This is a story about role models...

Many people might ask themselves "what would my mother think?" before saying or doing something stupid. My druggie loser parents - who I'm now estranged from - were not inspiring role models for me growing up. Instead, I can pinpoint the things which have given me everything good in my adult life, and I attribute those things to three friends' families, and one family in particular.

The seed of my initial interest in computers was sown by my friends Joe and Ben, whose father had an Apple Mac and whose mother was a systems analyst. Without that introduction to the pure joy of using a computer with a graphical interface and a mouse, I would not have become hooked.

With my neighbour, Julian, we used to use his dad's Apple Mac, which maintained my interest in computers and allowed me to see their practical applications beyond computer games. Julian's dad was a heart surgeon, and we played around with a heart surgery simulation game. Julian's dad also showed us a piece of software he'd developed to diagnose angina based on a set of questions the patients answered.

Then, Ben - a different Ben - taught me how to program a computer. Ben and his mum ran a computer club one evening a week at a place which compiled Oxford's most well-known "what's on" guide. Ben's dad took a group of us to the E3 computer games exhibition. Also, Ben's family encouraged creativity beyond the screen - the children were encouraged to be artistic and musical in a way that was fun, as opposed to simply an academic exercise in the interests of appearing to be a more well-rounded person when attending university interviews. Ben's dad took a bunch of us not-so-athletic geeks to play a game of basketball once.

Because I got moved around so much as a kid, I only got to spend 3 years with Ben - the second Ben - during childhood. I went back to Oxford for a visit as soon as I got a car that was reliable enough to complete the journey, but then the visits became more and more infrequent. I've only seen Ben 4 times in my adult life.

So, you'd think that it'd be pretty weird to have somebody I've seen so infrequently as a kind of role model, but that's what's happened.

My childhood had 8 different schools and 6 house moves. If I was taught anything during childhood by my parents, it was that I shouldn't get attached to my friends, my school, my room... anything. I was taught not to get attached, because the rug would keep getting pulled out from beneath my feet.

The beauty of the internet is that your friends are your friends, wherever they are in the world. I've worked for 15 different organisations all over the UK and abroad, and I've moved around an unimaginable amount - I've been quite nomadic. The only friends I've managed to hang onto are those who have an online presence, because - as I've learned the hard and painful way - when you're out of sight you're out of mind.

Ben was an early adopter of everything online, which inspired me to get into similar things. While he was building websites and a classified ads system for the aforementioned Oxford "what's on?" company, I found a similar local company and started building similar stuff. Through the internet, I always stayed roughly abreast of what Ben was doing.

A common childhood friend of ours crossed my path in Winchester, and tragically I was probably the last person in our friendship group to see him alive. Through the internet I was aware of the funeral, but it felt strange, being this lurker... this outsider. My friends had done their GCSEs, their A-levels and then had all gone off to their various universities, but I'd missed out on that - I'd been taken away from all that, as had so often happened, by my druggie loser parents.

When I did a tech startup and I was lost without a co-founder I asked Ben for advice and invited him to join me on the venture. Ben was going to be a mentor on the Springboard technology accelerator program in Cambridge, and he suggested that I apply, which I did. Ben had to go back to California to be with his family, so he didn't end up being a mentor on the program, but it often makes me think about whether I'm a bad son, because I feel like my parents can rot in hell when they get sick. I feel like I'd be there for my mum if she was on her own, but I can't deal with my parents - I had enough of dealing with them on my own from age 0 to 10; I'm too bitter about them ruining my childhood.

I think a lot about how angry and bitter I've been with my writing. I think about how Ben would never write stuff like I do; Ben would never say or do anything regrettable.

I think about how I became a complete sociopathic psycho towards my lovely co-founder, while I was on the Springboard program in Cambridge. I made my co-founder cry in front of a Google exec. Perhaps, in some ironic twist of fate, I could've made my co-founder cry in front of Ben. Ben would never make his co-founder cry. Who am I? What have I become? I feel terribly ashamed about the way I spoke to and treated my co-founder.

I read stuff that Ben writes and I get inspired. This whole blog is inspired by the fact that Ben founded the platform on which I write this - it's another one of his startups. I read Ben's blog and it often inspires me to write my own opinions on similar topics. It's a bit weird, but it's mostly harmless.

Then, there's the bitterness, resentment and pent-up anger that seems to come out of nowhere. Some really vicious, mean, angry stuff pours out of me and onto the page. Ben would never write like I do. Ben would never get mad and say really horrible things. Ben just wouldn't rip into people like I do.

I think about all the tirades I've launched on my useless druggie loser parents, and I think that I must be a big disappointment to Ben.

I hate that I disappoint Ben.

I hate that I'm letting him down.

I hate that I'm this person.

I hate that I act like this and that I say this stuff.

I wrote loads of stuff and some of it was OK. I was super pleased that I was writing regularly. I was happy to have a creative outlet and I was proud of my blog. Then, out came a lot of stuff about my mental health, addiction, recovery, detox, rehab. The stuff I was writing was OKish but I was on dodgy ground. I was ashamed to admit that stuff in case Ben read it. I didn't want to admit my failures and shortcomings.

The most recent time I saw Ben I was really unwell, but my girlfriend encouraged me to go and see him while he was in London. It was a rare opportunity to catch up. Even though I was feeling terrible, my lovely girlfriend managed to get me to go and meet up as planned. She met Ben.

But, I got more and more sick. I started being a dick on Facebook. I broke up with my amazing lovely girlfriend, and I wasn't very nice about it. In fact, I was a total dick. I was awful. I was the worst. All my friends surely must have seen what a terrible person I am, including - of course - Ben.

I started dating another girl. Then I left London and went to Manchester, stopped seeing the other girl and got another girlfriend.

Things went badly wrong in Manchester.

On Twitter I wrote "I'm sorry, my far flung friends" after I believed I was beyond the point of saving - I had ingested a massive overdose and was about to lose consciousness. Ben responded right away. I replied. I thought it was probably the last thing I'd ever do: responding to a tweet from Ben.

What have I done since then?

I feel like I've made a fool of myself. I feel like I've failed to capitalise on the opportunity to do some good. I feel like I haven't turned my good fortune - not dying - into something more meaningful. What have I done with my blog and my Twitter followers? What have I managed to do which Ben might think is a useful contribution to humanity?

I've continued to write so many things which are quite cringeworthy. I've continued to grind my axe. I've continued to act in a way that makes me think that Ben must be quite certain that I'm an unpleasant, vicious, mean, nasty, horrible piece of work. I feel like I've disappointed my role model; disappointed the person who I idolise and look up to.

I've very much lost my way. I want to have a positive role model and to act in more positive ways, but I've gone wrong somewhere, or maybe I'm a totally shitty person.

It's weird to idolise a friend from childhood, who I've hardly seen; hardly know, frankly, except what can be gleaned from his creative output on the web.

Like Ben, I've written a novel during National Novel Writing Month, and I've poured my heart and soul into my blog and my Twitter account; my online community. I've attempted to emulate his online achievements, but yet I've somehow failed, because of my lack of dignity and my sheer nastiness... I've made a fool of myself and I'm a disappointment; an embarrassment.

This is, quite possibly, one of the most cringey and weird things I've ever written, but it's my wont to write whatever's on my mind without filter, and this is what's been brewing for a few days now.

I'm sorry Ben, but I think you can take it given the fact you're a public figure who's lived your life online as much as I have, writing under your own name rather than a pseudonym. Only our closest childhood friends would have any idea who I'm talking about. I hope you don't feel that this brings you any shame, in being connected with a shoddy person like me.

