This is a story about parasites...

Everybody has to work, right? There's a social contract that we implicitly signed up for when our parents had sex on our behalf. In return for our parents' selfless act of having unprotected sex, we agreed - before we were born - to a life of wage slavery and paying bills.

The other way of looking at things is to ask what would happen if you didn't work.

A big hole in the ground was dug to make the foundations of your house, where you live. You dug that hole, right? What about the concrete that was used to fill the foundations? I presume you slaked the lime to make the mortar and you dug the aggregates to make the mix that was poured into the hole you dug. I mean, that's only logical.

Bricks were laid to make the walls of your house. I presume you collected the clay, shaped it into bricks and baked them in a kiln that you made. That's only logical.

Joists and beams were needed to make the floors you walk on and the roof that keeps you dry. I presume you chopped down those trees and milled them into the straight timbers that were needed. That's only logical.

Slates were hung to make your roof able to divert rain into your guttering. I presume you quarried those slates. That's only logical.

Nails were forged to join the wood. I presume you collected the iron ore and blacksmithed the nails. That's only logical.

Sand was melted in a furnace at incredibly hot temperatures to make the glass that glazes your windows. I presume you gathered that sand and kept the fires burning in order to make those panes of glass that adorn your house. I mean, that's only logical.

Meat, vegetables, kernels, pulses, herbs, salt, oils and other condiments were combined to make delicious meals to keep you going while you were doing all that hard work. I presume you farmed the edible things to make those meals. You harvested the corn, milled the flour and baked the bread. That's only logical.

Water was raised from the underground aquifers. I presume you dug the wells and winched up the buckets of water. That's only logical.

How are you doing so far? You can say that everything you've benefitted from has been a product of your own hard labour, right? You can show directly how your contribution to society means that you deserve your slice of the pie, of course. That's only logical.

"Actually, I'm much more important than that."

Right, let's test that hypothesis.

What do you actually do?

"I go to meetings in a big fancy office."

Alright. Let's go.

Coffee beans were picked, dried and roasted. The coffee was ground and infused in boling water. I presume you were there in South America, harvesting the crop. I presume you roasted your beans and ground them yourself. That's only logical.

Spreadsheet software was crafted from binary ones and zeros. Microsoft Excel was created from nothing, using computer programming. I presume you wrote Excel. That's only logical.

Companies were incorporated with memorandums and articles of association. Laws were made. Everything was written down on paper. Paper was made from wood pulp. Ink is made from pigments and dyes. I presume you made the paper and the ink, and you wrote down all the laws that govern your company. That's only logical.

Cotton was picked. Thread was made. Thread was woven into garments. Fancy shirts and suits of clothes were made so that the people in the offices could look powerful and important at their meetings, sipping coffee and putting made-up numbers into spreadsheets. You made all those things. That's only logical.

How are you doing now? Are you with me so far?

"You just don't understand. I paid for all those things."

Oh you PAID did you? Let's see how that stands up to cross-examination.

Gold was panned or mined out of the ground. Gold was melted down into bars and coins that were assay marked to vouch for purity and weight. I presume you were down in the mines with your pickaxe, or in the river bed with your panning bowl, plucking gold nuggets out of the ground. I mean, that's only logical.

Banknotes were printed and coins were minted. Banks held ledgers and reserves. Payments were recorded. I presume you made the currency that was hard to counterfeit. I presume you created the payment systems that were hard to defraud. That's only logical.

How about now? Keeping up?

"For fuck's sake. You just don't get it. I did my job and I got my salary. That's how I paid for my house and my food."

Oh, right. I get it now. What exactly did you do for your job? What exactly was your contribution?

Tags: #capitalism #economics #career

This is a story about having fun...

If you need to prove that you're good at drinking and taking long holidays, university is an excellent choice. If you have wealthy middle-class parents, don't know what you want to do with the rest of your life except avoid working (you're right - work is boring and shit) then why not take a gap-yah or two and spend as long as you can in full-time education? Study now. Pay later.

Did you select your A-levels based on the degree course that you wanted to study? Did you make sure you have as many languages and extracurricular activities on your university application as possible? Did you make sure you've got some volunteering or Duke of Edinburgh award, or some other bollocks to make you look like more of a model student?

Next question: did you pick your degree based on the job you wanted at the end of your studies?

There are a limited number of professions that require undergraduate or postgraduate qualifications. To enter into law, medicine, accountancy, teaching, dentistry, veterinary surgery and a handful of other fields, you cannot legally practice without membership of a professional body, who usually mandate that you have followed a proscribed educational path.

In short: you only really need to go to university if a degree is absolutely necessary in order to get the job you want, right?

Wrong.

What about fun? What about staying with like-minded peers. While those who are not academically gifted (read: thick as pig shit) go on to have fulfilling lives in prison, on remand, on probation and tending their many illegitimate children, the brightest bunch will get into thousands of pounds of debt while having an extended infancy. Who wouldn't enjoy spending their student loan on beer and drugs?

Have I missed something?

Yes.

While I fumbled my way through my career, hamstrung by the fact that I was 3 to 5 years younger than my peers on British Aerospace's graduate trainee program, I had missed out on living in a dog-shit untidy flat with a load of selfish arseholes, having some lovely girlfriends and making lifelong friends, while growing up amongst a peer group of likeminded individuals in ostensibly the same circumstances. My first few years after college fucking sucked. Yes, I had money, but I was fucking lonely and miserable.

After a couple of years I became fucked off with the ageism and went in search of a company that would give me a proper opportunity to prove myself. With another job as a stepping stone, I got into IT contracting by the age of 20. I was earning £34 an hour, plus VAT. It was a king's ransom and I started to use money to fill the hole that would ordinarily have been filled with tales of happy 'student days'.

