suicide – Page 25 – Nick Grant

Nick Grant

Tag: suicide

  • Occupy Canary Wharf

    This is a story about being an activist…

    It's cold outside

    The streets of London are home to a huge population of runaways, refugees and other homeless people who have been marginalised by society. We tend to ignore them and their struggles. There are so many, we can’t help them all, right?

    I’m not OK with people freezing to death on the streets, right under the noses of the wealthy. I’m not OK with just walking past human suffering on a daily basis, on the commute to the office. There are people huddling in shop doorways for a little shelter from the elements. It’s brutal out there, and things are getting worse.

    There are no words to describe just how cold it is, sleeping rough. I have slept on a glacier. Millions of tonnes of creaking ice. That’s cold, even with a decent sleeping bag, sleeping mat, and a tent. Sleeping out on the streets is just as tough – most homeless people don’t have equipment that cost hundreds of pounds. The most vulnerable people in our society don’t even have enough money for food, clothes and other basics that they depend upon.

    Will you sleep out with us?

    Normally charities will expect you to reach for your wallet. Normally charities will expect you to donate money. The whole fundraise & spend model of charity has failed, sadly. People and corporations are just not giving enough. People and corporations are treating charitable giving as a way to absolve themselves of personal responsibility for the wrongdoing in a society that they belong to.

    Let’s start with some empathy, instead.

    If you haven’t roughed it ever in your life, or it’s been a very long time since you were truly soaked to the skin, freezing cold, shivering, and with chattering teeth… then you have lost touch with what some of your fellow human beings are going through. There are people freezing to death, here, in a supposedly civilised advanced Western econonmy. I’m not OK with that.

    Please, try and make it to West India Quay with some warm clothes and a good sleeping bag, and sleep out with us. 7pm to 7am on Thursday 12th November 2015. It’s incredible that this can take place when Canary Wharf Estate don’t really want a whole tent army right under the noses of rich bankers!

    The Centrepoint charity has worked incredibly hard to make this possible, and only by agreeing to do things in the most unbelievably controlled way. There is private security for the event, as well as Canary Wharf’s own private security force, making sure that the wrong sort of people are not protesting about the abhorrent situation of young people being left freezing to death on the streets of London.

    Sadly, in the 3 years that this event has been happening in Canary Wharf, my ex-employer JPMorgan Chase & Co has donated a paltry £70,000. That’s a disgustingly small amount of money considering how this bank has wrecked lives. One of my colleagues was driven to by the insanity of what Global Banking is doing to the world.

    I absolutely do not want to see this event lose credibility, so please sign up for an official ticket and donate whatever you can afford: https://www.centrepoint.org.uk/news-events/events/sleep-out/west-india-quay

    Whatever happens, please please please tell everyone you know about the plight of the homeless and support this event.

    7pm to 7am, Thursday 12th November, 2015.

    So, last week, I was working for HSBC on their number one project. The biggest bank in Europe at the moment is HSBC. They just declared quarterly profits have risen 33% to $6bn. That’s a substantial amount of cash that they have extracted from the world’s pockets!

    So, how much do HSBC care about the homeless? Well they employed a homeless person (me) but their due diligence should have prevented me from getting that job and working my way out of poverty and debt. I should have been trapped into living on the streets.

    We can’t have the wrong sort of people getting ahead in life, can we? It’s all about the rich getting richer, at the expense of the destruction of society by people who already have more than they need.

    HSBC Comment

    I made sure I got this email from the HSBC Group so that nobody is going to get sued! Hurrah!

    I’ve got a bunch of other emails that prove that Corporate and Social Responsibility is a joke. These companies pay a pittance in order to try and cover up wrongdoing on an unimaginable scale. The institutional corruption is disgusting.

    I’m being warned by journalist friends to flee for my life for whistleblowing. You’ll be able to find me… sleeping rough somewhere in London. If the Safer Streets teams can’t find people, then good luck to the banks with their teams of lawyers out to gag me!

    Come and sleep rough with us!

    That is all.