The other thing to address is the pressure of knowing that somebody idolises you. It's a bit weird and creepy to know that somebody reads your stuff and also credits so many of their positive life decisions as having been inspired by you. All I can say to that is: my income as a computer programmer has given me every opportunity I ever wished for, and the inspiration to do creative writing has saved my life. Living an online life as an active contributor to various social networks has given me an identity I'm proud of and has brought me numerous lifelong friendships which I treasure dearly. In short, you did a good thing, even if I take some of those gifts and abuse them sometimes... sorry about that; not your fault.

What would Ben do? Probably not write some bizarre stream-of-consciousness thing like this, but I'm glad he's there as an inspiration in my life to be a better person.

Tags: #friends #writing #socialmedia

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 keeping the lights on...

There used to be a time, not so long ago, when banks were closed at weekends and on bank holidays, and the only way to do financial transactions was with cash, or otherwise with cheques that used to take 3 working days to clear and could 'bounce'. Today, we can do credit and debit card transactions 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Today money flows across the globe in the blink of an eye - pay for some sunglasses in Singapore and your current account will be immediately debited back home here in the UK.

There used to be a time, not so long ago, when getting online meant phoning up another computer. We weren't online all the time - we'd connect once in a while to check our emails, but the rest of the time our telephone line had to be left free so that people could call us. Likewise, computers weren't always available to be connected to - the dial-up number might be engaged because somebody else was connected, or maybe the computer would be switched off or having maintenance done to it. Today, you can access websites 24 x 7 x 365 and you'll never see a message that says the service you're trying to access is offline because of maintenance or some kind of problem. That's what "high availability" means.

So, did we stop turning off the computers, or install some more phone lines or something? Did we get rid of the need to upgrade and do maintenance on the computers? Are the days of engineers having to take a service offline now gone? From a consumer's point of view, that's certainly the way it appears.

In a post 9/11 world, disaster recovery is seen as an essential requirement for business. A terrorist organisation could blow up the headquarters of your bank, but to you as the customer, the computer systems have been designed so that things should function just like normal - business as usual as far as you're concerned. Does that mean that computers are now bombproof? From a consumer's point of view, it certainly seems to be the case.

The reality is that behind the scenes there is a lot of redundancy and failover design so that if anything catastrophic happens, other parts of the system can take over from the parts that have failed. If a computer blows up, another one immediately takes over its work, seamlessly. If a hard disk fails, the data has been copied across a bunch of other ones so no information is ever lost. Software is designed so that it can be upgraded without the users even realising that it's happened - you get new features on the websites you use all the time, but you never notice any interruption in the service. That's high availability in action.

Behind the scenes, there's an army of developers, testers, devops, support analysts, network engineers, sysadmins, database administrators and other flavours of infrastructure engineers, who keep things running smoothly. To keep you plugged into the digital world 24 hours a day, allowing you to send and receive emails, text messages and naughty photos whenever you want, a huge stack of systems have been designed, built and maintained with the principle that they must be "always online". It's a bit like repairing a broken-down car while it's still driving down the road at 100mph.

The net result is that the main skill in IT is not creating the hardware and software anymore, but in keeping the lights on all the time - 100% uptime. Teams of people work in shifts around the clock just waiting for something to go wrong so that they can spring into action and fix it, even though faults are not fatal to the overall functioning of the system, and the users won't even notice that there's been a problem. Computers still fail and hardware still needs replacing. Things need upgrading; things need maintaining, but it all happens without anybody ever seeing a message that says "SERVICE NOT AVAILABLE".

Personally, I do not enjoy sitting waiting for something to go wrong. I'm currently working for a team whose role is to keep the lights on, and it got briefly exciting when the air conditioning failed and a whole datacentre shut itself down, but that was the briefest possible thrill. I'm like a firefighter in this modern world where modern fabrics, improved electrical safety and central heating systems mean that fire is an increasingly rare occurrence in the domestic home. I'm built to fight fires, but everything's built to be so resilient. There are no crises that demand heroics anymore.

I'm pretty much in the wrong job. I deal with machines all day long but I want to deal with people. I'm bored but banking is supposed to be boring - when it gets exciting it means stock market crashes and people not getting paid. I need variety but once you've grasped how to build a computer system, they're all the same - I've built everything from torpedo guidance on nuclear submarines, to bus ticket machines and iPhone apps, and it's all built exactly the same way. I am devastatingly depressed about my job. I think banking is 99% evil, with only 1% of it having anything to do with keeping people's wealth safe from robbers or facilitating transactions that are easier than barter. I need to be solving problems, but I've already solved the same ones a million times, and if I do a good job upfront then there aren't many to solve anyway. It's a dismal existence.

So, I sit at my desk and I get paid an obscene amount of money for doing nothing, just in case something goes wrong... which it very rarely does. I'm highly available, but like a disaster recovery site, hopefully I never have to spring into action, because things are really bad if I'm put to good use. It's really horrible, sitting and waiting for something terrible to happen, and really wanting a crisis to develop because I'm so bored and under-utilised.

I really need to find some kind of app which serves some kind of societal function, beyond stupid distractions from the point of living. Surely the point of living is to spend our brief time on this earth with our family and friends, eating, drinking and making merry, not chasing money and other made-up bullshit.

Tags: #career #computing #banking

This is a story about the most depressing day of the year...

I had a game plan for this week. I thought everything was going to be OK. I woke up and I felt awful. Then, I started feeling progressively more awful.

Past performance is not a guide to future performance. Just because I had an OK day on Friday, doesn't mean that I'm going to have an OK week this week. Just because I can appear to be functional at times, doesn't mean that I'm cured of depression and other debilitating mental illness. Just because I did my job doesn't mean I'm going to be able to crank out day after day of great performance at work. Most of the time my life sucks.

Of course, a lot of people's lives suck. A lot of us are stressed and exhausted and overwhelmed. A lot of us have almost intolerable levels of anxiety and other mental ailments that make our heads feel like they're going to implode. A lot of us say to ourselves "I can't do it; I can't go on; I can't cope"... but we do.

Just because we're appearing to cope doesn't mean that we really are coping. Some of us are building up to a breakdown of some sort. Some of us are pushing ourselves to the limit and beyond in an unsustainable way that's going to end in disaster.

I do a lot of whinging, don't I?

Of course I don't think I'm unique. Of course I don't think that my problems are worse than anybody else's. Of course I don't think that issues are insurmountable. Of course other people have survived worse. Of course I'm aware that my perceptions are warped by depression and anxiety, such that everything seems to be broken and disastrous and intolerably unbearably awful. But none of that matters - the fact is that one day you wake up and you just can't go on. One day, no amount of bullying and coercion will get you out of bed.

I used to stroke my cat and talk to him. I used to potter round my garden and talk to my plants. I used to talk to my significant other. Now, I talk to myself. I'm alone with my thoughts around-the-clock.

My job is incredibly isolating. I have no real reason to talk to anybody. I'm expected to be plugged into the Matrix, quietly making software. I'm expected to be some kind of robotic software-making machine, sitting silently in a corner churning out software systems, with zero human interaction required.

My home life is 5/7ths isolating, sitting alone in hotel rooms trying to connect with the world via the internet. London's not an unfriendly place, but locals definitely think you're a bit strange if you try to start a conversation with them. I suppose I could go looking for groups of gregarious tourists who'd be happy to chat to somebody who knows this city well, but it's exhausting doing all that getting-to-know-you stuff. It's exhausting to work all day and then have to carry on working just as hard - if not harder - to put myself out there and meet people.