By the time Y2K came around I was working at Harbour Exchange, on the backbone of the Internet. I was doing some software development for Lloyds TSB on their telephone exchange (PABX) software. My Docklands Light Railway journey to work each day took me past two enormous holes in the ground: the foundations of the HSBC and Citibank towers that flank 1 Canada Square: the UK's tallest building. Career-wise, I had won. I was earning 6-figures at the tender age of 21. Fuck you, graduates.

When did I ask myself "what do I really want to do with my life?" or "what do I enjoy doing?"

Never.

Who can afford to dream?

If you've got somebody underwriting your risk; if you've got a loving family; if you have wealth... sure, go ahead, dare to dream. If you haven't, you'd better be pragmatic. We saw what happened to me when I slipped. Was anybody there to catch me? No fucking way. I was homeless, destitute. Neither my family nor the state intervened. There's no safety net for me. Failure means failure. Complete and utter failure, destruction and destitution.

And so, I don't choose to do what I want, work where I want, consider what I want. I take the job that pays and I get on and I do it. I'm cynical and I moan about it, but what's the alternative? Flipping burgers for minimum wage? A shop doorway that smells of piss and sneering government employees begrudging me a pittance of a support allowance... not enough to escape poverty.

I'm almost incensed by people who suggest I should retrain, or at least choose work that I hate a little less. That's madness, for me. I just don't have anybody underwriting my risk. I'm already leveraged to the max: all-in, bollocks on the chopping block.

The annoying thing is that it works.

I fucking hate the whole stupid fucking industry that I'm mixed up in. I'm doing the same shit I was doing when I was 21. Wouldn't you be, if the rewards were the same for you? Think about what you could do with all that money. Imagine having a 5-figure paycheque every month.

But it's not like that.

I'm so fucking serious.

Take that 6-figure job, but get rid of your lifelong friends. Get rid of those memories of meeting people on freshers week. Get rid of those memories of student halls, the NUS bar, living away from home for the first time, your proper girlfriend/boyfriend who you were mad about. You can kiss those 3+ years you spent discovering your adult identity goodbye. You'll be financially rich, but you'll be miserable, lonely and insecure. You won't have that piece of your identity that says you belong to some club: the town or city where you studied, the campus, the finals, the dissertations... the grade, the diploma, the graduation.

Take those happy memories, and instead replace them with being at least 3 years younger than your closest peer, and having to work several times harder to overcome the impression that you're less experienced, less developed, less able. Of course, I was inexperienced: I was living away from home for the first time. When I threw up on a night out, it wasn't with other students who were doing the same, but with work colleagues. At university it was a fun rite of passage shared with others who had done exactly the same thing. I really don't advise doing it as part of your career, although it's a somewhat unavoidable part of life that has to be done at some point. In my defence, I was tricked into eating a Dorset Naga chilli pepper.

Moan, moan, moan.

Anyway, I got my gap-yah. I had my 3 years of living in appalling conditions and getting fucked up on a non-stop rollercoaster of sex, drugs and drink, with few responsibilities. I had long holidays. I got a stupendous education that I certainly won't forget in a hurry. Bizarrely, I did even get a certificate at one point. I kid you not.

"University of life" is rather synonymous with people who the elites rather like to sneer at, but consider this: there are a lot of smart people who don't get to go to university, because they don't have wealthy middle-class parents underwriting their risk. The point that I missed - and I regret - is that it's better if you stick with the herd. My peer group went to university and I didn't, and for that reason I became even more isolated and lonely. My parents successfully sabotaged my childhood by moving me all over the fucking country, but I made the final mistake by not seeing the value in fucking about for 3+ years with likeminded individuals, as far away from my c**tish parents as I could get.

I've come back to bitching and whining, full of bitterness and regret, but isn't it apt? Here I am, about to secure another contract doing the same old thing, the same old way. Sure, I can do it, but can I fondly reminisce about the journey that brought me to this point? Do I share the journey onwards with lifelong adulthood friends?

No.

My life was fractured in my childhood. I'm on a different path from my peer group. Having fun and having friends is not for me: I've been told that from a very early age.

Tags: #childhood #parents #career #university

This is a story about fantasy worlds...

It should come as no surprise that a geek like me played Dungeons & Dragons a couple of times when I was a kid. Actually, I played the Marvel Super Heroes role-playing game far more. I think I even got to be 'dungeon master' one time, setting an adventure in the Marvel world.

Really, I've had little desire to retreat into the fantasy world. When I was a kid I used to spend a lot of time day-dreaming, but that was as much borne of frustration with age-related restrictions. In the UK you can't drive a car until you're 17 years old. You can't get a credit card and it's generally assumed that you're going to be stuck in school until you're 18. You can't get a decent job that pays decent money until you're 21+ and even then you're probably going to be too poor to afford any of the things that you really want. However, I took a few short-cuts and I was able to start doing some cool stuff soon after leaving college.

Writing a work of fiction - a novel - was not something that came from plot lines and characters I'd been imagining for a long time. I hadn't been inhabiting some inner fantasy world; waiting for the right time to put it down on paper.

What seems clear to me is that so many of us are keen to escape from day-to-day reality. You've realised you're never going to be a professional footballer or pop singer, so now what's the best you can hope for? That you don't die penniless and in a great deal of pain and discomfort? Yeah, the problem is that you're definitely going to get sick and old, and you're definitely not going to be be rich & famous.

To ditch your responsibilities and run away is a widely held fantasy. You've got your career, your reputation, your spotless curriculum vitæ, your mortgage and loans, your life insurance, your pension. You've got to think about your credit rating and what 'box' you fit in. If you quit the rat race, do you even exist?

