This is a story about treatment and therapy...

I write about my own personal experiences of depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, suicidal plans and suicide attempts, because that's what I would want to read if I was in crisis. There's a mountain of material on the web about the symptoms of mental illness, dealing with a crisis, coping with suicidal thoughts, counselling, crisis support, mental health teams, crisis teams, doctors, healers, witch doctors, shamen... and all the rest of it.

It's all been done to death.

So, here's what I'm doing: I write.

I've tried absolutely tons of medications, and all of them have undesirable side-effects, and ultimately didn't bring me a good long-term outcome. I refuse to accept that I simply haven't found the right medication, at the right dose, in the right combinations: personally, I've exhausted that avenue, and found it to be a fruitless exercise. That's not to say that medication won't work for you, and you shouldn't try it, but it didn't work for me.

I tried counselling and behavioural therapies. Nope. Probably OK if you're just 'a bit sad' but if you're reading this then you're probably well beyond being 'a bit sad'. That's not to say you shouldn't try therapy. Everyone's different. However, for me personally, I don't think 45 minutes a week is going to fix all my problems, sorry.

It's important to acknowledge, though, that following the treatment routes which have been resoundingly proven to be ineffective, can be a useful distraction which will eat up a few years of your life. Although I can say with certainty that the long-term outcomes are not attractive, in the short term, there's a lot to be gained from the process of learning about all the different medications and trying them out: it'll keep you busy!

Also, we shouldn't underestimate the power of having a kind non-judgemental person, listening to your traumatic story. Being heard is super important; super healing. Having somebody tell you that you did the best with the hand you were dealt, can be incredibly important, to forgive yourself and start to feel better about being unwell; not so guilty or broken.

I write because it's unlimited free therapy. Instead of only having 45 minutes a week with a therapist, my therapist - the blank page upon which I write - is available 24 x 7 x365, and I can spend as long as I want in a therapy session for free. The free part is not to be underestimated: therapy is really expensive (although it might be money well spent if it works for you). Also, the blank page is the world's best listener: it never interrupts, misunderstands, disagrees, challenges, contradicts, argues or otherwise talks back, which is *perfect* as a therapist.

Given that therapy is pretty much just guided introspection, there's no reason why you can't learn the techniques to explore your own thoughts and feelings, without a guide. Now I'm in the habit of sitting down in front of my blank page every day, I find it really easy to explore whatever's bothering me, or to dig into baggage from the past... whatever I want - it's my time and I'm paying for it!

From personal experience, not professional qualification, I really urge you to write on a regular basis, therapeutically. It's helped more than anything else I've tried, by far.

Of course, we would all love to find an authority figure - a doctor or similar high professional status person - who we can put our faith in to 'cure' us and take care of all our problems, but the reality is that depression and anxiety are modern epidemics, and medicine has failed to provide effective treatment; the problems are getting worse, not better. Ultimately, we are - unfortunately - personally responsible for our safety and wellbeing. Much though I wish there was a magic person in a magic building with magic beans, like a doctor in a hospital with some pills, it's turned out to be a massive disappointment... we're on our own.

Of course you should phone the crisis hotline if you're on the brink of committing suicide. Of course you should go to your doctor and take their advice. Of course you should seek professional help. However, if - like me - you've tried all that and found it to be a dismal disappointment, then I imagine that's why you're here, right now, reading this.

Try writing. It helps.

Tags: #suicide #depression #mentalhealth

This is a story about leaving a legacy...

I think that "attention seeking" is a very serious - and particularly mean - charge to lay at the door of a suicidal person, but we should explore the topic. I feel like we should unpick the matter.

Suicide is not - and I must stress this - an attention seeking act. It is a death-seeking act. People commit suicide because they want or need to be dead, not to gain attention. What an idiotic thing to say, write or think, that suicidal people are attention seeking: can't get any attention when you're dead. You'll have no idea who attended your funeral... maybe nobody; you'll never know.

