This is a story about reading between the lines...

I don't really understand why it's necessary to guess and extrapolate. I don't really understand why somebody would want to reinterpret the scant available evidence, and reach outlandish and ridiculous conclusions. I don't really understand why somebody would want to pore over the pages of my blog and read all my tweets, looking for hidden meaning that doesn't exist. Why can't you just take things at face value?

I texted somebody who'd been quite an important figure in my life, and I asked them if I could take them out for dinner. In the last few weeks, I've gotten settled in a new job and moved into my own place - there's plenty to celebrate. This year has been very stressful, with cashflow problems, a boring job, commuting across the country and living out of a suitcase, dating, getting a new job, renting an apartment, security vetting, tenancy vetting, credit checks, buying a car, taxing & insuring the car, moving house... it's been stressful. Naturally, as I'd gotten through most of that stress, I wanted to celebrate with that person.

"No thank you" came the reply. Polite enough. Strange, but whatever. I'm not in the business of speculating.

Then came the accusation that I'm some sort of monster who people need protecting from. This followed relatively hot on the heels of an accusation that I'd identified that person, which I hadn't. There was the accusation that a load of my tweets were about specific identifiable people, which they weren't. I fail to see the evidence for any of it. I haven't deleted any of my tweets - they're there for all to see. I'd be very surprised if anybody except me knows who I'm talking about, because how would you know what's going on in my head unless you're telepathic? How would you know who's tormenting me and causing me untold stress?

I once mockingly used a turn of phrase that my friend Posh Will used to refer to an ex of mine as a "cute little Italian thing". This became a running gag. I'd have probably only said it once, but this person just kept on saying it and saying it. Whenever I talked about a girl, this person would ask "is she a cute little thing?". This person asked if my mum's cousin who lives in Chelsea is a "cute little thing" which I found very weird, but whatever. Whenever there was an opportunity, that person would refer to girls as "cute little things". It was our running gag... or rather theirs, because they kept using that phrase so much.

The phrase "cute little Italian thing" is now forbidden. In a rather melodramatic and completely unnecessary confrontational moment, it was confusingly and aggressively put to me that I use the phrase "all the time", which I don't. Further, it was put to me that I'm a sexist male chauvinist pig who has zero respect for women, hits women, rapes women, abuses women, sexually assaults women and generally attempts to marginalise and oppress women, as part of my patriarchal one-man crusade against women. Naturally, this was quite a surprise.

I'm using the forbidden phrase now, because I've been told so many times that this person doesn't read my blog, and now that person has told me in no uncertain terms that I'm a danger to them and the people they love; I'm a menace.

I guess it's over between me and that person, but I can't understand why. I never wrote about them online. I never identified them, or their loved ones. I'm really not sure what I did. Their accusations that I wrote about them, connected them, identified them, attacked them, repeatedly used the phrase "cute little Italian thing" and generally carried on like the world's biggest arsehole, are frankly complete and utter codswallop. What I write is there for all to see - I don't delete stuff. If any of this stuff was there, show me where the hell it is!

It's a nonsense. It's misplaced paranoia. It's more than misinterpretation - it's a complete warped perception of reality bordering on the insane.

Meanwhile, my girlfriend often worries about me posting images of previous girlfriends, which I haven't. My girlfriend will see the image above which IS of a previous girlfriend - the "cute little Italian thing" no less - and she'll see that her very worst fears have been realised.

Yes, I'm a monster. I did once say "cute little Italian thing" when I was aping the mannerisms of my investment banking chum for comedic effect. I have just posted a picture of my ex girlfriend, which I'm sure you'd be able to recognise her from if you saw her in the street now that I've disrespected her privacy. Damn me for revealing such personal identifying stuff that would allow any member of the public to immediately make the connection. Damn me for being so damn evil. Yes, lock up your daughters and hide your valuables... Nasty Nick is on the prowl.

On the final matter of sexist disrespectful language, perhaps it was wrong of me to even say something in jest. I'm always prepared to consider that I might be in the wrong. Just don't make a running gag out of it, and for god's sake don't start imagining stuff that's SIMPLY UNTRUE.

There's no need to read between the lines. What you see is what you get with me. If you're unsure, just ask.

Tags: #writing #socialmedia #girlfriend #cutelittleitalianthing

This is a story about keeping up appearances...

I have a tattoo that I can't cover up, which tells the world that I've had problems with suicide attempts, self-harm, depression, bipolar, alcoholism and substance abuse. I have a blog which puts me on page 2 of Google if you search for my name. I have a Twitter account that has the most followers out of anybody who shares my name. I'm hardly being shy and retiring about my dark past. I'm hardly keeping my skeletons in the cupboard.

One of my work colleagues has already found my blog - by Google'ing me - and has visited a few times. I can see that he uses the WiFi at work and I can see that he uses his Apple iPhone Plus. That's happened waaaay too soon.

An old friend who I know from the kitesurfing community recommended me for the job. He's friends with another colleague on Facebook. I don't use Facebook much, but when I do, it's usually because I'm having suicidal thoughts and it's a cry for help. If my friend commented on something I put on Facebook, my other work colleague might see it.

It's a small world, so that's why it's a good idea to be open and transparent. Nothing to hide, nothing to fear.

Of course, people who suffer from mental health problems - including addiction - are heavily stigmatised. If I didn't think I was able to do my job highly effectively, with an excellent level of professionalism and reliability, then I'd be slightly more reluctant to publish the inner-workings of my mind, and make my struggles a matter of public record.