I often wonder why people stay in lame underpaid boring jobs, doing shit that's doing nothing to benefit anybody - at best - and at worst is downright destructive. Everyone must be a damnsight more locked into the system than we dare to talk about. The number of households who would go into mortgage or rent arrears if they missed just one or two paycheques is astounding. We don't dare to dream because we can't afford to.

I'm a sensation seeker, so I must admit that I'm totally comfortable flirting with disaster. There's no such thing as "rock bottom" in my world. Even in some diabolically awful situations, I've been thinking "I really need to tell people what this is like". Everything that I've experienced is an asset not a curse. Writing about some things that I've been through has been the payoff for the short-term pain and discomfort I felt.

It's alarming to see a world that revels in fantasy. It suggests that we are so downtrodden that we no longer have realistic aspirations. People have given up on the idea of wealth and status, and instead they immerse themselves in the lives of cartoonish fantasy figures: celebrities who live lives of unimaginable riches and fame.

There used to be a time when the fantasy was to get married, buy a house, have kids, a job for life, a trade or a profession. Now we fantasise about being people we're not; people we could never be. In a pyramid scheme, there's not enough room at the top for everybody. We all lose out in a pyramid scheme world. I really don't give a fuck about the land of opportunity because the opportunity doesn't really exist. On the balance of probability, you're just one of the luckless fools who's helping the rich get richer. Every time the pyramid gets a little taller, you get pushed a little lower, down into the dirt.

A truly remarkable discovery for me was that most people are doing a lot worse than you think. Even though we put a brave face on everything, the free market has evolved to separate fools from their cash very efficiently. You might earn double or quadruple what the average person does, but you shop in a more expensive supermarket, buy more luxurious things and have more expensive tastes. You have pigeon-holed yourself into the income bracket that means that you have more-or-less the same amount of disposable income as somebody in a completely different socio-economic group.

The fun part of my 'research' during the past years, has been to take that journey: from the homeless people in the park, living off London's unsold sandwiches, to the fakers living a life of pseudo-glamour and trying to present an image of wealth and success. Scratch beneath the surface and you see that the people at the bottom have given up, while those in the middle are hopelessly trying to claw their way to the top, totally unable to see that they're being pushed ever downwards.

One final thing: when you do give up, it's just as fun and liberating as you'd think it would be.

Tags: #writing #homeless #capitalism

This is a story about software development...

Computer programmer != software developer.

That is all.

THE END

Tags: #computing #career

This is a story about insecurity...

Where does your sense of self worth come from? Are you good at your job? Are you a good parent? Do you do good deeds? Do you consider yourself virtuous, or at least not a bad person? Does the fact that you're loved by friends and family somehow make you see yourself as valuable?

What happens when you lose faith in yourself?

I lied as a kid. I lied about having a Game Boy. It was a strange thing to lie about, but I lied. I lied about having Sky TV and having videotaped a music video off MTV. How curious.

I didn't lie about being a doctor, causing deaths as I bungled patients' healthcare. I didn't lie about being a pilot, killing every passenger and crew member on board my plane. I didn't lie about being a financial whizz, building an elaborate ponzi scheme and lining my own pockets.

Why would I lie about such mundane stuff?

I stopped lying. I was happy with who I was. I was good at my job. I was good at some sports. I had girlfriends. I was getting paid what I was 'worth' and people valued my opinion... they sought it out. I was just me.

Then, shit happened.

Bizarrely - to me at least - I managed to pick up where I left off. It shouldn't have come as such a surprise, but the things that I was good at - before shit happened - I was still good at. The job that I'd been doing capably before shit happened... it turned out I could still do it.

Then, even more shit happened.

Digging myself out of that hole looked like such a long shot that I didn't even think it was possible to stay alive, to preserve hope, to go on. I didn't lie to dodge another bullet. I was a little economical with the truth, but I didn't lie. When my situation started improving, it was impossible to reconcile with where I'd come from. I went insane with the ridiculousness of the situation.

Then, yet more absolutely terrible shit happened.

This was starting to become routine. There was a magic formula that seemed to work time and again. This time I played to my strengths, kept my mouth shut when needed, kissed the right asses. Depressingly, it worked. Is that who I am now? The guy who's just stuck in a never-ending cycle of near-disaster and recovery? Bust and boom. Over and over and over again, ad nauseam.

Stop the world. I want to get off.

Who am I? I had a plan, coming back to London, and it's worked... in a way. As a friend said though, I can never quite get my head above water. I can get my nose just high enough to inhale enough oxygen to stay alive, but I'll never get my chin out of the depths beneath, let alone start to rise even higher.

I know who I was at times. There are identities that I can successfully emulate from the past. There are identities that don't seem to be me anymore. Perhaps I was never the person I thought I was at times. Perhaps I believed my own bullshit at certain times.

I know I should just let go of the past, forget about former achievements, status, comforts. Does it seem easy to just let your entire identity go and re-invent yourself... from nothing? Worse than nothing, in fact. If you let go of your advantages, nobody's going to let you off your disadvantages. My advantages are only just cancelling out my disadvantages, so I'd be screwed if I had to start over from 'nothing'. There's no such thing as nothing. Everybody wants a piece of me. So long as I have an address, somebody will be trying to track me down and suck the life right out of me.

Run to stand still.

It's amazing how hard you gotta work just to break even. Just to go nowhere. Fuck it's exhausting because it's not going anywhere. Hard work doesn't pay. Period.

Yes, I can look back on this or that achievement in the past. Yes, I can extrapolate from my potential. But neither thing is meaningful. Look around. Do you see anyone getting ahead?