So, here I am, in yet another room I'd never set foot in before. The noises are all different. The light is different. The bed is different. The bathroom is different. At night, different things wake me up. My body and brain are on high alert in this alien environment. I'll get used to it, but it's exhausting staying somewhere new every week.

I should have been at work today. Work is a known quantity. I know exactly what work I've got to do. I know roughly how I'm going to do my work. Nobody else is going to do anything - it's all down to me. My work will still be there, exactly how I left it. It's a job I've been doing for over 20 years, so there are no surprises. The familiarity makes it exhausting somehow - I get anxious about solving problems I've solved a million times before. I get anxious, because I know exactly how it makes me feel.

I hit the wall today. I couldn't get up. I gave up.

It's not like I had the flu or arterial bleeding gushing from a gaping wound. It's not like I had a legitimate excuse for not going to work, I just felt really shitty.

How can I explain it to you, that I really felt like I couldn't get up and face the day? How can I explain that although I was able to get up and buy myself something to eat at 3pm in the afternoon, I couldn't leap out of bed and dash off to the office at 8am? How is it possible to reconcile the fact that if I could be bothered to breathe, then surely it would have been possible to go and do 8 hours work?

I feel run down but I don't feel sick. I don't have nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, pain, swelling, tenderness, bleeding, bruising or any other physical symptoms to speak of. I feel exhausted, but I haven't recently run a marathon or climbed a mountain. I feel sad but I haven't recently lost a loved one. I feel anxious but I'm not trapped in a cage with a tiger. In theory, I shouldn't be feeling anything other than tip-top, ready and raring to go to work.

I don't know what to say, other than that I feel guilty about feeling like this. I feel guilty that I haven't gone to work when so many other people have done today. I feel guilty that I've spent time in bed when I haven't got any obvious physical symptoms of illness.

When I've felt like this before, I've been tested for thyroid problems and even AIDS. I've been subjected to a barrage of tests on my kidneys, liver and blood. I've been poked and prodded for any possible physical reason why I'd feel tired and unable to leap out of bed and enthusiastically rush to my desk in my office. No physical illness has ever been discovered. I'm not physically sick. I must be making it up. People in Africa wouldn't lie in bed like I do.

I sometimes wonder if we're supposed to get up when it's still dark, in the middle of the wettest and coldest months of the year, in order to go to jobs that are soul-destroying.

I wonder if one day, somebody's going to be brave enough to say "actually, you're having a sane reaction to an insane world" and give me a prescription for exemption from the bullshit of the rat race. It's surely grossly unhealthy to experience as much unhappiness as I do. It must be damaging to be as stressed as I am. It must be enough to make me sick, to be so isolated and lonely.

I walk down the road, or I sit at my desk, and I chatter away to myself. I write this blog because I need somebody to chat to. I have no regular healthy human contact. Everything shifts around me constantly. New places; new people. I assume that everything's all transient; temporary. What's the point in getting attached to anything or anybody? What's the point in feeling settled and contented - my whole world gets smashed to smithereens all the time anyway, so what's the point of anything? What's the point of life?

There's this massive gash; an open wound. I've got a staggeringly terrible injury, but nobody seems to acknowledge it. It's like I'm walking around with my arm hanging off and blood pissing out onto the ground, and everybody's just ignoring it. "It's just a scratch. You'll be fine. Just go to work like everybody else. You don't see other people making such a fuss, do you?"

But, I am making a fuss. I'm bunking off work, which always pisses people off ("lazy scrounger parasite" etc) and I'm lying in bed, which also pisses people off ("layabout idle waste-of-space" etc). What's my excuse? Because I don't feel very well? Not good enough. What possible reason could I have for not feeling very well? What's my excuse?

I've got antidepressants, but I don't take them. I've never taken antidepressants.

"Well, there's your problem"

Erm, yeah... if you say so. But what causes depression?

"Chemical imbalance"

Right. So what causes the "chemical imbalance"?

"I dunno. Genes or something"

Ok, but did you know that two genetically identical mice can end up looking completely different depending on environmental cues that cause different epigenetic expression of genes? That is to say, two mice with identical DNA won't always end up being identical individuals. Even with identical DNA, the environment can influence identical twins to become non-identical in appearance.

You're right, I don't live in Africa. I don't live in a warzone. My life's just peachy. What could I possibly have in my environment that would induce anxiety and depression in me?

In the last year, what's the ratio of traumatic events versus consistent things you have in your life? Did you stay in the same home? Did you stay in the same job? Did you stay in the same area of the country? How many kids do you have? Did you have the same partner? How many family members do you see and speak to on a regular basis? How many times were you hospitalised? How many times were you arrested? How many times did you think you were going to go bankrupt? How many times were you homeless? How many times did you think you were going to die?

It's not a competition and I'm not trying to elicit sympathy.

I'm exhausted and depressed and anxious, and I don't really know why, but it's not because I don't take antidepressants.

Tags: #depression

This is a story about the origins of [my] bipolar disorder...

Here are a couple of select conversations from the last year that might help you to understand the circumstances that influence my mood instability.

Me: "I'd like to discharge myself from hospital, please"

Doctors: "No. You are on a high dependency ward. You will die"

Me: "It can't be that bad. I want to discharge myself, please"

Doctors: "Your kidneys aren't working. You need dialysis. Your blood has dangerously high levels of potassium in it and you could go into cardiac arrest at any moment"

Me: "But I need to go to work otherwise I will lose my job"

Doctors: "You can't work if you're dead"

Me: "I'm going to have to risk it"

Why would I do such a staggeringly stupid thing? Why would I risk my life like that? It seems patently absurd, doesn't it?

For my whole career, bosses and shareholders have demanded only one thing: do more, faster.

I decided that I was being exploited. I'm the one who makes the software. Without my software, there's no product; there's no business and there's no profit. Without software that I've built, no amount of lawyers and salespeople and middle managers and jumped-up idiots with important sounding job titles, would have anything to do other than burn what little money the company had left. If the software is the product, then you've got nothing if you've got no software. If the software is what allows you to do thousands of times more volume than you'd be able to do without it, then you haven't got a business if you haven't got the software - your business model would collapse. Your business is software.

I'm not saying that software is important. Software can't build a house. Software can't plant carrots. Software can't dispose of your sewerage. Software is bullshit. However, most of the economy is bullshit - at least 85% bullshit here in the UK anyway.

So, anyway, some jumped-up little twat with his daddy's money comes up to me saying "I'm an entrepreneur and I've got a genius idea... I just need a geek to make the software". On closer inspection the software is where the genius lies. When the business idea is examined with close scrutiny, it turns out that none of the important details have been figured out. Turning an idea into a working business - the execution - is something that gets figured out by the lawyers and software engineers. The "entrepreneur" just provides his daddy's money, while he walks around with his chest puffed out pretending like he's a serious businessman.

The next thing that happens is that I say "how much money have you got to spend and when do you need to have a working product?". The answer is always the same: "I haven't got any money and I need it yesterday".

Where did the budget go for the software? It seems to have all been spent on employing a bunch of old schoolchums to do "brand consultancy" or "business development". Basically, the directors fly all around the world attending conferences and "networking", which is very costly because they're running up huge expenses. Meanwhile, the geek is expected to churn out the software - "I don't know what it is, but is it finished yet?" - as fast as they possibly can. It's quite common now for very capable young computer programmers to work unpaid, or on slave wages, because they're desperate to gain commercial experience. Some idiots even think that I'd enjoy working on a software project for free, like it's a motherf**king hobby or something.

So, I arrived at the situation where I would always work at top speed. I've pleased my bosses and shareholders, not because I give them what they want, but because I've generally been much faster and much cheaper than anybody they've used before. In short: I deliver.

