This is a story about living in a dreamlike state...

I've spent the day feeling very unwell. I've drifted in and out of sleep. Every time I've woken up, I've been confused about where I am. What is this bed I'm sleeping in? Where is the bedroom door? Where is the toilet?

In my dreams today, I dreamt about two places which only exist in my mind. These two places where my brain thinks I've lived, are actually not real places at all. My brain is so jumbled up that it contains very detailed pictures of two places that I've never been to in my life - in my dreams, I know the colour of the walls, the layout of the rooms, the view from the windows, the furniture. In my dreams I feel absolutely certain that these are places where I've lived, but it's not true.

In those moments when I was waking up today, I was certain that I've lived in those imaginary places, and I had no idea where I actually was.

Strangely, those imaginary places feature quite regularly in my dreams. Sometimes I'm transported back to places I lived as a child, except those homes are always strangely altered in my dreams - they contain extra floors and corridors lead to unusual places. The two imaginary places which keep popping up in my dreams always look the same though - it's as though I know those places better than anywhere I've ever lived, even though they don't actually exist.

I think it's pretty clear that all the travelling around and living out of a suitcase has left me quite disturbed.

When I arrived home last night, I dumped my 4 bags onto the kitchen floor, which is pretty much where they remain, untouched. When I say "home" I don't really mean home in the sense that you might think of it, because I know I must leave here again very soon.

I've been feeling sick all day.

I don't feel well enough to go to work tomorrow.

Going to work entails me packing everything I need for the working week. Going to work entails me loading my bags into my car and driving across the country. Going to work entails me staying somewhere which isn't home, but yet it almost is.

I've become familiar with the hotels I stay in, except that the rooms are mirror-images of each other, so there's only a 50% chance that I'll get out of the right side of bed to stumble to the toilet in the middle of the night. When I reach for the bedside light-switch, there's a 50% chance that I'll flick the switch that turns on the bright main lights in the room, as opposed to the bedside lamp. I exist in a world where every bed is slightly unfamiliar, and the least familiar of all is the one that I suppose I might refer to as "in my home".

My stuff is spread all over the place. Some of my stuff in a friend's mum's garage. Some of my stuff is piled up in my bedroom. Some of my stuff is packed into suitcases and holdalls, so that it can be transported around from place to place. When I'm away from home, it's a 2.5 hour round-trip to collect anything that I might have forgotten, or anything that I might unexpectedly need.

I spend a huge amount of time trying to stay organised. The things I travel with are neatly partitioned: Work clothes and casual clothes, toiletries, medicines, gadgets, footwear, raincoats and other things which have crept into my luggage by accident, where holidays have overlapped with my on-the-road existence. I have no need of flip-flops, sunglasses and travel plug adapters, but yet these things end up being lugged around by me, because they're small and light so I never bothered to leave them behind.

Where do I live anyway? The bulk of my possessions are stored in somebody's garage. The things I need the most are transported around by me, everywhere I go. The majority of nights, I'm sleeping in a bed which is not my own. The only constant is my luggage - everything else changes. I never unpack my bags. I've become extremely adept at rummaging and locating the item I need.

If I wanted to go to work tomorrow, I would need to wash, dry and iron my work clothes. It's 11pm at night and I would need to leave at 7am to be at work on time, so that doesn't give me enough time to get the sleep I need as well as packing everything I need for the week ahead.

In some ways, I had a more settled life when I lived in a hostel. At least in the hostel, the bunkbeds were all identical and I got used to where the toilets were. I got used to the noise of the other inhabitants. I got used to homeless life, because I was living it 7 days a week, instead of having this split and nomadic existence.

The constant change in my life is unsettling, and that's why I think my mind has retreated into the realm of the imaginary. Not having a stable home is the reason why I find the imaginary homes in my head more familiar than the hotels rooms and rented places where I actually sleep.

The demands placed upon me have disturbed and unsettled my mind. I've been made sick by the lack of security and stability in my home life. My arduous yet delicate weekly routine is easily disturbed, with catastrophic results for my sense of wellbeing and ability to function.

Yes, I'm well-practiced at packing my bags and dealing with mirror-image hotel rooms, or even hostel dorms, while somehow maintaining the illusion that I have a settled and secure ordinary middle-class life, like my colleagues at work. Yes I can tolerate the intolerable, for a while, by sticking to my routines and following my procedures, but it's very demanding and I'm always on the verge of having a nervous breakdown from the stress.

My fridge is empty. My cupboards are bare. However, tomorrow I will remain "at home" and do my washing, and make my preparations for the remainder of the working week, which I imagine I will spend in a hotel. I will attempt to resume my routine. My routine is what I have instead of stability and security.

Tags: #homeless #nomad #sick

This is a story about being on tenterhooks...

I'm a living contradiction. I choose security and certainty over the vain hope of hitting the jackpot. If I was given the choice between having a "B" grade, but not having to do any work or suffer any uncertainty, versus the potential to achieve an "A+" then I would take the "B" grade without a moment's hesitation. If you think that's settling for mediocrity, you're wrong - I choose my battles and I achieve "A+" grades all the time... as an accidental consequence of pursuing the things I'm interested in and passionate about.

The other part of my contradictory personality is that I choose to take incredible risks. I jump out of planes. I climb rock faces. I scale high mountains. I ride gigantic waves in gale-force winds. Why the hell would I do that?

There are a lot of risk-reward-cost-benefit calculations that go on inside my head.

I've gathered a lot of data.

The decision to take dangerous highly addictive drugs might seem like one of the most baffling choices that a person would elect to do. For example, taking heroin is seen as an indication of character flaw, but being a BASE jumper is seen as cool, although the latter carries the same risk of premature death.

Let's do a bit more in-depth analysis, shall we?

Cost of being a rock climber:

• Rock boots: £45
• Harness: £75
• Chalk bag & chalk ball: £15
• Rope £150
• Helmet £50
• Belay plate: £20
• 10 quickdraws: £150

TOTAL: £505

So, for somebody who wants to climb a rock face safely, the minimum amount they're going to have to spend is over £500. Also, you might fall and die. Let's re-iterate that: It's pretty damn obvious that if you climb up a vertical rock face and you lose your grip, you can fall to the ground and be killed on impact.