I wrote a book. A whole novel. I don't even think it's terrible. Does that make me a writer, a novelist? In theory, yes, but if I was to commit to it, it would also make me a tramp, a vagrant, a bum, a loser. Is that what I am anyway? Is my true destiny catching me up?

No. Art is for the rich and spoiled.

Tags: #writing #depression #career

Contents

Chapter 1: The Caravan

Chapter 2: Invisible Illness

Chapter 3: The Forest

Chapter 4: Prosaic

Chapter 5: The Van

Chapter 6: Into the Unknown

Chapter 7: The Journey

Chapter 8: Infamy

Chapter 9: The Villages

Chapter 10: Waiting Room

Chapter 11: The Shadow People

Chapter 12: Enough Rope

Chapter 13: The Post Offices

Chapter 14: Unsuitable Friends

Chapter 15: The Chase

Chapter 16: Self Inflicted

Chapter 17: The Holiday

Chapter 18: Psychosis, Madness, Insanity and Lunacy

Chapter 19: The Hospitals

Chapter 20: Segmentation

Chapter 21: The Cell

Chapter 22: Wells of Silence

Chapter 23: The Box

Chapter 24: Jailbird

Chapter 25: The Scales

Chapter 26: Descent

Chapter 27: The Syringe

Chapter 28: Anonymity

Chapter 29: The Imposter

Chapter 30: Wish You Were Here

6. Into the Unknown

Going to university as a mature student had been hard work but a lot of fun. Lara was only a few years older than most of the other student nurses and their training wasn't like a normal degree course. 50% of the time the nurses did their university work in a building that was a long way from the main university campus. The other 50% of the time was spent in the clinical environment of the local hospital. Lara's university days weren't spent partying and skipping lectures - the workload was relentless and she was soon doing long shifts to gain all the necessary hands-on experience she needed to qualify.

With Neil's salary, savings, some money from her parents and a bursary, Lara and Neil managed to keep their home life relatively unchanged after Lara quit her office job to retrain. A little bit of belt tightening was necessary, but the couple managed to struggle through 3 years without Lara's salary.

Although she avoided living in a dirty and messy student house, Lara didn't miss out on any of the social bonding with the rest of her course-mates. During those three years at university, she made a lot of good friends.

After qualifying Lara's friends had been scattered all over the country. Some of them wanted to specialise. Some of them wanted to get jobs in particular cities or closer to family. There were a lot of jobs in London, which attracted many friends to move there, but Lara wanted to stay in the local area. For a lot of her friends, they were bored of the unremarkable university town they had spent three years in.

Working at a big hospital as a general nurse, there was a lot of variety in the day-to-day challenges. There were a lot of staff. There were a lot of departments. There were a lot of different procedures that could all happen within that large hospital building. The NHS had been closing smaller local hospitals, in preference for larger facilities, so that fewer items of expensive equipment had to be purchased nationally.

One of the few things separated from the general hospitals was mental health care. While the hospital had a handful of mental health specialists, they were in a psychiatric liaison role. Any physical health issues would be treated at Lara's hospital and then the patient would be transferred if they required inpatient care for mental health issues. There was a clear demarkation between general medicine and mental health and the few people Lara knew who had specialised in that area had followed a very different career track from her.

As a medical professional, Lara felt frustrated that she didn't know more about mental health issues and there was little opportunity at work to have a casual conversation with any of the doctors. The doctors in the hospital had specialised in the treatment of physical ailments, disease, surgery. She only knew a few doctors who she should speak to if a patient was behaving strangely. In Accident & Emergency the hospital would treat drug overdoses, alcoholics and people who had physically injured themselves while in a crazed state, quite often accompanied by police officers. The police normally had a better idea of what psychiatric issues the patient suffered from than the hospital staff. It seemed as though the police were at the front line of mental health issues.

Although she had bandaged lacerated wrists and dealt with patients who had swallowed handfuls of pills or poison by treating them with activated charcoal, Lara never really knew the story behind what had brought them to the brink of suicide in the first place, or what happened to them after they were physically healthy enough to be moved to a psychiatric facility. The patient notes for the nurses contained details such as blood pressure and medications. Very few details about the psychological problems that troubled these people were in the notes she saw.

When the weekend arrived, Lara found herself turning to the Internet to find out more about depression and how it was diagnosed and treated. It seemed strange that despite her training and experience, she should have to turn to websites for information, but she didn't know who to speak to. She knew friends had suffered bouts of depression, but it felt insensitive to phone them and say "Hey! You've been down before. What can you tell me?" Those friends who had become depressed never discussed the details of their prescribed treatment openly.

Lara knew her mum had become depressed after giving birth to her little brother. Her mum had sought help from the family doctor. Lara's mum said that a little time talking to the doctor about her feelings had been exactly what she needed. That was over 20 years ago. GPs didn't have much time to talk to their patients anymore. At the local doctor's surgery, Lara seemed to see a different doctor every time she visited.

Therapy conjured up images of whiney New Yorkers, self-indulgently talking about how their daddies didn't love them enough, on a psychotherapist's couch, spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Lara thought that to suggest counselling might make Neil more upset. Many people derided therapists as "quacks".

Having spent the week without socialising amongst their usual circle of friends, Lara now faced further isolation all weekend, as the couple cancelled their plans. There was little that Lara could do to help at home. Even asking Neil "are you OK?" could be a barbed question, when clearly he was not. It was very British to say "I'm fine thanks" as an automatic response whenever anybody asked how you were, no matter how dreadful life was feeling at that moment. Neil and Lara's parents had been raised in an environment of post-war austerity, where stiff upper lip and concealment of any inner emotions was considered the preferred way to conduct yourself. The touchy-feely stuff was not dealt with well by either family.