    Occupy Canary Wharf 

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  • Anatomy of an Epidemic

    This is a story about the rise and rise of mental illness…

    Dib Dib Dib

    I used to be a Sea Scout. The motto of the Scouts is “Be Prepared“.

    When I suspected that I was becoming mentally unwell, I read every book, website, academic paper and journal that I could find that I felt related to my mental health and its potential treatment. I educated myself.

    I’m an educated patient. Because I’m an educated patient, I avoided being medicated with a Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitor (SSRI) which would have caused greater mood instability than I was already suffering with.

    SSRIs are also linked to emotional blunting and the destruction of the sex lives and relationships of many couples. My relationship was already on the rocks, hence going to the doctor to see if there were some magic beans or a silver bullet, that could cure my ills.

    Fundamentally, I believe that some mental health issues are risk not destiny. There don’t seem to be any genes that are clearly faulty in individuals who suffer from Unipolar Depression and Bipolar Disorder. They are complex spectrum disorders. Some people are really dysfunctional when they are unwell, and others find ways of coping, sometimes to the point that people around them don’t even know they are suffering.

    However, out of desperation, I have tried the following medications, prescribed to me:

    —–

    Mirtazepine

    This was well tolerated (no nasty side effects that made me want to stop taking it). It certainly seemed to reduce my stress levels and get some sleep. I think I might have rebounded though and started to go hypomanic fairly quickly.

    Quetiapine

    Unless you like weight gain, constipation, dry mouth and feeling like a drugged zombie for the few hours that you are awake, before your next dose knocks you out and you start the whole miserable 24 hour cycle all over again… I can’t say this medication gives much quality of life beyond dribbling at daytime TV.

    Aripiprazole

    This is useful to see if your head is held straight. If your head is leaning to the left, then you will dribble out of the left side of your mouth. If your head is leaning to the right, then you will dribble out of the right side of your mouth. If you are holding your head perfectly straight, then you will dribble out of both sides of your mouth.

    Lithium

    This is hardcore. You need to have regular blood tests. It will shorten your life. Avoid if you can tolerate other meds or manage without.

    Sodium Valproate & Depakote

    Do you plan on working again? In an office? 9 to 5? Not really compatible with going back to work full time. If you’re not completely manic (psychotic) then best avoided.

    Lamotrogine

    Just takes so damn long to get up to a therapeutic dose, you go through another hypomanic episode, decide that you’re fine, and then stop taking your medication anyway. It’s pretty subtle. Apparently it improves REM sleep. I dream a lot anyway. My sleep quality is more a function of good sleep hygiene.

    Olanzapine

    Fast acting. Good to calm you down if you’re having an unmanageable moment. Makes you sleepy though… couldn’t really work 9 to 5 on it.

    Bupropion

    Fast acting. Incredible antidepressant. It did give me a panic attack once though. Also stokes my hypomania pretty bad. Although it’s a nicotinergic agonist, it actually shares many characteristics of stimulants like caffeine and amphetamine. Makes you pretty horny. Helps you quit smoking too (I don’t smoke though).

    Diazepam

    Mother’s little helpers (Valium). This powerful long-acting GABA agonist is an amazing anxiolytic. You could literally stand in the middle of a highway and not give a sh1t about the cars whizzing past you at 70mph. Super addictive. Horrible to taper off.

    —–

    Fundamentally, do any of these medications work? Well, I can vouch for Bupropion, Olanzapine, Mirtazepine and Diazepam for their short term efficacy. However, the body soon gets used to the effects and builds tolerance, which means you forever need to increase the dose to get the same therapeutic effect… welcome to homestasis, b1tches!

    In my anecdotal experience, it’s better to tough out the storm and not mess with the ridiculously complex organ that is a brain. When the psychopharmacologists imagined how Prozac (Fluoxetine) was having its antidepressant effect they expected to see higher serotonin levels in spinal fluids. They told the world that depressed people had “low serotonin“. They just guessed and they guessed wrong.

