This is a story about over-sharing...

I'm not really a self-conscious person or else I'd never write and publish anything, but I did have a moment of panic yesterday when I realised what a plonker I was going to look like, for writing about my most vulnerable insecurities, innermost sensitive thoughts and feelings, laying myself wide open for a moment of stunned silence, which would have been very embarrassing.

I thought about deleting my tweet which accompanied the blog post. It's been ages since I thought about deleting something. I very rarely self-censor.

Being single transports me back to my frustrated and unhappy teens. Despite modest success in the world of dating and relationships, I still carry a huge amount of insecurity. I've never felt like "God's gift" to women or that I have any particular attractiveness or charisma that means I don't have anything to worry about. I've been told on plenty of occasions that I don't have anything to worry about - that I'm good-looking - but I suppose whatever wounds were inflicted in childhood still haven't healed.

I'm basically one big twisted knot of overthinking and over-isolated overgrown man-child. Growing up without any siblings until the age of 10 was hell. Being stuck in the company of my parents as they dragged me through 8 different schools and all over the bloody world was hell on earth. I have plenty of reasons why I should struggle to form normal healthy relationships with my peers.

I guess I got into technology because it seemed like a perfect microcosm that I could control. However, reality has asserted itself so fully that I can see that life is messy, and my reaction is to collate and publish all that mess for everyone to see. I'm using technology to gather together everything that I'm embarrassed about and really don't want to be teased about.

What I write is an absolute goldmine for anybody who wants to poke and prod at my insecurities, to antagonise me.

The thing is, I write about this stuff as a pre-emptive step, so that it's less of a big red button that people can press to get a reaction.

I've been relatively successful at positioning myself so that I'm never on the back foot like I was when I was a child. I refuse to ever be somebody's plaything. If I'm going to act predictably, it's going to be in accordance with my own predictions, not anybody else's.

Pleasingly, the world has somewhat complied with my wishes. I've been able to enjoy social change, enabling me to be the passive one who has the enviable position of being able to reject, taunt, bully and tease, if I should so choose. It's every bit as pleasant and comforting as I thought it would be, to have the tables turned and be the one with the power.

Am I applauding the existence of the patriarchy? No.

Am I very weird geeky guy who had a particularly disrupted childhood, which held me back from having a number of formative experiences, such as girlfriends at school? Yes.

The net result is that things that are normal for you have a different level of importance in my life. My entire self-esteem is based on whether I'm getting laid or not. If I'm not getting laid, then I assume that I've been plunged back into my unhappy adolescence. I assume that I'm once again the awkward social outcast that I was during my schooldays. I assume that I've lost all of my adult development and I'm doomed to live out my days in lonely singledom.

The net result is dating some very unsuitable women and having a lot of unwanted sex. The sex is symbolic. I have as much sex as I can get now, today, as over-compensation for the lack of it in my teens... as if I can somehow alter the past.

It's strange psychology, but also very basic and simple.

Also, I shouldn't write about it, but I do.

I sometimes forget that I pour my heart out like this. The process of emptying my brain out onto the page has become normalised. The fear of embarrassing myself in front of the entire world has long-since been forgotten. The concept of a world that hasn't seen every flaw and downside of my character is long gone.

You'd think that my exposure would be problematic, but I find it easier to remain quiet and keep my mouth shut when I need to - such as in the office - by brain-dumping all of this stuff out publicly. I enjoy the open secret of it, although it does stress me out that one day I'm going to get into trouble.

Dating with this level of exposure is problematic. Dating is a thing that puts people in a very vulnerable position, and having a large resource of vulnerabilities published publicly makes me doubly vulnerable. I have no idea whether to offer up this blog as part of the package of information made available during the early stages of dating, along with photos and descriptions of what I do for money etc. which are usually expected.

Without too much digging, it's possible to see me in a very unflattering light, but I also know that it takes bravery and courage to make yourself vulnerable, and I know that it's rewarding to be brave and take risks.

For now, I'm just going to proceed as normal. I was very reassured to see that some people who I really like and respect had acknowledged what I'd written yesterday, but I must admit that I was seriously thinking about deleting it, because I felt like I'd made a fool of myself.

I find the world to be adversarial and hostile and I don't like it. My reaction is not to be defensive, but in fact to do the un-intuitive thing and to lower my guard - making myself extremely vulnerable. "Do your worst" I incant.

Tags: #relationships #sex #childhood #parents

This is a story about benchmarks...

There's no way for me to really know how much permanent brain damage I've inflicted upon myself. There's no way to know how much cognitive impairment I've caused. There's no way to know how many brain cells I've killed and how much grey matter I've destroyed. Most of the time I feel fine - no change - but sometimes I have a sudden panic that I've lost a lot of my ability to think.

My concentration span is ruined, but I think that's a pretty endemic problem given the ubiquity of smartphones and social media. The reasons for my brain damage are pretty obviously down to neurotoxicity of chemicals I've put into my body, but it's hard to know what I'd be like if I hadn't lived through that period of drug abuse. I feel dumb, but maybe I'd have been made dumb by other stuff anyway, like the steady stream of mind-numbing entertainment which is available over the internet.

I learned some new things in the past 15 months, so my ability to learn doesn't seem totally ruined. I achieved some difficult projects, so my ability to deliver complex pieces of work also seems to be functioning OK. This is a relief - at least my brain is functioning OK in a professional capacity. The demands seem relatively light on my brain - not too taxing - except for the concentration issues and the boredom. The boredom has always been an issue.

I think about the incidence rate of me saying or doing stupid stuff. Sometimes I worry that I'm saying just as much dumb stuff as ever, but then I look at the frequency of the really bad dumb stuff, and I realise that my spectacular own-goals are becoming less and less frequent. When I screw up, it's not as long and protracted and it doesn't cause as much damage.

Of course, I haven't done the data-collection and analysis, but I'm usually right. My hunches are usually correct, because I do collect data as I go along and I regularly compare periods of time using hard numbers.

Still, I can't quite shake the feeling that I've made myself pretty dumb through my abuse of drugs.

I think it's useful that I don't drink caffeinated beverages. I think that caffeine gives me a kind of false sense of security and overconfidence. I'm sure that caffeine is to blame for tipping me into a manic state.

It's kinda useful that I don't drink alcohol. When I quit drinking once in 2015 it was followed by a bad period of mood instability that ultimately cost me a job, financial security and then ultimately resulted in going back to square one. I'm undecided about the role alcohol has in my life, but at the moment I'm glad to be getting my intoxicants in the form of a measured dose, which is not fattening or otherwise damaging to my physical health.

I feel a little stupefied by medication. I feel quite drugged and intoxicated. I have no idea what I'm going to feel like once I finally manage to wean myself off all the pills.

