This is a story about conformity...

Why would you ever consent to being graded? Isn't that extremely degrading to have somebody sit in judgement over you and decide where you fit in the pecking order?

We don't have an education system. We are not educating our children.

Instead, we have a system that's designed to give us the best grades we can possibly afford, so that we will have better employment opportunities. Schools are businesses, and they need pupils to get funding, so they can pay all those lovely salaries. Teachers are judged on their students' exam results. Schools are chosen based on their exam results. Universities will offer places to those students with the best exam grades, but universities are money making machines, taking at least £27,000 for an undergraduate degree, from every student. Finally, employers will select prospective employees who have the best grades.

Imagine you gave up your childhood and a few of the prime years of your young adulthood, in order to get "A" grades and a first class degree from a top university. You worked your little socks off from the age of 5 to the age of 21. That's 16 years of hard labour. It wasn't an education. It was an exercise in grading. Your teachers didn't teach you. Instead, you were trained how to pass exams. The whole balance of incentives is such that only the grades matter. You just want the piece of paper at the end of it, so you don't have to take a shitty minimum wage zero hours contract McJob.

So, what happens when you graduate, take a graduate job, and then find what you're doing is utterly pointless bullshit?

What happens when those 16 lost years of your life mean that you're saddled with debt and working some drastically underpaid job that won't even buy you a house anyway?

In the US, every man woman and child has a debt of $60,000, even if they don't even have a bank account and never personally borrowed any money. In the UK the figure is circa £30,000. This is money the government borrowed on your behalf. Even if you're financially prudent, and you don't spend money until you've earned it, that's certainly not what your government is doing.

In order to stand a chance of getting a half decent job, you reckon you need to go to college/university. In the US the average student loan debt is $35,000. In the UK you have to spend £27,000 on tuition alone, for a 3 year degree course. Of course, the UK figure doesn't include the money you need to live on. You can borrow a further £32,000 in order to pay your rent, food, transport and other costs of living at university. Basically, you're going to spunk the best part of £60,000 getting your degree.

So, you've spent 16 years of your life, having no life - your nose has been stuck in those books and you've been doing all your homework - and you're £90,000 in debt. Imagine you met the love of your life at university, you both graduated and you'd like to have a couple of kids. That means your household is going to be £240,000 in debt, before you even take out a mortgage. That's £60,000 of government debt for your two kids, £60,000 of government debt for you and your other half, and £120,000 for your two university degrees. God damn! You'd better get a job and start paying that debt off, because you haven't worked a day in your life at this point, even though you're now 22 years old.

Because you worked so damn hard to pass your 11+ exam, your grammar school entrance exam, or private school entrance exam, your GCSEs, your A-levels, your university entrance exam, your final year exams, your dissertation... you're pretty heavily invested now, aren't you? You gave up playing outside in the sunshine with your friends so you could do extra Latin and calculus. You gave up swigging cider in the park and shagging in a bush, so that you could be at home poring over your books. You gave up being debt free, so you could now have a £60,000 student loan like a millstone around your neck.

Guess what? Even having a good degree from a good university isn't enough. You probably need to become a lawyer or an accountant to set yourself apart from the McJob fodder. Lawyers in the US run up student debts in excess of $100,000. Here in the UK, you're going to have to pay an extra 2 years of tuition and living expenses, before you can even get a job in a law firm. You're going to pay the the law school £21,000 in tuition fees, plus you'll need another £20,000 for rent and living expenses, while you study. So, your student debt is now £100,000 before you even enter one of the professions.

Even a graduate with first-class honours from Oxford or Cambridge is not a professional. Having read classics does not seem immediately useful, given the lack of living people who speak Latin or Ancient Greek. While you have clearly marked yourself out as 'clever' in a rather abstract sense, you're not obviously employable because of your education. It is merely your grades that make you attractive to prospective employers.

Is it even very clever, to spend so much of your parents money on a private or public school education, squander your childhood on homework and piano recitals, saddle yourself with the best part of £100k of student debt, and then have the prospect of doing legal or accountancy work to help billionaires avoid paying tax.

The more you invest the more exposed you are. You're not going to take some lowly entry-level job, because you've got a goddam degree dontcha know? You're not going to question how absolutely dreadful the work is that you're doing, and how appalling the salary is, because it's a graduate job apparently. The job spec said "must have 2:1 degree from respected institution" so therefore it must be a good job, right?

Yeah, at least you're not flipping burgers for a living.

But, can you buy a house?

Nope.

You were conned. You studied hard for 16 long years. You stressed yourself to bits over every exam. Writing your dissertation was pure agony. You were so worried that you were going to fail. You could have failed at any moment. You could have failed to get into a good secondary school. You could have screwed up your GCSEs. You could have screwed up your A-levels. You could have screwed up your finals. You could have screwed up your dissertation.

You were so damn relieved on graduation day. Sure, it felt good to have your picture taken holding a scroll of parchment tied up with a red ribbon, wearing a black gown and a mortar board. Your mum has that picture of you up on the wall in the downstairs toilet. Every houseguest sees that photo of you, a fresh-faced 21 year old graduate, proudly clutching the bit of paper you worked hard for 16 years to get. They imagine that you must be terribly clever but little do they know that you're now working some dreadful office job, copying and pasting numbers in spreadsheets, like some kind of factory worker.

Maybe you were a bit smarter and you realised that everybody's got a damn degree these days. Perhaps you did a masters, a PGCE, went to law school, studied accountancy. Now you have a profession. You're a teacher, a lawyer, an accountant.

You studied the extra years. You did the training. You took the shitty entry-level salary. Now you're a qualified professional. You're a member of The Law Society, you're a chartered accountant, you've got Qualified Teacher Status (QTS). Guess what? You still can't buy a fucking house.

My suggestion is this: if your parents have money, don't fucking work your bollocks off and study hard. Get your parents to buy you a house and give you some money. You don't need to work. The world does not need any more corporate lawyers.

If you don't come from a wealthy family, for God's sake don't waste the prime years of your life following the same path as all the other drones. There's no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. School, university, graduate jobs... it's all just a miserable path that leads to debt and misplaced gratitude for a 'better' quality job, which is actually nothing of the sort.

I'm financially incentivised to stay doing what I'm doing, because I can buy a house and afford to have my family live in considerable comfort. My earning potential is a function of how able I am to say "fuck your shit" and go and get a better contract elsewhere, because I'm not driven by fear: fear that I have invested 16+ years of my life in a pointless piece of paper; fear that I have £60k to £100k of student debt that needs to be paid back; fear that I've been measured, graded, and that I know my place.

I don't know my place, because I never allowed myself to be graded. If somebody is turning me into a commodity, then I change my role. I'm very hard to pigeon hole. I'm very hard to label. I'll brand myself up as whatever I need to be in order to get the job, instead of harking back to my most recent academic or professional qualification. I have no qualms at saying "this bullshit job just ain't worth the pittance you pay" because I don't have this fetish for "graduate" or "professional" work.

In some narrow niche, you'll find that there's somebody who wants it worse than you. You'll find that somebody is prepared to study harder, longer, put more effort in. If you enter into the arms race, you'll find yourself competing in a completely unnecessary battle for something that's been created with artificial scarcity. Grades are not a precious rare metal dug out of the ground. There's a finite amount of gold on the planet, but there is no shortage of "A" grades or bullshit jobs.

The professional bodies are there to limit the numbers of people becoming lawyers, accountants, doctors, teachers and a whole host of other jobs that are better paid than flipping burgers. The only reason why those professions pay more than minimum wage is because artificial scarcity is created, by limiting the number of people who can qualify and practice those trades.

I never let my schooling interfere with my education. I taught myself how to program a computer, with the help of a couple of schoolfriends. I don't advise becoming a programmer today, because it's a crowded market, but there'll be something better that your kids can be doing instead of their damn homework. There's something you can be doing better than saving up money to help get your kids through university: buy them a damn car and a house, because they're never going to be able to afford things on their own, with the way things are going.

The education system was there to break our will and our sense of individuality, and prepare us for the workhouses. The education system is used for societal control. Your government wants obedient debt-laden citizens, who are grateful for a shitty made-up job. The plutocrats who rule your life want cheap labour, even though you think you've got a prestigious well-paid job. In actual fact, you know your place, and you have no social mobility at all.

We're moving beyond the era of the CV with your exam grades and other qualifications on there. The idea of sifting and sorting everybody, like grains of sand, ending up with the very finest particles graded right up to the grittier stuff... this is a flawed model.