    Type I Bi-Polar Disorder was also known as Manic Depression. This is a serious illness that requires serious treatment. It’s not my place to comment on whether medication plays a part in that. I’m no expert on Type I BPD.

    Type II Bipolar means that you have hypomanic episodes, not fully blown mania. That means risk taking, spending money, hypersexuality, racing thoughts and pressured speech… amongst other symptoms, such as reduced need for sleep & food, and intolerance of slow-witted fools.

    I’m Type II. I think it’s a very important distinction. If I can control my mood disorder with good diet, good routine, good sleep and abstinence from alcohol & drugs (including prescribed drugs) then my brain has the best possible chance of finding homeostasis.

    If I can remove unnecessary stress in my life, caused by complete ass-hats, and I’m empowered to just get the f**k on with my life, then my symptoms will abate. It’s as simple as that.

    What's the White Stuff?

    This was the first time that Frankie had ever seen snow. His brain adapted to the change in environment (December 2010)

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  • Recovery: Hospital vs. Nature

    This is a story about observation…

    Home Sweet Home

    Frankie is a people cat. He needs company. When we went away to France for a couple of days, he was lonely and wouldn’t leave our neighbour alone. He invited himself into her lounge and wouldn’t leave. When we got home, he yawned, stretched and padded over to greet us. He let us all know how much he missed his humans.

    It would be rather sinister to say that I had been observing my fellow patients in hospital, but it was kind unavoidable. I don’t really watch TV and I find humans much more interesting than most other things. I also bonded with my companions, and the staff.

    It was a locked ward, but I was there voluntairily so I guess I could have asked to be discharged whenever I wanted. But I went there to be safe, so it seemed crazy to ask to leave when it took me 13 hours to be admitted, and I was in a place of safety.

    Your GP Cares

    It’s a bit of a strange compromise though: safety under lock & key. I wasn’t sectioned but, scarily, the consultant did consider it, which was a little ridiculous considering I had been safe for 6 days by that point. A section can be 72 hours, 28 days or even 6 months… terrifying, considering all I did was go to my GP one afternoon.

    Wrong Way

    Anyway, hospital was brilliantly therepeutic. I managed to tackle a bunch of stressors in my life, with the help & support of the NHS team. My treatment was very holistic: drawing, sculpture, drama, cooking, socialising, plus non-judgemental chatting to mental health professionals, of course.

    Medication plays a role too, but it’s very unclear whether it helps or it hinders, in the long term. Sure, if I was having a psychotic episode – seeing and hearing things – and was a real danger to myself or others, pharmacological intervention might be unavoidable, but is it really necessary to medicate a functional, articulate, self-aware and coping individual?

    When I presented to my GP, we had the briefest of chats imagineable. My GP only really needed to know one thing: I couldn’t guarantee my own safety. I had tried to keep myself safe, but plans to kill myself had formed in my head. It was only a matter of time before I acted on them. Free will is an illusion. We are controlled by circumstances. Try choosing not to be in pain next time you stub your toe.

    Door to Narnia

    Wanting to be in hospital is a big deal. Psychiatric wards are not for the faint hearted. You will have somebody checking on you a couple of times an hour – especially at night – and people yell out randomly all night. People sing to themselves. People wash obsessively (or is it compulsively?). People shuffle. People mutter incomprehensibly. People steal your stuff. People ask you strange questions. People are aggressive. People are inappropriate. There is a lot of anger, crying, frustration, fear, boredom, confusion, despair… but there is also hope and optimism. Strangely, I find the environment to be calming. It’s supposed to be. It worked for me.

    Obviously, you can’t have shoelaces, belts, razors, scissors, cables (e.g. for charging a mobile phone), curtains (including shower curtains), locks on doors, furniture that’s too tall, windows that open more than the smallest possible crack, windows or mirrors that could be shattered… there’s a fairly comprehensive list of safety considerations.

    Here’s a little picture of the space where you can get some fresh air:

    So Natural

    Nice, isn’t it?