I take my readers on a journey on me, and some of them will become sympathetic towards me and my story. Generally, if you read forwards and follow along with me, you'll gain a positive view, but if you read backwards then you'll dislike me and imagine that I enjoy the benefit of hindsight, which I don't.

It was particularly telling, the difference in reactions to my attempted suicide last September. My colleague who had followed my progress on my blog was sympathetic and caring. My colleague who read back through my blog, starting from the point where I believed I was going to die, was so unsympathetic that he sacked me and evicted me from my home, because I was on a life-support system and therefore unable to phone and say that I was going to be out of the office for a couple of days. He literally didn't care that I was in a coma with a tube down my throat and a machine breathing for me. That's the difference that it makes, reading my blog backwards versus reading it forwards - it can make a person not care that I'm dying, or it can elicit a sympathetic response to my plight.

For the avoidance of any doubt, I'm through the worst of my suicidal moments, now that the stress levels in my life are subsiding. Naturally, being homeless, close to bankruptcy, jobless, friendless, single, new to an area and generally having nothing and nobody is pretty damn awful for a person's mental health. In the space of 6 months I've made some friends, got a girlfriend, earned some money, bought a car, rented an apartment, got a local job and gotten myself a bit more settled, although I'm still a long way off having security and stability.

What might annoy my colleagues is thinking they've got a bargain - that I'm an expert in my field and I've got talent and experience - when in actual fact they've got a homeless bankrupt junkie alcoholic with mental health problems who never even knew how to switch a computer on until yesterday. Surely I could have been bought for minimum wage, because I'm desperate and vulnerable? This was certainly the case with the guy who didn't care that I was on life support - he felt ripped off, when he discovered the truth about me, even though I had nearly completed the first phase of the project I'd been working on, and the results had been fantastic.

I think really horrible people are few and far between. I think unethical exploitative bosses are few and far between. I really don't think it's going to be a problem that my real identity doesn't quite marry up with corporate expectations. I'm always well presented at work. Nobody would be any the wiser about my dark past, except for the aforementioned tattoo, of course.

I'm mentioning the tattoo and putting up a picture of myself without my infallible disguise quite deliberately, of course. Of course I know what I'm doing. I'm not exactly unhappy about anybody knowing about who I am, because I find it too exhausting to wear the corporate mask and pretend I'm perfect. It's not nice to have to live a lie and cover up any struggles I might have in my personal life.

It's been nearly 8 months since I had any problems with my mental health. I don't take any drugs or medications. I drink in moderation. I'm not suicidal. I'm not self-harming. I'm delivering high-quality work to the satisfaction of my bosses. My finances are improving. I've got my own place. I've got my little car. I've got my girlfriend. I've got my friends. Things aren't perfect, but they're improving and they'll continue to improve as long as I'm allowed to keep working and earning money.

It's a big gamble to keep this big digital presence alive. I obviously can't write about anything that would be unprofessional, breach my code-of-conduct, bring my profession into disrepute, breach confidentiality or any any way shape or form be considered unacceptable behaviour, but to delete my blog and my Twitter and Facebook account and expunge myself from the internet would be a considerable loss to me, and would be likely to negatively affect my ability to cope and function.

I hope that if my colleague(s) continue to read this, they can see it for what it is - my healthy coping mechanism, and something I need, because it brings me great comfort and a lot of care and support.

So far, I only know for definite that one work colleague is reading my blog. I hope to make friends at work. I need friends. I don't see it as a bad thing that somebody's reading.

I don't want the secret identity thing. I don't want the double-life thing. I've got nothing to hide; nothing to be ashamed of.

Tags: #writing #socialmedia

This is a story about justice...

If you're a self-righteous twat and you're a privileged and entitled member of the guardian class, then you snobbily and sneeringly believe that you're in the right on every matter. Surrounded by sycophants and a society that worships you because of your social status; your kindly-call-me-God job title, you expect people to drop to their knees and kiss your arse.

Most ordinary people have the support of their families. Most ordinary people are well established in their careers and at their place of work, with their colleagues. Most people have a group of friends who they see and communicate with regularly. Most ordinary people are well established in the real world.

When you get tarred with the 'mad' brush, people who don't even know you can start being dreadfully patronising. "Have you taken your medication?" and "do you think you should up the dose?" and "are you having an episode?" people will ask, instead of talking to you like a normal human being.

Example:

Me: "Ugh! This cup of tea tastes disgusting! You've put two spoonfuls of salt in it instead of sugar"

Patronising twat: "<aside> awww bless, he's having an episode. Better get him to the doctor and get his medication increased"

You can't argue with a twat like that. If you tell the twat to taste the tea, which obviously contains two spoonfuls of salt, then they'll be evasive and blame the victim. It's a horrible way to treat people.

Thus, social media is needed to arbitrate in instances where a vulnerable person is being mistreated. By calmly presenting the facts on social media, a jury of my peers can decide, instead of some smug arrogant guardian-class twat, who thinks they're right about everything, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Social media is the best place to go when you're alone and isolated, because you can crowdsource support. Instead of getting wound up by those who hold themselves to be immune from criticism, and incapable of making a mistake, engaging the power of social media can hold a twat to account.

I'm really pleased that there's an immutable permanent record of everything I've had to put in front of a jury of my peers. I'm glad to have the record of what the crowd thought. I'm glad that everything is stored for posterity. I'm really grateful to have this antidote to the patronising smug twat who thinks they know best.