Take your average super indebted grad today. Could they rewire a house? Could they fix the plumbing? Can they cook a fine meal? Could they organise an event? Can they lead people? Can they mend a car? Can they dress a wound? What are they like on a mountain? What are they like out at sea? What are they like in a crisis?

We're churning out people who are only good for one thing: regurgitating established facts and ideas. Parroting answers they've learned but don't understand. Passing exams.

Our kids these days don't pass exams because they've reasoned the answers from their knowledge and experience. Our kids these days don't make theoretical deductions. We have an exam passing machine that teaches our children how to pass tests, as opposed to educating them.

Everything's going to hell in a handcart because original ideas and critical thinking have no place in our education system or the world of bullshit jobs. We spend at least 16 years brainwashing our 'best and brightest' to be exam passers, box tickers, compliant little drones who all think and act the same way. The homogeny of bland corporate wage-slaves, churned out by the cookie-cutter 'education' system is frightening.

When sufficient numbers of people realise that they've been conned into giving away their youth, in return for a soul-destroying desk job that's mind-numbingly boring, but yet they can't buy a house, there's going to be rioting that far exceeds the disruption we saw in 2011, when it was the disadvantaged youths who took to the streets to protest their lack of opportunities and general contempt that is held for the underclass.

Debt will not prop things up forever. Without a wirtschaftswunder - debt forgiveness - the capitalists will destroy everything by demanding their pound of flesh. Empires always fall when debts are not forgiven and the proletariat are crushed by the weight of the idle elites who live in decadent luxury, while ordinary people struggle.

Teach your kids practical things. Let them play. Don't make them do their homework. Don't force them to practice an instrument "because it will look good on their university application". A new world is coming, and moulding kids in the shape of every other underpaid, underemployed corporate drone is not going to do them any favours.

Tags: #childhood #education #capitalism #politics

This is a story about the schizophrenic spectrum...

"Does my bum look big in this?" sounds like an innocent enough question. Do you not have an adequate grip on reality to objectively judge yourself whether you look fat? Is it possible that you're feeling paranoid about other people's perception of you?

When you think about it, paranoia is rife.

Why do you close your curtains? Who would want to peer in at you? What's so interesting about you that anybody would want to watch you?

Why do you confess your true feelings when you're inebriated? What's so shameful about your innermost thoughts and feelings that you can't reveal them when you're sober? Why are you worried what people will think?

In the workplace, we feel inadequate. We feel underqualified. We feel like we're an imposter. We feel like we're just blagging, bluffing. We feel that our ruse could be exposed at any moment. Why do you stay in that crappy job that you're hopelessly overqualified for and you've completely mastered... is it because it's comfortable and you don't like the feeling that you're not good enough to do something more challenging?

When you're purchasing stuff, is it because you like the things that you're buying, or is it because you're thinking about how other people are going to judge you? Imagine you are supermarket shopping with your young children. When you are loading all your food onto the conveyor belt to be scanned by the checkout clerk, don't you feel that they're judging every purchase you're making? If you're buying crisps, chips, ready meals, chocolate, ice cream, sweets... isn't that supermarket employee going to be thinking "jeez, this person's a really bad parent for feeding their kid all this junk"?

Every time you share something on social media, is it because you're Facebragging, or do the sum total of your posts represent an accurate picture of your real life? Why are you sharing anyway? Why do you worry what other people think of you?

When you're at home, you sit around with stained jogging pants and a grubby T-shirt, swigging a beer and watching trashy TV. When you're out in the park, you're immaculately dressed, reading a pretentious novel. Why is that?

You're doing all these things almost without thinking. They're all driven by paranoia. You're paranoid that you won't be liked, won't be respected, won't be sexually attractive, won't be loved. You're paranoid that you'll be seen as a fool, a bad person, a bad parent, a bad employee. You're paranoid that you might get caught looking at your own reflection. You're paranoid that you might be accused of being a pervert for masturbating. You're paranoid that you might be laughed at for wanting a girlfriend or a boyfriend, but finding yourself rejected. You're paranoid that you're a bigot, a racist, sexist, stupid, ignorant, narcissistic, self-absorbed, selfish.

In actual fact, we all share exactly the same flaws.

Any child will be confused the first time they see the dyed green mohawk hair of a punk. A child reared in an exclusively white or black community will be confused the first time they meet somebody of the opposite skin tone. Any child will be confused the first time they are told they have to use the 'correct' bathroom.

We're built to pair up sexually, and we're bombarded with images of the most attractive people on the planet. We can't avoid comparing ourselves with others. Of course we are going to feel inadequate in the face of glossy magazines, TV personalities and movie stars. Pornography amplifies things still further: people are worried about the attractiveness of every inch of their bodies.

We are sometimes mocked for thinking that people are talking about us.

It's true. People do gossip. People are talking about you behind your back, all the time, especially if you're unwell. It's a vicious circle. The more paranoid and erratic your behaviour becomes, the more people will whisper about it, and then go silent and 'act normal' when you're in earshot. It's not unfounded paranoia. People like to gossip about anybody whose life appears less than perfect.

We like to label people. Crazy uncle Fred had a nervous breakdown, painted his torso with blue paint, adopted 50 rescue dogs and wandered around butt naked. Even though that was years ago and now crazy uncle Fred is back running his accountancy practice, he's still "crazy" uncle Fred in his family. His family have loose lips, and everybody in Fred's town now calls him crazy Fred. Fred's friends have loose lips, and now his clients know that he's a bit "crazy" even though they would never mention it in his presence.

Your doctor may protect your confidentiality, but your friends and family certainly won't. Your friends and family will broadcast every slip-up. Your friends and family will attempt amateur psychoanalysis, with their foghorn voices.

People might not say to your face "I think you've gone mad and you should be locked up in an asylum" but they'll certainly say that to other people behind your back. It's sad but true. There's no sense in denying it. People just like to gossip and spread rumours, half-truths and conjecture.

The fact of the matter is that you are quite interesting. Most people are very private and most people hide their true selves.

We are relieved to discover that other people are just as flawed and fucked up as we are, when somebody's mask slips. We then take that relief a stage further, and spread the juicy gossip. Everybody loves to hear embarassing tales of misfortune.

The massive popularity of soap operas, fly-on-the-wall documentaries and reality TV proves that humans have an insatiable appetite for voyeurism, invasion of privacy, gossiping about people. Think about the millions of armchair psychologists, analysing the behaviour of the Big Brother contestants.

Also, your government is spying on you. Your government reads your emails. Your government listens to your phonecalls. This isn't a conspiracy theory. The revelations of Edward Snowden have proven beyond reasonable doubt that your government is snooping on every ordinary citizen.

For those who have a fragile grasp on sanity, there are plenty of things that will tip them into fully-blown paranoia. Paranoia can build and build, until you believe there are hidden cameras watching you. Some paranoid schizophrenics can believe that their thoughts are being read. Clearly, this is at the extreme end of the mental health spectrum, but right now I have 3 microphones and 3 cameras potentially recording me: my laptop, my smartphone and my smartwatch.

I was digging around in the data that Google had gathered on me without my knowledge, and I found that there was an accurate GPS record of my position for everywhere I've been, as well as hundreds of sound recordings. Of course, there is also my Internet search history and the vast digital paper trail that I have inadvertently created.

Although I expect all my friends and family know that I got sick, because of the aforementioned gossip, I want to make things crystal clear: I was briefly "crazy" uncle Nick. That moniker still follows me around even though I'm a highly paid and well respected IT consultant. I pay my rent, bills, taxes and generally conduct myself in a way that any outside observer would struggle to categorise as "crazy". By any measure or test that you could conduct, I'm just as sane as you are.

However, there was paranoia about who knows? How much do people know? What falsehoods had been perpetrated against me? It was driving me crazy. I decided to take action.

By documenting my inner monologue, my darkest moments, my most closely guarded secrets, I'm taking the power away from those who gossip and whisper behind my back. I'm getting rid of the grey area. If you want to know who I really am and what really happened, it's documented right here in exquisite unflinching uncensored detail.

I know that I'm being judged all the time anyway, so you might as well judge me on the truth, rather than on the bullshit that my persecutors would have you believe. I offer you all the facts, so that you can make an informed judgement. I would rather you reached your own conclusions, rather than the conclusions that those with an unpleasant agenda would prefer you to make.

It is a bit of a warzone. I spent my childhood with the pressure and expectation that I would lie about my parents' drug taking, alcoholism and unwillingness to act like mature adults, responsible parents, get jobs that would support the family. My parents' focus was on keeping up appearances, rather than acting with integrity, and I was expected to play along with their bullshit. They decided to throw me under the bus rather than admit any kind of wrongdoing. This blog documents the truth, rather than the false image that they present.