    Well, yes it kinda is. The fact that the NHS has gone to all the expense of designing something that is – presumably – to discourage people from climbing the walls and jumping off. I guess that most people aren’t such a good climber as me though, so it works for the majority of suicidal patients.

    People also have unmet needs that are fairly obvious when you observe them for a little while. As a lifelong non-smoker, it was obvious to me just how important nicotine was in the lives of almost all the patients. The hospital has been smoke free for nearly 3 weeks, which is a huge burden on staff, who must accompany patients off the hospital premises every time they need a cigarette. Yes, that’s right, need… these people are psychologically drug dependent. Nicotine is an extremely addictive drug.

    Luckily I had already eliminated alcohol from my life too, 3 weeks prior to hospital admission. I actually have a working theory that that it’s the reason why I became so deeply depressed. It happened to me in 2008 as well, when I quit drinking. It’s so hard to avoid alcohol though – it’s so socially engrained – that conducting an in-vivo study has been very hard, but I’ve gathered quite a bit of excellent quality data now (I’ve agressively managed to control other variables).

    Frankly, I’m a bit of an oddity. I’m completely unmedicated, abstinent from caffeine and all drugs and alcohol. I have been for a long time. I’m about as clean living as they come. A perfect test subject for an unethical experiement into whether mental health issues come about due to environment, genetics, diet, social factors, stressors etc. etc.

    Why unethical? Well… quite simply, if my mood sinks too low, I will take my own life. It’s really not a choice. I don’t want to die – at the moment – but when those dark times come, I feel quite differently. You feel differently too, and that’s why you’re thinking “why?” or some version of incomprehesion. You don’t know how it feels until you’ve been there, and I really do discourage a trip to the edge of the abyss.

    Look Mum No Hands

    It’s ironic. I have no fear of death, but yet I am able to rationalise that it would be foolish to make an irreversible decision. I ride my bike through handlebar-width gaps between double-decker busses, I climb the tallest trees, jump out of aeroplanes, have my photo taken on perilous ledges with no ropes attached to me, and drive at the limit of control.

    One of the staff in hospital suggested to me the other day that I could keep 1% in reserve, just in case of emergency. It actually didn’t sound too crazy.

    God Bless The NHS

    Please support the Junior Doctors if they strike, and any other NHS workers. They deserve better pay & conditions (October 2015)

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  • Man On A Mission

    This is a story about making new friends…

    Bonnie

    I don’t like bullying. My new friend Klaus Bravenboer doens’t like rugby. Somehow we get along and became friends, fast. We are just about to go surfing. Yesterday I was in hospital feeling sorry for myself. That’s the difference that friends make.

    We are really enjoying a spur of the moment visit to Koa Tree Camp in North Devon/Cornwall, mapping the territory as a high-performance team. None of this was preplanned. We are just going with the flow, dude.

    Solid as a Rock

    I’ve always been a bit of a man on a mission, and it’s nice to have a healthy way to express my masculinity. I’ve been fetching wood, making fire, tending to the animals, walking round the farmland. I feel quite proud of myself, even though that’s a little laughable to all you happy well adjusted people who are loving your lives.

    Klaus and I have been capturing videos, taking photos and doing interviews with the lovely founders of Koa Tree Camp: Andy, Gemma, Sam & baby Hamish and Poppy the dog. You’ll be seeing more of this on social media over the coming week or so, during the build up to the inaugural Man on a Mission weekend.

    78% of suicides are young men. That’s more than 3 times that of women. I’d like to understand why that is, and understand myself more. I just want to be happy and well adjusted, like you. I’m pretty happy right now, and I’d like to hang onto a little piece of that.

    Oink Oink

    There will be more Frankie the cat pictures soon. Meanwhile. here is Klaus with a black and white pig (October 24, 2015)

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  • Plans to jump off building. Hate life

    This is a story about thought experiments…

    Quantum Suicide Pact

    I had 50 minutes to draw something while in hospital. I drew this. I have been thinking about it since I lay dying on the floor, unable to move a muscle except my eyes, diaphragm and heart. My urine was like orange juice and full of blood.