It's very hard to judge where I'm at.

I look at metrics such as my average earnings. The data is very positive.

I look at metrics like my step count. The data is very negative.

I look at things like the tightness of my belt, and things are very positive again. I look at myself in the mirror when I get out of the shower and I can visibly see the improvement. There's no denying the substantial physical change - I'm losing weight and looking healthier.

I combine everything into a generalised view and I can see that this summer is likely to deliver a continued decline, which the step count data robustly supports, as well as my general perception that I've had a couple of terrible years in a row. However, the future is somewhat in my own hands, so I can choose in advance to make plans for the summer which will be something to look forward to. I can plan to succeed, instead of waiting to fail.

I know that having a girlfriend would make life more bearable, but I also know that it has always provoked instability too. I know that breakups have been the catalyst for the most self-destructive behaviour in my life. I find myself wanting some validation that I've done well. I find myself driven by insecurity a little - wanting to reassure myself that I'm still attractive.

I find that my addiction hasn't been cured. I've had thoughts which have resisted suppression, surfacing from my subconscious. I'm experienced enough to know exactly what part of my brain is plotting. I can see all the warning signs. However, I think I've proven that I'm disciplined enough to resist and get through difficulties. It's been too hard to get here - I'm not going to screw things up.

It's difficult to live with so many episodes of boom and bust. There's so many examples to analyse. I can see all the things that have worked very well, and I can see all the things which have been utterly disastrous. It should be good to have so many experiences to draw upon, but it's actually a bit frustrating. Theoretically, I know all the right moves, but linking them together into a dance is not at all easy.

I endlessly analyse everything. I extrapolate. I predict.

My predictions don't make for comfortable reading. I can see that my improvements are only marginal, while the long-term trend is pretty dreadful. I can see that there's a lot of hard work ahead with very little reward. However, I do know that for every year that I'm well more than I'm sick, my situation will improve and my quality of life is much better. For every year that I work more than I don't, my finances improve, which opens the doors to a world of possibilities. Better finances means better living conditions, which means better state of mind, better self-esteem and a whole load of things that I want become easier to get.

I'm not so stupid that I can't see my mistakes and the damage I've done to myself. I'm not so stupid that I can't take premeditated steps to try to change my own future and improve my ultimate outcome. However, I do admit that my intellect has thus far never been something that's stopped me from doing dumb stuff.

I've retreated into my own mind, so it's very hard for me to ask other people whether they can see me improving or declining. My perceptions have been very badly impaired in the past. It's virtually impossible to know whether I'm on the brink of breakthrough or disaster.

It's kind of a make-or-break time. Either the universe gives me everything I want, at long last, or I really have been banging my head against a brick wall all this time. The next few months will determine whether I'm bouncing back or whether I'm doomed.

I've seen a few documentaries about people recovering from traumatic brain injuries, and I see that they can achieve remarkable recovery, but personality change and some impairment seems to always linger. I suppose these things don't matter, in my world where I've successfully re-invented myself. Nobody much remembers who I was and what I was capable of anyway, so perhaps it's helpful that there's no benchmark for me to get depressed about.

Tags: #addiction

This is a story about sleeping pills...

The existence of this photo is something quite remarkable, even though it's hard to understand if you're not me. This photo captures the end of my attempt to smoothly extricate myself from an acrimonious divorce and pick up my life in London again with little damage. This photo captures the beginning of an astonishingly difficult period of my life - the part that contains all the homelessness and hospitalisations.

I try to compartmentalise everything, and to compare present experiences with past ones to see if I'm repeating patterns of behaviour which are flawed.

One experience which is oddly haunting is that of walking around in a somewhat out-of-body state; tunnel vision. I can hear my mouth talking - I can hear my voice - but it doesn't feel like I'm saying the words... I just hear them. It feels like I'm dreaming.

My brain is recovering from an avalanche of pills I've shoved down my throat in the past fortnight. I'm surprised I haven't suffered seizures or kidney failure, given the cocktail of chemicals I've swallowed.

I forget that I messed up my brain chemistry.

I wonder why I can't concentrate and my anxiety has gone through the roof. I wonder why my perception of time is so warped: The seconds and minutes are dragging along, taking hours and days to pass. My days in the office have been difficult, but my days at home have been no easier. There's no respite from the problems of my mind, my mood, my perceptions - I can't escape my brain.

I forget that I stopped drinking.

I wonder why the days are so long and I seem to have so much more time to do stuff. I wonder why I'm more able to cope. I wonder why I'm not so overwhelmed by things. Then I remember that I'm not shackled to alcohol anymore. I get to Friday and I start thinking that I should get drunk, but then I remember that it doesn't help, but it definitely hinders.

I think about all the detoxes and rehabs and I try to tell myself that £12,000 and 28 days in The Priory - the UK's Betty Ford - isn't enough to 'cure' me then I should go easy on myself. I think that I should allow at least four weeks since any major incident, before deciding that things are broken and won't get better. I think that 6 weeks is better, as a period of recuperation. I think that perhaps 3 months is best of all - 3 months stability and routine is the minimum, before making any big changes.

I always tried to rush things. I got very impatient and I tried to hurry things along. It ended badly.

I got very agitated. I got very angry. Nobody seemed to understand the urgency. Everybody seemed to be getting in my way.

The universe doesn't like to be hurried, it seems.

I think about how many different things I wanted in a short space of time. I wanted to work with my hands. I wanted to not work in an office. I wanted to be my own boss. I wanted to be the CEO of a tech startup. I wanted investors. I wanted to win. Then, I wanted rapid promotions and progression. I wanted to make a notable contribution. I wanted to have a say in everything.

I thought I was going somewhere.

I can look back and laugh at myself, but I must've carried some of that same person from the past into the present, which means I'm laughable today too.

I did learn to keep my mouth shut though, a little bit.

I think it's an interesting story, but I'm biased. I find it interesting that I was held back for years, which was frustrating, but then I squandered many years as an addict, which made absolutely bugger all difference. Instead of screwing up my whole career and future earning potential, my profession just patiently waited to accept me back once I'd got a lot of nonsense out of my system.

What terrifies me is how many years it's been and how similar this feeling is - of being asleep on my feet - to that feeling I had when I thought I was managing to escape my screwed up life and start over again, back in London. It's terrifying to think I haven't progressed at all, except I'm older and I've damaged my body and brain quite a lot.

I thought "OK time to stop now" a long time ago, and then found that I couldn't. The things that I didn't want to happen - like losing all my money and sleeping rough - happened and I landed up having major medical emergencies. I'm smart enough that I made it this far and my story is kinda remarkable, but anything that's vaguely similar to the past gives me a lot of superstitious heebie-jeebies.