Cost of being a mountaineer:

• Crampon-compatible boots: £200
• Crampons: £120
• Base layers: £40
• Mid-layers: £80
• Shell layer jacket: £250
• Shell layer salopettes: £180
• Ice axes: £250
• Helmet: £50
• 9mm waterproof rope: £175
• Ice screws: £120
• Warthogs: £40
• Deadman: £40
• Backpack: £150
• Survival bag: £20
• Down sleeping bag: £300
• Down jacket: £200
• Tent: £350
• Sleeping mat: £60

TOTAL: £2,625

So, for somebody who wants to climb a 4,000m+ mountain (Mont Blanc etc) then you're going to have to shell out more than £2,500. In fact, it's going to cost you a lot more, because you're going to need lots of things I didn't list, like spare pairs of socks, spare base layers, and also a stove, cooking utensils, plus all the other expedition gear. You're not going to have much spare change out of £3,500. Did I mention that you're highly likely to be killed by falling rocks, avalanches, falling into a crevasse, or simply plummeting to your death.

I shan't follow the same process for kitesurfing, yacht sailing or skydiving, but the financial cost of putting your life in danger can be staggering, especially when we consider that rugged outdoorsy types are somehow healthy and laudable people of good character and moral fibre; made of the right stuff.

Another group of people who we might consider are the entrepreneurs. Who are these people who reject conventional employment - salaried jobs - and instead choose to make their money by means other than selling their singular body and brain. Are these people risk takers too?

In fact, all the celebrated members of society have one thing in common: they've had the financial means to pursue avenues that are not available to most of the populace, because the need to eat, be housed and be clothed is an insistent demand which is too pressing for all but those who enjoy considerable economic advantages. Do not believe the bullshit - rugged adventurers are not brave souls and entrepreneurs are not gifted geniuses... they're all people who've had the financial backing in order to pursue their expensive dreams. Don't believe any of the "self-made man" bullshit. Behind every "self made" man are a whole bunch of people who've underwritten their risk.

I busted my shoulder up pretty badly - broken bones - on a beach in a remote part of Brasil. My startup co-founder broke his leg very badly indeed in roughly the same part of Brasil. That part of the world is many hours away from a good hospital with a surgeon and operating theatre where complex orthopaedic surgery could be performed. Would we have been so adventurous if we hadn't become somewhat complacent about the bubble we live in?

I'm on probation at the moment. I'm on best behaviour. I'm trying to impress my new girlfriend. I'm trying to prove that I'm a good boyfriend.

But, do I really think that I'm going to fail?

Have I ever been worried that I'm going to fall to my death?

Have I ever been worried that world-class medical establishments and all the many wonders of modern civilisation aren't rapidly available in an emergency? Have I ever been worried that somebody wouldn't patch me up as good as new, if I had an accident?

It's never really crossed my mind that I might not get what I want. Of course, I've had heart-stopping moments when I've suddenly realised how staggeringly exposed I am. I've spent so much of my life living on the edge that I've become desensitised to the worrying fact that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and the more times I put my life at risk, the greater the chance that I'm going to be badly injured or killed.

I was worried that I was too fat, old, mentally ill and addicted to drugs and alcohol to ever meet somebody who'd fall in love with me. I was worried that I was too indebted and lacking in any assets - such as a fast car and big house - to be attractive to any object of my affections. I was worried that I was a washed-up loser; a has-been.

Our whole lives are lived under Damocles' sword, somewhat. We could mess up our exams. We could mess up our careers. We could mess up our relationships. There's never a single moment when we can really relax and feel like we're not on probation in some way.

I guess I'm pretty sanguine. I get anxious and I torment myself a very great deal with catastrophic thinking but ultimately, I feel the fear and do what I was always going to do anyway. I'm well aware of the innumerable and virtually unimaginable risks, but if you examine my behaviour - as opposed to what I write - then you'll see that I never choose the low-risk option; you'll see that I continuously pursue the very best that life has to offer, despite stress levels which are almost intolerable.

Tomorrow is an important day, but I already know that I'm going to be OK. My risk is underwritten. What's the worst that can happen? Death? Hospitalisation? Been there. Done that.

Tags: #relationships #kitesurfing #sailing #climbing #mountaineering #adventure #friends #startup

This is a story about radio silence...

On June 20 of this year I attempted to write my life story from 2011 onwards, covering the happiest, most successful period of my life and the pinnacle of my career - doing a tech startup accelerator program in Cambridge with a cohort of incredible people - and the subsequent reasons why I stepped down as CEO, separated from my wife, sold my house and settled my acrimonious divorce.

I wrote 10,000 words in a non-stop brain dump. Once I started I couldn't hold back - the words flooded out onto the page.

It was supposed to be succinct. It was supposed to be a simple set of bullet points.

It turned out to be a lot harder than I thought, to write down even the first part.

Part two has a lot to cover:

• Homelessness
• Hospitals
• Police
• Drug addiction
• Psych wards
• Suicide attempts
• More banking jobs
• More IT projects
• Moving to Manchester
• Moving to Wales
• Several relationships and breakups; love and loss
• Psychosis
• Self medication
• Alcohol
• Depression
• Anxiety
• Boredom
• Financial problems
• Near-bankruptcy
• Salvation

I'm not going to write part two in the same way that I wrote part one.

That was 6 months ago. This is now.

A lot can happen in 6 months.

As a quick recap, here are the problems I've been trying to tackle this year:

• £54,000 of debt
• Homeless
• No job
• No car
• Single
• Addicted to prescription drugs: sleeping pills, tranquillisers and painkillers
• Alcohol abuse
• Depression, anxiety and bipolar disorder

As if those problems weren't enough, in June I had relapsed onto supercrack. I'd been working but I'd lost my job - through no fault of my own - and I was in no hurry to get another one, because my addiction had returned with a vengeance. I was in a place with no family and only a handful of friends, none of whom were equipped to deal with my clusterfuck of issues. I was more-or-less alone, except for the people who I try to connect with on a daily basis through my blog, Twitter, Facebook and other digital means.

I came up with the title "No News is Bad News" because it's usually true. I came up with that title, because a period of silence on my blog is usually cause for concern. It's usually time to start phoning round the hospitals to see if I've been admitted. It's usually time to start worrying if I'm dead or dying.

Back in June - 6 months ago - the title was very apt, because I hadn't been online for a while. Losing my job had completely destroyed my hopes of dealing with the mountain of issues I was facing. Losing my job had wrecked my plans for recovery.

Today, my world looks very different.

I can't tell you too much - because it's private - but I'm writing from the comfort of my girlfriend's bed. Her bedroom is very pink and girly. She just brought me a plate with a generously buttered thick slice of toast and a glass of orange juice, which I am eating in bed. I'm getting crumbs in the bed and greasy finger-marks on my laptop.

I'm no longer living out of a suitcase in a hotel and eating in the same gastropub every night, sat at a table for one. I'm unofficially co-habiting. We only met a few weeks ago. The relationship is going fast. Too fast some might say.