I was working so damn hard all the time and not seeing much of a reward for the dedication I put into my job, so I started to work for myself. I made software and I sold it. I made some iPhone apps and I sold them. One of my apps took me half a day to code and it was downloaded thousands of times. This made sense to me - the whole reason I work with computers is because they can do things while I sleep; a computer can perform many thousandfold tasks than I ever could. It makes sense that I would use a computer to leverage my talents and efforts.

I didn't quite understand that the whole reason why I came to be writing iPhone apps was because I'd been burnt out by my employer. I'd landed a hell of a project. The world's biggest project, in fact - "Nick, would you mind creating us a system that can process a quadrillion dollars worth of credit default swaps, please? Have it done as soon as you can, please, there's a good chap... we've got a global economy that needs wrecking".

I didn't quite understand that I burnt myself out again writing iPhone apps. I coded as fast as I could. I catnapped and skipped meals. I worked 7 days a week. I knew that every moment that I wasn't coding was another moment that my competitors were potentially going to release a similar app. I had to be first to market with my ideas. I had to be the first person in the Apple App Store with an app that did something that nobody else had thought of yet.

I decided to start a proper business. I decided that I'd create a piece of software with a recurring license cost. I decided to create a piece of Software as a Service (SaaS) and then I'd be able to earn money while I slept, once I'd completed the system. I didn't have any of my daddy's money to spend though. I didn't raise any money from friends and family. I just had me and my idea, my software engineering skills and 24 hours in every single day.

I didn't quite understand that I burnt myself out doing my startup. I didn't understand that writing the software - the hard bit - was only the beginning of what I had to do. I had to raise investment to be able to market my product. I had to sell the product. I had to support the product. I had to do all the business administration. I had to raise investment to be able to afford to hire people, so that I didn't collapse under the weight of all those competing demands. I didn't go fast enough though, so I did collapse.

With every burst of intense focus and effort, there would be a windfall. Particularly in investment banking, if you do a good job then you get a big fat juicy bonus. If you make an app that goes to #1 in the App Store charts then you get a windfall. Even if you do a startup, you can sometimes get a reward - my startup was at least profitable; investable.

The pattern of behaviour was established. It made sense to me to work as hard and as fast as I could, because the rewards seemed to be there.

When I run a software project - a team of people who work for me - then I put developer welfare as the top priority. I set realistic deadlines. I allow time for people to catch their breath. If the pressure starts to increase, then I move the deadline rather than asking people to work longer hours. Bosses should hate me, but I underpromise and overdeliver, and I run happy motivated high-performing teams. I get great feedback from the people who work for me.

When I'm coding, I seem to forget about my own mental health. When I've got a tough deadline and a tough deliverable, I'll work as hard as I can. I get scared. I think I've forgotten how to code. I feel like my skills are rusty and outdated. I feel old and useless. So, because of this fear, I go as fast as I possibly can.

It hasn't helped that I've never quite managed to gain a comfortable financial cushion that would allow me to feel like I can consider my health and general mental wellbeing, as well as just delivering the software. I always put work as my first priority.

Me: "I'm going to go to London to do some IT consultancy for an investment bank"

Psychiatrist: "But that's what you always do, and you know it makes you unwell"

Me: "But I need the money"

Psychiatrist: "You need to look after your mental health"

Me: "My mental health can wait. I'm nearly bankrupt"

Psychiatrist: "Well go bankrupt then. Allow yourself time to recover"

Me: "But then I'll never be able to work in investment banking again"

Psychiatrist: "That might be a good thing. It makes you unwell"

Me: "Yes, but it also makes me rich"

In the interests of completing the picture: I am not rich. The amount that I earn would make me rich if I could stay well for long enough to keep working, but the stress and the pressure also mean that I almost always get sick. It's a horrible catch 22.

So, I've completed another software system and it's live - it's up and running and people like it. My boss is pleased. Am I burnt out? Yes, I am a little. I had to bunk off work yesterday. In fact, I've bunked 3 out of the last 9 days. Is this the beginning of me starting to take a little more care of myself?

The cycle is very much not over. I need at least another one or two decent length contracts before I have that all-important financial cushion. It's going to take me until the end of the year to get back to financial security. It's going to be months and months before the ever-present threat of running out of money goes away, even if some money is slowly starting to trickle into my bank account.

It's quite ludicrous that I was on collision course with certain bankruptcy, and now I'm solvent and I've delivered another project on time and on budget. Last year was the year where I gave up. Everything was just too damn hard. I had a great contract, then my kidneys packed up. I had an OK contract but the boss didn't seem to realise he'd hired a bit of rock star at a bargain basement price. I got a contract, but I only just had enough money to be able to afford to go to work... I was running on petrol fumes.

If you were to ask the most stable person you know to live my life, I guarantee that their mood would be unstable as hell. How can you expect anybody to go through the kinds of ups and downs that I go through, without accompanying high and low mood? My mood is a sane reaction to an insane world.

I don't think I have bipolar disorder. I think I'm a product of my environment.

Tags: #bipolar #career #computing #banking

This is a story about the brain drain...

I should keep photos of myself wearing my ordinary work clothes off my blog. I should take more care to separate my professional identity from my blogging identity. I should ensure that Nick "Manic" Grant and the name that's written on my CV can never be connected.

To even write my proper name - as it appears on my passport and birth certificate - onto this website would risk appearing at the top of Google searches that prospective employers might do. I've been careful to separate my LinkedIn and never mention my consultancy company name. I rarely mention client names, and certainly not the names of clients who I wish to continue working for.

However, I'm starting to slip. I'm starting to not care so much. I'm starting to prefer my real identity to the fake one that's necessary to get a well paid job. I was finding it cumbersome to try to pretend like everything was A-OK in my world, and attempt to stop rumours spreading about me in the companies I used to work for. It was exhausting, trying to cover up my indiscretions. It's been exhausting, leading a double life.

One of the biggest double life issues I have is that I have nothing but contempt for capitalism and banking, and I completely fail to see the utility of computers and apps and software and data. Yes, in our super tech-heavy world, it seems inconceivable to say such a thing, but I definitely think humanity's headed in the wrong direction. The mechanisation of farming and the industrialisation of food production are two examples of tech's potential to feed the world's hungry, but we're not using tech to do that, are we? Instead, we're using tech to create artificially inflated asset bubbles and an ever greater rich:poor divide. It eats me up inside that I'm involved, but I'm also shackled with golden handcuffs to the cash cow that provides a hefty income. What am I supposed to do?

Many people think it's churlish that I bite the hand that feeds me. Many people seem to think it's not possible for me to have ethical concerns about what I'm involved in as a day job. Why don't I quit and do something else? It certainly seems to upset me and cause me a lot of angst and anguish.

As I've written before at length, I'm economically incentivised to get the most bang for my buck. I'm economically incentivised to sell my labour to the highest bidder. I need a place to live and food to eat, don't I? So of course I'm going to plump for an employer who's going to give me enough money to live, rather than one who would leave me starving, homeless and impoverished.

I should be rich & retired by now. Here's how my strategy to become rich went:

2005

Me: I'm going to invest all my money in gold

Her: no

Result: gold plus exchange rate of US dollar would have delivered 500% return on investment

2008

Me: I'm going to quit my job and write iPhone apps

Her: no

Result: we broke up. I made enough money from my iPhone apps so I didn't have to work... until I got back together with her

2011

Me: I'm going to be CEO of a tech startup worth millions of pounds

Her: no

Result: my company continued to trade profitably and win big customers... without me

2012

Me: I'm going to invest all my money in Bitcoin

Her: no

Result: each Bitcoin is now worth $15,000. I would have paid about $5 for each Bitcoin. A $5,000 investment would now be worth $15 million

2013

Me: I'm going to invest all my money in Bitcoin

Her: no

Result: we separated and divorced. I've hardly had to work since then.