This weekend is tougher than I thought it'd be. I'm not as far progressed with my finances as I thought I'd be. I'm not as clean and sober as I'd hoped I would be. There have been setbacks. My journey has been nonlinear.

What's surprising is that the universe has just handed me some major life components. Whether I'm intent on screwing up my entire life or whether I'm trying to achieve something great, pretty much the same outcomes seem to happen. I'm pretty convinced that free-will is an illusion. I don't feel like I'm just observing, but the evidence seems to be that I don't have any control.

Of course, I have too few 'normal' experiences to really benchmark where I'm at. I have too few 'normal' human interactions to gauge whether I've lost my mind or whether I'm OK. I'm completely free from any oversight. I'm untethered.

I don't know what's going on and I'm starting to ramble. I feel very peculiar.

Tags: #addiction #medication

This is a story about post-traumatic stress...

Tuesday was a very bad day. Tuesday was a constant panic attack. Tuesday held nothing for me but relentless anxiety. Tuesday passed very slowly.

Tuesday is past.

Today is Friday.

Today is almost OK.

When I look back on today at some point in the future, I'll probably realise that today was pretty bad, in the grand scheme of things, but compared to Tuesday, today has been a doddle.

It might seem like I was making a lot of fuss about nothing, earlier in the week, but I assure you that I was suffering a very real medical emergency, which would have seen most people hospitalised.

The brain can render us very sick and needy, when it malfunctions. My brain was badly on the blink and even in a hospital I would have been very uncomfortable. Doctors could have eased my suffering with powerful tranquillisers administered intravenously, which would have been the ethically correct thing to do, but on Tuesday I went to the office, which was torturous beyond my capability to describe.

There simply are no words for the things which are at the limit of human survivability. Torture can make us lose our sanity. Trauma can lead to loss of life.

It might look on the face of it as if I'm an ordinary person doing ordinary people stuff, but the fact is that few of us live in perpetually precarious situation. We either fail and fall, or else we stabilise. We tend towards stable outcomes: Stable failure and stable success. I'm relatively unique in having not yet failed sufficiently to block my path from achieving desirable outcomes. Despite drug addiction, alcoholism, near-bankruptcy, homelessness, brushes with the police and debilitating mental health problems, I remain persistently employable and able to access goods and services which are normally denied to a whole swathe of society, to which I belong.

Nobody has realised I'm not supposed to be here.

Nobody has realised that all their vetting procedures and gatekeepers have failed to send me packing, back to the hell hole I crawled out of. Nobody has realised that I'm one of the ones that we're supposed to spurn and turn our backs on. Nobody has realised that I look, sound and smell like I'm one of the "OK" ones, when in fact I'm very much one of the "not OK" ones.

The longer I'm allowed to stay and warm myself by the fire, the stronger I get and the more chance is there is of me achieving stable success.

That's not supposed to happen.

Every societal system has in-built measures to toss people to the wolves. I'm not supposed to be in a big house with a wood fire and a fridge full of food. I'm not supposed to work in a fancy office doing brain-work. I'm not supposed to have any financial security, housing security or prospects. Society would like to see me dead in a ditch.

Society does however worry selfishly a lot about its own sons and daughters. Because I suppose I exude somewhat of a heady mix of intellectual poshness, combined with whatever youthful vulnerability still remains in a 39-year-old man with grey hair at his temples, I guess I confound expectations of what a junkie looks like. I'm not what anybody expects a homeless bankrupt to look like. I do not embody what anybody thinks of when they think of a psych ward patient. I do not look, sound or smell like the thing which I so obviously am, if we scratch beneath the surface.

Of course, my ruse is premeditated. I know that if I keep my mouth shut and my head down, nobody will pay me much notice, and I'll slowly be able to recover from the horrors of my past. I know that if I can go unnoticed and unfettered for long enough then I'll be able to have regained firm footing, to better enable me to flourish.

I'm aware that any period I look back upon as a period when I considered myself to be doing OK, with retrospect has turned out to be a false summit. Everything I've ever achieved has crumbled. It would be foolish to imagine that I'm doing OK at the moment, simply because I'm doing better than I was a week ago, a year ago or 5 years ago.

That's the really terrifying thing for me: 5 years ago I was very much beginning the descent. I attempted to dab the brakes, but then found that the brakes weren't working. I knew that I had to avoid long-term irreversible health damage, criminal convictions, damage to my credit rating, bankruptcy and damage to my professional reputation, but I still managed to find myself looking down the gun barrel of a heap of problems that were going to see me destitute on the street.

I'm not sure how I've managed to face down the threats to my life and livelihood and emerge from the thicket relatively unscathed, at least on the surface. I suppose it's all down to a handful of people who've conspired to assist me, in ways which run contrary to the conduct we consider ordinary and normal. A handful of people have taken risks with their lives and their money, to see me live with continued opportunities, as opposed to lasting and disastrous consequences.

I suppose in the popular parlance, I've been "enabled".

I hate that negative phraseology, to stigmatise those who help addicts and alcoholics. I hate the idea that an act of kindness is actually something bad; something foolish. I find the whole concept detestable.

I feel bad about how unwell I have been feeling this week, which should have been a celebration of how much the help I've received was a worthwhile investment. I feel bad about feeling bad.

The reality is that through the awful panic attacks, I still have a lovely house and a well-paid job, so I just need to stick to the plan - "home stretch" as my guardian angel said to me today.

My life follows a very nonlinear path. Of course I remember how bitterly I complained about living out of a suitcase, how pleased I was with a new relationship, how much invested I was in my Christmas and New Year holiday, how quickly my opinion changed about the relationship and how anxious I was to secure my housing situation. Of course I remember the highs and lows. I remember the devastation and the jubilation at many points along the way, with crystal clarity.

This is my very weird life. Suicidal depressed anxious thoughts, then white sand beaches and blue skies, luxuriating on holiday, then darkest blackness, then roaring log fires in a large period home, then more blackness. Why should this not be the case? Why would we expect any different?

Things were dire earlier in the week. Things are dire now, but dramatically less so.

Tags: #anxiety #depression #bipolar #moving #stress

This is a story about hurting myself...

There's an insufferable noise inside my head. It's a bit like a hissing, whining, wailing, screaming roar. I can't actually hear anything per se, but there's something that's far noisier than everything else that I can perceive. The world seems very loud and invasive to me - every tiny sound is amplified to neve-jolting volume - but the noise inside my head is louder, even though it's silent.

I know this doesn't make any sense.

At its most basic, the noise is like the shrill notes of a horror movie, which indicate that something bad is about to happen. The noise is deeply unsettling; disturbing. I feel on edge.