I kiss my sweetheart good morning and wish her a good day as I depart for work. My journey takes no more than 15 minutes when the traffic is kind to me. I'm finding it easy to get up in the morning. I don't dread lonely evenings in a bland hotel room. I don't dread the unsustainable interminable monotony of miserable days in the office, and miserable evenings spent alone.

I'm going too fast though.

I'm working too hard.

It takes vast quantities of alcohol, sleeping pills and tranquillisers to prevent me from working 12 to 14 hour days. It requires a huge amount of effort to stop myself from working at the weekend. I'm desperate to achieve results as quickly as possible, because the finishing line is within sight.

It could be months before I'm well-and-truly out of the danger zone and enjoying some long-overdue financial security. It's definitely going to be a long time before I get truly settled at home and at work. I need to decide where I'm going to live and what I'm going to do for a job, on a more long-term basis. At some point, my good luck is going to run out and I'll be forced back into living out of a suitcase, maintaining a long-distance relationship, and having to face the anxiety and stress of proving myself in a new organisation, with a new set of work colleagues.

Mania has arrived. There's no doubt about that.

My manic energy has been ploughed into my day job, instead of my new novel. I worry that my work colleagues have noticed that I've completely obsessed by my project. I worry that the undesirable accompanying behaviours - irritability, rapid and pressured speech, arrogance and delusions of grandeur - will become so hard to hide in the office that I might be forced to disclose my bipolar disorder to my colleagues, in the hope that they'll be sympathetic.

My blog has been neglected, along with my friends.

I work too hard. I'm moving 'too fast' in my new relationship - the "L" word has been used and she has given me a key to her place. We're going on holiday together. All my original problems are still there, to some extent. I need to decide where to live, pay off my outstanding debts, drink less, quit the sleeping pills and tranquillisers, get my mania under control.

What else can I tell you?

I can't try to tell you too much all at once, even though I desperately want to. I want to sit down and write 10,000 words without taking a single break. I want to pour my heart out onto the page and tell you everything, but I'm trying to pump the brakes a little bit. I'm trying to be a little bit sensible, even though I'm clearly going too fast.

It feels like the week-long hiatus from blogging was not bad news. Perhaps it's good news? No. It's not good news. I'm not looking after myself. I'm not managing my bipolar very well. I'm allowing myself to become manic, for the purposes of achieving 'great' things at work. It's exciting to be manic after so many months of depression and misery.

It would be a good idea for me to resolve to resume my daily writing, but I'm wary of making unrealistic promises. Today, I'm coming to terms with the fact that my 3rd novel remains unfinished, when I had hoped to have completed it yesterday.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is my present situation in a nutshell.

Tags: #bipolar #relationships #debt #homeless #addiction #medication #alcohol #writing

This is a story about the hivemind...

It's getting late and I'm tired, so I thought I would retransmit some of the disturbing data that I receive. Having started this website about 3 years ago, Google quickly found it and began to index its contents to make it searchable, and therefore discoverable by anybody who uses its search engine and enters keywords which seem to be relevant, according to Google's algorithms.

A strange thing happens.

I get to see the search queries where my website appears in Google's search results - an impression - as well as the search queries which brought me a website visitor. What I write and publish on my blog makes it more likely that I'll appear as a high-ranking search result, and also more likely that I'll have visitors coming to my website for weird and wonderful things they're searching the internet for.

It turns out there are a lot of people who want to kill themselves.

I wrote a blog post a little while ago where I chose a title specifically to improve my search ranking, which I knew would work very well, so I tried to write something which was useful in some way. I thought to myself "why do so many people ask Google if they can drink themselves sober?" and I thought it was rather tragic that these people had reached such a level of desperation that they'd bother to sift through pages and pages of search results, hoping to find an easy answer. I felt like I should give those people an answer. I felt like those people should have the best possible answer I could muster.

Problematically, lots and lots and lots of people seem to want to suffocate themselves to death; to asphyxiate. More than any other thing, my website pops up time and time again on Google for people who are searching for answers to questions like "how do I kill myself with a plastic bag?".

Obviously, this is disturbing, but it also puts some responsibility on my shoulders.

This website is the second link on Google - second only to Wikipedia - if you are searching for information on the hypercapnic alarm response, which is the reason why you can't just hold your breath to kill yourself. People are quite fascinated, it seems, with the idea of suffocation, which I find very disturbing indeed - I could not imagine a worse way to die than gasping for air.

Given that a number of visitors will be directed here by Google in search of answers to their disturbing questions, I feel duty bound to give the most responsible and best answers that I possibly can, when those people are clearly desperate and vulnerable.

Firstly, do not kill yourself by suffocation. Your final moments of existence will be more horrendous than anything you've ever experienced in your life. The tragedy of self-suffocation - most often achieved inadvertently by hanging - is that you will trigger your most viceral survival instincts which your depression has robbed you of. Your survival instincts are merely dormant and imperceptible during the unbearable humdrum tedium of modern life. The tragedy of self-suffocation is that you will spend your final moments thinking "make it stop" but you will not mean life but in fact the terrible torment of the hypercapnic alarm response. You might think you've had bad anxiety and panic attacks, but you've not experienced anything that even comes close to your body's hard-wired survival instinct, which keeps you taking breath after breath, even though you feel dreadfully depressed and suicidal.

Remember of course that breathing is partially voluntary. We can choose to breathe fast or slow. We can choose to hyperventilate. We can choose to hold our breath... for a while. We cannot choose to hold our breath until we die. Almost nobody can choose to hold their breath until they lose consciousness. Besides, when we lose consciousness we lose our ability to make conscious choices, such as holding our breath.

The idea of an exit bag deals partially with the problem of resuming normal breathing as soon as we lose consciousness, except that the hypercapnic alarm response will cause you to claw desperately at the plastic to tear a hole in it, when the panic becomes unbearable. Your body has set safe limits, such that you will begin to feel the urge to save yourself well before you're in as much danger as you perceive. Perception-altering drugs can dangerously depress our breathing, because we're more impervious to the anxiety and stress that we would otherwise feel, causing us to increase our rate of breathing.

I've talked before about the role of high carbon dioxide concentration levels in the blood - quite literally hypercapnia - causing the alarm response. Because the hypercapnic alarm response is CO₂ dependent we can easily lose consciousness and asphyxiate when breathing almost any other gas, including the stuff which makes up 78% of the air we breathe: nitrogen. It's ironic to think that almost every single constituent part of the air all around us is deadly - including the oxygen - if we were to breathe it at high concentration. It's also shocking to think that carbon dioxide is only 0.004% of the air, but yet this is the only gas which warns us we're suffocating to death.

I don't write this because I'm feeling particularly suicidal. I write this because for some reason this website is the second place people come after visiting Wikipedia, when they're reading about humanity's battle between the conscious decision-making part of the brain - where we have free will apparently - and the part which stops us from killing ourselves by simply not bothering to take our next breath. I write this because people want to know, and if they're determined enough they're going to find out the answers.