    I considered that dying would be a regretful waste, because I wouldn’t be able to tell anybody what it was like to die. I decided that if I discovered I was immortal, it could corrupt my morality and I would eventually use that knowledge to my sole advantage. I also considered how embarassed I would be to ‘meet my maker‘ in the full realisation that I p1ssed away my chance to learn anything from the situation.

    Bizarrely, I then conceived a thought experiment, as I lay on the floor. This addresses The Measurement Problem in Quantum Physics. The problem is this: how do you separate the experiment from the scientist who is conducting the experiment? By taking a measurement you are actually part of the experiment. We see this in every experiment that attempts to measure Quantum weirdness.

    Then, seemingly ‘miraculously‘ enough of my muscle was broken down by my body so that I had enough energy to get up and phone for help. I wasn’t out of the woods though. I nearly lost my kidneys. There was a lot of muscle damage too. So, just biology, and not really a miracle. I’m not a God bod now… although I did become agnostic at this point.

    My thought experiment is a variation of Schrödinger’s Cat, where two brave (or suicidal) scientists willingly enter a soundproof box, with a soundproof wall separating them. They then have to press a timing device for each other that must be pressed once every 2 minutes or else the timer will reach zero, and a captive bolt will pneumatically be driven into the brain of the other scientist. Given that there is a co-dependence on each other, if one scientist dies, so will the other.

    As an additional twist, if the two scientists press their buttons at the same time, within n milliseconds of each other, then they are both killed by the captive bolts.

    We can then start to tweak the parameters of the experiment so that we dial in a known probability of our scientists being killed. With 120 seconds of possible button push time, and 1,000 milliseconds in a second, we might hypothesise that there is a 1 in 120,000 chance (0.0008%) of both buttons being pushed within the same millisecond, which will trigger the event that leaves our scientists dead.

    So, what if our suicidal scientists press the button 60,000 times? Well, then the probability that the 2 scientists will be dead when we open the box is 50/50 . This is equivalent to Schrödinger’s Cat, except that 2 scientists are both alive and dead, rather than 1 cat that is both alive and dead, until we open the box.

    So, what if our suicidal scientists press the button 120,000 times? Well then the probabilistic prediction is that there is a 99% chance that the co-incidence would have occurred. We would be very surprised to open the box and find two living scientists. However, there is still a possibility that – no matter how slim the chance – they could have played Russian Roulette with a 100 bullet revolver loaded with 99 bullets, and somehow managed to fire the empty chamber.

    So, what if the scientists playing the game keep playing and playing and playing and playing. What if they eventually grow tired, having run many millions, billions, trillions, quadrillions of iterations, and they are still alive and button pushing? What if they decide to rip off the equipment and step outside the box? What would they know?

    They would know that Quantum Theory’s prediciton of immortality is very likely to be correct (Many Minds interpretation) and also know that this can be communicated beyond a single conscious surviving mind.

    I know that this is very messed up. Similar thoughts troubled another JPMorgan IT bod to the point where he took his own life.

    However, we can’t ignore the predictions of a fundamental theory that seems to be borne out by the experiments that we can conduct ethically. But why are we asking intelligent people to do stupid jobs? Is that ethical?

    I have always had a passion and aptitude for science and art, but we are all in a debt trap. Without the brain draining work of Global Banking IT, I could never be debt free. My myopic ex-wife got greedy. She now has a paltry amount of rapidly devaluing fiat currency, rather than a tangible freehold property asset.

    This is the kind startup I really want to be working on.

    Debt Reverse Me

    I started building this but my divorce nearly destroyed me (October 2013)

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  • I’ve Had a Hoverboard for 14 Years

    This is a story about nice guys finishing first…

    Isla de Coche

    It’s October 21st, 2015, and I used to love the Back to the Future movies, like so many kids.

    I’ve always been in a rush to see and do everything. I already did my entire bucket list and I suppose that’s partly why I might have ended up suicidally depressed. Getting everything you want can be a little anticlimactic.