Then, after a while, because the noise doesn't go away, it seems to become more urgent: Pain, injury and death feel as if they're about to happen. I'm in a constant state of 'flinching' from the anticipated blows to my body.

The feared pain never seems to quite arrive, but instead there's a dread that this feeling will never go away. This is my life now: Living in a constant state of anxiety; living with perpetual sustained threat.

How can I go on living like this?

How can I live with this noise?

There is no noise.

My rational brain knows that there isn't any noise. My rational brain knows there isn't any threat. My rational brain knows there isn't anything to be anxious about.

Further, I know why this anxiety is so bad: Because I've been through an incredibly stressful life event, and I'm not using my usual coping mechanisms, such as drinking alcohol.

In fact, I'm effectively putting myself through alcohol detox, tranquilliser withdrawal and sleeping tablet comedown, whilst simultaneously doing one of the most stressful things that ever happens in our lives - moving house.

If I don't learn to cope without alcohol then it will destroy my health and send me to an early grave. If I don't learn to cope without tablets, then I will be forever trapped by addiction.

The unfortunate short-term consequence is very unpleasant to live through.

In fact, it's so unpleasant I've started to think I would very much like to not be alive.

That's the noise.

The noise continuously tells me to hurt myself; to end the pain.

If there was a sound that existed which told you you're better off dead, then it rings at full volume in my ears. Its sustained pitch and relentlessness tells my brain it's never going to go away, things are never going to get better, and this unbearableness is a permanent state of affairs... and the only escape is death.

I've been through enough anxiety and depression to know that things don't get any worse than this, and eventually things do get better. I have unfortunately experienced enough prolonged panic attacks to know that this is just another one, and although seemingly interminable, it will eventually pass.

Given a little more freedom - a few more options - I would stay at home in bed, and sleep. To make matters worse, however, I feel compelled to be in the office, which is just about the worst place in the world, because I have to pretend like everything's OK when it's not. I have to sit in my office chair for 7 or 8 hours, when every single bit of my body and mind screams to be doing something distracting or relaxing.

Driving in heavy traffic is a mild improvement over sitting at my desk. In fact, sticking sharp objects into myself would be a mild improvement over sitting at my desk. Jumping out of my office window and falling to my death seems like a vast improvement over sitting at my desk.

It's a pretty disturbing state of affairs and I'd be yelling for help, except that I know there's no comfort that anyone's going to offer me. Nobody's going to pay for me to be sick in bed. Nobody has anything they can say or do to ease the situation. I'm just going to have to suck it up.

It's not like I've run out of pills or the shops have run out of alcohol. It's not like I couldn't go into debt while I get better. There are temporary solutions, but they all delay the inevitable.

I suppose I'm ripping off the sticking plaster, as opposed to peeling it off gently little by little. This is a short sharp shock. This is the fastest route between two points, but also the rockiest road, with thorny bushes, biting insects, choking dust and a whole host of other things that don't mean it's necessarily the easiest path.

Now... I need to go and find distractions until it's time for bed. Today has been an incredibly long day, and I wish I hadn't woken up.

Tags: #anxiety #depression #suicide #stress #moving

This is a story about mind over matter...

It doesn't seem to matter how many sleeping pills, tranquillisers and sedatives I swallow, if my brain wants to be awake, it wants me to be awake.

Several times during those 110 hours, I took my night-time pills and got into bed, but my brain was in no mood for sleep. The pathetic pharmaceuticals were brushed off effortlessly, and carried on writing and chatting to people online, all night long.

Eventually, I started to hallucinate. I couldn't see straight. I couldn't type well. I became clumsy. Tasks were slower and harder to accomplish.

The strangest thing though, is that I never became incoherent. I never started spouting gibberish.

I must now try to go to bed and get some sleep.

No doctor is likely to be sympathetic to my plight. They'll batter me with baseball bats and club me with batons. They'll throw bricks at my head and smash planks of wood over me, until I'm so broken I can't get up. In other words, they'll prescribe me dreadful medications, which are the modern equivalent of a straight-jacket.

While chemists' store-rooms are filled with medications which are precisely suitable for my symptoms - insomnia and extreme agitation - those are never allowed to be dispensed. I must suffer the pills that make me fat and unable to have an orgasm. I must suffer the pills that leave me dribbling and shuffling.

For now, I have some of the forbidden pills - the ones that work - and I shall use them until my supply is exhausted. I anticipate a peaceful night of delicious refreshing sleep, with no 'hangover'.

Good night.

Tags: #mania

This is a story about being an observer...

Regrettable social media rant number 4294967295.

Mushrooms.

If you don't like them, then don't eat them. Agreed?

We can sell them. We can have them in our supermarkets. We can have them in convenience stores. We can can find them on amazon dot com.

We can tolerate the buying, selling, cooking and consumption of mushrooms. Agreed?

We can see that mushrooms grow everywhere - they spring up in surprising places. Mushrooms are deliberately cultivated, because so many people enjoy eating them and choose to have them as part of their diet. We also regularly see mushrooms growing wild, i.e. not due to any deliberate human action or inaction.

Nobody needs to sow any seeds. Nobody needs to do anything.

Poppies and hemp are ubiquitous species that most laypeople would recognise as a cash crop farmed in a monoculture: Massive fields full of the same thing, planted and being nurtured by humans. Mushrooms are different because mushrooms grow wild all over the many islands of the United Kingdom.

We can tolerate the existence of mushrooms. Agreed?

We have not embarked upon any eradication programs to rid ourselves of a popular edible foodstuff that grows wild in our environment, without any human cultivation. We have not tried to wipe out a source of human nourishment which many people choose to have in their diet because they enjoy the flavour, texture and smell of mushrooms.

Yet.

Bizarre as this sounds...

I picked an edible foodstuff from where I found it growing wild, and I ate it. During the briefest of moments, when the mushroom was picked and was being transferred to my mouth, I was breaching the law.

During the few elapsed seconds it took me to pick a wild mushroom, put in my mouth and swallow it, I could have been arrested and prosecuted for a very serious crime that carries extremely harsh punishments.

That's weird, right?

Weirder still is that once the mushroom was in my stomach I was no longer arrestable or prosecutable. If I had lowered my mouth over the mushroom, bitten it and swallowed it, arguably no crime was committed at all. If somebody else had picked the mushroom and dropped it into my open mouth, then I didn't break the law.

Even weirder is that the punishment I might have received for picking a wild mushroom and moving it to my own mouth to be swallowed, appears to imply that my actions were very gravely deleterious to society and the wider human race. The maximum punishment I could have received as a sentence for my crime would be 7 years in prison and be to fined an unlimited amount of money.

