conditions for human beings". I do not think "I'm glad I'm not a starving African child" because that's just sociopathic. Obviously it's better not to be a starving African child, but I'm afraid I'm cursed with enough empathy to think "we should improve things" as opposed to "I'm so grateful other people's lives are so shitty".

My routine consists of lying in bed reading the news, a shower, feeding the cat, reading the news, catching up on anything I missed at work, reading the news, work, meetings, reading the news, work, lunch, reading the news, work, meetings, work, reading the news, writing, dinner, reading the news, speaking to friends on the phone, watching documentaries about human suffering, social media, sleep... repeat.

As you can see, I read a lot of news.

I do not watch any TV.

I'm certain that I would be happier if I replaced some of that news reading with socialising, but my routine is predictable and somewhat in my control. The only thing I can't control is the human suffering which I see in the news, but I do care and I do what I can - from the confines of my routine - to improve the lives of humanity. Mostly, I do a lot of thinking about the suffering of humanity, but don't mistake me for somebody who doesn't care and doesn't do anything. The emotional labour is exhausting; the mental labour is exhausting. This shouldn't be underestimated.

Of course I want to change my routine. I want to exercise more. I want to socialise more. I want more excitement; variety. However, the routine gives me a great deal of stability, and the stability gives me health and wealth. Stability is very important to me, having had so many years of chaos and trauma.

My routine is important.

Tags: #routine #bipolar

This is a story about the Coronavirus pandemic...

Many people planned to come out of lockdown with new hobbies, fitter, healthier, happier and myriad other unachievable unrealistic things. I think that we have mostly come out of lockdown fatter, more unfit, poorer, more insecure, lonely, isolated, bored and generally worse off.

I started the lockdown drinking very heavily and eating McDonald's breakfast every morning. I decided that if we were going to be suffering the misery of being under house arrest, then I would treat myself. Quickly I realised that I was going to end up with clogged arteries and morbidly obese. I was eating takeaway several nights a week and not doing any exercise.

I started the lockdown physically dependent on sleeping pills to get to sleep, and using two different tranquillising sedatives to cope with unbearable anxiety. I decided it was too much hassle to try to keep stocked up with the medications I needed during the lockdown, and I calculated that I have enough left to be able to taper myself off. I didn't want to run out of medication suddenly in the middle of a pandemic.

I started the lockdown working on my sofa, fully reclined. I realised that my posture and back would be ruined by working in such a position for 8 hours a day, followed by many more hours on the sofa after finishing work.

Things had to change.

I thought the lockdown would last a month or two, but I must admit that I didn't think it would drag on beyond a quarter of the year. I tried my best to psychologically prepare myself for the lockdown lasting for months, but I was hopeful it'd be all over after 6 to 8 weeks.

I bought a desk and an office chair.

I weaned myself off the sleeping pills and tranquillisers.

I cut down my drinking, and even went teetotal for 6 or 7 weeks.

I started exercising. Not, like, exercising exercising. Just going for a 10km walk every day. Enough to keep me a little bit active, but nothing crazy.

I stopped getting takeaways. All those takeaways were costing quite a lot of money, when they were all added up. Sure, I felt like I could justify spending the money to enjoy some nice food, as compensation for the doom and gloom of the hundreds of thousands of people dying all over the world, and the restrictions to our freedom... but it wasn't healthy and it was costing a packet.

I paid off all my debt. This wasn't so much a planned thing. It was something that just happened to co-incide with the lockdown. However, it feels pretty damn good to have some savings now. I have a net worth again, which feels good. I have some financial security, even if it is pretty negligible. It had been a very long time which I'd been struggling to get my finances sorted, and it's a big relief to be back in the black.

My life is extremely austere and simple. I have my house, my job, my cat, my car; that's it. My health is probably OK. My weight is OK, although I am carrying some extra weight I'd like to shift, as a consequence of lockdown. My finances are OK. My job seems OK. My housing situation is sort of OK. My kitten is great, although my cat is lost... overall OK. My car has a big dent where an idiot crashed into it during lockdown, in a virtually empty car park, but there are more important things in life than having a shiny perfect car.

All things considered, I think I'm one of the lockdown winners - I'm emerging in far better shape than I went into lockdown. Some people have lost their job, or are about to lose their job. Some people have struggled with alcohol and food. Some people have struggled with mental health. In almost every area of my life, things have improved; I look reasonably well positioned to weather a difficult autumn and winter.

Although losing my cat was the worst thing that happened, it has forced me to connect with my neighbours and the wider community, so I have even managed to live a far less isolated and lonely existence under lockdown, than I was living before - I speak to far more people; I'm more connected and socially engaged.

I thought that if I retreated inwards, living and communicating through my blog and social media, then I would find it impossible to get through the lockdown. It looks like a reasonably good decision, to have taken a break.

It helps that it's summer - of course - which lifts my mood and generally creates a more pleasant and favourable backdrop for life, but I feel hopeful that I've got a decent position of health and financial stability to fight through the autumn and winter. I just need to book some holidays now... I've worked non-stop since early January, when I was discharged from hospital.

Tags: #debt #medication #work #lockdown #cat #kitten #weight #car #house