I doubt any of my friends or work colleagues have an unpleasant agenda. However, my ex-wife campaigned very actively to demonise me, compromise my confidentiality, undermine my good name, discredit me. This document tells the side of the story that never got told, because I acted with integrity and presumed that she would too. I was exhausted and sick - how could I defend myself? I doubt she's ever told anybody how she abused me, beat me. I know with absolute certainty that she's told friends and work colleagues that I've struggled with mental health problems and addiction.

Of course, I have plenty of stuff that I've done wrong. It's all documented here in gory detail. I've made mistakes, but people have broadcast them in order to hurt and damage me. I'm being brave enough to re-tell those mistakes that were already loudly trumpeted by my persecutors. It's true that I'm also telling the things that were wrongly perpetrated against me, in a way that appears to be tit-for-tat, but it's actually just presenting a full and accurate picture.

I'm well known for my honesty. To present some "whiter than white" image of myself, to try and offset this demonic image that my parents and ex-wife paint of me, would be yet another falsehood. It serves no purpose, to simply hit back and point out the awful things that my persecutors have perpetrated against me.

I'm moving from a bad place to a much better place, in that I'm now pleased that people know things about me that are correct, even if they don't paint me in a flattering light. I'm less horrified that people know things that mean my confidence has been horribly betrayed by people who are supposed to care about me.

By all means, go ahead and talk about me all you like now. It's immensely liberating living life as an open book. It's a fantastic feeling, to be judged on balanced facts, rather than half-truths, falsehoods and bullshit "holier than thou" images that my persecutors have painted of themselves.

If it sounds a little paranoid, you're wrong. True friends have told me what's been said behind my back, and my persecutors have even admitted betraying my confidence on particularly private and sensitive things, that they absolutely should have treated with confidentiality.

I'm quickly approaching a time when I will be satisfied that the tale is told. I've presented all the information. I stand by my sins. I'm ready for judgement.

It is a bit of an alarming situation. I'm preparing to die, because I'm exhausted by the bullying and the mistreatment at the hands of my family, my ex-wife.

If you've heard anything bad about me, consider this: don't be surprised if the dog that you beat turns around and bites you one day.

Tags: #mentalhealth #suicide

This is a story about tiny fractions...

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. In theory, I'm 1/365th safer today than I am the rest of the year. By my calculations, 0.27% of the time, we are trying to prevent suicide. The other 99.73% of the time, we are not trying to prevent suicide.

There are various ways that we try and make suicidal people feel responsible, selfish and guilt tripped. "Nobody is responsible for your life except you" is something I often hear. This is plainly wrong.

Individualism has led to the collapse of local communities. Individualism has led to silent commuter trains, with everybody listening to their own music through their headphones. Individualism has led to unpleasant levels of competition, where we trample each other for the few jobs. We lie, cheat and steal, because we are all rodents in the rat race.

If we took collective responsibility for our suffering, then we could collectively bargain to improve our situation. With the power of the collective things can improve. As individuals, we are divided and ruled over by cruel elites who care nothing about the mental health epidemic and soaring suicide rates.

Suicide is everywhere.

Suicide is in our schools, where there is enormous pressure to achieve academically. Our exam grades will govern our future so we no longer have a childhood. Bullying is rampant, and it destroys the quality of life of children and drives them to self harm and suicide. Bullying is not getting better. Bullying is getting worse. Bullying was terrible when I was a kid, and unbearable. It must be unspeakably awful now. No wonder self harm, depression and anxiety affect so many children in school.

Suicide is in our workplace, where our jobs are insecure and hidden inflation means that our wages are shrinking in real terms. The steady increase in suicide rates, since the 2008 financial crisis, has now reached the point where it's the biggest killer of men under the age of 45 - 'breadwinners' in the prime of their life.

Suicide is in our homes, where thinking "at least I'm not a starving African" doesn't actually put food on the table and a roof over your head. Bills, debts, rent/mortgage and the many things that we need to live in Western society, are not going away with a few people saying "chin up" and "it can't be that bad... other people have it worse". We've been putting a brave face on everything for years, and some people reach breaking point.

To say that suicide is a selfish act is dumb. To say that suicide is running away from your responsibilities is dumb. To say that suicide is dumping a load of pain onto other people is dumb. In actual fact, a suicidal person has almost definitely been struggling with overwhelmingly awful and painfully intolerable feelings, for longer than you can even imagine. To ask them to continue to prop up the status quo any longer is selfish.

When a person reaches the point where they're attempting suicide, they've exhausted all avenues. When a person attempts suicide, they have taken responsibility for their own life. A person attempting suicide has tried everything that they have the means to change. They're out of ideas. They're out of energy. They've gone as far as they're able to go... on their own.

To make accusations that suicide is running away from problems, selfish, is why suicidal people feel so isolated and alone. Taking your own life is not something you do, surrounded by loving friends and family. Attempting suicide is done when you're all alone. Suicide is just you, and death.

You'd be surprised how people step back when you reach the point of considering the end of your own life. People don't want to be near you. People don't see you anymore. People shun you, like you're a leper, like you're a ticking time bomb.

You'd be surprised at how many days I've spent in hospital, all alone, no visitors. That hurts. That sends a message.

It's easy to put something on social media saying "you'd be missed if you died" but, seriously, how much does that really reconcile with that person's experiences? If you say you'd miss them, then when was the last time you actually took the time to see them? When was the last time you actually took advantage of the fact they're still alive?

It's a binary thing: people are either alive, or they're dead. There's no use saying "we didn't know what to do" when somebody's dead. There's a spectacular lack of discussion and action around improving the lives of people who are suicidal. Instead, there is an endless stream of trite platitudes, that you've heard over and over again.

Believe me, I've got plenty of perspective. All that "it isn't so bad" bullshit, and the "other people have it worse" bullying is the reason why we arrived at this state where suicide is the biggest killer of men under 45. Suicide kills 3 times as many men as it does women. Believe me when I say that I want to go to Africa and distribute food and clean water. Believe me when I say I want to pull Syrian children out of the rubble.

Aren't you all just being total dicks though, if you expect our most suicidally depressed people to be the ones acting charitably? Why should the mentally ill be doing good work, while everybody else just keeps making bombs to drop on Syria, and working jobs that economically enslave the developing world?

I've got plenty of perspective, and what I see is a selfish society. What I see is collective insanity, where we are working bullshit jobs. We're working jobs that actually destroy lives. What I see is a bunch of people whose mental health and will to live are being badly damaged, and a bunch more people who want things to stay the same or get even worse.

How bad does it have to get? Does it have to be your son or daughter who takes their own life before you get it?

Tags: #suicide

This is a story about quotations...

I live a fairly isolated existence. Work, sleep & eat. None of my friends live very nearby, and I'm in a strange part of London that you'd probably only visit if you were working in Canary Wharf.

Of course, I'm not short of ideas for what I could do with my leisure time - if I had any - in order to get a bit of a social life going again. If I had the time and the money, I could be having plenty of fun. It's just that it's hard to do that when I'm so drained from working a full time job that's utter bullshit. Most of the time I can't even handle speaking to people on the telephone. I just want to be left alone to compose my thoughts and try to unwind, in the few waking hours where I'm not trapped at my desk.

On a Wednesday night, I go to the pub with a friend. We have 3 pints of weak continental lager and put the world to rights, sitting in the beer garden. It's lovely.

Every so often, a friend will chat to me on Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp. That is also nice. I stayed up chatting until 3am on Friday night / Saturday morning.

From these chats, I often take away lovely things that were said, to treasure.

A psychiatrist once said to me "we can only play the cards that we are dealt" and when I was struggling with accusations that I was weak and that I was making up mental health problems, attention seeking and all kinds of horrible blame and stuff being thrown at me, it was a lovely nonjudgemental thing to hear.

Having been labelled as some kind of devil child by my parents, or subjected to relentless abuse by my ex-wife, it's been such a relief to have some kinder points of view at long last.

"Anybody who has a second kid after a 10 year gap is just looking for a free babysitter"

I love my sister to bits, but I could never understand why we couldn't be siblings. Why did I have to be so mature? Why was I - a child - chided for being childish? So fucking ridiculous.