By extension then, it seems obvious that being suicidal is not attention-seeking either. A person must be suicidal before they commit suicide, even if only for a fraction of a second. The state of being suicidal is unavoidable on the route to suicide.

The problem comes when people are depressed and suicidal for a long time and/or make failed attempts to end their lives. Then, it's possible - for idiots - to start thinking that it's "attention seeking" behaviour, instead of the death seeking behaviour that it actually is.

"Why don't you just kill yourself then?"

If you're thinking that, you're probably a psychopath and/or a sociopath. Try having some empathy, fuckwit.

Sure, if you want to go around calling people's bluff, you might well find that they don't just kill themselves on demand, at the snap of your impatient fingers. We can be certain that if your attitude is to say "I bet you're not even going to do it" then YOU are the reason why our suicide rates are sky-high and rising; the number one cause of death in men under 50.

Okay, what about legacy? What about the right to die with a shred of dignity?

Suicide notes are super common, which indicates that it's really important to us - as humans - to die with the dignity of some final words. Suicide notes might take one last swipe at persecutors - bullies - and/or explain the final straw, or other setbacks which contributed to life becoming intolerable; unbearable; unliveable. To leave - to commit suicide - without some kind of note is very rare.

Would you deny a dying grandmother on her deathbed a few final words? No.

Of course, my "world's longest suicide note" has become far more than a few final words, but it's a constant insurance policy, in the presence of near-constant suicidal thoughts. When my life was very chaotic, I had no idea when I was going to commit suicide, and as it turns out the most recent couple of attempts have taken me by surprise as much as anybody. That might sound ludicrous to you, that I found myself somewhat unexpectedly committing suicide, but that's how it it when you're living on the edge; it just takes one little thing to tip you over.

I can see that an unkind person might see my lengthy writing project as attention seeking. Certainly, it's true that I want to leave a legacy. Sometimes, I've had nothing but this website as a creation that I can point to and say "that's mine; I made that". I've had nothing in my life that I was proud of, that spoke of my creativity and productivity, other than the words I've written and published. Why shouldn't I have something like this - my collected published works - as a legacy to leave behind?

Another thing worth talking about is attention. If I have people reading what I write, I feel better than if nobody is reading what I write. Do you think there would be any writers, actors, musicians and other creative people in the world, if nobody wanted to read, listen, watch or otherwise spectate? "Attention seeking" is a pejorative term, implying that to want to be noticed is wrong. However, if we are totally ignored, we're as good as dead. If we're totally ignored, we die and nobody cares. Well, if that's what YOU want, you go right ahead, but frankly, I'm not going to apologise for wanting people to care whether I'm alive or dead... and I don't think that's a bad thing, in the way that the "attention seeking" accusation implies.

Am I happy I have readers? Yes.

Am I faking being depressed and suicidal to get attention? No.

Am I going to kill myself on YOUR timescale to suit YOUR impatience? No.

Tags: #suicide

This is a story about boredom...

What if I offered you a six-figure salary to do nothing? Would you take it? Of course you'd take it, right? Think of all the great stuff you could buy with a six-figure income. Think of what a great house and car you could buy. Think of all the holidays you could have. Think of all the lovely things that money would buy.

Wrong.

Firstly, going on holiday is not "doing nothing". If you're on holiday, you won't be earning your six-figure salary: you're only paid for the time you're doing nothing.

Fine, you say.

But.

You're going to have to spend some time doing nothing, in order to get your hands on the money. How much time do you think you could spend doing nothing in any given year? Assuming that you spend about 5 weeks each year on holiday, that means you'll have to spend 47 weeks doing nothing. That's achievable, right?

Wrong.

It's a lot harder doing nothing than doing something. You might not realise this - because you've never had to do nothing - but it's the hardest thing in the world. Perhaps if you work as a security guard or a solidier, you might be able to legitimately claim that you've got first-hand experience of doing nothing, but that's not true. It's well known that doing nothing is impossible, so security guards and soldiers get paired up or given 'lone worker' tasks to do, in order to break the monotony of the task.