There are only x trillions of pounds sterling equivalent of all global currencies in circulation worldwide, but the law would allow for me to be fined quadrillions, quintillions or indeed an infinite amount of money. Why not fine me a googol pounds? Why not fine me a Graham's number of pounds?

What for? What did I do that was so bad? What was wrong about my behaviour? Please explain it to me.

Usually with crimes, there are victims. If you perpetrated a crime where there was a victim, harm was caused to property, or there was antisocial behaviour, then you need to be punished. That is obvious.

For example, if I killed somebody, injured somebody or raped somebody - or otherwise caused harm to a victim and/or their property -  then I would need to be punished. We democratically decided what the punishments for crimes should be. We made our own laws via the democratic system. We have elected to have a justice system, policing and punitive institutions. Our laws are an approximation of what the majority of people would deem unacceptable behaviour in our society. We each individually differ with our opinions on what is right and what is wrong, but collectively, we have agreed upon one set of laws, which apply to almost all of us.

Let's just take a second.

To digest.

Let's now try to swallow all of this.

Pause.

Possession of mushrooms is considered to be exactly the same as possession of crack cocaine, crystal meth, heroin and other "class A" controlled substances.

Cannabis plants haven't spontaneously started growing all over the United Kingdom. Somebody had to plant the seeds. Somebody has to cultivate the cannabis plants. Deliberately grown cannabis plants, which required so much human effort to bring to these islands where the plant varieties do not naturally occur, incur only the wrath of the law we reseve for "class B" controlled substances.

Nobody is selling cannabis leaves in my local supermarket. Nobody is making TV cooking shows where cannabis leaves are considered to be an edible foodstuff included in a meal.

Cannabis leaves don't really need to exist - have no need to exist - because they're not a common part of people's diet.

Even if you selectively bred and cross-bred cannabis varieties with the aim of creating a more palatable leaf, you would struggle to persuade many people to eat the leaves.

If we study all recipes for appetising food that have occurred anywhere since the we first started making intelligible marks onto things - beginning with cave paintings and carved objects - we see no evidence of cannabis leaves as an ingredient that you'd want in your salad.

This is an assumption, based on observable human behaviour over countless millennia, but the overwhelming evidence indicates that we collectively agree that cannabis leaves don't belong in our mouths as part of our diet.

I would ask for you agreement, but I think you should be allowed to eat a cannabis leaf to decide for yourself whether you like the taste. However, I can assure you that all the countless recipe books aren't wrong: cannabis leaves taste bad.

Once again: cannabis leaves taste terrible, hence why they have not become a popular meal ingredient.

Cannabis leaves have no place alongside the other leafy vegetables we consider to be human nourishment.

Agreed?

Mushrooms aren't to everyone's tastes, but they are an ingredient in recipes which predate written language. Mushrooms were known to be food before humans even invented the word "food". The human animal finds the taste of mushroom flesh to be appetising. The human animal always prefers to eat mushrooms not lemons. Although a diet of lemons might technically sustain you, I suspect you would be hard-pressed to find a single person in 7.6 billion who chooses a diet of lemon-like foodstuffs as a significant source of their daily calorific nourishment requirements.

So if it's a choice between mushrooms or starving to death, you'd eat the mushrooms. Agreed?

If it's a choice between eating lemons, eating mushrooms, or starving, you'd choose the mushrooms. Agreed?

If ever there was a more ludicrous example of an approach to what is legally referred to as "The Misuse of Drugs" then it would be criminalising the possession of mushrooms.

We had better build a whole lot of prisons to hold all the farmers, greengrocers, supermarket employees, cooks, chefs, restauranteurs, diners - practically every person in the entire United Kingdom - for having some mushrooms.

Mushrooms are quite literally everywhere: Growing everywhere. We can't control them.

Having a law that talks about "controlled substances" and "Misuse of Drugs" whilst also classifying mushrooms as "class A" - the very most harmful substances to society - is beyond ridiculous.

If ever there was a better example of nature refusing to be controlled by human laws, then it would be mushrooms.

Mushrooms stubbornly refuse to be controlled, even though they are specifically referred to in law as "controlled". They are literally called a "controlled substance" when our own eyes confirm that mushrooms do not care about human laws and refuse to be controlled by any statutory instrument. Mushrooms act in contempt of our courts. Mushrooms spitefully flout our laws.

Mushrooms wilfully refuse to comply with the wishes of Her Majesty the Queen, resisting and obstructing the Crown's agents. Mushrooms have no respect for the individuals who have been elected to represent their constituents as Members of Parliament, sitting in the House of Commons in the Palace of Westminster by virtue of the democratic system of governance, as self-determined by the citizens of the United Kingdom.

Ha ha ha.

Joke's on you suckers.

You literally voted for mushrooms, in so many ways. With your pounds. With your electoral ballot. With what you put in your shopping trolley. You voted with your mouth, in so many ways, but mainly by putting mushrooms into your mouth.

You wanted mushrooms. Most people want mushrooms.

Yet, you also allegedly wanted mushrooms to be so very criminal, that their possession, dealing, cultivation and trafficking would deprive UK citizens of their liberty FOR LIFE, detained at Her Majesty's pleasure. However, I suspect that is not what what most people want.

You want mushrooms in your shopping trolley, but the law considers them to be EXACTLY THE SAME as crack cocaine, heroin and crystal meth.

Are you high?

Will somebody please come and lock me up, because I bought mushrooms, cooked them and ate them.

When should I expect the police?

Or should I just hand myself in at the nearest police station?

What should I do with any mushrooms I have left remaining uneaten? Should I put them in my compost bin, like the local council tells me to do, or should I hand them over to the police as evidence?

What would be the learned opinion of any Queen's Counsel who I retained the services of? What would the opinion of the Attorney-General be? What would the right honourable Geoffrey Cox think about my mushrooms? What about the countless mushrooms which continue to exist in flagrant disregard of the statutory instruments which control them, the judiciary, the courts, the police and the other Crown institutions which seek to enforce the laws of the United Kingdom?

Is this what "take back control" looks like? Apparently that's what 51.9% of the UK population democratically voted to do.

Assuming that we regain full control, do you think mushrooms will begin to care about the laws controlling them?

Fundamentally, isn't there just one set of laws we can all universally agree upon?

You can't legislate in contradiction to the universal laws of physics.

You can't just write something down on a "special" piece of paper and expect the universe to comply.

Again, for those who are slow learners: The only laws are the universal laws of physics, which are immutable.

The laws of physics are universal and have existed - and will always exist - while there is a universe.