My friend who pointed out how ridiculous it is to have such a big age gap between kids, also pointed out that it's healthy to have your kids play together, keep each other company. It's really boring and lonely playing on your own while your parents are getting drunk and taking drugs. Sure, I can entertain myself. Sure, I have a good imagination. Sure, I can sit down and work on a project in total isolation from all social stimulation. However, those first 10 years of my life shaped me into somebody who assumes that I never get to keep any friends, because my parents kept yanking me out of school to go traipsing all over the fucking place. Parents, I assumed, were just people who sat around lazily - off their fucking heads - and never wanted to play with me.

I ingratiated myself with other families, and spent far more time immersed in their family life than my non-existant own. I knew that something was inherently wrong at home. I could see the differences in our home lives. I could see how things were supposed to be: brothers and sisters playing together, being kids, but I was always just a visitor in those lives.

There's a lot of important social development that goes on in the first 7 years of a child's life. It's hardly like I'm selfish and never learned how to share or play nice with others, but I certainly don't feel any security in relationships. I'm completely mistrustful of all friendships. I assume that everything is just transitory, fleeting, superficial.

"[Your parents] have to protect their own self image. No way will they say [they] fucked up.

[Your mother] will occasionally drunkenly exclaim "oh it's all my fault!"

But it's attention seeking and the response sought is "of course it isn't".

They just get so entrenched in their own self serving view of what happened"

It's exhausting, being expected to prop up your parents bullshit view of the world. I wondered why I would feel so drained from a visit to see my parents, or a phonecall, and it's because they've not been working to raise a healthy happy child. They've been working to try and cover up and bury their guilt for being drugged up alkie fuckups.

I've been expected to work so hard on keeping up appearances. It's bullshit. It's ground me down. I've had enough. Hence this blog, and the full disclosure of the bullshit I've put up with.

It is remarkable how many people have gotten in contact to say their mothers are/were functional alcoholics too. It's remarkable how many parents there are out there who think they're some kind of aristocracy who get to palm their kids off on the hired help, and then swan off doing their high society bullshit. Except that they don't have any hired help so in fact the kids simply get palmed off on the state schools and other families that are more loving and welcoming.

Sure, you could accuse me of being a manchild. An overgrown baby.

I refuse to just bottle this shit up. Sure, it might be a case of arrested development. It might be a case of a bunch of stuff that supposedly I could just get over. How? How am I supposed to move forward?

I got to today, and to some outward appearances it looks like I've got my shit together, but clearly all that happened is that I did grow up, man the fuck up, put a brave face on stuff and generally just get on with it. However, it doesn't seem to have taken away the need to actually feel loved and cherished for a little bit. Maybe this is a bit spoiled princessy, I don't know. I'm just trying to purge these feelings and get to a point where I want to go on living.

It was super nice when a lovely family in Ireland took me in for some desperately needed shelter from the disintegration of my life. Just being in a loving family home - even if it wasn't my own - has kept me going.

Actually, thinking about it recently, I thought how much it would upset that lovely Irish family, to know that they helped me and that I ended up taking my own life anyway. Even if it was only a few weeks that I spent in their home, I'm still acutely aware that they deserve better than any implied ingratitude for their help.

But, I'm still missing enough regular social contact. What I get is great, and I'm super grateful to those friends who drop by, suggest meeting up, email me and contact me on messenger. It does keep me limping along.

My hope is, that as I start to get on top of the debts I ran up just staying alive, I will loosen the purse strings and start to take a risk in thinking about some work that might be more rewarding. There's no way that I can dare to dream at the moment, because I simply have to knuckle down and put money in the bank, even though it's soul-destroying and I hate it.

To reach November sounds like no time at all, but I think that only takes me to zero. It'll be the depths of winter. Perhaps my work contract won't be renewed. I'll have 11 months left on a 12 month rent contract, with my flatmate already 4 months in rent arrears and not having paid any bills for as long as I can remember. It's quite a lot of pressure.

I'm setting myself these little goals and breaking up the blocks of time. It was friends who encouraged me to take some time off here and there, but it prolongs the suffering.

It's easy to dream up a million different things I might do when I reach breakeven, but it feels so far away, even if it isn't when you're happily just chugging through your healthy fulfilling and stimulating life.

I'm loathe to upset the apple cart. There are a couple of bridges that are worth leaving unburnt. I'm probably not even in debt enough to declare bankruptcy at the moment, but it doesn't take long for the circling vultures to put you in the shit again. You have to run just to stand still. I just can't stand the bullshit of the rat race. I just can't stand the relentless pressure to pay money just to be alive, breathing.

I'm trying to string together all the sporadic social contact I have, and use all the little messages of support, to limp myself along.

At some point, I can imagine that I will look back and laugh, while also cringing with embarrassment, about just how much I've moaned and complained. In retrospect, the pain and discomfort will be quickly forgotten, and I'll wonder why I was making such a big fuss. Either that, or I won't actually make it.

It has been a long time that I've been dealing with depression. It has been a long time that I've been dealing with suicidal thoughts. I'm grateful when my friends give me a reality check, but also, I do have to still go home at some point and face facts. It's great to talk about this or that amazing venture, but the fact is that bills still have to be paid, debts have to be serviced, people still want their pound of flesh.

It must be hard on my friends, because I have good physical health, skills that are in demand, no dependents and plenty of other advantages in life. I'm quite pleased that only a very small handful of my friends have trotted out the old adages of "be grateful you have a job" etc. etc.

I get quite a lot of "chin up" and "look on the bright side" which is OK because I know people mean well when they say it, and it's a common mistake to make. It's not even a mistake, because it does show that people care, which is nice and helpful.

Probably the most fruitful discussions I'm having at the moment have been around how it's OK to be upset about things. We try so hard to put a brave face on things and pretend that everything's OK, that we perhaps don't even admit to ourselves how close we are to snapping. "A right to be angry" is something I never explored before.

There's just all this societal pressure to be grateful. But that whole gratitude argument breaks down when your life becomes sheer depressed misery. What am I supposed to be grateful for, if life is miserable? Am I supposed to want more misery? Am I supposed to be excited to have another 30 or 40 years of misery to look forward to?

It's easy to extrapolate from my position, today, trapped into a horrible corner. But, what's the alternative? The 'dream' job that will lead me to financial problems and bankruptcy because I can't afford the cost of living and I can't repay my debts? Quitting the rat race, that will lead me to social exclusion and being spat on in the street by people who think I'm a worthless bum? A life on benefits where I'm despised by ignorant mean selfish shits, who tell me to "get a job" and think I'm a scrounger?

It's actually pretty hard and pretty scary, thinking about starting over again when you're not in the first flush of youth. It's pretty challenging, rebuilding your social life and getting the people around you again that give you enough love and support to make your life liveable again.

I know I need to try harder to reconnect with friends. I need to travel to see people. I need to put myself out there. I need to invite myself into people's lives.

Perhaps things will be different once I've broken through the psychological barrier of this work/debt problem that I'm suffering at the moment.

Tags: #friends #parents #childhood

This is a story about being homeless...

This first map shows everywhere I lived, as I was dragged around all over the place by my fucking parents. The stupid cunts then decided to move back to the village where I briefly first went to school. I went to 8 different schools. What a shower of shits. I cried and cried that we were leaving the sweet little village in the Cotswolds where my parents now live again. What a pointless waste of time & money, as well as being totally destructive of a stable and happy childhood.

This second map shows the 25+ places that I have attempted to make my home. From number 5 to number 25, this was all a consequence of my parents reneging on an insistent demand that they should be involved in 'helping' me, only to find that they then didn't honour their promise at all when I was in a vulnerable and precarious position. A stitch in time saves nine, as they say. Cunts.

I now live on the Isle of Dogs and my home is very nice. I'm reasonably settled and stable, but I am quite far away from any friends, and there isn't really much on the 'island'. I would much rather live in North London, where most of my friends are, and there is more going on that I'd be interested in getting involved in.

However, having had such a horrific time the past few years, I'm happy to just have some stability in where I'm living. Can you imagine how exhausting it is, moving between all those different places with all your worldly possessions? It's only because I had good training with the Dorset Expeditionary Society that I have been able to just about cope. I'd call it an adventure, but it's been more like a nightmare.

Anyway, perhaps this snapshot gives you some appreciation for the shit that people are going through in their private lives. We are quick to condemn people as not making smart life choices, or being deserving of the consequences of some decision they supposedly took with free will. The reality is that one small thing can create absolute chaos in somebody's life, and destroy them.

Much like the butterfly that flapped its wings in Japan, causing a hurricane in America, seemingly small insignificant things can have a big impact on the stability of a person's life. That's why it's important to keep your promises and honour your commitments. That's why it's important to act with integrity. That's why it's important to treat your kids with decency and respect, and not just be a drug addict drunkard waste of fucking space, fucking up their life in pursuit of your high.