In fact, every time you were bored, you just walked out of that job and went and got another one; every time your situation was uncomfortable, you changed it. Your entire life consists of chatting to people, making cups of tea/coffee and undertaking a variety of tasks. You never do nothing.

Doing nothing pays the most money.

Boredom is directly proportional to remuneration; the more boring a job is, the more you get paid (with the exception of being a security guard, perhaps). Maybe it's like a 'U' shape actually - there are really badly paid jobs which are boring, and the best paid jobs which are boring, and the jobs in the middle are the interesting ones.

The best thing I can do at the moment is nothing. The more I keep quiet and keep my head down, the better. Far better if I avoid trouble and don't do anything - do nothing - to earn loads of money.

It's unbearable.

Most people are led by impulse and instinct, but I have to fight my gut every step of the way. If I did what 'felt' right then I would quit what I'm doing and just figure things out - anything's better than being trapped doing nothing, bored. Of course, I would miss the 'easy' money, so I keep going, because my head says it's the right thing to do. I know that the suffering will yield vast financial compensation, even if the means of achieving it are intolerable.

I suppose you think that it's a nice problem to have but you'd be mistaken. We can all prostitute ourselves, or otherwise do work which is toxic to our dignity, sense of wellbeing, sense of achievement, mental health etc. Of course, some sex workers are happy doing what they're doing, so use your imagination: you could earn a lot of money doing crime if you wanted to.

If you think what I'm writing is entitled and whingey, fuck off. If you're thinking "we all have to suffer a little boredom occasionally" then you're right... "occasionally". When it becomes your full-time job to be bored out of your mind, then it goes beyond 'normal' and moves into the territory of an extreme health hazard; a threat to life.

Of course I can see the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but I can also see the broken glass and razor blades I have to crawl over to get there. Sure, I probably will get there in the end, but I'm going to whine and complain the whole way, because it's a ridiculous waste of time, energy and talent, to have a person tormented - in agony - with insufferable boredom.

Tags: #boredom #work

This is a story about reckless misconduct...

To say that I have great power would be delusional and grandiose. To say that I'm anything other than another anonymous voice in an infinite sea of near-identical voices - constant background noise; static hiss - would be to lose all perspective on reality. I. Am. Nothing.

However.

It has not escaped my notice that ever more thousands of people are reading my blog every day. It seems that I've rather stumbled upon something which many people are searching for, which my website has the answers to. Alarmingly, it's on the topic of suicide.

Stuff I wrote without thinking a great deal about the consequences, now potentially could have very bad consequences. Woe betide me if something I wrote was sufficient to push a person who would otherwise have lived, over the edge and into an act of suicide. How awful it would be if I some how enabled or encouraged or unwittingly aided and abetted in any way - no matter how small - the avoidable death of a person, or indeed persons.

Suicidal thoughts are, sadly, very common. I personally suffer from suicidal thoughts on a daily basis, and suicide plays a very big part in my life; my plans. I have firm plans to kill myself at the moment; I live with plans to commit suicide, day in and day out.

When I wrote what I wrote - mainly the thing about suicide methods seems to be the most popular essay - I thought there was no harm in having a frank discussion about things, given that all forms of media - books, films, radio, TV etc - contain depictions of suicide, and it seems inconceivable that we could have gone through life and not encountered at least one method, even if we expressly avoided anything gruesome and unpleasant.

In the context of writing in obscurity, I could write whatever I wanted, safe in the knowledge that nobody was reading it. Certainly, I never had to consider any consequences of what I wrote.

Now, things are a little different.