You can dress up in fancy wigs and robes and prance around in grand buildings. You can put shiny things that you found in the ground onto your head if you like. But you know what? The universe thinks you're an idiot if you do that. The universe thinks you're absurdly insignificant and finds it perversely hilarious that its laws quite literally predicted your existence and your behaviour, but yet you do do not properly perceive what is so obviously observable all around you.

If you think humans make and enforce laws, you are an imbecile, as illustrated by the humble mushroom.

Humans and their behaviour were preordained from the moment of the universe's conception, along with the immutable and universal laws of physics. The laws of physics predicted and explained literally everything.

If you think that mushrooms can be controlled by statutory instruments created by Acts of Parliament, with Crown agents of Her Majesty The Queen enforcing those statutory instruments, then you my friend, have overlooked almost the entire observable universe.

Through simple observation, we can plainly see the irrefutable evidence of the existence of a set of fundamental and universal laws, which are immutable.

In short: Mushrooms exist. Deal with it.

Deal with it by understanding and accepting what is observable.

Do not "deal with it" with acts of human behaviour that the universe doesn't care about. The universal immutable fundamental laws of physics predicted all your BS well before you even thought about it.

Deal with it.

Deal with it all.

Accept it.

You cannot change the laws of physics, no matter how badly you want to. Irrespective of your genius or how you manage to collectively conspire, no individual, group or entire species can ever change or avoid the fundamental universal immutable laws of physics which govern all things for all time.

I know it's a lot to take in, but I suggest you make a start by opening your eyes.

Then, just observe.

Mushrooms exist and we should stop having a tantrum about their existence, because that behaviour is ludicrous, absurd and also totally hilariously predictable. Yet, the majority of us are unforgivably ignorant and act petulantly and arrogantly, whenever we assume that WE make and enforce the laws, when in fact the [universal] LAWS [of physics] MADE EVERYTHING, including us and mushrooms: We're made of the same stuff.

Tags: #physics #drugs #addiction #politics #law #criminal

This is a story about feeling vindictive...

Several nights this week I've stayed up late. I am usually very strict with my bedtimes and routine, but when some major stressor triggers an episode of mania, I struggle to stop working on whatever particular thing has obsessed me, at any particular moment. I feel as though I have spare brain capacity with which to use for a whole range of projects, virtually simultaneously. I feel as though I'm close to making a breakthrough, and with just a little more effort, I will have achieved something great.

There is some truth to what I am saying, but there is also the thing that I didn't mention: What goes up must come down. You have to pay to play.

My attempts to automate the harvesting and analysis of data from Twitter has been reasonably successful. I have managed to extract and store a significant amount of useful information, which could be analysed. The achievement is no small one, considering that I had zero knowledge of any of the technologies involved, nor did I have approval to use Twitter's developer API, which I'd never seen before. Since Sunday, I have written code which can rummage through Twitter's data and find what I want, in order to then gain the insights I want. Obviously, I also got my code to Tweet "hello world" as well as send some messages to a group of special people. Not bad, considering I had to learn a whole bunch of stuff before I could actually start building stuff.

My attempts to stay in touch with a number of friends, and to also start letting friends know that they can [and should] come visit me in my new house, have been time consuming, but incredibly worthwhile, because I'm now in touch with lots of friends - old and new - and that makes me feel very loved and cared for, during a week following a break-up, when I might perhaps have been at risk of feeling somewhat isolated and lonely. Not bad, considering that only two friends have ever made the trip from England to Wales to see me, during the whole 17 months that I've lived here. That's a long time, especially considering how few friends I've managed to make locally. I live a very reclusive life, but not particularly through choice.

My attempts to impress my colleagues and make myself useful at work have been hit-and-miss. A sense of humour driven by mania is not well matched with an open-plan office full of fine upstanding members of the community who are very quiet and mild-mannered. I made a dreadful misjudgement, which caused some upset to a very senior person, but then something else I did was recognised as really valuable, so perhaps the good and the bad cancelled each other out. I still have a job, for now.

My attempts to write something interesting and entertaining - with my usual unflinching honesty - turned into manic rants, some of which were approaching 2,000 word impenetrable essays about nothing in particular. My 'excess' energy was ploughed into writing, but I can't say that I achieved much except for maintaining my daily writing habit, which is an achievement in and of itself, not to be dismissed lightly.

My attempts to prepare for moving house were particularly demanding. Mail redirection, changing the address for several bank accounts and other financial services, arranging broadband internet installation, ordering furniture to be delivered, arranging a van to transport my belongings, boxing up my stuff, signing contracts, paying various huge sums of money to various people and keeping my current rented place tidy so that new prospective tenants can be shown around, has been an arduous task. However, my ducks are almost all lined up.

Then, there were the very many things which I became briefly obsessed about, but were a complete waste of time and effort. I was inventing jokes about theoretical physics. I was making a playlist of all the 80s synth-inspired music that I like. I was writing long ranting Facebook posts about the anti-Semitism accusations flying within the Labour party, and about the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of anti-Semitism.

I was chatting with some people who are massive fans of my favourite musical artist - Fear of Tigers - and there was an album that they were trying to download, but they were having problems. Me, being 'a little bit technical' decided that I would take a look, and quickly discovered that the website is simply purporting to have content to Google's crawler bots, which is actually untrue - the content does not exist. Angered by this honeypot, which is designed to get unsuspecting and non-technical internet users to give their name, date of birth, email address and home address, it then tries to trick the user into doing a number of other things, all of which would result in some remuneration for the owner and operator of the honeypot - the "ultimate beneficial owner" to use the legal term.

Angered by the injustice of would-be music pirates being misled by this honeypot, I decided that it would not be unethical to probe this fraudulent website for any vulnerabilities. I quickly found a couple, which I have set about the task of attacking by brute-force, in order to sabotage the fraudulent site and troll whoever set it up. I had the theoretical knowledge of how I might go about this, but it felt suddenly very important to me to learn the skills of a highly-experienced and sought-after internet security engineer (known as a pen-tester - i.e. penetration tester) or perhaps one might argue, the skills of a white-hat hacker.

Given my propensity for never abandoning tasks until I feel I have completed them to my satisfaction, I would not be surprised if my current attempt to use the most common 13,000 passwords found on the internet to break into the target server, would escalate to a full-on distributed attack to exhaust ALL possible passwords until finally I 'crack the safe' and I can then set about my act of supposedly ethical sabotage.

It's rare that I pause and think "should I stop" and even when it seems very obvious that to continue further would be inadvisable and entirely pointless, I continue, for unknown reasons. It must be something about my personality and upbringing. I particularly relish problems which are generally declared as "so hard" that they're equated with being impossible, which is untrue. Some of the very hard things I've achieved have had surprisingly positive unanticipated consequences, such as giving my life new meaning, purpose, and skills that have later turned out to be incredibly valuable.