By Monday morning, Lara was relieved to be able to immerse herself back in her work. Throughout her shift she barely had a moment to herself to dwell on personal issues. For the sake of the patients and her team, it was imperative that she was positive and upbeat, concentrating, not distracted. She was expected to be a pillar of strength and exude confidence when patients were scared, in pain and discomfort. Context switching was surprisingly exhausting, but it didn't hit Lara until she left the hospital.

As the week wore on, Lara found that she was less and less able to carry the caring face she wore all day at work into her home. She felt like she had lost the support of both her partner and her social group and she could barely keep her own head above water. By Friday, some tiny slip of the mask must have betrayed how truly drained she felt, because the Ward Manager called Lara into her office at the end of her shift.

"Is everything OK, Lara?"

"My fiancée hasn't been very well for a couple of weeks, but I really didn't want to bring my problems with me to work, Judy, sorry" replied Lara.

"It's OK. You just look a little under the weather. I hoped you weren't coming down with something. Your work has been fine this week. No complaints from me" said Judy.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just going to sleep all weekend and let my batteries fully recharge" said Lara.

"Well, look after yourself. Are you getting the support you need at home?" asked Judy.

"Yeah. We're getting by. I'm sure Neil's going to be feeling better and back to work soon" replied Lara.

"Neil. That was it. I remember you saying you'd got engaged, but I must admit I'd forgotten your fiancée's name. Any news on the wedding?" asked Judy, turning the conversation more light and casual.

"No, we haven't even started planning yet" replied Lara.

"Oh well. No rush" said Judy, glancing down at some paperwork on her desk.

"See you Monday. Have a good weekend" said Lara.

"You too" replied Judy, busily scribbling notes onto a yellow form she had been filling in when Lara had entered the office.

Lara fetched her coat and bag with some sense of relief, but also the nagging feeling that she had somehow trapped herself. Next week at work, she would have to work hard to keep a brave face on things. It would be harder now to admit that she wasn't coping well. All she could hope for was that things would be getting back to normal sooner rather than later.

Anne was hurriedly pulling on her coat as she jogged along the corridor to catch up with Lara, who was making her way to the lifts.

"What was that all about?" Anne asked.

"Oh, she was just asking if I was OK" Lara replied.

"And are you?" Anne asked.

"Not really" said Lara.

Next chapter...

Contents

Chapter 1: The Caravan

Chapter 2: Invisible Illness

Chapter 3: The Forest

Chapter 4: Prosaic

Chapter 5: The Van

Chapter 6: Into the Unknown

Chapter 7: The Journey

Chapter 8: Infamy

Chapter 9: The Villages

Chapter 10: Waiting Room

Chapter 11: The Shadow People

Chapter 12: Enough Rope

Chapter 13: The Post Offices

Chapter 14: Unsuitable Friends

Chapter 15: The Chase

Chapter 16: Self Inflicted

Chapter 17: The Holiday

Chapter 18: Psychosis, Madness, Insanity and Lunacy

Chapter 19: The Hospitals

Chapter 20: Segmentation

Chapter 21: The Cell

Chapter 22: Wells of Silence

Chapter 23: The Box

Chapter 24: Jailbird

Chapter 25: The Scales

Chapter 26: Descent

Chapter 27: The Syringe

Chapter 28: Anonymity

Chapter 29: The Imposter

Chapter 30: Wish You Were Here

2. Invisible Illness

The sense of dread and impotence had followed Lara around for her entire shift. Neil had showed no signs of improvement when she left him at home in bed, earlier that morning, to leave for work. She felt sure that he would still be in bed when she got home. He had turned his mobile phone off and she knew that he would let the landline ring until the answerphone picked up. There was no way of knowing how he was doing, but she had the sinking feeling that he wasn't improving. This was the fourth day in a row that he hadn't gone to work, and now she was starting to worry on his behalf about his job.

Lara had made a career switch to nursing, having previously worked as an office administrator. She was naturally caring and liked helping people. The office politics and limited scope to make a tangible difference in anybody's life had ground her down in the medium-sized company she used to work for, with its bloated management structure, endless bureaucracy and red tape. The National Health Service was no picnic, but working directly with patients and other front-line staff made the job far more rewarding than her previous career, where she had never met any of the company's actual customers.

Neil was a well respected and valued employee at the company he had worked for since leaving college. He was a CCTV and intruder alarm engineer, who travelled throughout the country, installing new systems, doing maintenance and repairs. Over the years, he had built up a lot of technical expertise and was now considered one of the most senior members of the team. He'd had the option to move into staff training or management, but he'd always preferred to remain "on the tools".

Most of Neil and Lara's circle of friends had originated from Neil's job, with Lara befriending the 'significant others' of Neil's male-dominated engineering friends. There had been a spate of weddings recently amongst the couples they knew and on Valentine's Day, Neil had proposed to Lara. They were engaged to be married some time the following year, although they had not yet started to plan the wedding.

Lara had received text messages from her female friends asking if Neil was OK, because their other halves hadn't seen him at work for a couple of days. What could she say? She knew it was unusual for Neil to be sick, but it wasn't at all clear what was wrong with him. He just seemed very fatigued and hadn't been able to face getting up or even phoning in sick. Lara had phoned his boss for him, while he buried his head under the duvet and pretended to be asleep.

It was easy to be sympathetic with Neil, because he was evidently going through a hard time due to something but the frustrating thing was that it was neither identifiable, nor would Neil go to the doctor to ask for a diagnosis. Through her own medical training, Lara knew there was nothing obviously wrong with Neil: no fever, no pain or discomfort, no nausea. In fact, no symptoms beyond the fact he looked tired, drained, stressed and somewhat afraid, in his facial expressions. She knew that he wasn't the type to complain about a bout of man flu.