Some people write to me. I left an open invitation for people to get in touch, and they do. They're in all kinds of different situations, but they're all suicidal... or at least they tell me that they are, and who am I to doubt them? I'm not a trained counsellor. I'm not a specialist in mental health crises, except by way of my own experience. I'm not qualified. I'm not a professional in the field of suicide... merely a person who's attempted suicide a bunch of times, and who has written over a million words on the subject. I very much feel that I'm the wrong person to get in contact with, for those who are looking for a more traditional crisis counsellor, such as the one you might speak to if you pick up the phone on the Golden Gate Bridge, for example.

I know from personal experience, that sometimes you don't want to speak to somebody traditional who is going to say all the same old clichéd things. Personally, I've found it more useful to talk to people who genuinely understand what it's like to be suicidal; not in some abstract sense, from training courses and suchlike. I'm sure all the mental health professionals are super great at their jobs, and many of them do have personal experience of depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts, but there's something homogenous about their approach; there are no surprises and nothing useful - personally - in any of the things they've said to me, in the past.

It seems criminally reckless of me to perhaps venture into a world which is the strictly reserved for trained, qualified members of professional bodies, who are - in theory - the most competent and capable people in existence, able to deal with suicidal people.

However.

It's not working.

More people than ever are depressed. More people than ever are anxious. More people than ever are suicidal.

So, I'm making myself, and what I know, publicly available. I've written vast amounts on the subject of suicide. I've open-sourced my experiences. You can contact me, and I'll do my best to reply.

Will I talk you out of suicide? No.

Am I offering something better than counselling, therapy and medicine? No.

Why read what I've got to say? Why get in contact? Well, because maybe you don't want to hear yet more clichéd "don't do it... you've got so much to live for... think of the pain you'll cause" type BS. Maybe you want to hear from somebody who's experiencing what you're experiencing. Maybe you want to hear that it's OK to feel what you're feeling in a way, because somebody else is struggling too. There's a lot of guilt about wanting to die, and I think that's wrong. It's OK to want to die; it's normal... it's more normal than you could ever possibly imagine.

Usual caveats apply: I want to live in a zero suicide world. I do not encourage, endorse or otherwise want to enable and/or aid and abet suicide in any way, no matter how small.

Tags: #suicide

This is a story about Tourette's...

I struggle with invasive thoughts. The thoughts are so traumatic that they cause me to wince and yell. I shout out in pain and shock when the thoughts hit me. It makes me appear like I have a tic.

What is a tic anyway?

Somebody who suffers with Tourette's is able to suppress their tic for a brief period, but then they have to let it out; to scratch the itch, as it were. I'm not claiming to have Tourette's of course, but I have some of the symptoms.

I live alone - except for my cat - in a big old house with thick walls, so I can shout out when I get hit by the invasive thoughts, and I'm mostly not bothering anybody. Sometimes I go out for a walk and I can't control the thoughts, so I yell out and flinch - tic - while I'm walking down the road. If anybody sees me, they must think that I'm very strange.

I can control my tic - mostly - when I'm in a work setting. Sometimes it gets the better of me and I mutter something or flinch in the company of my colleagues. They mostly don't notice or comment, but sometimes they do, occasionally.

I don't particularly try to control my tic when I'm with my girlfriend. We're usually in a relaxed private setting anyway, so I don't have to concentrate on controlling it as much as I can. The invasive thoughts, yelling, yelping, flinching, grimacing and other things too, happen all the time. It's fairly disconcerting to anybody who's not spent time in the company of somebody with the particular neurological complaint.

I won't be seeking any medical help for the problem. It seems to be exacerbated by alcohol, or rather by withdrawal from alcohol, so the solution is to either drink all the time, or not drink at all. I need to lose some weight and get healthier, so I am choosing the latter at the moment. It's not a severe and debilitating enough problem to seek medical help.

You know when you lie awake at night and you start remembering lots of embarrassing memories? Imagine that, except that it happens from the moment you wake up until the moment you go to sleep, and the memories are so traumatic they feel like they're causing you physical pain. That's what my invasive thoughts are like.