If you imagine a lonely isolated child who's been given a hugely complicated task - perhaps even no task at all - but has a huge number of tools at their disposal and lots of raw materials, by trial-and-error that child might create something... perhaps because of sheer boredom. As that trial-and-error learning technique becomes more innate, those tools and those materials start to become understood to that child, in a way that no teacher could teach. If you can self-direct your own learning and you have developed the attitude required to keep trying and failing, but carrying on regardless, then eventually you can start to finish projects that you started, no matter how hard they seemed when they were first conceived of.

What I'm doing could be considered a vindictive vendetta, based on the false premise that the person who set up this devious honeypot 'deserves' to have a person like me vandalise it, because it's become an absurd crusade. Not a moral crusade, but a crusade against the technology that's been put in place to stop mindless vandals from doing what I'm attempting to do: To crack the security that's there to prevent total anarchy on the internet, where somebody with a grudge could cause damage to whatever they wanted, very easily.

What I'm doing is not easy. It's hard. That's more the reason why I'm doing it than any other reason, even though that reason doesn't make sense.

It was hard to get where I am, so it makes no sense to stop doing hard things. In fact, when I'm stressed I actively seek hard problems, which is why I'm always drawn back to things like theoretical physics when I'm suffering from stress-induced mania.

It seems unlikely that my knowledge of theoretical physics will ever be of any use in my everyday life, but a lot of the side projects I've busied myself in this week have very real tangible benefits, although I suppose I could technically find myself being extradited to the United States to face charges of computer trespass or some other vague and nebulous bit of US law that I've fallen afoul of, depending on whose parade I'm pissing on and how far they're prepared to to to get me back.

One thing I would advise you though: Don't get on the wrong side of the geeks, because they're the ones who look after that folder of photos you sent to your lover, which you think is well-protected. The geeks are the ones who look after all those messages you send to the person you're having an affair with. The geeks are the ones who know the most about the dark side of human nature, because the geeks suddenly got put in charge of keeping everyone's secrets. When people think they're doing stuff in private, they act very differently. When people think they're protected they do things they'd never dream of doing without the protection they assume that they have.

I like to think I'm a good person, but I'm also an unusual person. Sometimes I do stuff just to see if I can do it. Sometimes, I take things too far, but I find it hard to stop because I'm a completer-finisher, and sometimes I have to dismantle a huge complex piece of apparatus, to satisfy a mere curiosity, when in actual fact I'm terrifying the hell out of a whole bunch of people who like to believe that their barriers are impregnable. It's disturbing for society to have its incorrect notions of concepts like privacy and secrecy, openly challenged.

We feel safe, searching for whatever we want via Google. We click "private browsing" buttons that give us an extra sense of reassurance that we are entering a "safe space" where we are completely anonymous, and our privacy and secrecy is guaranteed.

Whatever contact you and your personal data have had with digital devices, you can assume that it's as good as public knowledge, I'm afraid. If somebody is determined enough, they will walk right through every barrier that supposedly exists to protect you and your privacy. If somebody is determined enough, your secrets will be known, if you've been so foolish as to let them leave your brain.

Be warned.

Tags: #privacy #secrecy #security #hacking #computing #software #coding #apps #programming #mania #bipolar

This is a story about provocation...

I suppose the reason why my episodes of mania synchronise perfectly with periods of high stress and exhaustion, is some kind of defence mechanism - perhaps an evolutionary adaptation; something deliberately left in my genes, because it's served a useful purpose during unsettled times throughout the history of humanity.

It's problematic for me to work in an open-plan office at the moment. It's problematic for me to be surrounded by so many mild-mannered and quiet individuals, who seem happy to spend all day looking at their email inbox, waiting for something interesting to appear.

How my colleagues manage to cope in an environment that's pretty stale and ultra-conservative, I don't know. Big personalities and loudmouths are not the kinds of people who become long-serving members of my organisation. In fact, a girl I dated from my office said she cried when she got her security pass, because its expiry date was 10 years in the future. "Nobody would choose to work here" she said.

It's not that bad.

I like it.

I'm just not so sure that everyone who's within earshot of me is my greatest fan. I have a foghorn-like voice in two situations: 1) when I'm scared and insecure, and 2) when I'm manic, like I am now.

I suppose I knew that mania was cropping up - rearing its ugly head - but it served a purpose. I needed to find a place to live and make all the necessary moving preparations. I needed to continue to work hard at my job, while also finding the extra energy and the motivation to do something I hate: Moving.

The mania has propelled me to move very fast, but it also causes my brain to speed up dangerously. A colleague told a joke about friction coefficients - a classical physics joke - and I said I could come up with a better one about quantum mechanics, in only a few seconds. According to my colleague, it took me no more than 15 seconds to invent a "XXX walks into a bar..." type joke, which was actually pretty good considering I thought of it on the spot AND it involved two really fundamental things about quantum mechanics. Nothing to do with Schrödinger and his cats, but actually to do with Planck and his constant... but I digress... both jokes have a very small audience who'd appreciate them.

I'm fizzing and crackling with so much energy at the moment that I'm physically uncomfortable to be around. I think I'm literally giving people near me headaches.

One of the first things I said this morning was "do chairs really exist?" which was supposed to be funny, but my colleagues reaction was to tell me it was too early to start talking about philosophy.

I didn't get to sleep until 3:30am or maybe even 4am.

Does the lack of sleep cause the mania, or is the insomnia a symptom of the mania? It's impossible to know.

It's not like I couldn't sleep, but I can't see how else I can fit everything into the 24 hours of the day, without some late nights. I know that I need regular bedtimes. I know I need lots of sleep. But, there's so much to do.

The busier I am, the more productive I am, strangely. Today I did all kinds of horrible jobs that I wasn't looking forward to, like buying a washing machine, booking a van to move my stuff, arranging to have broadband internet installed, arranging to have my post redirected and a zillion other admin jobs, but I also managed to do a piece of work that I'd been putting off for days and days.

Where I'm finding the energy from to maintain my daily writing, as well as the development of NickBot™ and the migration of my website from one hosting provider to another, I have no idea, considering that I also have a demanding full-time job and I waste at least 50% of my time saying stupid things out loud and distracting people.

I guess I was wasting a lot of time and energy on a bad relationship, so escaping that has released me from a lot of pointlessly exhausting nonsense. I was very trapped. I was very miserable.

I'm very stressed now and I felt momentarily like I was very alone, but perhaps that's what prompted me into a frenzy of activity, sending out lots of messages to people I care about, trying to surround myself with people who care about me. There's a horrible period of stress approaching rapidly - moving day, and subsequent days - but I'm pretty well prepared for it, which I'm surprised about, because I can often become too overwhelmed by anxiety to even leave my bed. I'm surprised that depression hasn't laid me low.