I've made mistakes in the past, putting stuff in emails and on Facebook restricted to my close friends. I've made mistakes when I've been extremely unwell. However, on balance, using social media and public scrutiny as a means of holding a twat to account has been a staggering successful strategy for returning myself to health, wealth and prosperity.

Very few people could have survived the destitution and stress that I've been through, with only a few people fighting my corner. I'm lucky enough to have some very loyal friends who I love dearly, but they're spread all over the country and the world. I've almost exclusively turned to social media when I've needed support the most, and social media has delivered.

I've been feeling pretty lonely and isolated and low over the last few weeks, but I've had a great response on Twitter, which has really boosted my spirits. I'm glad to have connected with so many lovely people via social media. I really depend on my social media friends, when I'm having a bad time.

So, in the case of the Twat vs. Social Media, very clearly the online crowd are the winners.

Tags: #socialmedia

This is a story about data protection...

Congratulations. You found me. Somehow you managed to figure out my real identity and hack my personal data. Somehow you've managed to discover all my most closely-guarded secrets. You've compromised my privacy and discovered all my data that was held securely in the vault.

I'm fast approaching 900,000 words that I've written on this blog. I've written extensively about my childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, losing my virginity, first love, getting engaged and married, getting divorced, my mental health problems, my problems with drink & drugs, homelessness, near-bankruptcy, trouble with the police... I've written about everything. Everything you could ever hope to find out about a person is all documented right here, in unflinching detail.

I repeat myself.

I repeat myself because nobody fucking cares. I've written all this stuff about myself and left it out there for anybody to read, and it doesn't matter - everybody's too wrapped up in their own lives to give a shit about the details of anybody else's messy little life. I've published high-resolution photos of my passport. I've published every single detail you'd need to steal my identity, but nobody can be bothered. Most of us are far too boring and mediocre and average and uninteresting for anybody to give a shit.

Perhaps you've been so stupid as to share personal information in a way that's easily harvested in vast quantities. Maybe you're just another idiot who made their date of birth public on Facebook, or told some other popular website personal details about yourself, where you completely ignored the messages that told you exactly what data would be shared with 3rd parties.

You've got free email. Free photo sharing. Free messaging. Free document storage. Free business contacts. Free marketing. Free social networks where you can connect with your friends and meet other likeminded people. How the hell did you think any of it was funded? If the service is free YOU are the product.

The email address on the bag pictured above is my business email address. You can email it and your message will be delivered to me. I've been very careful to not mix my professional identity with my Nick "manic" Grant identity, because I work in very boring corporate environments which don't take kindly to people with mental illness who've recently been destitute and locked up on psych wards. There's a fundamental incompatibility with my true identity and the persona that allows me to get good jobs and get ahead in a corporate environment.

To write that email address in text form on the pages of this website would mean that Google would index it and make it searchable, such that my email address would be added to spam lists and my inbox would be inundated with crap. To write that word - the name of my company - on the pages of this website would tie me to any search that included my name and my company's name. I'm already on page 2 of Google, and I'd hate to make it any easier for me to be found. People already find me very quickly on LinkedIn, so heaven forbid what it's going to be like if people start digging for me on Google and stumbling on this blog.

A colleague of mine has already found my blog. I can see that he has an iPhone Plus and he uses the WiFi at our workplace to read my blog. I can see what pages he looked at and how long he spent reading them. Perhaps he doesn't know that I know this, but maybe he does now... if he's just read this. If you think I'm spying on my readers you should know that every tech company collects analytics on its users. Of course, I can't know who every individual is, but I can make very good educated guesses by looking at the IP address they visit from - which tells me their location, their ISP or workplace - and the kind of device they're using.

If you think it's unethical to spy on the people who consume content for free, you should consider whether you'd be prepared to pay for Facebook, Twitter, news websites, funny comics, interesting blogs, videos, games and all the other content you regularly consume. Would you pay for email? Would you pay to keep your photos and documents safely stored in the cloud? At the moment, you receive so much stuff for free, because your data isn't private - you consented to give it to us tech boffins so that you could get free stuf. You made the deal with the devil.

If you think you have privacy you're incredibly naïve. The details of your confidential medical consultations are discussed casually around the dinner table. The details of your life are pored over by the guardian class, who present themselves as protectors of your privacy, but are in fact terrible gossips who share all the lurid details of your most embarrassing moments with all their guffawing chums. There's no privacy - it's an illusion; a fantasy.

Having dealt with GPs, psychiatrists, hospitals, the police, security vetting people, tenant vetting people, credit check people, proof-of-identity people and numerous others who've sought to invade my privacy, I can tell you from first-hand experience that information washes around quite freely and there's very little protection of your precious privacy. The most sensitive information is casually chucked around in the most careless fashion. You're delusional if you think your data's protected.

I became disillusioned with data protection and privacy, and I decided to go public. I decided to write 900,000 words that give complete transparency about who I am and what I've done. I have no privacy. I live in the public eye - everything you could ever want to know about me, including my very worst, most embarrassing and most unflattering moments, are documented here in unflinching detail. This is what happens when you embrace the post-privacy world that we live in.

What do you want to know? Do you want to see my pornography viewing habits? Do you want to see secret webcam screen recordings of me masturbating, or maybe just picking my nose and scratching my testicles while lying on the sofa in a pile of my own filth, watching crappy TV shows? If you want to know what a person's really like behind the mask, I'll give it to you. Guess what? We're all a bit pervy and none of us is perfect; we all have flaws and stuff that we'd be embarrassed if anybody knew, but it's there - we're all basically the same.