As you can tell, I'm thoroughly exhausted by all the stress, and fucked off by the suggestion that it was in any way my free will that took my on this torturous path through life. Survival and stability is all I ask for.

Tags: #homeless #parents #childhood #london

This is a story about how to fuck up a kid...

I love the symbolism of this image. What it means to me is this: we have to jump through hoops, like some kind of trained circus animal.

What made you decide that you could give your kids a brilliant life? What made you decide that creating new life on an overcrowded planet was a great idea?

Was it the fact that climate change is an undisputed problem, and your children will inherit a drowning world?

Was it the fact that neoliberal capitalism has given us a cruel ruling elite who have enslaved most of humanity in menial jobs, and left the rest to starve?

Was it that a small handful of oligarchs, monarchs and plutocrats control all the world's wealth, and the chances of being elevated from poverty are the same as being hit by an asteroid, twice, on the way to collect your lottery winnings?

Was it that the social structure of the tribe, the clan and the extended family has now all-but ended, as we are forced to roam the entire planet in search of a golden opportunity that does not exist, and we are forced to content ourselves with social media, text message and video-chat interactions, that are in place of actual face-to-face human relationships with our nearest and dearest?

It won't be long before our babies are whisked away from us at birth, and we can do nothing but follow their progress on a Twitter page, as they forge their way through an educational system designed to produce compliant drones, who have no hope but to join the enslaved masses in some soul-crushingly dreadful job. And the reason why we never get to see our children? So we can continue to pursue our unfulfilling jobs for as many hours as we can possibly work before collapsing with exhaustion.

I have this little fantasy about being a dad. In my fantasy, me and some imagined partner are woken up early in the morning by our two children. One child is a toddler, and the other is slightly older but still a preschooler. The kids clamber into bed and we all spend the morning watching cartoons together. Then we all get up and dressed and eat pancakes together around the kitchen table.

Then, I also have this imagined version of reality.

I wake up before the kids, get showered and dressed although I'm desperately tired. I then have a stressful commute through traffic and endless crowds of people. I arrive at a job that I hate, because it's boring and stressful, underpaid and my bosses have nothing but contempt for me and the capitalist scum who run all the corporations have no gratitude or respect for the workers who toil to line their pockets. I get to look at a photograph of my children on my desk, but this is merely a form of emotional bribery. Without the picture of my kids on my desk, I would question what the hell I was even doing, and just quit the awful job.

In my imagined version of reality, I work extra late to try and impress the bosses and get a precious promotion that may allow the basic essentials of life to be bought without constant financial struggle to make ends meet. Every time the car breaks down or some home improvements are needed, it always costs more than any savings that have been put away as contingency for these eventualities. A debt spiral has been happening because of having to use short-term borrowing to simply meet the cost of living. Then more debt was incurred servicing the first debt. This wasn't money that was spent on frivolities, but on such things as fixing broken plumbing and essential child-rearing equipment like cribs and pushchairs.

My imagination tells me that, in reality, I would then struggle home late through yet another stressful commute, only to find that the kids are already in bed. My partner is exhausted from the demands of working a part time job that brings in marginally more money than the cost of the childcare that we must pay for so that she can have her very badly paid job. Juggling work and childcare arrangements, she must travel twice as far as a normal commute, in order to pick up and drop off the kids at their daycare facilities. The household budget is super tight, and extremely diligent use of discount coupons, shopper loyalty schemes and knowing the cheapest supermarket to obtain our groceries for each product, is the only way that a few extra pounds can be found to balance the books.

Exhausted and stressed - in this imaginary reality - we collapse into bed. The pressure that me and my imaginary partner are under means that we are arguing all the time, so we aren't having sex or any kind of physical intimacy anymore. We are just two exhausted scared and anxious people, trying to survive and hide the desperation of the situation from the children.

The children - I imagine - are browbeaten into believing that they have one shot at getting good school grades and not fucking up their lives. Me and my imaginary partner tell our kids how important it is that they study hard and try their best, so that they can go to university and get a great job. We repeatedly tell our kids that life is a struggle, and the world is a mean place, and that they should stop laughing and playing, and knuckle down and do some damn homework.

Grow up! Concentrate! This is important! Pay attention! You have no idea what the real world's like! We rebuke our little kids. We are desperately anxious that our children should not suffer the same fate that we endure. Endless arguments over schoolwork and bad grades. Endless stress about whether or not our kids are thriving in the rigid educational system. Every bit of spare time we have goes into educational activities. We can't just make a fort out of cushions... we have to turn it into a history lesson, or a lesson about the physics of why buildings don't fall down. Everything is twisted into an opportunity to try and cram a bit more knowledge into our little kids' craniums.

Your kid drives themselves nuts with the pressure and expectation placed upon them. Kids are sensitive to their parents anxiety. Kids are like sponges, and they're getting the message loud & clear about how important it is that they apply themselves and try their hardest. Some kids will respond, and will allow themselves to have their personality dissected, sifted and sorted. Some kids will quietly allow themselves to be judged and graded by complete strangers who couldn't give two fucks about who they are as an individual.

Then, finally, it's time for the big wide world that we've promised our children is the whole reason why they can't have a childhood. The whole reason why we didn't let our kids play in the dirt, or spend time with their friends, was so that they could have their noses in books, writing essays or taking mock examinations. Now, it's time for your kids to spread their wings and be whatever they want to be.

Use your imagination! Follow your dreams! Find your passion! We tell our precious children.

What we really mean is: go get a sensible job for a reputable corporation, shovelling shit for the capitalists.

Childhood was jettisoned in favour of academic achievements. We told our kids they couldn't be friends with some of the other children, because they were too stupid and a bad influence. We told our kids they couldn't laugh, play and have the simple joys of their childhood, because there was too much at stake. Our kids' precious future was on the line. It was life or death.

And now, your kids have the same shitty job that doesn't pay the bills and is inadequate to support a family. Your kids busted their balls to get their grades, go to university, follow their dreams. Guess what? There aren't any jobs for historians or philosophers. There aren't any jobs where you need to speak dead languages like Latin or Ancient Greek. There aren't any jobs for artists.

Your kids are going to have to get a job keeping score for the capitalists, while they wait for the planet to become totally uninhabitable. It's a football game with 21 referees and 2 goalkeepers. It's a rowing race with 20 coxswains and 2 rowers. Over 80% of the 'economy' is made up by service sector bullshit.

This is it? This is what you you wanted to give your kids? This is the life that you thought your children would be so happy to live? Did you think about this stuff? You did think about this stuff, didn't you? No? Why didn't you think about this stuff?

"Everything will be alright in the end"

No. It probably won't be.

Things probably won't be alright in the end, because everybody has that attitude. Through collective wilful stupidity, and a desire to ignore the evidence in front of our eyes, we spawn yet more children in the hope that one of the little fuckers is smart enough to solve the world's problems. It's like setting alight to the basement of your house, in the hope that it will put out a fire in the roof.

Don't get me wrong; I love kids. I think kids are cute and I love the way that they make me feel happy when I look after them. I definitely feel very fulfilled as an animal, when I'm playing make-believe daddy, and imagining that I might have kids of my own. There's definitely something biologically right about reproducing one's genes. However, ethically it would seem to be the wrong thing to do.

You know, you made your choice, and I like you and your kids. But collectively it's fucking insane.

I would say that the only way to redeem yourself now would be to pull your kids out of school. Go and live near your parents, uncles and aunties. Form a little village of your relatives. Let your kids play and be children. Teach your kids about the grave responsibility that faces them, but don't fucking bullshit them. Stop selling this lie that hard work and a lost childhood will somehow pave the way for a happy adulthood.

Just look at the goddam stats. Soaring rates of mental illness and suicide. Almost everybody hates their fucking job and doesn't get to spend enough time with their families. Almost everybody is stressed as fuck about money, job insecurity and the uncertainty over whether they will be able to provide housing, food, clothing and everything else they need for them and their children. It's fucking awful.

But, you know what? There are more of us than the goddam capitalists who want to maintain the status quo. Sure there are police and the army, who are there to make sure that the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor. However, the system only continues to function while we all collectively help to prop it up. Are you happy? Is this what you want for your children? Is this it?

Is this it?

Tags: #capitalism #childhood

This is a story about setting a good example...

Drug induced paranoia can cause you to see threats and conspiracies where they don't exist. Drug taking can cause poor judgement. Being intoxicated and high on drugs impairs your perception, so you do not see reality as it truly is.

I have extensive experience of witnessing drug paranoia, poor judgement and impaired perception. I was raised by a couple of alcoholic drug addicts.