All of my psychiatric problems can be considered acute: i.e. they have been spontaneously provoked into existence by the extreme set of life circumstances that I'm simultaneously dealing with. This is adjustment disorder which is just another way of saying "your life is hell right now" and that quite rightly, my brain and body are compensating for the extreme demands placed upon me.

I'm pretty terrified right now, of screwing up the good relationship I have with my colleagues and my workplace. People have been patient with me, but that patience is wearing thin. It's unusual for a manic episode to last so long, but I've managed to keep myself sustained for periods of 6, 8 and even 13 weeks before... but it always led to a horrible crash. There have always been disastrous consequences for allowing too much of my mania to overspill into the open-plan offices which I work in.

I try to rein myself in. I try to put my headphones in and keep my head down. But, then somebody wants to ask me something. Then I overhear something and my red-hot brain which is travelling at a million miles an hour immediately sparks off and I'm talking - interjecting - with something which I think is profound, but nobody can keep up with me... I'm just acting a bit weird and annoying, from the point of view of my colleagues.

I'm working from home for a couple of days. I'm going to try to pace myself and remind myself that I've got a nice long overlap of my tenancies, so I don't have to move everything all at once. If I forget anything, I can always make more trips. There's no need for me to put so much pressure on myself.

I'm pushing hard in every area of my life, simultaneously. I want my colleagues to think I'm a brilliant genius who can do anything. I want my perfect house, fully furnished and looking beautiful. I want to feel instantly at home in a city which I've barely visited. I want my side project - this website - to make a giant leap forward, in terms of technology.

It's too much, and there will be a price to be paid.

I need to be super careful.

I can't afford to lose my job, for example.

I can't afford to lose anything, in fact.

Everything teeters dangerously on a cliff edge.

But, I've kind of gotten used to living on the edge.

If nothing else, at least this period is quite life-affirming and I'm coping remarkably well. Even when I got in trouble with the big boss the other day, I managed to rescue things very rapidly and get back on good terms. Even when I wasted days and days procrastinating, I caught up very rapidly. Even when I felt that there was too much to do in too little time, to move house without dying of stress and anxiety, everything seems to be falling into place.

I've written twice as much as I meant to, of course, because I can't quite rein myself in; I can't quite pump the brakes and slow myself down.

So long as I keep doing what my colleagues are doing, which is mostly killing time looking busy, then I'll probably get through this difficult period without doing too much damage. Less is more.

Tags: #bipolar #mania #adjustmentdisorder #career #work #job #office #boredom #moving #renting #house

This is a story about a charmed existence...

Despite much whinging and complaining about the anxiety being caused by house-hunting and the difficulty of getting through all the vetting procedures, credit checks, references and suchlike, I have managed to secure myself a lovely big house to live in.

The house is unfurnished.

This isn't even my furniture.

I stole the photograph from the rental agent's website.

However.

Wherever I go in the world, I have friends. Even though I hardly know anybody in the city where I currently live, or the city where I'm moving to, or the city where I work, I will always have friends. Why? Because I have so many people who care about me in the world. I'm such a lucky guy that my lovely global friends write to me, leave me lovely comments on my blog, or even just leave a little 'heart' on something I've written.

I know that some people might feel like social media, blogging and the internet in general is a virtual reality. In their mind's eye, the internet is populated with shy introverts, who never speak to each other and never make meaningful lifelong friendships. They're wrong.

A huge percentage - the vast majority - of my friendships began online, and then progressed to meeting in person and staying in touch regularly. My best friends and those who've been there for me through thick and thin, in times of darkness and in times of light... those friends almost all originated from the internet.

Whether those friendships were made via dial-up internet bulletin boards (BBS), discussion forums, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or whatever social media is presently popular, is a complete irrelevance. Whether or not those friendships were first initiated using the communication medium of the internet, as opposed to a chance face-to-face meeting, is irrelevant.

I started making a list of all the people who've given me significant support during some very difficult years of my life, and the more I kept digging though the archives of the internet, the more amazed I was at how many names there were on the list.

I started trying to mention some of those people on Twitter, to thank them for being such great friends. As I sent out the Tweets I'd keep realising that there was somebody who'd perhaps gone quiet for a little while, and I hadn't been in touch with recently. Everybody I mentioned has been a hugely supportive, kind and caring friend.

I started to realise it was almost impossible for me catalogue and give thanks to everybody. How can I rank the contribution of my friends, to improving - and in some cases saving - my life? How can I even begin to comprehend just how many people I've been lucky enough to connect with, in a meaningful way, such that we could talk just like we'd known each other our whole lives?

How can I be sure I didn't miss anybody? For sure, I have more friends than my brain can cope with, which is an amazingly nice situation to be in.

The internet is an incredible thing, but it's the aggregate value of all those wonderful people that makes it so amazing. The global reach of the internet means I have friends on every continent. It feels like wherever I go in the world, I'll always have a friend.

I'm moving to a city I've never lived in before. I don't really have any friends there. I don't know my way around.

That's scary.

But, wherever I go, I have my connection to an entire world of wonderful friends, who will support me along the way. Sure, some of them live too far away to help me unload my moving truck and unpack my boxes. Sure, some of them live so far away that they're unlikely to be able to drop in for a housewarming party. However, it's an immense comfort, especially during unsettling and stressful times, to have the wonderful luck of having so many friends in the world.

I'm not sure why I put up that picture of a house which doesn't even contain any furniture.

I'm not sure if I'm insecure, and I want you to see that I'm at least going to be living somewhere nice, once I've bought some furniture and moved in.

I also wanted to share that picture, because you're all moving in there with me, because you move everywhere with me. You moved from London to Manchester with me, you moved from Manchester to Swansea with me, you moved from Swansea to Newport with me and now you're moving from Newport to Cardiff with me. You were with me when I was in all those new cities. You were with me when I was living all on my own in that hotel room, out of a suitcase, for so many months.

I'm lucky to have so many friends who go with me wherever I go. I'm lucky to have friends in every time zone, so I can speak to somebody at any hour of the day. I'm lucky to have turned so-called 'virtual' friendships into lifelong friendships, where we speak regularly on the phone, and we are intimately involved in each other's lives.

I'm grateful. Without your help, I wouldn't have made it this far. Without your help I'd have died in Manchester. Without your help, I'd have been too anxious and depressed to get through the difficult things I've been through: To move to strange new cities, start new jobs and find new places to live. Without your help, all those lonely nights living out of a suitcase in a hotel would have been unbearable.

Thank you, my far-flung friends.

Tags: #friends #socialmedia #home #moving #apartment #renting