Google does not yet read the text on images and make it searchable in the same way that it will for this word: googwebcamasturbdex. Try searching that word tomorrow, and you'll see that it's Google's top search hit. Try searching my email address and you won't find this website, however... which is how I want to keep it until the world finally accepts that we're living in a post-privacy era and we can see that we ALL have flaws.

I'm taking a HUGE risk having all this stuff about me out there on the public internet. I risk my reputation, my business, my income, my livelihood. I risk becoming unemployable. I risk being black-balled, because nobody wants a homeless bankrupt junkie alcoholic with mental heath problems working in their precious corporation. I'm risking it because it was exhausting, trying to keep my privacy in the era when privacy finally became a thing of the past; a relic.

Does privacy help you? Is it a big deal that Facebook leaked 4% of their users' data? Would you have paid for Facebook if it meant that your data was secure?

I think in time you'll come to see the world like I do - secrecy is hard work and life is better when you're transparent and open. I can highly recommend uploading yourself to the public cloud for safekeeping.

Tags: #socialmedia #privacy

This is a story about having a chip on my shoulder...

Seemingly out of nowhere a huge grudge has reared its ugly head. It felt like I'd been biting my tongue for a long time, and sadly it seems like I'd been unable to forgive and forget a big list of transgressions. I don't know why I've been carrying this unhelpful baggage around. I don't know why my own less-than-perfect behaviour doesn't cancel out the occasions which have upset me. I don't know why I haven't been able to resolve problems amicably. However, I blew up; I got mad. A huge tsunami of anger hit me and I've raged about all the stuff that's been bothering me for a long time, which I'd bottled up.

Every time I censor my blog, it's a huge mistake.

My blog is where I come to write, as a coping mechanism for some awful stuff that I've been through. My blog is a healthy coping mechanism, when so many others would resort to drugs & alcohol, or perhaps be driven mad by the torment of their suffering. My blog has been miraculously therapeutic at getting me through so many episodes of relapse, hospitalisation, homelessness, lost jobs, near-bankruptcy and other financial distress, and very difficult struggles with drink, drugs and mental health problems. I depend on my blog. To be denied the opportunity to write freely has dire consequences.

It was a huge mistake to censor my blog.

I took down a blog post as a goodwill gesture. It was a mistake. There was nothing in the blog post that was offensive or in any way problematic.

I had days of hell where I had absolutely no idea what was wrong with what I'd written. I had days of hell where there was an impending confrontation linked to somebody who had quite routinely tormented me and had been very aggressive. I thought things got resolved, but my Twitter was later examined with a fine-tooth comb and the unpleasant and extremely stressful confrontation - far worse than I had been expecting or prepared for - was completely pointless because the goodwill gesture achieved nothing. In fact, deleting my blog post and then being unable to write because I had no idea what was problematic with it, was incredibly disruptive and ultimately futile; pointless.

Unintentionally, the dam burst and I wrote about all the things that had been bothering me, but I wrote in a way that was stoked up by the unpleasant nasty confrontation and the censorship of my blog. It was a stressful and confusing situation, and ultimately it was utterly pointless - I should never have censored my blog or attempted reconciliation. As a result, things have come out with a lot more anger than I'd have liked. Things have come out a lot more forcefully than I'd have liked.

I can totally understand why I was Tweeting so desperately, having gone through 4 sleepless nights and had nothing to go on except an abusive phonecall... plus all the other unpleasant stuff that had gone before, of course. What had gone before could perhaps have been shrugged off as "a clash of personalities" but ended up crystallising into the firm belief that I didn't want anything more to do with a person who'd caused me a great deal of distress. I don't want to make things personal. I don't want to take someone to pieces and destroy them on social media and on my blog. What you have to understand is that this blog is my coping mechanism - this is where I come when I'm hurting, to work stuff out.

I'd like to stop being bitter, angry and vindictive, but I know that this fire's gonna burn for far longer than I want. I really want a clean break; a fresh start. I really want to move on. I want to forget all about the whole dismal episode.

I may end up re-writing the original blog post that I deleted, and publishing it in its edited form, as some kind of closure.

Publish or perish.

You have to understand that's why I write: because it's a life-or-death situation.

Tags: #writing #socialmedia #suicide

This is a story about isolation...

The school I briefly attended in France and the final 2 years of my full-time education were alright, but from the age of 3 to the age of 16, I was bullied every day at playgroup and school. I was bullied badly. 8 different schools. 6 different houses. 3 different countries. It all takes its toll.

The job I ended up doing earns me instant abuse - the geek, the nerd, the pimple-faced anorak, the dork, the dweeb, the spod... the list of insults is endless and it seems to be socially acceptable to casually toss these terms of derision around, as if us computer experts don't have feelings.

Poor me.

Of course, to think of myself as a victim - even though I clearly am - earns me further disdain. To pity myself is apparently not allowed. Perhaps I'm victim playing for attention or sympathy. Perhaps I should just get over it. Perhaps I should man up. It's all my fault. I'm to blame for everything.

Poor me.

Only not poor me, because I'm the one who's to blame. I've got a punchable face. I've got an irritating voice. I was born to be a punchbag. I'm here for you to use and abuse - that's my function in life.