The first couple of days that Neil was off work, she had attributed to the kind of duvet days when she herself would phone in sick, if she really couldn't face another boring day in the office. By the third day, she could hear her parents' derisory words about "yuppie flu" ringing in her ears, from her childhood in the 1980's.

The burden of having to phone Neil's boss each day had now escalated. He had politely but firmly reminded Lara that Neil now needed to go to the doctor and get a sick note, because he'd been away from work for more than three days. Neil knew this too, but hadn't acknowledged it. In fact, he'd made it subtly clear to her that he just wanted to be left alone. He didn't want her to open the curtains for him; he didn't want her to bring him food; he didn't want her to arrange for anybody to visit to make sure he was OK during the day. Little changed in his withdrawn demeanour from when she left in the morning for her 12 hour shift, to the moment he barely acknowledged her when she returned from work, except to say he was OK and he didn't need anything. The most animated that she'd seen him in four days was when she offered to phone in sick for him, which he said he'd be really grateful for if she did. She didn't seem to be able to do anything else to help. It was frustrating.

The drive home from work was very unpleasant for her. She knew the house would seem lifeless: no lights on. She knew that she would go upstairs to the bedroom in order to get out of her work clothes and see the motionless shape of Neil's body under the duvet, in much the same position as she'd left him in the morning. She'd know from the rhythm of his breathing that he was awake, but she would have to speak first. He would be polite, pleasant even, but somehow clipped and formal. The subtle cue was for her to leave the bedroom, turn off the light, and leave him with whatever he was struggling with. It cut her up to feel shut out, unable to help.

All of their normal rhythm and routine had suddenly disappeared, leaving a gaping hole in Lara's life. Their usual discussions about evening meals, cooking and eating together, watching videotaped television programmes or films, exchanging stories about their working day, planning the next social event, or talking about an upcoming holiday: all of this was suddenly gone, and Lara found herself eating on the sofa, alone, watching whatever was on TV at the time, but not really paying any attention to it.

The hardest thing was having nobody to talk to. Her parents had made their views about "work shy" people vociferously known and she didn't want to get into an argument, where she felt defensive about Neil having to take some time off sick. Most of their group of friends all knew each other, and she knew that by talking to even one friend, word would soon get around that something was wrong with Neil that was out of the ordinary. She dreaded to think what would be concluded in the speculative gossip at the dinner parties at each others' houses.

Lara started mentally preparing herself for friends dropping by the house to see if they were OK and if there was anything they could do. If there was nothing she could do, what could they possibly do? It would be easiest just to make excuses and try to shoo them away from the doorstep without even inviting them in. What would she say? How could she be polite and maintain the impression that their usual relaxed open house policy was in full swing, but at the same time swiftly get rid of any would-be visitors?

Despite a salary drop for Lara, the couple had still managed to get a large enough mortgage to purchase a modestly sized terraced house near the town centre that had plenty of space for entertaining guests. Under normal circumstances, Lara and Neil had a gregarious and welcoming nature and were given to spur-of-the-moment gatherings in their home with their friends. Several couples lived within walking distance, and impromptu cheese and wine, cards or board game nights were a common occurence.

The house had an attractive Victorian façade with a modern interior. The brick archway above the front door stated that the house was built in the 1870s. The previous owners had extensively renovated, building a bright open-plan kitchen diner extension at the back, and preserving a cosy but surprisingly spacious snug at the front of the house, with a cast iron fireplace and wooden fire surround. Furnished with carefully chosen second hand furniture that mixed shabby chic with pieces that could be mistaken for iconic vintage design, the house was punching above its weight for the meagre budget of Lara and Neil's income.

Decorating and furnishing their home had been a labour of love for Lara and Neil, and they were extremely house-proud and meticulous in how they had planned each room to accentuate the available space, light and few remaining period features. This hiccup in Neil's health was certainly no part of a master plan which had seemed to be going perfectly for the couple, up to that point.

Entertaining guests held a certain amount of desire for their friends to see their home improvements, and to show off their excellent taste in interior design and home-making. It was showy without being unpleasantly in-your-face. It was hard to dislike Lara and Neil as they weren't a couple obsessed with status symbols and oneupmanship.

Behind closed doors, the relationship was far from perfect. Neil's reluctance to turn down overtime and work fewer hours had led to Lara's desire to find a more rewarding career of her own. Financial pressures and resentment over each other's strong desire to satisfy their own needs and find fulfilment at work, had overspilled into many unpleasant arguments. Most of their friends chose to accept the happy, smiling, front that Lara and Neil presented at face value. Those who were closest to the couple could see the mask occasionally slip. The occasional unpleasant jibe; the twist of the knife; the obvious hints at an unresolved argument. There were issues that were festering, unresolved.

Nobody could say that they weren't a fully committed couple. They had been together a long time and had managed to come through a rather tempestuous and fiery initial period, before reaching a kind of uneasy truce. When in the company of friends, they were in fine spirits - and this was no act - but too much time spent alone with each other and trouble would inevitably erupt.

Neil was not self-indulgent in his convalescence, but he was completely unaware how isolated this left Lara, given the interconnected web of friends and connections to Neil's work that existed. Neil had no idea how burdened Lara felt, defending Neil's spotless record as a dependable hard worker, and as a sunny upbeat happy-go-lucky likeable social character. The man under the duvet in the dark bedroom upstairs would not want anybody to see him like that, and Lara knew it.

Whatever regrettable words had been spoken before, it was water under the bridge. Lara would not betray Neil in his hour of need.

Next chapter...

This is a story about a pill for every ill...