I can see how determined people are to find out the answers to some pretty messed-up questions. I can see how many zillions of pages of results they trawled. I can see all the different ways that people ask the same disturbing question.

For sure, I ask myself how much I see a world which reflects the way I project myself outwardly. They say an angry man sees an angry world, for example. It shouldn't surprise me that my website brings a lot of people who are interested in topics relating to suicide, but it surprises me that so many people are interested in suffocating themselves to death, when it seems so doomed to fail and would cause such terrible suffering in those final moments when it succeeds. Don't people who want to die just want to fall asleep peacefully and not wake up? I know that's what I wanted, when I was suicidal.

If the world really does reflect upon ourselves, I don't understand why I don't have more variety in the kinds of suicidal ideation searches which bring visitors to me from Google. Where are the people asking about which direction they should slice their veins? Where are the people asking how to locate their carotid artery or jugular vein? Where are the people asking about lethal doses of various substances? Where are the people searching about how to calculate the right amount of rope to avoid decapitation or a lengthy period of terminal strangulation while suspended by the neck?

I've been simultaneously accused of writing irresponsibly while also applauded for discussing things which need to be discussed, if we're going to make any progress towards reducing suicide rates.

From looking more closely at my analytic data, I concluded that many of my visitors are concerned with animal welfare and particularly with the slaughter of livestock, which is often done by gassing the animals. I had written in my blog post, which has proven my most popular, that I was concerned about how awful it would be for little piggies if they were gasping for breath in their final moments before death. I had written about the curious question of whether dolphins could hold their breath to commit suicide or not.

I write this tonight, because I'm interested to know how much concern we have for humans, compared with other animals. It certainly concerns me that seemingly vast numbers of people want to know if they can kill themselves without even bothering to take a few short steps to the nearest window, or to locate a sharp object.

I write this provocatively as always. I'm transmitting out into the world to see what bounces back.

Tags: #suicide

This is a story about being trapped in a nightmare...

Theoretically, I've now earned enough money to pay back my guardian angel. My debts have been rapidly repaid and the total sum outstanding, which started at about £54,000 in January, has now been reduced to an amount closer to £14,000 worth of credit card debt, which is a staggering amount of money to pay back in the space of 10 months.

I have my VAT to pay every quarter, my personal taxes at the end of January and my corporation tax in July. Those are not small sums of money.

I have my expenses to cover: rent, bills, car insurance, car tax, petrol, tyres, oil, servicing, roadworthiness testing, hotels and food while working away from home. My business incurs expenses, such as my accountant and various costs associated with running a business.

I can't just sit in a dark room eating dry bread and drinking tapwater.

That's the optimistic viewpoint.

The pessimist in me realises that I can't actually get at my own money which I generated through my labour, without incurring even more tax than the fuckloads that I pay. My money is tied up in my business.

If I leave my money in bank accounts controlled by me, there's a chance I could get sick and not be able to repay my creditors. In that eventuality, my hard-earned cash will be hoovered up by circling vultures who are keen to plunge me back into the nightmare of being trapped by mountainous debts. One slip up and it'll be right back to square one.

It's happened before.

Getting through the whole of October without a disaster is a big deal. Getting through this year without any hospitalisations or months and months of destructive madness is a big deal. However, I had a pretty good shot at escaping the nightmare in both 2014 and 2016, but everything still went to hell.

It terrifies me that I have to work the whole of November - without a break - to well and truly settle my important debts and cement the gains I've made. It seems like an impossible amount of time to carry on working in circumstances which are thoroughly incompatible with my mental health.

Single, in a town where I only have two or three friends - who I almost never see - and living out of a suitcase in a hotel, would be toxic to even the happiest and most stable person's sense of wellbeing. I do it because I have no other choice. I do it because it's the only escape route from the never-ending nightmare.

Once my debts are repaid, sure, I can take any job I want. Of course I'm not going to struggle to find lots of people who'd love to underpay and exploit me. Of course I could easily shackle myself to some dreadful job which pays peanuts, but not until my debts are repaid.

It seems like I'm making progress when I consider that I started this year homeless and without a car, but those things are also liabilities. I need to pay rent for the duration of my fixed term tenancy contract and I'm liable for any damage. I need to keep my car insured, taxed and certified as roadworthy, or else I will get big fines. Sure, I have the money to make these problems go away, while I'm working, but what if I get sick?

The longer I'm forced to continue my toxic living and working arrangements, the more problems I'm storing up for the future. There's a price to be paid for the stress, the misery, the boredom and the dreadful circumstances of a life that's devoid of any job satisfaction, security, intimacy, companionship, face-to-face friendship and conversation. My life has a tiny fraction of the human interaction which would be considered normal and healthy. I'm a recluse who lives in isolation, fearful of doing anything or getting excited about anything, because I need to focus all my energies on pretending to be a boring wage slave, for the sake of my debts.

I'm not short of ideas of what I could do if I had my freedom. It's not a lack of imagination. It's a simple lack of capital problem. All my money is spoken for.

I don't even want to think about how long it's going to be until I've well and truly paid off 100% of my debts and taxes and I'm a free man. I don't want to torment myself.

When I'm feeling anxious, I get pessimistic. When I'm feeling anxious, I see my progress through very pessimistic eyes and it feels like I've made no progress at all.

Of course, my progress could be sabotaged and any hope of recovery could be completely destroyed, by circumstances beyond my control, like somebody deciding to screw me over at work. That's my biggest fear: that my contract will be prematurely cut short, because somebody decides they're not happy with me getting back on my feet.

Perhaps you think it's right and proper that I should be living this never-ending nightmare life. Perhaps you think that I should be put through this ordeal. I certainly don't expect any special treatment. I work ridiculously hard to uphold my end of the bargain and honour my commitments. Perhaps you want bad stuff to happen to me, and for me to fail.

So long as I can pay my guardian angel back everything I owe, I don't care what happens to me. My conscience is clean once I've paid back my guardian angel. My moral obligations have been fulfilled once I've paid my guardian angel back.

I know I have the rare and enviable opportunity to be very rich if I keep working as hard as I do, but I'd honestly rather go and live in a cabin in the woods at the moment, and have some relief from the relentless pressure, anxiety and misery.

Tags: #debt

This is a story about deferred gratification...

Let's do two analyses of the last year of my life. In the first analysis, we'll be harsh and attempt to form a negative opinion of everything. In the second analysis, we'll consider things in their proper context and circumstances, and arrive at a radically different conclusion.

Everybody has to work, right? Everybody should have a job, because nobody's entitled to be a burden; a lazy layabout. It's my responsibility to earn money to pay rent, bills and buy food.