I decided to say fuck it. I became a homeless, bankrupt, alcoholic, junkie, benefit scrounger, soap dodger, mental health problems, work-shy layabout, lazy, bone-idle, no-good, waste-of-space, undesirable, crusty, scumbag, useless, drain on society, piece of shit. Death's too good for me. String me up. Don't even piss on me if I'm on fire.

I'm quite familiar with being picked on; ganged up on. I'm quite familiar with being universally hated; spat upon. I'm quite familiar with being everybody's favourite person to bully, torment, persecute and generally shit on.

The net result is me.

I'm Nasty Nick.

Hello pleased to meet you how do you do?

None of what I've been through gives me the right to be shit to other people, by way of revenge. Despite what I've been through, I don't think that it's an excuse to treat others in the terrible way that I've been treated. What I've been through gives me a lot of appreciation for how awful it is to be ganged up on and abused, which makes me want to avoid similar situations - I'm highly attuned to any abusive language, and I avoid anybody who has a bullying manner. I choose to surround myself with sensitive, empathetic, kind, compassionate and caring people, who speak and act respectfully.

If you think I'm a nasty person, that's because I'm Nasty Nick, pleased to meet you. If you think I'm a vicious, bully who says abusive things, I'm sorry you think that. I don't think that kind of behaviour is justified - ever - for the reasons outlined above.

I write.

That's what I do - I write. I write because I'm a writer. I have a blog and I have a Twitter and a Facebook page. I write online. I'm a geek, a nerd, a dork, an anorak, a dweeb... etc. etc. and what I do is I write online. I write online because I've always written online. I've been writing online since the dawn of the internet. I've been writing online since before the internet, when I used to write stuff on bulletin boards with a dial-up modem. I'm not a troll. I write under my own name. You can see what I write and you can judge for youself whether what I write is nasty or not.

I'm Nasty Nick. Judge for yourself. Is Nasty Nick nasty? Almost everything I've ever written is available online, so it's all there for you to read. Nasty Nick has nowhere to hide.

I'm going through life the only way I know how. Do you think I wanted to be bullied all those years and years at school? Do you think I want to be abused because of the job I do? Do you think that anybody would choose bullying and isolation? Do you think anybody would choose to be called all manner of names under the sun?

I look isolated - I am after all the homeless junkie alcoholic bankrupt with mental health problems - but I have connected with so many people online. My online friends are my friends. I don't make any distinction between online friends and people who I see away from the keyboard. I don't have two personas. I don't have a fake identity which I use online. I don't hide behind the screen - what you see is what you get.

I'm pissed off when strong healthy happy people gang up and pick on me, because I'm a vulnerable person - I'm an easy target. I'm pissed off when strong healthy happy people pick on other vulnerable people. Those bullies can go and suck a bag of fucking dicks. Those cunts are responsible for suicides.

There we go. I'm Nasty Nick. I'm an easy target. If you gang up on me, you'll win. Well done.

Tags: #writing #socialmedia

This is a story about pseudonyms...

I've moved house. I now live at the following address:

Mr Nick "Manic" Grant
Number One
Wales
United Kingdom

Send me a letter. I'm sure it'll get delivered. Pay me a visit sometime. Search for my address on Google Maps to see where I live.

The man who has nothing has nothing to lose.

I got used to the anonymity of London; the urban solitude; the crowds. I got used to my life being completely destroyed. I was always closer to death and destitution than I was to recovery and happiness, so I didn't care about my privacy. In fact I really did care about my privacy: specifically I didn't want to have any privacy, because I wanted the world to know all the reasons why my life was falling to pieces. I wanted witnesses. I wanted people to understand why I was dying or dead.

Things are different now.

When I recovered in London and got off the streets and back into civilised society, I still wasn't part of a community. In fact, I lost the community that I belonged to. I used to be a member of the homeless community, but then I got a nice apartment and I was no longer homeless. Twice I got myself off the streets and into a place of my own. Twice I dug myself out of a deep hole and sorted myself out... perhaps even three times. Each time everything fell to pieces.

I leapt at the chance to move to Manchester because I was homeless and bankrupt. I found a kind of community in Manchester... a community of addicts. That wasn't good.

When I was offered the chance to move to Wales, I was homeless and running out of money fast, and I was a patient on a locked hospital psych ward. In Wales I have found a community. It's a small place. People know each other. There are fewer degrees of separation. There isn't the anonymity of a giant city with millions of inhabitants. London has 9 or 10 million people. Manchester has the best part of 3 million people. That's more than the entire population of Wales.

I've made numerous assumptions about people's ability to make connections. I've assumed that by not mentioning names, places, dates etc. then I've managed to obfuscate anything that would allow anybody to be identified. I've assumed that nobody would have any idea who I'm talking about - or ever be able to discover who I'm talking about - when I write "my friends" or "my girlfriend" for example. I've steered clear of using the initial of the first or last name, or anything else that might be vaguely identifying.

Having lived out my life publicly on the pages of this blog for the best part of 3 years, I'm quite used to having visitors from all over the world reading my stuff. It's quite normal for me to tell the entire world all the gory details of my murky past and dodgy deeds. I'm pretty transparent; an open book.

Somebody from where I work has found my blog. I've upset some people who are very important to me, inadvertently, by writing something that I have subsequently deleted. To refer to these events is a risk. Those people will be able to identify themselves even if nobody else would ever be able to discover who I'm talking about. I guess my work colleague - for example - is thinking "how the hell?" and feeling a little spied on. My justification for writing whatever the hell I want has always been that you chose to come here and read all about me, which kinda means I'm allowed to know that you've been reading. If you have an opinion about me, I'll have an opinion about you... and I might share that opinion, although anonymised so only you know who I'm talking about.