There was a young man who swallowed a lie, about how hard work and loyalty to his company would make him successful. It left him exhausted and with depression, that wiggled and jiggled inside his brain. I don't know why he swallowed the lie. Perhaps he'll die.

There was a young man who swallowed 150mg of Bupropion - a fast acting antidepressant - to cancel out the depression and exhaustion, that wiggled and jiggled inside his brain. Perhaps he'll die.

There was a young man who swallowed 5mg of Olanzapine - a mood stabiliser - to cancel out the hypomanic highs that were created by the Bupropion, that was supposed to fix the depression and exhaustion, that wiggled and jiggled inside his brain. Perhaps he'll die.

There was a young man who swallowed 15mg of Mirtazapine - another antidepressant - because the Bupropion wasn't working so well any more on its own, to fix the depression and exhaustion, that wiggled and jiggled inside his brain. Perhaps he'll die.

There was a young man who swallowed 25mg of Lamotrigine, to raise his seizure threshold so he could take more Bupropion, stabilise his mood more and as a third antidepressant, to fix the depression and exhaustion, that wiggled and jiggled inside his brain. Perhaps he'll die.

There was a young man who swallowed 10mg of Diazepam - an anti-anxiety drug - because by now he was pretty jittery from all the damn drugs, that were supposed to fix his depression and exhaustion, that wiggled and jiggled inside his brain. Perhaps he'll die.

There was a young man who was going to swallow 2,000mg of potassium cyanide, to end the depression and exhaustion, that wiggled and jiggled inside his brain. Of course he would die.

Top picture, from left to right: Mirtazepine, Olanzapine, Bupropion, Diazepam, Lamotrigine.

Tags: #depression #bipolar #medication #suicide #career

This is a story about the undead...

I got sick. I stopped blogging. I'm sad I broke my daily writing routine. I would have hit 365 blog posts by now, if I had kept going just a little longer.

When people say "keep going, you're doing really well" the sentiment is lovely. Keep going where though? Have I been there before? Is it a good place to keep going to? Also, what does it mean to be doing really well? Does it mean superficially? Is the most important thing to look like you're doing really well, on the outside? Are you doing really well even if it's all an act?

I'm no faker; no actor.

I do however have to do something that I can keep going with, while genuinely doing really well. My last contract could not keep going. I was not doing very well.

Perhaps getting sick wasn't an inevitable consequence, but it takes more than letting off steam through personal writing to harmlessly neutralise the 'toxic' build-up, due to months of stress, boredom, lack of stimulation, lack of social interaction, no new challenges, no creative outlet etc. etc.

Equally, my solo hack-a-thons have been challenging and creative, perhaps a little over-stimulating, and have made me sick through social isolation and stress.

There must be a cool project with a team here in London that ticks the other boxes.

Anyway, I need to get well again first.

Tags: #career

This is a story about milestones...

There are so many people who either "don't smoke" or call themselves "social smokers". People say "I only smoke when I drink". There are so many people who claim that they are free from drink and drugs, but they're actually popping Xanax, antidepressants, Oxycontin, Solpadeine, Co-codamol (codeine), Vicodin and tranquillisers. There are so many people who sneer at substance abusers, but they drink, smoke and consume lots of tea, coffee and energy drinks, without realising they're dependent on alcohol, nicotine and caffeine, just to cope with normal everyday life.

In 6 months, I got through those 59 tablets - a combination of diazepam and nitrazepam - in an attempt to avoid a nervous breakdown and to survive an extremely stressful situation, where my whole career, solvency, home and life as a respectable member of society, hung in the balance.

If you take benzodiazepines continuously for over 3 months, you have probably become physically addicted. What that means is that you might have a seizure and die, if you were to abruptly stop taking the medication.

I've run out of benzodiazepines today.

I'm not worried about this.

59 tablets, of 2mg to 5mg strength, spread over 180 days, is a piss in the ocean. There's no way that I'm going to have withdrawal symptoms from stopping taking benzodiazepines. I might be a little anxious; I might have a little insomnia; I might feel a bit panicky. However, I'm not going to die.

A couple of years ago I took myself off to rehab. For over 3 months I had been swallowing a little cocktail: 6x 10mg diazepam tablets, 4x 2mg Xanax, 2x 10mg Ambien, 2x 15mg Zopiclone. Maybe it wasn't quite that much. I have no idea. Benzodiazepines cause amnesia. All I can remember is that I used to fill up the palm of my hand with various pills, and swallow them all in one go. Lights out. Wake up 2 days later.

You're in a hell of a mess when you're mixing uppers and downers; stimulants and tranquillisers; but that's what we do every day, when we have our morning coffee and a glass of wine when we get home from work. If you have a strong coffee after a boozy dinner, you're basically having the middle-class equivalent of a speedball (cocaine & heroin, injected).

Obviously, I'm irreverently mocking your self-delusion, when you tell yourself that you're not "hooked" on anything.

I've used alcohol and the occasional tranquilliser tablet, in order to limp through the last 6 months. I haven't been having tea, coffee or other caffeinated drinks.

I've actually tapered off the alcohol and the benzos, to the point where I only drank 2 days in the last 14. I didn't take any benzos all weekend.

The thing is, if you're smart and you're disciplined, addiction is something you can master. It is possible to give up anytime you want. It is possible to become really good at quitting drugs and booze. I'm a fucking expert in abstinence.

Almost like an alarm clock going off, my subconscious revealed that I had simply been waiting for 6 months.

School was absolute shit for me. Getting through the long school days of bullying was awful. Getting through the long terms of bullying was unbearable. Getting through year after year after year of bullying was absolutely dreadful. All I was doing was waiting for the end of school bell, the school holidays, and the day that I could finally leave school and get the fuck away from the bullies.