    Still haven’t found love yet though. I’m a hopeless romantic and I still believe in true love and all that soppy stuff. I’ve completely failed to become bitter and twisted by the cruel turns and dead ends of life’s unknowable road. I’m slowly learning the life lesson that Love is one thing that can’t be rushed.

    A fish swimming down a stream spots a fly flying right over him. The fish thinks, “I can jump and catch that fly.”

    A bear see the fish that sees the fly. The bear thinks, “the fish will jump to catch the fly and I can catch the fish.”

    A hunter sees the bear that sees the fish that sees the fly. The hunter thinks, “the fish will jump to catch the fly, the bear will catch the fish, and I can shoot the bear.”

    A mouse sees the hunter that sees the bear that sees the fish that sees fly. The mouse thinks, “the fish will jump to catch the fly, the bear will catch the fish, the hunter will shoot the bear, and I can get the cheese in the hunters lunch.”

    A cat sees the mouse that sees the hunter that sees the bear that sees the fish that sees the fly. The cat thinks, “the fish will jump to catch the fly, the bear will catch the fish, the hunter will shoot the bear, the mouse will get the cheese, and I can catch the mouse.”

    The fish caught the fly, the bear caught the fish, the hunter shot the bear.

    But the mouse was startled when the gun went off, so when the cat pounced, it missed and landed in the stream.

    Moral of the story: the longer the build up, the wetter the pussy.

    Here’s a picture of a random kitesurfer’s body, in case you are still in need of a reason to date a kitesurfer:

    Pretentious, moi?

    Pretentious, narcissitic, moi? (I haven’t actually kitesurfed since October 2014)

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  • What Do Artists Do All Day?

    This is a story about the value of time…

    Cast and Crew

    I should have been at work today. Instead, I was trying to entertain and amuse my fellow patients in hospital. We put on our own rendition of There’s a Hole in My Bucket. I must stress that this was a team effort. I co-wrote the script, helped make costumes and props and played the part of Liza. Everything is cool when you are part of a team. Everything is better when we stick together.

    I might be a drama queen, but you don’t have to attend the performance

    We even tried to work in some plot lines for Black History Month but this was somewhat of an afterthought. We definitely challenged gender sterotypes though. Homophobes might also be somewhat disbelieving when I say that I’m mostly heterosexual, but I was able to have make-up applied to my face, wear an apron and play the part of a LAY-DEE, OOH!

    Today's Society

    Yes, this is a satirical critique of today’s society (October 2015)

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  • Wibble

    This is a story about a sane response to an insane world…

    Catcher in the Rye

    We were told Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) could hit us within minutes, but it took me 13 hours to be admitted to hospital when my life was in danger. We have our priorities totally wrong.

    Nuclear weapons, guns, bullets, bombs, tanks, warplanes, warships, submarines… can these things really come ahead of seeds, tractors, irrigation, clean water, reversing the spread of deserts, planting trees, immunising people against preventable diseases, treating illnesses that are seen as ‘par for the course‘ in Western life – like diarrhoea – that kill in the developing nations, and the education of girls and young women; that data has shown to be the most effective route to good family planning,

    Is it a lack of education that causes people to believe what they read in commercial newspapers, and what they see and hear on commercial radio and TV, which have a political and economic bias, to maintain plutocratic power and control over the struggling masses? Why are people so racist? Why are people so protectionist? Why are people so uneducated regarding repetition of the mistakes that history teaches us, that people have made time and time again?

    Technology can save us, but it can save us in unusual ways. For example, microbial filters like the LifeStraw® from Vestegaard. Obviously, this drinking straw stops waterborne pathogens from being ingested, but – perhaps more significantly – it reduces the carbon footprint of people who use it, because they no longer have to boil water to make it safe to drink. This device makes profits through carbon credits claimed for every straw used.

    That makes a lot more sense to me than trying to get the rich to put money in charity collection buckets. Keep your coins, I want change.

    Lovely View

    I would rather be at work, or looking at the river from my apartment. Anybody who says I engineered this situation must be mad (October 21st, 2015)

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