Upon reflection, I've got too much to lose. I like my friends, my girlfriend, my job, my apartment. My life is going OK and we're coming into spring. My mood is improving. The future looks really great. Things are going really well now that I've overcome a whole heap of super-duper stressful stuff. Upon reflection, I'm no longer the man who has nothing, who has nothing to lose.

When I was down on my luck, I had no responsibilities because I couldn't handle any responsibilities. I didn't owe anybody anything, because I didn't have anything. I'd lost everything, which liberated me. I'm no longer liberated. I have to act responsibly.

I need to treat friends with respect. I need to treat my girlfriend with respect. I need to treat the local community with respect. I need to treat my colleagues with respect. I need to treat my profession with respect. My conduct needs to completely change from the kind of conduct that was appropriate for a destitute homeless guy with mental health problems, into conduct more befitting of the fine upstanding member of society that I'm now supposed to exemplify.

It's a transition period. I need to move from the old world to the new paradigm, where my life is improving and I've got lots of good things that I want to hang onto. I'm bound by the Official Secrets Act, as if to remind me that my old life of writing whatever the hell I wanted is now over.

I'm not sure how I'm going to use my blog as a healthy coping mechanism anymore, but I've just been through one of the most ridiculously stressful periods of my life, and it literally nearly killed me - I'm not being hyperbolic. I hope that I'm naturally not going to need to write "cry for help" or "angry rant" type pieces to dissipate the negative emotions and avoid killing myself. I hope that one day this might change from being a suicide note to something else. I have hope. I'm working towards a brighter, happier future.

There are going to be bumps in the road, I'm sure, but I really don't want to piss off my friends, girlfriend or work colleagues. Obviously, I have those people in my life and it might be unavoidable to mention them using those anonymised monikers, but I'm not going to be writing about them if you know what I mean. It'd be nice if can hang onto some of the good things I've gained in my life. It'd be nice if I can start to grow my group of friends rather than continuing the destructive patterns.

I doubt I'm going to write under a pen name; a pseudonym. I'm loud and I'm proud. This is the journey I've been on and I'm good at what I do. Why should I hide? Why should I be anonymous?

However, I appreciate that most other people are at completely the opposite end of the privacy/openness spectrum from me, and don't appreciate even the tiniest little things being splurged all over the pages of the internet, no matter how anonymised they are. Though I can't fully relate, I can respect those wishes and attempt to change my wicked ways. Sorry.

Tags: #writing #socialmedia #homeless #wales

This is a story about high stakes...

This time tomorrow I'll have almost everything I need for a happy contented stable ordinary humble modest little life. I can park my car on my driveway. I can sleep in my own apartment. I can drive to my job. I can do my work. I can get paid. I can see my girlfriend. I can pay my bills. What more does a man need in life?

A person who's more risk-averse than me would probably ditch this blog and my Twitter and Facebook pages, and hide their digital identity. It makes sense for me to cover up my chequered past. Nobody needs to know that my path to this point has been non-linear. Nobody needs to know that I've had my difficulties during the last few years. I can erase myself. I can expunge myself from the archives. I can ditch the world's longest suicide note and pretend like I've been fine all along.

I must admit that I Google'ed myself, just to check that I'm safely buried deep in the depths of the internet, in some dark recess that nobody would think to look for me. Sadly, it seems like I appear on page 2. I guess that means that somebody would have to be doing some very determined digging to find me... they'd have to click on the "next page" button, so that's pretty hard to find, right? Also, I'm wearing a disguise in my profile picture. In real life I look nothing like my profile picture, because of my cunning infallible disguise.

I tried hard to bury my blog by writing a whole load of really boring stuff, so that anybody who found it would quickly decide that there was nothing interesting to read. I mean, there isn't but I'm pretty exposed and vulnerable. If somebody wanted to dig dirt on me, they'd find it pretty easy. There's a lot of stuff that would encourage deeper digging. If you want to discourage anybody from looking too closely, it's best to put a layer of really boring crap on top.

I tried to steer clear of putting anything on here that was specific and would make me identifiable. I don't - for example - mention the exact place I live or where I work. I don't mention names, except my own of course. Why would I write under my own name? Surely that's madness. Well... it's something I've always done. I hate that the internet has made people feel like they're protected by the screen, hiding behind their anonymous avatar. I'm me - it's my face and it's my name, except for my cunning disguise, of course.

Things are really high-stakes. I can't afford any major setbacks. I don't want to jeopardise my livelihood; my financial security. I don't want to risk a domino-like chain of events that would cause my whole life to collapse. I've almost got all the things I need in life... so damn close.

I've written blog posts where I've given very precise details about my financial situation. Sometimes what I've written has seemed a little vulgar; a little boastful. That's not what it's about. I've been really suicidal because of the ludicrousness of the situation where I can work and earn a lot of money, but I'm being blocked and thwarted. I find it unbearably frustrating when I'm not allowed to get ahead in life. I need to have this record of the insanity of the situation. I need people to be able to understand my frustrations in the event that I killed myself.

For the record, I think my suicidal thoughts are driven by circumstances. I think my depression is driven by circumstances. I think that my thoughts and feelings are a sane response to an insane world. Things in my life are good, and so I don't feel suicidal anymore.