According to my dad, he was a model father. I'm sure he was, in his head. I'm sure as he sat on that sofa, high on drugs, he was being the greatest dad who ever lived. The drugs addled his brain, so he was unable to distinguish fantasy from reality.

According to my dad, I was a terrible child. I'm sure I was, in his head. I'm sure that as he sat there on that sofa, high on drugs, his brain was telling him what an evil little shit I was, and how I was out to get him. My dad used to talk about the Masons and the Illuminati. There was a conspiracy. The world was out to get him. In particular, his own son was out to get him. I was sent to ruin his drug binge. I was sent to ruin his life.

According to my dad, he knew best. I'm sure he did know best, in his head. I'm sure that as he sat there on that sofa, high on drugs, he thought he knew everything. Drugs tell you that you're really smart and that you've figured out the meaning of life, the universe and everything. When you're high on drugs, you think you've got all the answers. Sadly, those of us who dwell in reality find that the drug addict's answers don't really add up.

In the pursuit of drugs and booze, I was always a secondary consideration. My parents like to joke about putting my moses basket or carrycot on top of the jukebox, while they spent all their time in the pub. Ha! Ha! Ha! GOOD ONE MUM AND DAD THAT'S HILARIOUS.

My mum always seemed to get romantically involved with fucking drug addict losers. My surname - Grant - comes from some heroin addict guy who my mum finally decided was a waste of space. She swapped Mr Grant for my dad, who is also a drug addict waste of space.

My dad spends a great deal of time telling my mum what an evil son they have. Get my mum on her own, and she's OK. Mums know best. Mums know their own children. Presumably, away from the drug intoxication, reality and rational thought prevail, and it's possible to understand that children are not born evil. If you're not high on drugs, you can see what's really going on, and you can see that your son is not part of some conspiracy. If you have a normal brain free from mind-numbing chemicals, you can see that it's a crazy idea, that your son is out to get you.

My dad has always assumed the very worst about me. Instead of having a "birds & bees" conversation with me, I remember my dad telling me that it's not OK to rape women. What the fuck goes on in HIS head, if he thinks that people need telling not to go raping anybody?

I would have thought that most parents want the best for their children. I would have thought that most parents want to give their children as many opportunities as they can.

In his drug-induced paranoia, my dad was convinced that I would take any opportunity I could to perpetrate crimes against the family. My dad seemed convinced that his job was to simply protect the world against me. My dad was never pleased with my achievements, but instead was just waiting to uncover the 'evidence' of my wrongdoing and evil intent.

My childhood was about arguing that I hadn't done anything wrong, or defending myself against complete fantasy allegations that I would commit some act of wrongdoing given half a chance.

You just can't treat your kids like that. You just can't treat your kids like they're your enemy.

Why did I make my dad feel so threatened? Why did my dad think I was so evil? Why did my dad think I could do no right, and I was pre-programmed to perpetrate evil acts at every opportunity? Why did my dad find nothing to praise in my achievements, believing that they were only some elaborate ruse to cover up my true nature? Why did my dad go to such great lengths to accuse me of everything he could think of, and attempt to find evidence of my mistakes, failings and immorality?

Because I'm a forgiving and open-minded person, who believes that no person is born evil, I am minded to think that it was all the drugs that my dad used to take, and the fact that he was acutely aware of his own shortcomings and immorality. It feels like my dad projected his own failings onto me, so I grew up feeling guilty about stuff that wasn't even true about me.

I find it particularly telling that my dad and my ex-wife got along very well. They both had a delusional belief that they were whiter than white, while trying to make me feel responsible for their fucked up blame avoidance and over-inflated egos.

In the end, I thought "fuck it".

If you gaslight somebody, telling them they're a bad person the whole time, eventually they'll prove you right.

But I'm not a bad person, so I couldn't even bring myself to actually commit an act of evil.

I briefly had a very confusing period, where I was eventually so bullied and abused that I began to believe that I was a bad person, but everybody who knows me and everybody who is independent and nonjudgemental was telling me that it wasn't true. Despite the condemnation and criticism I had suffered at the hands of my dad and my ex, it turns out that nobody else agreed with them.

When I cut my dad and my ex out of my life, everything improved, and I was suddenly no longer an evil person, out to rob, lie, cheat and swindle the world. Coincidence?

Tags: #parents #divorce #drugs #addiction #gaslighting

This is a story about arrogance...

It occurs to me that many people might be offended by the vulgarity of me discussing - with candid honesty - the good fortune that has come my way, and decide that I feel entitled in some way to those things bestowed upon me by pure blind luck.

In the UK, it's considered to be in bad taste to talk about money. However, we are given to flamboyant displays of wealth, which are obviously our way of screaming "LOOK AT ME!! LOOK HOW SUCCESSFUL AND AMAZING I AM!!" at the top of our reserved British lungs.

I once shared on social media a document that I had discovered that had the rates that a bunch of us banking IT consultants charge our clients for a day's labour. The amounts are obscene.

When I first started as an IT contractor at the tender age of 19, I was paid twice as much as I had been in my previous job, and it totally went to my head. I bought Harrods hampers as Christmas gifts and whisked my girlfriend and I off to New Zealand on a business class flight, chartered a yacht and stayed 5-star all the way. Take the bullied kid from school, treat him like shit his whole life and then shower him with wealth and he might just end up rubbing your nose in it, because it's sweet relief after 12 years of playground and classroom hell.

That first contract paid just under £40 an hour, by the way. I was living in Winchester and working in Didcot, near Oxford. It was good money for a non-banking project outside of London, even by today's standards. I offer you the precise number, because I want you to judge me.

Imagine the whole time you're at school is made pure hell by endless bullying. Imagine being a social outcast. Imagine not even being able to cultivate a teenage romance until you left school at age 17, because you carry too much of a reputation of being an unpopular geek. Imagine all those beatings and lonely times where you're singled out because you're quiet, sensitive and then simply labelled as a soft target. Once you become the bullied kid, you stay the bullied kid and nobody's going to want to know you because they don't want to risk becoming bullied too.

What do you do instead, if you're denied friends, popularity, girls, a social life? You stay home and tinker with computers.

So, if it appears boastful when I talk about landing a well paid contract for a major UK corporation when I was just 19 years of age, it's because I fucking paid a lot to get it. Remember your first kiss with your first girlfriend? Remember hanging out with your friends? Remember how fun your school days were? Well, imagine swapping all that out for 35 hours a week of being bullied around the clock, for 12 straight years.

I'm exaggerating slightly, because I got to do my final 2 years at a 6th form college, which gave me a bit of a chance to re-invent myself away from the image that my dad had destroyed by expecting me to cycle to school from fucking miles away on a stolen girl's bike, every fucking day, past all the other kids arriving at the school entrance. Kids don't forget shit like that.

Did I have friends? Yes, I was very grateful to have a small handful of other geeky bullied kids who I count as my friends. We stuck together, as the hated soft targets. We tried to take a stand. It only made us hated by teachers and headmasters/mistresses, because we made the bullying problem more conspicuous.

So, I became a young adult with hideous insecurities. My parents were c**ts. Almost everybody at school had been a c**t. Naturally, this mistreatment denied me any self-confidence that would have allowed me to get a girlfriend. Somehow, I fell into a couple of trysts with girls from other schools, and even managed to lose my virginity at 15, but this was through the artificial confidence that drugs gave me, the one time I used amphetamines in my teens.

I found my way into sailing, rock climbing and mountaineering, and those things gave me a bit of an identity beyond that of a geek, but there was so much damage to be repaired. It was only in the final couple of years at school that I was a member of Lyme Regis Sailing Club, Dorset. It was only during my couple of years at 6th form college that I learned how to rock climb, and went on a couple of expeditions to the Alps and the Dolomites.

Having money was the first vindication that I had value as a person. I bought a flash sportscar, and I'm ashamed to admit that it improved my confidence. I found it easier to talk to girls with the crutch of a fast motor vehicle. The status symbol worked as it was supposed to: a fanny magnet.

Of course, the more money I got paid, the more I felt that I was worth. I did become arrogant. I did think that I was 'worth' the money. Again, I ask you to consider the context: I was a young insecure geek, who suddenly had a cash windfall. Of course I was going to use money to prop up my fragile self esteem.

Today, if I tell you about the lovely apartment I live in, how I earn obscene amounts of money, or that I'm working on important projects, then you can infer this: something has wrecked my world to the point where I am slipping back into old insecurities. It's not boastfulness. What it is, is pure terrified protection of the last dregs of my self esteem.