A year ago I was living rent-free, not paying bills and having my meals bought and cooked by somebody else. I was not working. I was not earning money.

Everybody should look after their health, right? It's our personal responsibility to practice self-care and to ensure that we maintain our physical and mental fitness.

About 11 months ago, I went back to work. The job required me to travel internationally and to regularly travel across the country. The job required me to return to the overcrowded capital and live out of a suitcase in less-than-ideal temporary accommodation. I worked alone.

Everybody should make sure they take breaks; holidays, right? We all need to make sure we don't over-work ourselves and burn out. We are personally responsible for managing our own stress levels.

About 8 months ago, I finished one project and immediately started another one. I left one large organisation, where I had established myself over the course of a few months, and had to repeat the rigmarole of impressing a new boss and a new set of colleagues.

Everybody needs to work hard to maintain good relationships, right? Nobody should ever abuse drink, drugs or medications. We are all personally responsible for our bad decisions and their consequences, and as such we should never argue, break-up, or use mind-altering substances.

About 5 months ago, I relapsed back into drug addiction. My physical and mental health suffered horrendously from my self-inflicted substance abuse. I broke up with my girlfriend. I nearly lost my job.

Everybody needs to pick themselves up again and cope with the unexpected, if unfortunate events befall us. We are personally responsible for being resilient in the face of adversity.

About 3 months ago, my project finished unexpectedly early and I found myself without work again. Instead of immediately trying to get another contract, I took loads of drugs and wasted a whole month doing absolutely nothing.

Everybody needs to protect their money and their hard-won gains, right? We are all personally responsible for ensuring that we only move in a forwards direction, and never slip backwards.

About a month ago, I lapsed back into drug abuse, which caused me fail to tell my colleagues I was unwell until 1:34pm, because I had no idea what time it was. I had no idea what time it was, because I'd papered over my own bedroom windows, in order to hide myself from the prying eyes that my mind would create, in a state of drug-fuelled paranoia.

Everybody needs to pay of their debts, save money and economise, right? We should be careful with our cash.

In the last month, I've written-off a top-of-the-range Apple Macbook Pro for the second time this year. I bought a brand new Macbook and iPhone XS. I drunk-booked a luxury holiday to a theme-park family hotel. I dine on my own in fine restaurants. I drink fine wine like it's water. I stay in hotels which are rated number one on TripAdvisor. I'm doing the very polar opposite of economising and saving money.

Why?

I've got daddy issues, I think.

Conventional dad wisdom would tell us that my actions are deplorable; my attitude contemptible. There are many obvious faults and flaws in my character which are apparent in my description of my crimes and misdemeanours from the past year. It's pretty obvious that I'm a massive fuck-up waste-of-space loser who deserves to be disowned, from my description of a single solitary year of my pathetic useless life. It's no wonder I don't get no respect from my daddy: my bad behaviour is plain for all to see.

I document everything with candour, so that all may judge me as I have been judged since my birth. I want you to see what my dad sees. In fact, he sees nothing, because he has sworn to never read a word I write.

I promised you a second analysis, right?

I lied.

It's up to you to arrive at your own analyses from the same set of facts.

I could have spent time defending myself and telling the story in a way that portrays myself in a favourable light, more likely to receive sympathy.

I can hear voices in my head. The voices say: "fuck off and die you navel-gazing self-absorbed self-pitying manipulative maudlin faux-tragic melodramatic tear-jerking little shit".

The voices don't come from the TV or the radio. The voices don't belong to demons and devils. The voices don't belong to manifestations of madness. Those voices are the real voices of real people. Those words are real too. I don't hallucinate - I can picture exactly where I was when those words were spoken. I don't choose to replay those unhappy moments, but those unpleasant words are so numerous that when I drive one unpleasant memory from my mind another one immediately intrudes.

I'm fortunate enough to have obtained the written verbatim transcript of my dad's interview with a social worker, just over a year ago. My dad says that I'm faking having a mental illness as an excuse for my bad behaviour. Then he says that I should be kept in hospital and chemically sedated. Then he says the best that can be hoped for me is that I should be confined to a bedsit at the opposite end of the country, heavily medicated. He says that he's protecting the family from me and that I'm forbidden from contacting my sister or visting the family home.

All of this - especially the part about being forbidden from visiting the family home or contacting my sister - was the first time I've seen or heard these views of his.

It strikes me that I'm posed with the same challenge I just set you, dear reader. I could view the evidence with conventional son wisdom, and judge the behaviour to be abhorrant. Or, I could invoke the generic and rather pathetic "parent" defence. "I'm sure it's just because he cares" goes the oft-repeated BS. "Parents are doing the best they know. They're not perfect" etc. etc.

My mind should be dull; blunted. However, instead it's sharp and slices through things. To say it's scalpel-like is the wrong analogy. Instead, it's like broken glass which is hard to pick up without causing an injury.

High on drugs, my dad always imagined himself intelligent; a philosopher.

Where did my predisposition to slice to the heart of the matter come from? Why do I dissect everything, exposing the absurdity of existence? Why am I afflicted with an agonising yearning for meaning in a godless universe with no afterlife?

How did I ever arrive at the notion that taking drugs and philosophising about the meaning of life is within the grasp of my intellect?

It's a mystery, for sure.

Tags: #parents #bipolar

This is a story about being in the lap of luxury...

As I write this now, there are no fewer than 8 buttons which control the lights in this hotel room packed with tech. There's a PlayStation 4, projector and screen which drops from the ceiling at the push of a button. There are many, many little things which surprise and delight me, but perhaps none more so than the telephone in the toilet.

The hotel phoned my room, concerned for my wellfare because the "do not disturb" button had been depressed for 3 consecutive days. They were worried, was I OK?

When the phone rang, there was also a ringing from somewhere else. I thought it was the room next door. I presumed it was some sort of technical malfunction, like when the power went off, causing the lights and air conditioning to be turned on in the middle of the night, throughout the whole hotel. In fact, it was the telephone in the bathroom ringing.

This afternoon I forced myself out of bed, put on some shorts and a T-shirt and drew the curtains for the first time in recent days, and saw that the skies were a little overcast. I expect that if I was out all day under those overcast skies I would still get a little bit of a tan, but I needed little excuse to draw the curtains again and retire to bed.

I'm starting to worry that I'm going to go back to work every bit as pale and pasty as when I departed under the UK's gloomy skies.

The small number of things which I need to do to prepare for a day at the beach or in the theme park, comprise having a shower, getting dressed, putting my money, laptop and other valuables in the safe, and packing a bag with a towel, sunglasses, sun screen and stuffing a fistful of Turkish Lira into my pocket. However, these minute tasks, along with the ever-present worry that it's a bit weird that a 39-year-old single man is hanging around a family resort, have conspired to keep me locked up indoors.