In the absence of any good ideas to get rich quick, I always fall back on IT consultancy. I was getting £40 an hour when I was 19 years old, and then £470/day when I was 20. I was on-track to retire at 40, if I stuck with the consultancy gig, even though it was soul destroying.

Now, it galls me that I've been so close to serious wealth so many times. It galls me that my ex-wife was such a toxic person that she's fucked up a whole bunch of very decent ways I could've made a fortune. It galls me that I'm back doing the soul destroying day job, because my ex-wife held me back and sabotaged some very smart and shrewd plans I had. It galls me that I'm doing a job that I mastered a long time ago. It fucking sucks to only earn six figures and have to work like, maybe 35 whole hours or whatever, doing a really easy job.

Of course, I'm deliberately writing in such a way that might cause offence. Many people dream of earning decent money, or having a shot at getting rich. Well, here's the solution: do a job you really hate.

I hate my job so very very much. I can't believe just how flipping easy it is. I also can't believe just how awful it is to be part of the capitalist machinery that's wrecking the planet and the wellbeing of humanity. I'm involved in legal loan-sharking. I'm an accessory to murder. I'm guilty by association.

I started out my career in defence - the military - so I'm no stranger to the ethical dilemma of working for a weapons manufacturer. I had to wonder to myself how I'd feel when lives were inevitably lost as a result of my software. It seemed wrong to think that I'd succeeded as an engineer, if I successfully brought about the death of the so-called 'enemy'. My software was very definitely going to be used to kill people; nothing defensive about it at all.

What should I be doing? Working for a charity? Working for an NGO or some other kind of humanitarian cause? What, like your chum Hugo from private school, who went off and built a school in Africa... he put that on his CV and now he works for a fucking bank because he's not fucking stupid. Hugo tells all his chums that he's done important work in the developing world, because he's an insufferable tosspot; he's a smug spoiled little shit, who's never known anything other than wealth and privilege.

You might hear my posh accent, or see the big name multinational companies I've worked for on my CV, and you might be mistaken for thinking I'm posh and spoiled and entitled and all the other things you don't like very much. In fact, I've had to spend my whole career with ethical conflict in my heart. I'm a bleeding-heart liberal who puts on a sharp suit and pretends to be a banker. I have to think about the part I played in the 2007/8 financial crisis. I have to think about my part I played in the whole stinking shitpit that is capitalism. I could hide behind the defence: "I'm just an engineer" but I can't.

"I make the rockets go up. Where they land is not my department"

I don't think it's a valid defence for an engineer to say that they're apolitical; amoral. I write software that's unopinionated, but I know what it's going to be used for. I know that I'm donating my brainpower and brawn to an evil cause. I know that ultimately, I'm helping the rich get richer.

I spend my days somewhat outraged that my time's being wasted on trivial bullshit, that contributes nothing to society except for improving the apparatus that oppresses the planet's poor people - tools to better extort money out of the 98%. I spend my days frustrated - I want to be doing something worthy, but I can't.

Of course I'm not going to jack in my job and go work for a charity. Charities pay shit money. Of course I'm not going to work for charity. Charities have failed to deliver any meaningful change. Impoverishing myself is the world's most stupid first step towards any meaningful change.

I'm frustrated and upset, because my ingenuity was thwarted so many times by my ex-wife that I'm now exhausted. I'm not a young man anymore. I was lucky enough to have a couple of moments of glory that proved my point - I can build valuable stuff that works - but now I don't have the energy or the financial security to make another foray into something more worthwhile than the bullshit that passes for my day job.

I'm trapped by debt that I ran up when I got sick. I'm trapped by the capitalist trap of high living costs. I'm trapped by the need to speculate to accumulate, but I've got nothing to speculate with. I'm hoisted by my own petard. The irony is not lost on me, of course.

It's torturous agony, working a job that I mastered 21 years ago. It's torturous agony, solving the same problems that I already solved a million times over, knowing full well that everything is doomed to the same fate. Of course the global financial markets are going to collapse again, imminently. Of course, the whole bullshit system can't be propped up anymore. Of course, the bubble has to burst. Bubbles always burst eventually. It's physically painful in a way that's hard to describe, knowing that the whole ridiculous house of cards is going to come crashing down again at any moment. I know it's just anxiety and stress and depression, but it's not made any better working for an investment bank, doing the same bullshit job that I was doing - I was so close to ground zero when the whole fucking financial crisis happened. I was feeling ethically challenged 10 or 11 years ago. I was feeling ethically challenged 21 years ago. Fuck my life, that I'm back doing the thing that I hate most, because it's an economic necessity.

Who's to blame? Me presumably.

Fine, pin it on me. I'll take the rap.

Imma kill myself.

Tags: #suicide #depression #career #banking #computing

This is a story about going insane...

What does this even mean? Who on earth can follow what I'm going on about?

When you take a very large dose of a stimulant drug, often you can be compelled to take things to pieces to see how they work. Famously, many stimulant abusers have dismantled their televisions and radios. I once spent the best part of a couple of days - without sleep - wondering how to design a more efficient electric motor.

If you're not going to come up with a new and novel invention, you can amuse yourself by reverse-engineering other people's. Something that holds much fascination for me are the secure hashing algorithms designed by the United States' National Security Agency. I love one of those algorithms so f**king much that I went to the trouble of writing my own software simulation of a central processing unit (CPU) just so I could study how each individual binary bit flowed through the processor and memory.

What's most compelling about my little venture into the world of pulling that puzzle apart, is that I feel transported into that room where a bunch of computer scientists and mathematicians sat down and tried to design what's called a one-way algorithm - a piece of computer code that produces an unpredictable result; unique to every piece of starting data. In theory, it should be impossible to predict the result of a seemingly trivial change, because of cascading complexity. What's the relationship between "AA", "AB" and "AC"? It should be easily predictable. Computers are very predictable. But, is it possible to obfuscate the relationship between those trivial changes and the end result?

You know all that boring maths stuff that you didn't really get at school? Well, guess what... I didn't really get it either. There just didn't seem to be any purpose to it, you know?

Well, guess what? Whoever solves the problem of solving the secure hashing algorithm known as SHA-256 gets to win a quarter of a trillion dollars. By solve I mean to come up with an algebraic equation and a number of coefficients that allow a person to compute - in a single calculation - the answer for a given number.

At the moment, a computer processor has to iterate 111 times to produce an unexpected result. Each iteration has 18 instructions. That's more or less 2,000 computer instructions to find an answer that should be as simple as doing a sum. Whoever solves the riddle will be the richest man (or woman) in the world.

An idea occurs to me: perhaps this little puzzle has been set deliberately. Whoever solves it may inadvertently be destroying the privacy we take for granted in the modern world. Our governments are very keen to break encryption so they can snoop on us. Governments are so keen, in fact, that they could have invented something like Bitcoin, to economically incentivise the very finest minds to attempt to crack the uncrackable.

It hurts my brain and it makes me feel physically sick. Of course, I'm well aware that I can make myself unwell by thinking about such problems. Perhaps it's even a sign that I'm becoming unwell, that I'm thinking about this particular head-scratcher again. I can almost hear the voice of a very trusted friend in my head, saying "banana" which is my 'safe' word, warning me that I'm getting hypomanic again.

Of course I'm getting hypomanic. I've been living with a gun to my head for so damn long. I have to spend all weekend waiting to see if I get paid on Monday. If I get paid, all my financial woes are over. If I dont, I can't even afford to get to work. F**k my life.