It might seem like I'm oversharing, but it's immensely beneficial to me to have people share my frustrations - my highs and lows - and empathise with my situation. It's immensely useful to not feel alone. It's immensely helpful to have people who care able to see what's going on with me: you can dip into my world any time you want. Most people who read my blog are trying to help me. Only once or twice have I ever suffered prejudice and discrimination because my honesty has been used against me. I think it's unethical to use something like this against somebody. I don't write anything that would breach any code of conduct or otherwise present a problem for my employers. I don't bring my profession into disrepute or otherwise comport myself in a way that would justify being disciplined, dismissed and/or tossed onto the street like a piece of trash.

The ethical dilemma falls on the reader. What are YOU going to do with the private and personal information that you've obtained? It was your choice to come here. It was your choice to read. It's now your responsibility to use the knowledge you've gained responsibly. If you want to use anything you've read here against me, how are you going to sleep at night? It's immoral to cyber-snoop for stuff that you're going to use against people. It's immoral to discriminate.

I'm just like you, but I write my stream-of-consciousness down on a public website. Use it wisely. With great power comes great responsibility.

In the era of post-privacy this is the future. I've got a head start - an 850,000 word head start.

Tags: #writing #privacy #socialmedia

This is a story about national security...

"I've decided to take my work back underground, to stop it falling into the wrong hands". I suppose any of our creations can take on a life of their own and have unintended consequences, and I'm certainly catching some flack as a result of my 3-year daily writing experiment at the moment, which is not entirely unjustified.

My daily writing habit is a useful exercise for me, so I'm sure I'll continue to write in some capacity, but I'm almost at the point where my blog has given me the therapeutic benefit of restoring me to stability, health, wealth and prosperity, and I have to tread carefully so that I don't undo any of the good work.

I started writing when I had my back to the wall. I started writing when I didn't feel like I had anything particularly to fall back on. I started writing when I didn't feel proud that I'd achieved anything - my life was incredibly fragile. Nobody could argue that this blog hasn't anchored me in the world, bringing me into contact with many lovely people and providing me with a creative outlet, a sense of accomplishment and some routine in my otherwise chaotic and stressful life.

I doubt very much that I'll be able to change my habits completely, but I do need to adapt to my present paradigm - I can't keep writing as if I've got nothing to lose, because it's not true at the moment.

Perhaps I'll have to start keeping a private journal, because I've been using writing as a mechanism to flush out all the bad and stressful thoughts that have threatened to overwhelm me, but a large part of my present worries revolve around imposter syndrome. I make no secret of anything, but I'd still prefer it if my colleagues and other important gatekeepers in my life didn't read what I write - with my defences down - and leap to the wrong conclusions. It's been hard enough to date girls when I'm so easily cyber-stalked.

Given the choice between a digital identity, or a healthy set of local relationships, I would have to choose the latter if I was forced, although having the former is very useful as a fallback option. Three times I've lost a lot of friends due to a break-up, with one of those times very nearly costing me my life, and the other two not exactly faring much better either. I've not been very successful at building robust local social networks in the last few years. I need a group of friends I see and speak to regularly, that wouldn't be affected by any breakups. I need that safety net. In the absence of the time, money, energy, transport and a number of other things, I've not progressed things very far yet, so I'm very grateful for my online social network and I always will be, but I do need healthy local face-to-face relationships too.

Getting a girlfriend can be a quick-fix when you're lonely, as it's so easy to be the +1 and tag along to all of her social events, and ingratiate yourself into her social circle, but it's a dangerous strategy. It's too much of a dependency on one person. It's a mistake. Thankfully, I have valuable and important local friendships that predate any of my dating shenanigans. I need to continue to make friends of my own, and establish a pattern of social engagements which are not couples-only events.

Work colleagues and a great team environment can make a huge difference, and sadly that's been lacking in my life recently. Hopefully that's going to be rectified really soon. There's a slight danger in mixing personal life with work too much, when you're in the position I'm in, where I'm trying to get myself back into the respectable world - some of the recent events in my turbulent life are not office-gossip friendly. I've not got anything to hide, particularly, but I'd rather not challenge anybody to be open minded, if it's at all avoidable.

I'm treading a fine line between trying to do what I have to for my own sanity and stability, balanced with the needs of those who I have relationships with and my responsibilities regarding confidentiality, secrecy, discretion, professional conduct, respect of privacy, not causing shock, alarm or distress. It's a fine line between keeping my support network informed of what's going on during a time when I'm very vulnerable, and saying things that're going to paradoxically make me more vulnerable. It's one thing to confide in friends behind closed doors, and quite another to write publicly on a website.

Me being me, I doubt I'll be able to make a sudden overnight change, and I don't want to lose this valuable therapeutic tool, but I do need to start changing my behaviour in light of my new circumstances.

I doubt I'm going to be writing about what I ate for breakfast and live-blogging about the fresh paint that's drying on the walls, but things might have to turn a little more pedestrian for a while... at least until things are more settled.

Presently stressed out of my mind with the transition from one life to another, but hopefully everything will work out and go smoothly.

Tags: #writing #socialmedia #career #friends #relationships

This is a story about giving the audience what they want...

It should come as no surprise that Google mainly brings me readers who wish to find out how to kill themselves. My number one blog post is all about how to suppress the hypercapnic alarm response, in order to be able to asphyxiate yourself, or in other words suffocate to death. For writing candidly about suicide, I was once accused of being irresponsible by a psychiatrist, but frankly if somebody's intent on killing themseves then they're going to find a way. I'm not encouraging anybody to commit suicide, nor do I glamourise suicide - you must surely be convinced that my life is not an enviable one. How is it possible to envy the dead anyway? There have been 100 billion humans who have died since homo sapiens became a species, so it's hardly like I'm a unique role model.