Some pseudo-psychologist will tell you that it smacks of egotism. Not true. Over time, I have developed humility and come to recognise the complete disconnect between what I'm paid, what I do, and how much value I really have. I consider myself overpaid, what I do as trivial and unimportant, unnecessary even, and I've been humbled to see that I contribute very little of value to the world.

Every time I talk about this or that thing that I did... it's because I'm really suicidally depressed and I desperately want people to sit up and pay attention, and say "hey! He isn't just some expendable worthless piece of shit. Maybe it would be a bad thing if he died".

I'm desperately trying to see the value in myself, even though in pure pounds, shillings and pence, I can see that I'm very much 'valued' by my employers. However, I now no longer associate salary or contract income with value, because I can see no link between what I do and how much I get paid. It maddens me that I'm so much better paid than, say, your average artist who gets paid £10,000 per annum.

In-between my first contract and my second contract, I did my yacht skipper qualifications with the Royal Yachting Association. After my second contract, which paid £470 per day, I was able to purchase a yacht. Did I buy the yacht because I loved sailing? Partly. But the real reason I bought it was because I felt insecure. Owning a yacht is quite a big status symbol. It's also a massive waste of money. Just keeping a yacht in a marina costs thousands of pounds every year.

As each year passed after school, I maintained the advantage of the head-start in computing I gained at the expense of an enjoyable childhood. The bullies from school struggled, while the geeks inherited the Earth. It was hard not to become cruel towards those who I perceived as having persecuted me, and rub their noses in it.

The Square Mile has a certain macho culture, as well as encouraging vulgar displays of wealth. For a while, I was eating out in expensive restaurants, taking taxis and drinking in wine bars. Did I do it because I enjoyed it, or did I do it because I could at such a young age, and I knew that it was sticking two fingers up at the bullies?

What happened next is that I had a couple of nice girlfriends, and I started to feel less insecure. Everything was going my way, and I started to feel less like I needed to flaunt my financial success, just to prove that I wasn't scared of the bullies anymore. I started to feel less like I had to pack as much fun in as possible, to make up for lost time.

For a brief time, I was reasonably secure and happy in myself. I had developed my own identity. I had grown my self confidence. I actually felt popular for the first time in my life. My life was no longer about money and status symbols.

However, I was still desperate for love. I felt like I had missed out on having a childhood sweetheart and a university romance. Then an abusive partner and a messy divorce deprived me of my comfort and confidence I took from owning a house and having beautiful hand-picked things. By this stage, having a speedboat and a hot tub was about having wild fun with my friends, not about shoving my wealth and good fortune in anybody's face. I had a fast car because I enjoyed driving, not because I needed it for my fragile male ego.

Everything got smashed to shit during my divorce, and I found myself sleeping in my friend's guest bedroom, trying to rebuild my life, but having nowhere near the capital reserves to re-enter London society. My ex-wife made everything as stressful and destructive as she possibly could, and dragged out proceedings using every conceivably unpleasant and spiteful tactic she could, depriving me of even the collateral that was locked up in my home.

With nothing but a rapidly dwindling stack of money, I was in no position to start another business. I had to go back to IT consultancy. Some may say that it was hardly a bad option, but I had worked hard for 16 years so that I didn't have to do the bullshit rat race anymore. It was heartbreaking.

I let everything burn to the ground, and I got very sick indeed. 2014 saw me spend some 14 weeks in hospital and other kinds of inpatient treatment - I was dreadfully sick. That truly was an annus horribilis, even though I did manage 3 months of consultancy for Barclays at the end of the year.

2015 was pretty shit. I still had not managed to reach the escape velocity and launch myself into a stable orbit. It was a rough year, but I still managed to do 4 months of consultancy for HSBC in the summer/autumn.

2016 got off to a really shit start, but I should be able to do 5 months of consultancy for an undisclosed client before I absolutely lose my mind with the fucking rat race.

I have to be in some total shite part of Greater London for an 8:30am breakfast meeting tomorrow (Wednesday) and I already just want to jack in the job because it's predictable bullshit that's doomed to failure and is being hopelessly botched. However, it's easy money and in the context of the shitty situation I'm in I need the cash.

For context, I earn 28% more than I did when I was 20, which means I've been getting an annual pay rise of 1.75%, so excuse me if I'm not exactly thrilled to be getting out of bed in the morning. Especially considering the day job is even more boring than it was back then when I was young, fresh faced and inexperienced.

Of course, I'm able to see that I'm well off. I know that some people are getting pay cuts in real terms, and still others are out of a job despite their eagerness to work. I'm aware that in absolute terms, I get paid an eye-watering sum of money.

However, all my money is just going towards paying back the debts I ran up keeping myself alive. I actually paid for a great deal of private treatment, because it didn't seem right to burden the NHS with the costs in light of my potential earning power.

I am limping towards the day when I basically reach zero, so I can die with dignity knowing that my life insurance policy can be left as an estate for my sister and niece, and not be squandered on trivial debts run up simply because my own family and the welfare state offered me no assistance. Camden Council didn't offer me so much as a cardboard box to sleep in, let alone a hostel bed.

I simply don't have the energy to keep turning the pedals in such thankless pursuit of nothing. It will have been an exhausting marathon to simply reach zero again. Of course, with further months and years of IT consultancy for big corporations, I could in theory become rich again, but I'm at the limit of what I can stand. I've had enough. I'm ground down. I'm through. I'm done. Stick a fork in me, I'm cooked.

The pointless toil... for what?!?!

And so, if you think I'm entitled, arrogant and boastful, I hope you can see that it's simply because I'm exhausted and scared and insecure. Of course I see the value in the garbage collector and the nurse. I just don't see the value in myself, now that I am spent.

Tags: #bullying #suicide #career #childhood #computing

This is a story about the future of your children...

We are living in the age of anti-vaccine parents, who willingly risk their children getting polio, diphtheria, mumps, measles, meningitis, rubella, chicken pox/shingles and a whole heap of other diseases that were just about wiped out, but are now on the rise again.

There is also a health epidemic that hardly anybody is talking about, even though it's a big killer, and has a devastating impact on the quality of life of so many of us, our friends, our families, our children.

Without further ado, let's get started with the list...

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5. One in five boys will be diagnosed with an Attention-Deficit disorder

Yes, that's right, by the age of 17, a full 20% of boys will be diagnosed with ADD/ADHD. Not only are our boys drifting further and further apart from girls in their school exam grades, but they are also now being diagnosed as suffering from a serious mental illness, in their droves.

Treatment for attention deficit disorders is often a stimulant akin to cocaine or amphetamines. Ritalin is the trademarked name that Methylphenidate is marketed under. Ritalin shares the same mechanism of action and is structurally similar to cocaine. Adderall is the trademarked name that mixed amphetamine salts are sold under. Adderall is almost identical to street 'speed' that you might obtain from a drug dealer.

Attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder diagnoses have risen over 50% in the last decade. Over 6 million American children are prescribed a powerful and addictive stimulant, every single day, just so that they can concentrate at school and get good grades.

Do you think we've got our school system right, if we're failing boys so badly, and they are reaching the age of 17 with a serious mental health problem and a drug habit, all of which is medically sanctioned and is trumpeted as a success by our education ministers?

4. 37% of teenaged girls suffer depression and anxiety

Even though alcohol and drug abuse is falling amongst teenaged girls, as they apply themselves to their studies more diligently to get better and better exam grades every year, this seems to have come at the expense of their mental health.

Hospital admissions for self-harm in under-16s are up 52% in a 6 year period. That's just the kids who need to go to hospital. So many others will cut themselves in areas that nobody can see. I've been in hospital and seen whole arms that are just a tattered mess of scars. Clearly, these vulnerable children are under extreme pressure, stress and dealing with intolerable anxiety.

No matter what you might think about how loving and supportive your home environment is, there is so much expectation placed on children to reach their fullest academic potential, and the statistics show us the consequences of this league-table over-competitive toxic educational environment.

3. Antidepressant prescriptions double in a decade

Ok, assuming your kids chain themselves to their desks, do all their homework and their extra-curricular activities, do all their damn exams, get into university and make it though their finals, what kind of life can they expect to have?

Well, how's about a zero-hours contract McJob?

It's pretty clear that the outlook for your offspring, having lost their entire childhood to their diligent studies, will have no job security, no prospect of ever owning a home and will inherit a planet with a totally fucked up climate. Is it any wonder that depression has reached epidemic proportions?

If over 1/3rd of our teenage girls are now suffering from depression and anxiety, which are treated with these powerful psychoactive medications, is it any wonder that we are seeing prescriptions ballooning in numbers.