Tags: #cryptocurrencies #computing #career

This is a story about arms races...

Being the only honest player in a game where everybody else is cheating is a fate worse than death. Where do you draw the line for cheating though?

When playing pool, it's a well known phenomenon that there's an optimal level of intoxication to be a better player. Alcohol relaxes you, which means your muscles are less tense and the action of your arm should be smoother, delivering a straighter strike to the cue ball. Is it cheating to have a cheeky couple of pints when you're playing pool down at the pub?

Computer programmers are machines that turn coffee into software. Stimulants like caffeine and the other amphetamines - caffeine being indistinguishable from amphetamines when given intravenously - are well known for improving concentration. If most programmers are gulping strong coffee all day long, how's anyone who's caffeine-free going to compete with the rest?

The combination of caffeine and glucose is proven to improve athletic performance by a remarkable amount. Given that energy drinks are not banned and can even be sold to children, how is anybody supposed to compete at sports unless they're guzzling Red Bull?

There's a great deal of pressure on me to perform at the moment. My entire future rides on me doing a good job at work. If I fail, I go bankrupt and I become a leper: unable to gain well paid employment or even have a mobile phone or broadband contract, let alone rent an apartment.

Therefore there's a temptation to use substances to help me perform at the top of my game. With a strong coffee in the morning, I'll be able to concentrate on writing code all day. With a few glasses of wine or a sleeping pill, I'll be able to unwind and relax after a day of hacking away at complex computer systems. Uppers and downers. Round and round. Highs and lows. This is the life that we should all lead, isn't it?

I'm staggeringly well paid for what I do. Why would I want a lower paid job? Why would I want to be on average Joe wages when I could earn five times as much doing the same job? Why would anybody deliberately impoverish themselves? However, my high-risk, high-reward strategy demands that I perform to the best of my abilities. Without substances, would I have been able to get my foot in the door and hang on to a highly sought-after job?

Thus, caffeine, alcohol, sleeping pills and tranquillisers circle like vultures. I need the effects of substances, in order to cope with the life that I'm built for - I've been in this career for over 20 years. How am I supposed to cope without the unhealthy coping tools that I used successfully... until I had a breakdown; a burnout.

What goes up must come down. The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long.

It's better to burn out than fade away.

Even music has become performance enhancing. I listen to high-tempo dance music - blasting away at 130 beats per minute - in order to focus my mind and put myself into a trancelike state where I can concentrate on software code for hours and hours. What must the effect be, to be in such an unnatural state for so long?

What must it be like to have a job that brings you into the unpredictable chaotic world of people and human interactions? What must it be like to have a job that's full of intrigue and unexpected surprises? What must it be like to never have to fight your constant existential crises and suppress all invasive musings about the absurdity of existence, because you're just a rat waiting for the next food pellet: when's the next order going to arrive; the next email; the next patient; the next customer?

As I do battle with boolean algebra every single day, there is no comforting wiggle-room of the humanities - computer says yes or computer says no; true or false. There are no shades of grey in my world - there's a right answer and a wrong answer. I sit in front of three screens and I try to figure out the right answer. I can go for weeks without speaking to another person. It fills me with terror sometimes, thinking that the ultimate arbiter of whether I've succeeded or failed is a cold, rational and unthinking machine. It's like playing chess against myself.

Some would say I'm a success story. Isn't the whole reason for paying attention at school and trying hard during your exams so that you can land a good job and get promoted into a position of seniority? Aren't we all trying to climb the greasy pole and get a big fat wage packet at the end of the working week? Aren't we all trying to compete and win? I won... didn't I?

I wouldn't be so churlish as to say "it's tough at the top" and of course, I'm laughably far from the top, but I'm sure there would be a plenty long queue of people who'd swap their salary for mine, so let's not be too hasty. It's worth considering just how destabilising my career choices have been to my mental health: feast & famine, boom & bust and the ever-present pressure to perform. Alcohol and caffeine are ubiquitous - as they are everywhere - but you haven't seen alcoholism in the workplace to quite the extent I have, unless you've also worked in the City of London in investment banking.

They say that banking greases the wheels of capitalism. Alcohol greases the wheels of banking.

The most successful strategy that I could play right now would be to have have two or three strong cappuccinos every day at work, and at least a bottle of wine every night. I'm sure my career and my bank balance would benefit handsomely from such a strategy.

I do worry about my mental health, but in this capitalist society, who has the time & money to stop and think about such a trifling thing? I'm reminded of this time last year, when I had to discharge myself from hospital against medical advice, to go chasing a banking IT contract. Money, money, money. Find an edge. Do whatever it takes!

You understand, it's not greed that drives me. This is the world we live in. We all need a competitive edge. I have no idea how to function in a world where I'm not compelled to use uppers and downers to help me perform. What do people even do without their morning coffee and their evening wine?

I earned well over a thousand pounds for two days sitting in front of a computer screen thinking "what the f**k am I doing?". I'm winning aren't I? This is what winning looks like, isn't it?

I'm winning... aren't I?

Before I know it, I've had more than the magic two pints and I can't hit a ball to save my life. I've gone beyond the sweet spot. I've had too much to drink and I'm just drunk. There's a fine line between performance enhancing, and substance abusing. I wake up one morning and all I've got is a habit. A stimulant habit. An alcohol habit.

We can all reach for substances to give us an edge, but you're playing a high-stakes game. The bigger you are the harder you fall.

It's almost impossible to change the habits of a lifetime. Of course I'm going to reach for substances when I'm struggling. Of course I'm going to return to the same boom and bust lifestyle that's served me so well, and also threatened to destroy me.

Roll the dice.

Tags: #career #banking #computing #alcohol #caffeine

This is a story about living out of a suitcase...

This is my life now. Spreading mustard and mayonaise onto long-life bread with a shoehorn, placing sweaty pre-cut cheese squares in-between the slices and chowing down on a hotel-room made sandwich, while swigging from a can of strong European lager. This is the life of a business traveller who can't really afford the expenses - I'm faking it until I make it. I'd be sleeping in my car... if I had a car.

It'd be fairly easy to look back on the journey that started with near-certainty that I was going to get sued for non-payment of rent, whilst also being evicted... of course, I had no money. I still don't have any money. I have negative money. I have negative negative LOTS OF DEBT MONEY. When I get paid, things won't be so bad. When I've been paid for a few months, things will look positively rosy. "That wasn't so bad" you'll say. You're wrong. It was bad.

Things are often a lot easier said than done.

A lot of the experiences in my life have been awful at the time, but later on I've been able to laugh about the dire straits I was in. In fact, the only way I've been able to come to terms with some ridiculous stuff I've been through is to tell my hair-raising tales of near-death experiences and destruction to the world. You might think that I glorify events of the past, or wear bad stuff as a badge of honour. That's not true, but what am I supposed to do with all those negative experiences? Am I supposed to walk around with a glum face and tell everybody how terrible I am? Am I only alive to serve as a living reminder to people that they shouldn't make bad choices like I did?

Choices.

Yes. Do you really believe in free will? I imagine that you believe in Santa Claus too. There's no free will. Our choices are always heavily biased. We're cornered and coerced. Would I have gone back to IT consulting for an investment bank in London if I wasn't flat broke? Am I making free will choices, or am I just doing what I've got to do to survive?

Survival.

My version of survival probably looks pretty ridiculous to you. The kind of money that's going to be coming my way soon is pretty obscene - banks pay very well. So, does that mean that I'm not surviving? Am I actually completely fine and dandy? I'm just making a fuss about nothing, right? In fact, if you saw the numbers, you might be angered; you might conclude that I've been fine all along... nothing to worry about and never in any danger.