Secondly, Google brings me readers who very dearly wish to know how to have better sex. I don't mean lovemaking techniques, I mean drugs and medications that significantly enhance sex. The main search term that seems to bring readers in their droves is "drugs that make you horny". Perhaps more interesting - although very few people search for this - is my research into medications that allow men to have multiple orgasms. There's information hidden in these pages that explain how to reach unimaginable heights of sexual ecstasy, so I don't really know why the Google searches seem so unimaginative and my sordid little guides on how to have masses of mind-blowing orgasms remain largely overlooked.

That I know what kind of Google searches bring readers to my website is not any kind of hacking or cybersnooping, but is a service that Google themselves provide called Google Webmaster Tools. In addition, there is Google Analytics, which somewhat less reliably tells me the keywords that people used to search and find this site. The idea is that I could better tailor my content to give people what they want. People seem to mainly want to kill themselves with nitrogen gas, or some other inert gas other than carbon dioxide.

It's sometimes said that we see a world that reflects our own feelings. So, if we're angry then we perceive the world as being an angry place. Because I'm depressed and suicidal, I therefore see depression and suicide everywhere I look. However, there are good data to support my feelings: suicide is the number one killer of men under the age of 45... far bigger than any diseases, car accidents, murder, drug addiction and all the other things you could think of that would prematurely kill a person. It seems I'm onto something doesn't it?

What do any of us want other than to fuck, eat, sleep, procreate and various other things that an organism would be expected to do? I could write about food and the pleasure of eating, but I've found that the pursuit of drug-enhanced sex has been more rewarding. I could write about extreme sports, and the adrenalin rush from doing dangerous things, but I've found that taking addiction to its most extreme has been far more exciting than any parachute jump or cliff face that I've climbed.

There are an incredible amount of people who want to read about getting high. There are very few people who seem to want to read about quitting drugs, although my blog posts about detox and rehab are often visited. There are heaps and heaps of people who want to get sober. In fact, it's quite depressing just how many people are looking for a cure for their alcoholism. There are heaps and heaps of alcoholics who would very dearly like to find a way out of the situation they're trapped in, and some of them find their way to this website looking for answers.

Another thing I can see is trends. I can see whether I'm getting more visitors, or fewer. I can see that live-publishing a draft manuscript of a novel on my blog was not a crowd pleaser. I can see that documenting the trials and tribulations of an IT consultant working for an investment bank is not a crowd pleaser. I can see that generally, there's an inverse correlation between how well I am, and how many visitors I get to my website. That would be expected... there are a lot of concerned people out there, and when things are going swimmingly there isn't so much of a need to keep an eye on somebody who's been actively suicidal at other times. However, there's a cynical part of me that wonders how much people are looking for drama, also. There's very little drama in a wealthy white educated middle-class guy complaining about his lot in life, because his job is a little underwhelming.

Of course, I'm writing now with my tongue in my cheek.

There's more drama than there's ever been, because this is make-or-break time. I'm fending off drug addiction, sex addiction, porn addiction, alcoholism, risk taking, money spending, near-bankruptcy, crushing levels of debt, homelessness, insomnia, anxiety and panic attacks, suicidal depression and complete melancholic malaise about my life and the state of the whole world and those who live upon this planet's surface. In terms of jeopardy, things are at their most precarious, because a slip-up now would send me crashing drastically. To relapse when I'm in the middle of on/off addiction and a mental health crisis is no drama because I'm living with daily highs and lows and I don't spend more than a few days or weeks without a major incident. To relapse now would be to throw away 6 or 7 months of arduous struggle against adversity. To relapse now would be a cruel blow, when I've overcome such insurmountable odds.

To deviate from my plan and my story would be foolish. To attempt to react to the stats and the data I have in my possession and write what the audience seem to want - to play to the crowd - would keep me in a perpetual state of sickness. If I was intent on having the most popular blog that I could write, it would conflict with my desire to recover and live a normal life. I've even been accused of wanting to stay sick to please my 20,000 Twitter followers. I'm regularly accused of being alarmist, attention seeking and melodramatic. I'm occasionally accused of being contrived, and even that I'm some kind of fake.

Where's the punchline, we wonder. When am I going to ask you to reach for your credit card? Am I selling T-shirts and mugs? Am I going to emblazon this site with advertising and harvest your personal data? Am I going to start a mailing list and spam you? How do I even make money out of this? Do I want fame or notoriety?

Of course I want to be noticed. Of course I want readers; followers. Of course I want what I write to be read. How ridiculous to suggest that there's some virtue in writing in obscurity. It's not noble to hide your thoughts and feelings and emotions and inner monologue... it's stupid. What people want to read more than anything else is authentic writing from real people. Public diaries; journals; blogs. If you like people and human stories, what could be better than the real-life soap opera of a person's life laid bare for all to see, warts and all.

I don't know where I'm going with this, but I don't want to go down the well-trodden path of clickbait and slavishly obeying the analytic data that seems to suggest that pictures of kittens and puppies go down very well on the internet. What kind of an artwork would I be creating, if I was to ask the audience what I should paint on my canvas?

Does life imitate art, or does art imitate life?

Tags: #socialmedia #writing