I might have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It seems likely. Given the severity of the trauma I've experienced, and the long-lasting problems I'm having as a result of it, it seems like the most probable thing. It's well beyond "embarrassing memories".

The thoughts don't particularly bother me; they're fleeting. Of course, I'd rather that I didn't yell, grimace, flinch and otherwise react to the severe traumatic flashbacks, but the damage is done and there's nothing much I can do about it. My life is - on the whole - unaffected by the invasive thoughts, given that they are short sharp shocks and not bothering me except for those unpredictable but frequent instants.

I wonder if I've got brain damage, but the question is a bit of a non-sequitur. The brain is a plastic organ, so it's continuously adapting; I definitely don't have a traumatic brain injury or any impairment to suggest any lasting permanent physical damage which my brain hasn't been able to adapt to, and doesn't continuously continue to adapt to.

There have been plenty of incidents which are bound to have damaged my organs, but my physical health seems mostly OK. Of course my kidneys and heart are a worry, and my general fitness levels have dropped to a really bad level, but I'm working on getting fitter.

In the course of writing this, I haven't been bothered by invasive thoughts at all; they only bother me when I'm bored. I like to keep busy. I like to keep my mind occupied. If my brain is active then it doesn't have time for invasive thoughts.

Tags: #mentalhealth #ptsd #tic

This is a story about routine...

Despite the chaotic - and often traumatic - backdrop to my life, during the past 5 years... I have still managed to write on a very regular basis. I've written from a hospital bed on multiple occasions. I've written from a psychiatric ward on multiple occasions. I've written when I've been dreadfully sick - both physically and mentally - and I've documented the path I've taken, from near-bankruptcy and destitution, to stability.

It might not look very healthy, but it is - my writing is a healthy habit.

I skipped writing over the weekend because I was busy. That's OK. I'm allowing myself to skip the occasional day when I'm busy. I'm not going to force myself to write every single day, without fail.

I have decided that I need to get into the habit of writing fewer than 700 words - it's a limit which forces me to be a bit more focussed on what I want to say, and discourages me from aimlessly rambling. Given that I mostly just write my stream-of-consciousness, it makes sense to create an artificial limit, because my thoughts are unending.

As I have repeated oftentimes before - ad nauseam - I am aiming to try to be more forward-looking, and to not dwell in bitterness and regret from the past; to not wallow in my life's misfortunes and my shitty childhood.

I can tell you for certain that I WILL NOT be writing any kind of "things I'm grateful for" vomit-worthy rubbish. Of course I have things I'm grateful for, and I have a great deal of perspective - I know I'm fortunate in many ways - so I don't need or want to have to write down all those things; it's pretty boring.

I'm glad that my skin isn't all peeled off and dipped in salt and acid. I'm grateful my eyes haven't been gouged out by rusty spoons. I'm grateful that my penis hasn't been cut off and stuffed in my mouth...

No.

I spend a significant proportion of my day reading the news, and whenever I see starving African children - etc - then I think "poor starving African children. We should improve the living conditions for human beings". I do not think "I'm glad I'm not a starving African child" because that's just sociopathic. Obviously it's better not to be a starving African child, but I'm afraid I'm cursed with enough empathy to think "we should improve things" as opposed to "I'm so grateful other people's lives are so shitty".

My routine consists of lying in bed reading the news, a shower, feeding the cat, reading the news, catching up on anything I missed at work, reading the news, work, meetings, reading the news, work, lunch, reading the news, work, meetings, work, reading the news, writing, dinner, reading the news, speaking to friends on the phone, watching documentaries about human suffering, social media, sleep... repeat.

As you can see, I read a lot of news.

I do not watch any TV.