A friend often challenges me on why I would keep myself on the endangered species list. Why would I continue to advertise my distress? Surely I'm safe and secure now. Well, how long ago was it that I was made homeless, jobless, having some dealings with the police, locked up on a psych ward and facing certain bankruptcy with mountainous debts?

So, I got a job. I worked that job. I did a good job. Money is on the way now. Case closed?

Actually, can you imagine how stressful it was to have to hit the ground running and pretend like I've got my shit together all of a sudden? Just because I'm pretty damn good at acting like I'm a cool customer and I can handle anything that life throws at me, the reality is that my inner monologue goes pretty much like this: "shit! shit! shit! everything's on fire! everything's too hard! it'll never work! everything's ruined and it'll never be fixed! it's too hard! I can't do it!".

Of course, a lot of people find new countries, new cities, new jobs, new work colleagues, new offices, new challenges, new accommodation and the stress of the unfamiliarity of circumstances, to make them very anxious. I'm not the only one who feels stressed and anxious when taken out of my comfort zone. I'm not the first person ever to have butterflies in their tummy about a new job.

Ha ha.

If only it was just a new job. Try plucking homeless unemployed bankrupt drug addicts who are known to the police, up from locked psych wards, giving them a scrub down, putting them in a suit and plonking them at a desk in another country. See how many times that works out for you.

To top it all off, there is the ever-present danger - and there still is - that I'll run out of money before that first payment lands in my bank account. If you think it's just a case of budgeting you're an idiot. You can't budget if the numbers just don't add up - sometimes there just isn't enough money to pay for everything. Sometimes, you can't afford to go to work, because you can't afford to get there. Catch 22.

If you think that I'm not a representative example, you're right. Most people will fall at one of the many hurdles. Most people would find themselves marginalised and excluded and blacklisted and without a hope of ever recovering their poise; hope of ever returning to normal life. You're right. I'm not most people. I'm not special though. I'm not different.

I cashed in one of my "get out of jail free" cards. I don't have any aces left up my sleeve. I've called in pretty much every favour. I had help, of course. People don't survive without help.

Arguably I wasn't a very worthy cause to help. Arguably, I'm arrogant and ungrateful; I credit myself where no credit is due - surely the situation I find myself in today is entirely thanks to other people, and I'm just a passenger... I've been gifted everything I've got from generous people; I haven't worked a day in my life.

To a large extent, I agree that luck and other people's generosity are the main factors in my life. So what? Would you prefer me dead?

Of course, I question my utility; I question the value of my productive output. I'm not rescuing children from burning orphanages after all, am I? Isn't it about time that I built a school in Africa or distributed food and clean water in some war-torn area flooded with refugees? With all my software development expertise, why haven't I created an app that cures cancer, or programmed a supercomputer to find the solution to world hunger? Isn't it about time that I stopped being so pleased with myself and did something to help other people? Isn't it high time that I stopped being so selfish and self-centred?

Easier said than done.

Take a look around. OK so your friend Sharon did a fun run that raised a lot of money for spastics, but she went on and on about it A LOT, going on about how fucking amazing she is for having done that, didn't she? Those 30 minutes that she spent puffing and panting, running around the school sports field hasn't changed anything has it? Did that rock concert that you went to succeed in ending poverty? That's right... you were really philanthropic, by going to see those bands play. How wonderful of you.

So many of us say "I'd like to do more, but I'm struggling myself". It's true, people really are struggling to find the time and the money to get through ordinary life, let alone perform selfless self-sacrificing philanthropic amazing acts of charity. There isn't a culture of helping each other. We mainly eye each other up suspiciously: are our peers getting more money than us? Why does SHE have a bigger house than me? Why are THEY getting a new car this year?

It's pretty easy to take a superficial glance at a person and say "WHY ARE YOU JUST SITTING THERE? GET UP AND DO SOMETHING". We've got all the solutions to other people's problems, haven't we? Isn't it the easiest thing in the world, solving other people's problems? If only people would listen, right?

I am thinking about changing my alarmist "suicide note" blog title to simply read this: addict.

I want people to stigmatise me. I want people to jump to the wrong conclusions. I want everybody who thinks they've got an easy answer to come forward and 'save' me from myself. "Have you tried not taking drugs?" being one amazing suggestion that I'd never thought of before.

I've failed to wean myself off sleeping pills. I've failed to stay off the pregabalin - painkillers - that I worked so hard to quit. I started drinking again, and I've been drinking a whole bottle of wine every night. I'm an addict, even though you might take a lazy glance at my life and conclude that I'm perfectly fine.

As I journey back to Wales for a Christmas break, having completed a nervy few weeks back at work, you could be forgiven for thinking that my life's back on track. Talking to me, you'd think that I've overcome all those obstacles that would normally cause a person to stumble and trip - a mentally ill homeless junkie bankrupt known-to-the-police type person. You'd be forgiven for thinking I'm normal. You'd be forgiven for thinking I'm just like you.

I am normal.

I am an addict.

Surely this is cognitive dissonance. Addicts aren't normal, right? Well, how's about this one: I don't even abuse substances. Why on earth would I label myself as an addict? Surely I've won? Surely I've broken free from everything that threatened to destroy me? Why would I want to publicly wear the most awful label that we can give to a person?

I'm not going to write a world-changing app. If apps had the capacity to change the world for the better, they'd have done it. I'm not going to start a world-changing charity. If charity had the capacity to change the world for the better, it'd have succeeded.

So am I giving up?

Am I putting on my oxygen mask before helping others?

The answer is neither. I'm not doing either of those things. I neither accept that the world's fucked and there's nothing I can do about it, nor do I believe that I have to help myself before helping others. It's true that my situation was unbearable, and it will continue to be unbearable for some time. I'm going through some awful stuff, even if you think my life is blessed and I live a charmed existence.

There's a family in Wales who've helped me. They've seen me during periods when it appears to them like I'm not helping myself. They've torn their hair out with frustration that I've been stubborn at times, when there's been obvious solutions that have been right there, just waiting for me to reach out and grab them. The whole world's problems could be solved overnight if only people would listen, right? Simple. Things are really simple, right?

The asceticism of my life - making my own sandwiches in a hotel room - seems like an obvious solution to a problem to you. No knife to spread the mayonaise on the bread? No worries, here's another solution for you...

However, if you have to actually live with a person while they go through the millions of trials and tribulations in their life, then you start to get a sense that things are not as simple as they appear at first. The case of getting my passport back from a bank in Manchester being a particularly illustrative example.

I'm about to spend Christmas in the bosom of a loving family, living on a gorgeous farm in the Welsh countryside. Of course, things aren't all about me. Christmas is about family; it's about giving, not receiving. How must this family feel though?: they've succeeded. They've nursed me back to health. Money is on the way. I'm back in the saddle, aren't I?

January.

January is my nemesis. Of course, I'm not the only person on planet earth to feel down in January. Of course, we all have winter blues and credit card bills hitting the doormat in January. Great. Let's just see how things go, shall we? I'll be back to living out of a suitcase in January.

Tags: #family #addiction #mentalhealth

This is a story about medical notes...

My ex-wife - a biochemist by way of undergraduate degree - once screamed at me in an incoherent rage because I had innocently asked her "how big is a protein?" having wondered how many nanometers across, the average protein molecule measured. The sheer audacity of me asking such a question enraged her, perhaps because free thinking is expressly forbidden in an academic world which promotes rote-learning of facts and examinations graded to a marking scheme, ahead of learning.

(The answer, by the way, is roughly 3 nanometres in radius).