I spend a lot of my time tormented by the sensation that I have unfinished business at home. I've made a decent dent in my debts, but debt still looms large in my life. It doesn't feel like I can relax and enjoy myself, when I'm still so deep in negative territory. My lucrative contract leads me back to wealth and prosperity, theoretically, but losing the contract would leave me high and dry, as has happened so often before.

As you would expect at the end of the holiday season, during school termtime, midweek this resort is quite quiet. Mercifully, I've identified some other guests who are waving their phones around with gawping mouths, appearing to be other man-children who've decided to embark upon a ridiculous holiday unbecoming of our advanced years.

I'm starting to feel quite a bit of pressure to give my skin some colour in the few remaining days. I did need the sleep though; to spend some time liberated from the tyranny of daily working life demands.

I spend the night cursing myself for having used sleeping pills again - causing rebound insomnia - and the day cursing myself for not being able to overcome my depression, exhaustion and anxieties, such that I'm able to get out of this hotel room and enjoy my holiday.

I'm glad I went away on holiday, even if I'm crippled by insecurities about how people are judging me. I'm glad I'm away on holiday, even though the prospect of doing simple things - like ordering food or walking to the beach - is overwhelmingly daunting. I'm glad I'm away on holiday, despite being quite unwell, which is never great when in a foreign country.

At home, I stay in the same hotel and eat in the same gastropub every night. At home, I maintain the same identical routine each week, wearing the same pre-planned outfits at work and in the evenings. At home, I have controlled the variables, to give myself as little stress as possible, and the greatest chance of success in my battle to dig myself out of debt.

At home, the tiniest inconveniences can be harbingers of doom. I'm highly attuned to any hint that my controlled environment - my well-laid plans - are about to be bulldozered.

This resort is perfect in every way. There are no beggars or homeless. There are no shopkeepers trying to hawk their wares. There are no less-salubrious areas. There's nothing that would give rise to an unexpectedly negative or traumatic experience. Not a single thing is out of place, except me perhaps.

I'm crushed by imposter syndrome, both at home and abroad. I live with the daily threat of being asked to leave hanging over me, which would destroy any prospect of me being able to escape from under the dark storm-cloud of debt. I fully expect to be told: "you don't belong here" and to be cast back onto the streets.

I don't belong. That's the truth.

Tags: #holiday #debt

This is a story about drug smuggling...

I never intended on becoming a narcotics trafficker. It happened by accident. To say that I'm a helpless puppet with my strings being pulled by the unseen hand of addiction, is not the whole truth. My executive brain functions and rational mind are still present, but there's quite a battle that rages within me. I'm mostly unaware of powerful subconscious thoughts which are often driving my behaviour, with my superego unable to perceive that I'm being steered towards addiction-sustaining acts, or indeed omissions.

Travelling from a rich country to a poorer one, customs might not expect illegal narcotics to flow in that direction, and as such might be caught off-guard by anything smuggled across the border by a wealthy Brit. My rational conscious brain says it's not worth taking the chance. Each country has their own drug laws and their own attitude towards those who flout them, with some countries being very punitive indeed, in an attempt to make an example of those who are part of the narcotics trade.

I've carried controlled substances across international borders a few times, quite by accident. Obviously I'm not talking about kilos of cocaine. I'm talking about the occasional tablet which escaped my notice when I was packing my bags.

I tried to buy some zopiclone - sleeping tablets - on the day I arrived here in Turkey. I hadn't planned to, but I saw a sign for a pharmacy and I thought I would enquire if it could be bought over the counter. It turns out you can't buy it without a prescription from a Turkish doctor.

Then, predictably, I had a sleepless night.

The last few weeks at work have been quite bearable, but perhaps only because I've been drinking heavily, taking sleeping tablets and also taking tranquillisers. I knew I was creating a problem for myself with the impending holiday, but I also needed to get through the seemingly unending and almost intolerable working weeks, without having a nervous breakdown.

After hardly sleeping all night, I then had very vivid nightmares. A lot of my nightmares revolved around drug addiction.

Feelings of overwhelming depression and anxiety have kept me in bed all day.

I expected this.

I'm paying the price for having made my working day more bearable using addictive sleeping pills and tranquillisers, because now I'm going cold turkey in Turkey. Lolz.

I knew this would happen. I was prepared to accept some panic attacks and sleepless nights; some horrible anxiety and gnawing dread; feeling like the world's about to end. This the deal with the devil that I struck: to be able to keep working my full-time job and able to cope, but to pay the price later.

I could have sworn I searched my bag thoroughly, to ensure I wasn't carrying anything through the airports that I shouldn't have been. In fact I did search my bag thoroughly, but my subconscious prompted me to be not quite thorough enough. I genuinely believed that I was travelling with not even a single solitary tablet to salve my anxiety and insomnia, my my subconscious was much more alert - as anxiety reached its peak, it told me to search more thoroughly and it knew I would find something. One lonely blue tablet, nestled in the stitching of the fabric, which could only be located with an obsessive search.

Of course, one blue tablet does not an addiction make.

Lots and lots of 'accidents' do however add up to an addiction.

It's unavoidable that I'm going to have to suffer some cold turkey withdrawal from sleeping pills and tranquillisers this week. It's unavoidable that I'll return to the UK far less addicted - dependent - on medications than when I left. That's one of the reasons why I chose to spend my holiday in a foreign country, where I'd be less likely to be tempted to fall back into old habits, although of course addictions follow you everywhere.

I would argue forcefully that the worst of my addiction is dealt with, and I'm using medications to help me keep working and earning money, in order to pay off mountainous crippling debts. I would argue that I'm using medications reasonably responsibly, and not in an abusive or recreational manner. I would argue that I'm hyper-aware of the risks of becoming physically dependent on benzodiazepines, and would not risk that happening again now I've managed to escape the clutches of that dreadful class of drugs.

It does however somewhat surprise me that I've managed to do it again - to smuggle drugs by accident - although mercifully this one tablet has therapeutic, not abusive potential. It's a bona fide medicine. It's not the dreaded slippery slope; the thin end of the wedge.

I need to be aware of the risk that I could back-slide gradually into an increasingly abusive and regular pattern of drug abuse. I need to be careful. I'm well aware that the worst of my addiction was prolonged for a very long time, because I thought I was able to get away with casual, occasional or so-called recreational use, which lulled me into a false sense of security; I was deluding myself.

Not the happiest story ever told, having spent the day in bed with the curtains drawn, but I often have days like this on holiday, where the accumulated stress and anxiety of the preceding months suddenly swamps me. I've hardly taken a day off sick, so it should be expected that I'd get sick as soon as I relaxed.