Remember, not every person who suffers from a mental health problem will seek treatment, and not all those who consult their doctor will be prepared to accept the side-effects of medication. We are seeing only the tip of the iceberg when we look at the NHS's prescription statistics.

2. Suicide: a quarter of deaths for men aged 20 to 34

Yup. You read that grim fact right.

Leaving university with a huge student loan debt, no job prospects, no chance of being the "provider" or otherwise fulfilling your role as a man, suicide is the biggest killer of men under the age of 45.

While women feel huge pressure to be obedient parent pleasers, men feel huge pressure to be economically active and to seek their fortunes. Undoubtably, the economic depression caused by the reckless actions of the banks and the credit crunch of 2007/8 has claimed many lives.

Many bankers received golden parachutes. High salaries and eye-watering bonuses are still being paid throughout the Square Mile and Canary Wharf. If you're part of the club, you're still making a killing. Bad luck, if you're in the 99.9% who didn't get an invite to the party because your face doesn't fit.

The number of suicides in England and Wales is at a 20 year high. The numbers shot up due to the financial crisis, but they have continued to rise as the Conservatives - the "nasty party" - sought to look after themselves and their rich donors at the expense of the mental health of the entire country.

Living within our means is one thing, but frankly it was the bank bailouts and corporate charity that we couldn't afford, and it's costing lives.

1. One in four university students suffers from mental health problems

These are our very best and brightest people. These are our future captains of industry. These are the cream of the crop.

What the hell are we doing when our burning bright hope for the future of humanity, are even afflicted with mental illness that drastically affects their quality of life?

Our curent batch of uni grads are expected to solve climate change, the energy crisis, the pensions crisis, the collapse of the global economy and the end of capitalism, as well as figuring out what the hell the underclass are going to do now that all the factories and farms are going to be run by robots.

Young women are carrying not only the hopes of their family, but also the pressure to succeed that drives fully 1/3rd of them into anxiety, depression and other mental disorders. Is this what they worked so hard at school for?

Think about the relentless pressure, from the age of 4 or 5 to the age of 21 or 22... endless exams and essays and projects and being driven to achieve academic excellence.

Is it any wonder that vast numbers of young people are having nervous breakdowns, or having to take powerful sedatives to calm their nerves?

University students are pressured into taking drugs like Modafinil in order to stay awake during revision binges, and take other stimulants and concentration aids like Adderall, in order to retain facts.

Our desire to constantly sift and measure young people using examinations and grading, leads to nervous exhaustion from the unrelenting pressure. One slip, and your future could be ruined, we tell our children. Of course they're going to be terrified, thinking that they might have a bad day and be cast into the seething mass of unemployable unskilled labourers who have been chucked onto the scrap heap.

* * *

Psychological distress is evident everywhere we look. We all have a friend or a relative who is suffering, even if we ourselves feel that we have been lucky enough to have escape unscathed, but also do we really know?

Some of us are very good at hiding our feelings, and there is a British culture of stiff upper lip, and men are especially discouraged from talking about emotional issues.

The statistics paint a grim picture that is undeniable. Mental health issues are a full-blown epidemic that should be the number one priority for policymakers, because it's at the root cause of all human wellbeing and quality of life.

We have vast amounts of medications, but they are making very little difference against the rising tide of problems which are mostly of economic and social origin.

Without giving the population meaning and purpose, and a sense of community, we are racked with fear of failure, fear of terrorism, anxiety over our job security, depressed about our prospects of owning our own home or having a financial safety net.

Our lives are a toxic brew of issues, where we are forced away from our families to work and study. Our jobs are unfulfilling and exploitative, and our education system puts undue pressure on young people and children, who are vulnerable and at a delicate developmental stage.

Without urgent social reform, quality of life is going to fall dangerously low and political unrest will follow.

Tags: #mentalhealth #suicide

This is a story about star quality...

Hey! Is that Nick Grant pitching a Dragons Den panel at Cambridge Union? Isn't that the same podium in Cambridge where UK prime ministers and US presidents have wowed crowds? Isn't that the same podium where the world's best and brightest have stood? Yes. Yes it is.

If you're into astrology, you should know I'm a Leo. Apparently this means that I adore being the centre of attention. However, I've always had somebody yelling louder than me for the spotlight to be directed onto them.

Growing up, my dad had this horse-shit narrative about how cool he was because he took drugs. My childhood achievements were nothing compared to the amount of drugs and alcohol he could consume. Growing up, life was all about worshipping how smart he was for obtaining and taking intoxicating substances. Woo!

My longest relationship, with the girl who my friends affectionately called "the poison dwarf" was dominated by her tantrums if the attention was diverted from her. She completely ruined our joint birthday and engagement party, simply because her unpleasant nature had brought her few friends in life, and the event was mainly my friends, despite my efforts to help her encourage people from her own social circle to attend.

OK, I'm not that humble, but I'm not that arrogant either. If I'm bigging myself up, it's because it's a defence mechanism because I've been dragged down by my own parents, bullies and an abusive ex-wife. I've had a rough fucking ride, so let me have this one, OK?

I haven't lost perspective. I'm well aware that my achievements amount to nothing. I never got so much as a "well done" out of my parents for everything I've ever accomplished. It's tough fucking going, living life with insufferable cunts who just want to see you fail.

Normally, when things are going well, people are supportive and want to help you to continue to achieve your potential in life. Not so, in most of my story to date.

Often times startup founders receive their initial funding from friends and family. My friends contributed generously to my ambitions to build a profitable business, and they were repaid with the dividends from the company. My own parents saw no potential in what I was doing, even though billionaire investors took me under their wing and agreed to help my co-founder and I to build a valuable business. My ex-wife took particularly cruel delight in watching my dreams get shattered.

Yes, I'm subject the fatal flaw of a little too much desire to be loved and liked. When an acting coach suggested that we try my co-founder out to see if he was any better at delivering an investor pitch, I was mortified by the idea that I wouldn't get my moment of fame. For sure, I'm subject to big-headedness and delusions of grandeur as much as the next person, but in a way, I can argue that I deserved my little headlining moment, because I had always been kicked to the sidelines by self-centred parents and partners.

You know what? Give your kids their moment of fame. Let your kids bask in a bit of adoration. Don't hoover it all up for yourselves. You know what your input was? You had sex. Well done. Gold star. But that's nothing that every couple didn't already do for hundreds of millions of years. All you did was do what your fucking body was programmed to do. Now get the fuck out of the spotlight and let your kid enjoy their little moment. Your time is over. It's no longer your chance to shine. It's your moment to tell your kid well done, and that you're proud of them.

Butt the fuck out and acknowledge a good performance when you see one. Congratulate your fucking kid on their hard work and try and pretend like you're pleased, even if you're too fucking drug addled and self centred to even see straight.

You know what else? I'm fucking taking this one. I'm fucking taking this moment to tell myself well done, because nobody in my family is going to. My ex-wife isn't going to. Basically, the people who mattered most to me when some fairly monumental stuff happened to me in my life couldn't have given two shits about anything that wasn't to do with them and their selfish fucking world, so I'm going to relive this little moment and applaud myself.

Well fucking done me.

It ain't fucking easy battling for your moment of fame. It ain't fucking easy getting that chance, and then performing when it matters. It ain't fucking easy at all. And what's it all for if the people who you think care about you couldn't give a toss?

Well, guess what? I had that limelight. Not because I was a drug-taking fucktard like my parents, but because I worked hard to get that opportunity. I had that opportunity, not because I demanded it and stole it from my child, but because I wanted to impress, because I wanted to do something great.

Isn't that awful, that my parents made my entire childhood about them, shoving me into a dark corner so they could harvest all the ill-gotten attention? Isn't that awful, that my longest relationship was dominated by an abusive partner who demanded that the spotlight was always directed on her, and abused me to the point that I lost my confidence and became a withdrawn and shattered version of my former self?

Bygones. Regrets. Yes.

I'm just telling the story because nobody else is going to tell it. If you ask my parents they'll tell you that I was an evil waste of space who never achieved anything, and that's plain wrong.

This is me sticking up for myself. This is me fighting against the complete collapse of my self esteem that will render me hopelessly suicidally depressed. This is my defence mechanism.

I'm sorry if this comes across as arrogant or self-centred. I hope it comes across in the context of my desperately low sense of self-worth, given how I've been treated most of my life. I need a little pride and self confidence to be able to continue.

God damn, I'm so low right now.

Tags: #startup #suicide #depression #selfesteem #parents #childhood #divorce