When I attempt to answer a difficult question, I sometimes pause and chuckle. "What is consciousness?" came one question. Although I was desperate to talk about weakly interacting subatomic particles, General Relativity and nuclear fusion, I somehow managed to constrain myself to a meaningless analogy, while keeping quiet about my "mind's eye" which could picture every piece of information that captured my entire existence, smeared out in a infinitely thin sphere at the event horizon of a singularity, across all meaningful spacetime for the entire universe that I will ever perceive, which would have been rather a mouthful to express.

Just as one may cram for an exam the night before, I've attempted to only ever amass the prerequisite knowledge that may be considered the minimum viable to navigate whatever situations I have had to endure to reach my goals. Education has never seemed like an end in and of itself, given that our understanding of the fundmental nature of reality is evolving, and the Standard Model of particle physics is rather long in the tooth. Although I find it quite delightful that there are quarks named strange, charm and beauty in the particle zoo, I would find it rather frustrating to dedicate years of my life, obtaining a degree and writing a thesis using tools which may soon look as clunky and outdated as Newton's inverse-square law of gravity.

The mathematicians will mock physics as simply being applied mathematics. The physicists will mock chemistry as simply being applied physics. The chemists will mock biology as simply being applied chemistry, and so on.

Computers are now capable of solving equations and modelling real-world phenomena, potentially making algebra and calculus into dying arts, along with handwriting and long-division. The Fractal Geometry of Nature has revealed that cold rational calculating machines can produce simulations that imitate reality, through repeating patterns. Massive computational power does not only aid human discovery of hidden algebraic equations.

Amid much fanfare, computer software is touted as potentiating new drug discovery by simulating molecular binding, protein folding, rapid gene sequencing and personalised medicine. However, we seem to have forgotten that half the planet is impoverished & hungry, and vast numbers of those who are fortunate enough to live in advanced, wealthy & technologically advanced societies, are suffering from an epidemic of anxiety, depression and other mental health issues that is bad enough to drive vast numbers of men in the prime of their life to commit suicide: the biggest killer of males under the age of 45 in the UK - more than road traffic accidents, drug-related deaths, physical disease, murder, accidents and all the other causes of death.

One should consider that I took leave of my senses in 2008, but since that time I have only managed to attract two clinical diagnoses - convenient medical short-hand - although I have acquired a third which is perhaps the bluntest instrument of the three, and much more of a pejorative than a diagnosis.

"Substance abuse" is a catch-all term which serves me well when I haven't the time & energy to go into detail. Given humanity's long history of self-intoxication, some physicians would consider themselves to be well-versed in the matter. Even the most insulated amongst us, will have struggled to escape contact with a drunk in our lives. We quickly forget, of course, that psychiatry is an extremely young discipline. The isolation, refinement and synthesis of molecules which can short-circuit brain mechanisms, is something that dates back only 70 or 80 years, along with the branch of medicine chiefly concerned with treatment of matters of the mind.

The brain: the most complicated organ in the human body - estimated to have up to a quadrillion neuronal synapses - is often considered only in terms of its vital function as central nervous system, insofar as the same fatty grey matter helps other species to fuck, fight, flee and feed. This does not, however, tell us much about human consciousness, and even less still about pathological thought.

I once sat down and hand-wrote 12 pages of notes, from memory, of every General Practice doctor, psychiatrist and hospital, which I had attended during a 7 year period. Although I kept things as brief as I could, with names, dates and locations, as well as diagnoses and medications, there was a great deal to write. I'm not a complete hypochondriac - there were important notes about my episodes of depression and hypomania, where my mental health had caused me to become significantly dysfunctional.

Perhaps your mind is now skipping ahead - as mine often does - and you're attempting to finish my sentences. Presumably, you're trying to guess the punchline of the joke. I assume you've already got more than enough information to diagnose and treat me.

I'm second-guessing myself here, and I'm struck by the egotism and "navel gazing" of the very act of being sufficiently appraised of my own medical history that I should remember such a level of detail. Who the hell am I to take an interest in my own diagnosis and treatment? Where's my certificate, framed on the wall? Where's the photo of me wearing a mortar board & gown, and clutching a scroll of parchment with a red ribbon tied around it?

When I think about where I should spend my precious time and effort, I'm not motivated by the prospect of being an understudy to a failure. While psychiatry continues to produce dismal outcomes for humanity, in terms of the epidemic of mental health problems, addiction and general societal collapse under the weight of stress and burnout, I'm reluctant to follow in the path of those who are not succeeding in improving the human condition. It should however be noted that I do not for a single moment, criticise the well-meaning intent of those in the healthcare professions, nor do I mean to discredit the lifesaving work that takes place every single day.

The idea of using myself as a case study seems quite ridiculous, but one must consider that it would be unethical to - for example - risk a person's life when there is a treatment available that has been proven to be more effective than placebo.

With a sample size of one, perhaps nothing useful can be gleaned from my first-hand experiences, but I have attempted to corroborate my findings with other evidence wherever possible. I have deliberately avoided areas where another data point would make no difference: what use would it be if I too experienced anorgasmia as a result of SSRI medication, for example?

A great deal of our knowledge regarding the anatomy of the human brain has been gleaned from unethical experiments on unconsenting psychiatric patients - lobotomies, testing of medications and induced seizures. Animal studies have been gratuitously gruesome, with a great deal of unnecessary suffering inflicted upon primates. I'm not an anti-vivisection nutcase, but there must be very tangible goals to justify the means of obtaining the results.

To bathe a brain in psychoactive molecules that will cross the blood-brain barrier, is barbaric when we consider that the theoretical reasons why drugs have the effect that they do - the theories have so often been disproven. The 'chemical imbalance' theory that said that depressed brains had lower levels of serotonin, and that SSRIs would increase levels of synaptic serotonin, has been conclusively disproven, yet it is still a widely-circulated myth.

The much-vaunted sequencing of the human genome looks like a ridiculous white elephant of a project, when we consider that epigenetic gene expression had been discovered to allow genetically identical animals to exhibit completely different physical characteristics, depending on the environment that they have been exposed to.

In a collapsing global economy, education is one of the few sectors that's not feeling the pinch, and good solid science is getting drowned out in a sea of noise: pointless research. There are already excellent animal models which demonstrate that overpopulation and otherwise horrible living conditions, will produce a "behavioural sink" and addiction, in individuals who would otherwise lead happy healthy lives.

It has seemed fairly obvious to me from the start, that my mental health problems have stemmed from the ethical objections I had to the conduct of financial services organisations, and the role of global capitalism in ruining billions of human lives, in pursuit of unrestrained, unregulated and immoral profits, to the exclusion of any and all consideration of long-term consequences. In short: my problems should not be medicalised. I'm having a sane reaction to an insane world.

While this essay goes well beyond the "answer A, B or C" multiple-choice options on the prescriptive menu that is on offer, I feel that this does not invalidate the points I am making.

To have invested heavily in a mainstream education, would be to risk becoming incoherent with rage whenever somebody was so impertinent as to ask a thoughtful question - questions that spring into a mind that's unconstrained by the narrow status quo viewpoint, rote-learned while kowtowing to those with the necessary credentials to approve clones of themselves.

This is not "my ignorance is as good as your knowledge" anti-intellectualism, but instead a suggestion that we don't need so many people who've all read exactly the same books and sat more-or-less exactly the same tests. Moving towards intellectual homogeny is as dangerous as book burning, in my opinion.

In conclusion: this is a convoluted way of saying that you're unqualified to judge me, although you're possibly technically correct if you say that my problems are mostly of my own making.

Tags: #mentalhealth #suicide #addiction