It'll soon be Monday morning, but at least I don't have to go to work this week.

Tags: #drugs #addiction #medication #holiday

This is a story about misanthropy...

On this day 5 years ago, I tried to help a homeless alcoholic called Frank. I made a lot of notes. As my divorce disrputed my attempt to get my life back on track in London, dragging me back to Bournemouth to empty and sell my house, it destroyed my fragile new life and plunged me into the very world of homeless hell, which I had usefully compiled notes on. I did manage to help Frank, but ironically crosssed paths with him later on - as I was descending into hell, he was well on his way to recovery.

On this day 4 years ago, I got myself off the streets, out of the 14-bed hostel dorm, and back into banking. I went to Barclays, which quickly dug me out of debt and restored some long overdue health, wealth and prosperity to my life.

On this day 3 years ago, I went to HSBC and repeated the same magic trick of managing to get myself back off the streets, out of the hostel, into a lovely Thameside apartment, and out of debt. Feeling like my life was going well, I went to a hackathon to create technology solutions to the refugee crisis.

On this day 2 years ago, I was lying to my girlfriend and my guardian angel, because the project I'd been working on had ended prematurely and I hadn't bothered to get another contract. Instead, I had tried to treat my own depression with medication prescribed by an online pharmacy, destabilising my mental health - inducing hypomania - and causing a subsequent relapse.

On this day last year, I woke up as a resident of Wales for the first time since being born here. The day before, I had been discharged from a psych ward in Manchester, England, following a suicide attempt which was very nearly successful.

I'm pretty upset that divorce was such a destabilising distraction at a time when I desperately needed a clean break, and I'm struggling to forgive and forget my ex-wife and parents sabotaging all my hard work; destroying my chance to follow through with well thought out plans which were subsequenty proven to be correct and successful.

I can blame the Barclays thing not working out on a couple of idiots who got fired for trying to screw me over, but in all truth, I wasn't very stable. I was too outspoken. I didn't keep my mouth shut. I made mistakes in my personal life. I had lapses.

I can blame the HSBC thing not working out on the sheer pressure and workload of working on their number one project, while also dealing with homelessness and cripling debt. I can blame a friend who asked me to help him get a job. I can blame a few loafers who benefitted from my hard work. But, again, I was too outspoken. I wasn't at all stable. I was so exhausted and stressed that I was very strung out and very manic.

I can blame not wanting to immediately get another contract 2 years ago on the fact that the project had been so mind-numbingly spirit-crushingly boring, and I'd been so de-skilled, that I'd lost all self-confidence. I really couldn't face any more of the same awfulness without taking a break. However, it was still my so-called 'choice' to relapse and I knew the consequences were likely to be dire, although I kinda "got away with it" that one time.

I can blame attempting suicide and nearly dying on the fact that I knew instinctively that I was in deep trouble. The contract in Manchester didn't pay enough to get me out of debt. I knew I was going to get shafted by a very unpleasant and immoral wannabe Labour MP, who embodies none of the values of socialism. I was working too hard for too little reward, but I also made bad so-called 'choices' such as getting mixed up with a social group who mostly bonded over recreational drug abuse. There was no way I was going to be able to quit physically addictive sleeping pills, tranqulisers and neuropathic painkillers, as well as working a very demanding job which didn't even pay enough to make any kind of dent in my debts. Suicide was my choice, in the face of overwhelming odds stacked against me.

So, here I am in Wales.

What's going to be different this year?

I'm in approximately the same financial position that I've been in all those previous years. My mental health seems to be the same, swinging between suicidal depression and mania.

Just gotta keep my mouth shut.

Gotta make sure I don't go on any crusades, trying to save anybody.

Put on my own oxygen mask before helping others.

This year is different because I've been working for 10 consecutive months without a major fuck-up. Of course, there have been fuck-ups, but they haven't caused me to lose my contract or otherwise let my client down. I've delivered a couple of projects quite successfully, to the great satisfaction of my clients.

This year is different because I've had an affordable place to live of my own since March, and I don't have anybody mooching off me or otherwise trying to ride my coat tails. I don't have anybody pressurising me to subsidise their laziness and inability to make good on their financial commitments. I don't have anybody using my gas, electric, water, sewerage, council tax and broadband, and running up thousands of pounds worth of rent arrears.

This year is different because I've had contract extensions and managed to have consecutive contracts, such that I've hardly stopped working at all.

This year is different because I've been working on my skills and making myself more confident and employable. I've felt increasingly capable and good at my job, without getting too deep into the territory of delusions of grandeur.

This year is different because the pressure is markedly reduced and the stress levels are more manageable, despite crushing mountainous debts. There have been really awful times - such as renting a place to live - but I seem to be well established in a good routine now, such that I just need to keep turning the pedals.

I drink too much. I'm unfit.

However, in the space of 11 months I'll have managed to buy a car, rent an apartment, pay off £21,000 of debt, and save up enough money to pay a hefty tax bill. I don't enjoy living out of a suitcase, but I'm not slumming it anymore. I've been able to take a weekend break to see old friends in Prague and I have a week-long holiday to Turkey booked, which will be my first proper holiday for over 2 years. I stay in a nice hotel midweek and I eat in a gastropub. This is the self-care aspect, which didn't really get taken care of in previous years. There's no point working as hard as I do unless it's delivering some quality of life; I might as well just kill myself if life's going to be an unrewarding slog.

I sometimes can't believe what comes out of my mouth, in terms of the fucking rage which is somewhat pent-up inside me. This is a summary of the many false starts I've had, and nearly-but-not-quite moments, where it looked like I was going to make a breakthrough and get properly back on my feet. It's incredibly frustrating to repeatedly do the impossible - quitting addictive drugs, getting off the streets, out of the hostels and back into mainstream civilised society, while also dealing with a major mental health problem - and to see that there's nothing wrong with my approach per se. On paper, everything should go perfectly and quickly restore me to health, wealth and prosperity, but it does require a run of good luck, and that luck is very much dependent on the co-operation of other people.

Who do I want to blame? Capitalism? Banking? Bad bosses? Wimmin? Parents? Even friends?

I spend a lot of time writing very aggressive angry stuff.

I can't believe what I write.

Maybe this year won't be any different, because I'm a spoiled overprivileged vile bitter old man, who doesn't take any personal responsibility; I'm too quick to blame others.

We shall see. The story continues.

Tags: #frank #homeless #hostel #friends #banking #london #wales #capitalism #debt #career #addiction #alcohol #recovery

This is a story about self-experimentation...