Family life was absolutely shit for me. I couldn't wait to move out of home, and get away from my arsehole parents. I've loved paying my own rent and bills. I've loved being independent. I do have all the fucking answers. I went out into the world, got a place to live, got a job, and never looked back. Up until then, I'd just been waiting for the day I could finally leave home, and it couldn't come a moment too soon.

So, I spent 17 years, just waiting. I was biding my time. I know how to suffer patiently. I'm an expert in suffering patiently.

Then, I applied my expertise in deferred gratification to the working world. I took shitty entry-level jobs and worked my way up. I stuck with shitty projects, and shitty companies, so that my CV would look good. I stuck with shitty bosses and put up with glass ceilings. I stuck with idiots who couldn't see my potential, and I just suffered because I had a game plan.

I can patiently wait anything out. I've had to spend about 16 weeks with very limited liberty, being treated as an inpatient. That's not including the time I've spent in hospital receiving emergency treatment. In theory, I could have discharged myself, but there would have been consequences. I spent 7 weeks with somebody who'd been in prison twice, and he acknowledges that I have a mindset that suggests I know how to do time.

I mean, Christ, I spent the best part of 5 years working for one damn company, in one damn building, with the same damn people. Day after day, month after month, year after year. I've done 19 bloody years on the IT gravy train, solving the same damn problems again and again and again, and seeing the same damn mistakes time after time.

And so, I wondered to myself, why didn't I have a packet of drugs to tear open, in celebration of the fact that I have so easily completed a 6-month period of abstinence?

What you'll find with many addicts, is that they're liars. When they say that they're abstinent, they're actually lying to themselves and others. I've done "6 months clean" before, but that hasn't counted "the occasional weekend" and one or two "lapses" (note: a lapse is a 'small' relapse). In actual fact, you're still addicted, but you're limping yourself along by hiding your habit, from yourself and others. You start to believe your own lies.

I've arrived at 6 months "clean" and it really is clean. As clean as anybody in the history of anything, ever.

Most people who quit smoking will drink more, have more coffee, eat more. Most people who quit anything, will find some way of compensating. It might be exercise; it might be work. Basically, humans need shit. We're not fucking robots. Humans have always had intoxicating substances. Wine was being made 6,000 years before Jesus Christ was even born... that's over 8,000 years ago!

Anyway, I started looking at websites of awful toxic Chinese "legal" highs. Then I had a look at the Dark Web. The amount of drugs that are available to order over the Internet is just staggering. Prohibition has spectacularly failed. The designer drug industry is enjoying such a boom time, thanks to ridiculous laws that force chemists to get creative. Technology's answer to the eternally insatiable human demand for mind-altering substances has created a whole swathe of online marketplaces stocking every drug under the sun.

There's something for everybody in the cornucopia that has been created by the war on drugs.

My finger hovered over the "Buy Now" button, because I've damn well proven my point. Pick some arbitrary milestone, and I'll hit it, easily. But, what do I have? My life is miserable. All I have ahead of me is stress and loneliness; insecurity and pain; suicidal thoughts and a sense of abandonment. Fairly easy to justify a relapse, isn't it, when you work so hard and you're not getting anywhere.

Then, I thought, what could I do that's slightly more sensible?

With a bit more searching around on the Internet, I found that you can consult a doctor online and have a prescription despatched next day. In the space of 7 minutes, a doctor agreed to prescribe me a fast-acting antidepressant called Wellbutrin. I needed something because I felt certain that I was either going to commit suicide quickly by cutting an artery, or commit suicide slowly by relapsing back into drug abuse.

Wellbutrin is a wonderful medication, because it's fast acting, it doesn't make you drowsy, and it doesn't ruin your sex life. Have you experienced the boredom of patiently fucking somebody who takes an SSRI antidepressant, waiting an absolute age before they possibly cum, but probably won't be able to? Who wants a sex life like that? I don't want my emotions blunted. I don't want 'brain zaps' and uncontrollable crying when I try and stop the damn medication.

Yeah, who knows what the fuck happens next. Tomorrow, I have a 2-month supply of a fast-acting antidepressant that you can't get on the NHS being delivered. Maybe life will look a bit less hopeless when I'm drugged out of my mind, like virtually everybody else I know.

It feels like selling out, but it's nearly killed me having to fight tooth and nail just to have a roof over my head and a job, while also being nearly stone cold sober. I don't have kids to remind me why I get up and go to work. I don't have pets to look after. I literally have no reason for living, except to achieve some arbitrary goals.

I thought, as an added bonus, that I would also be celebrating one year of blogging today, but it turns out that happened a couple of weeks ago. Today is my last day at work, and I've had a couple of leaving dos, which is nice, but I do of course have to go though all the stress and hassle of applying for new jobs, interviewing, making a good first impression etc. etc. How ironic that things seem to have conspired to happen today.

As luck would have it, a colleague has recommended me for another job, which I might end up interviewing for tomorrow and could even be asked to start a new contract as early as Monday. If I do that, I'm damnwell going to need a few happy pills to carry me through, because I had been thinking that I was going to have a minor nervous breakdown.

Anyway, a milestone of sorts. Nice to leave work with a few slaps on the back and "well done"s. Nice to know that I didn't 'cheat' with my 6 months of abstinence from addictive stimulants. Where's my fucking reward? Surely I should feel better than I do, but I'm depressed and anxious. I'm overwhelmed by the task of having to hustle again, to keep the momentum going.

But really, is there momentum, or did I just wait for 6 months, in order to have a well-earned breakdown?

Is that what life is? Just waiting to die, miserable as fuck?

Tags: #depression #suicide #addiction #drugs