It's very difficult to conduct a scientific study involving human beings. Our innate ability and inclination to adapt to our ever-changing environment means that we can't control the variables as we would be able to in vitro.

Sample sizes are always tiny - statistically impossible to gain any insight from - because of the difficulty of recruiting so-called ideal study candidates and being able to follow them for long enough to gather any meaningful data. Each individual will have wildly varying personal circumstances, which render any studies of hundreds or thousands of participants, complete and utter pseudoscience hogwash; nonsense; garbage.

Aggregating data from all the antidepressant controlled trials, as well as thousands of other studies into the efficacy of those medications, concludes to a high degree of statistical significance, that in more than 80% of cases the person's depression would have 'cured' itself on its own - medication makes no difference at all.

Clearly, psychoactive medications do have perceptible effects, just as you're able to tell if you've drunk 4 pints of beer or 4 pints of water. Thus, a double-blind placebo trial is not a placebo trial at all, because those who are in the placebo group know that they're unmedicated.

The question then arises: can we prove that some medications have positive effects?

Problematically, we are as superstitious as an animal with a bird-brain, quite literally. If a food pellet is randomly released to feed a pigeon kept in a cage, the pigeon begins to believe that whatever it was doing when the food pellet was released caused the food pellet to be released. If the pigeon was - for example - turning 360 degrees clockwise when the pellet was randomly released, it will continue to spin in circles, believing that its actions are causing the food pellets to be released. This is called magical thinking and humans are just as prone to it as a bird-brained pigeon.

Extrapolating, if we take up yoga, start eating kale, listen to whale music, start believing in imaginary sky monsters, wear lucky underwear, read self-help books, use homeopathic remedies or start doing any one of the many billions of similarly stupid and futile superstitious rituals, these are at least 80% likely to co-incide with a natural improvement in our mood which would have happened anyway. However, we will falsely attribute our better mood and more hopeful future, to something which actually had absolutely no effect whatsoever so far as good empirical evidence-based repeatable science is concerned.

To control the variables is extremely hard, in complex modern life.

I had a very good night's sleep last night, woke up early, ate a healthy breakfast, got to work early, had a productive day, and I felt like I had the energy and enthusiasm to do some exercise. My quality of life was manyfold better today than it has been for a very long time. My hope and optimism were sky high today.

Let us deconstruct the reason for my good day.

Last night I swallowed two 7.5mg zopiclone tablets, which are a sleeping pill. Perhaps it's high quality sleep, delivered with some help from medicine, that's the reason I had such a good day - I was well rested and refreshed.

No.

Earlier in the year - and in fact quite recently - I had completely quit all sleep aids and I was sleeping very well without them. I have no problems initiating sleep and remaining asleep. This variable is eliminated.

Last night I swallowed one 2mg Xanax tablet, which is a short-acting benzodiazepine hypnotic-sedative muscle relaxant, generically known as alprazolam. Perhaps it's relief from anxiety delivered with the help of medicine that is the reason why I had such a good day - my anxiety was subdued.

No.

Earlier in the year - and in fact quite recently - I had completely quit all sedatives, tranquillisers and tranquillising painkillers and I was coping very well with my anxiety without those medications. I am fully functional despite my very high-stress and demanding life. This variable is eliminated.

Last night was my 5th consecutive night without alcohol. Perhaps it's the healthy decision to quit booze and become teetotal which is the reason why I slept better, woke up refreshed, had improved concentration and felt more full of energy and enthusiasm for other healthy activities than I have done for a long time. I thought about catching up with a friend. I thought about doing some exercise.

Ah. We have a problem.

On the face of it, we have 3 significant changes, and those changes all concern mind-altering substances.

I can be fairly certain that I'm able to sleep and I'm able to cope with my anxiety without medication, but I combined two medications which should have helped with both, which is already complicating the clinical picture, but then I also quit heavy drinking quite abruptly and managed to get through 5 consecutive sober days. 3 changes is far too many changes to attribute my improved mood to any one of them, or even all 3 in combination.

But.

Oh no.

There are other changes too.

I got paid on Monday. Getting paid is always a good day. Sure, Monday I was off work sick, but it wasn't until yesterday that I started doing some sums and I realised that I can pay off half my debts at the end of the month. It's something worth considering.

I went back to work on Tuesday. Not losing my job is always a big relief when I get sick. Sure, it'd be pretty bad luck to lose my job after just one day off sick, but it's always a relief somehow to go back to work and find everything's fine and people are cool with me. It's something worth considering.

I have 8 working days - less than two weeks - until I go away on holiday. I haven't had a week-long holiday since July 2016, over two years ago, so that's a massive relief to know that I'm going to get a relaxing break soon. It's something worth considering.

I spent the weekend in the company of old friends. I took a flight to Prague. Socialising and travel are exciting and stimulating. I played with my friends' children. We did activities, like sightseeing and mushroom picking in the woods. All of those things are very nice and normal and pleasant. Sure, it was exhausting, but now that I've gotten over the travel I have some really nice memories of that trip. It's something worth considering.

At work I'm starting to feel like I'm really making a difference and I'm a valued member of the team. My colleagues were glad to have me back and people are keen to work with me. I feel cherished and a little bit more secure every day. I feel increasingly confident in my own skills, knowledge and experience. It's something worth considering.

My sister picked up my mountain bike from my parents, so that I can collect it from her. I'm looking forward to seeing her and maybe my niece too. I'm looking forward to having my bike back. I'm looking forward to getting my bike repaired, upgraded, and being able to use it to get a bit more fit and active. It's something worth considering.

Lives are complicated.

Life is complicated.

It's impossible to control the variables.

If you were looking for the perfect test subject - a guinea pig - you would fail to find a better one than me, because so many things in my life are constant. I stay in the same hotel, I eat in the same gastropub, I do the same job I've done for 21+ years. I'm a creature of habit and I'm not destabilised by anybody else, such as family, a partner or children. I've cut every variable out of my life that's possible to do, short of locking myself in a laboratory cage. I'm the perfect test specimen.

I can't tell you why I had a good day today, but I have very good reason to believe that it was a combination of a multitude of factors, including the sleeping tablets to help me get back into a good sleep pattern, the anxiety tablets to help me cope with intolerable stress levels, the sobriety, the travel, the socialising, the money, the job satisfaction and a million and one other little things, all of which are very positive. For example, my Apple Macbook was repaired under warranty, saving me the cost of a £1,500 replacement or a hefty repair bill, which is a big relief. Who could have predicted any of this and why would we attribute my life improvements to any one particular thing, such as the favourable mood of an imaginary sky monster? Stuff was just going to get better on its own.

As you can tell, I'm not the superstitious type.

I will, however, be taking a zopiclone and a Xanax again tonight.

Tags: #medication #depression #anxiety