I'm certain that I would be happier if I replaced some of that news reading with socialising, but my routine is predictable and somewhat in my control. The only thing I can't control is the human suffering which I see in the news, but I do care and I do what I can - from the confines of my routine - to improve the lives of humanity. Mostly, I do a lot of thinking about the suffering of humanity, but don't mistake me for somebody who doesn't care and doesn't do anything. The emotional labour is exhausting; the mental labour is exhausting. This shouldn't be underestimated.

Of course I want to change my routine. I want to exercise more. I want to socialise more. I want more excitement; variety. However, the routine gives me a great deal of stability, and the stability gives me health and wealth. Stability is very important to me, having had so many years of chaos and trauma.

My routine is important.

Tags: #routine #bipolar

This is a story about crutches...

Trawling through my photos from the past three and a half months, I found very few which would be suitable to accompany what I wanted to write today. The photos on my phone are mostly of my cat(s) and not much else. However, this photo does - rather cryptically - allude to what I am now writing about.

When I started the lockdown, I decided that I wasn't going to bother with a desk or an office chair at home; that I would muddle by with my laptop on my lap. I decided - wrongly - that it wouldn't be worth the effort of setting up a proper office at home.

As I already wrote a few days ago, I started the lockdown drinking copiously. Every day after work, I would pour myself a large glass of wine. I would estimate that my alcohol consumption was somewhere in the region of 8 to 10 bottles of wine per week.

As I already wrote a few days ago, I started the lockdown physically dependent on medication. Every night I took sleeping pills. Every day I took tranquillising sedatives.

Then, it became obvious that there would be dire consequences to my physical health.

I didn't want to finish lockdown as a fat alcoholic pill-popper with a hunched back.

Because I delayed setting up my home office, I didn't have a lot of choice for a desk and an office chair, hence why the ugly garish monstrosity - pictured above - has become part of my home office. The desk is super ugly too. However, it's good to have a more professional set-up instead of reclining on my sofa.

The health improvements to my life don't feel like they're paying dividends. I still feel overweight, unfit and I still crave alcohol. Ostensibly, I feel much the same as I did when I was guzzling booze, popping pills and spending 16 hours a day reclining on my sofa. However, we must acknowledge that there is a very significant difference between an alcoholic pill addict, and somebody who drinks in moderation at the weekends, and is entirely medication free. That I have stabilised myself and found almost liveable and almost bearable sustainable routine without my crutches, is not an achievement which should be underestimated.

The backdrop to the past four months has been the global pandemic which has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, and threatens the livelihoods and living standards of hundreds of millions, if not billions of people. If there was ever a time to feel insecure about money, work and housing, it would be now.

I wouldn't describe myself as a particularly anxious person, but the past 5 years of my life have been spent with the threat of destitution hanging over me. I've been forced to generate vast amounts of money each year in order to protect my credit rating and employability, as well as to simply pay rent, bills and service debts. The amount of money needed to escape my predicament was so vast that I was forced into high-risk high-stress situations, which were potentially high-reward. Eventually, perseverance paid off. There was no other choice: a crappy salaried job would have inevitably led to bankruptcy; the books simply didn't balance with some crap paying job.

So, I've suffered 5 years of incredible, immense stress. I've suffered 5 years of living on the edge of ruin.

When the pandemic started to get very bad in Europe my mood improved considerably. The havoc wrought by the pandemic has brought the stress and suffering that I was enduring into the lives of vast numbers of my fellow people. Suffering collectively is far more bearable than suffering alone.

At some point, I want to stop talking about the difficulties in my past and to talk about the future. I want to put some distance between my past and the present. I want to have a period of wealth and security, which clearly delineates 'now' from 'then'.

I note that my abysmal childhood became unimportant when I started to have success and get ahead in life, in my late teens and early twenties. My rapidly growing bank balance, exotic travel, status symbols - like houses, cars and boats - and adventurous hobbies, felt like I could forget about past transgressions against me: the bullies and abusers were rotting, and I was thriving, so I wasn't bitter and angry; I had broken free from the misery of the past.

My rage at my parents - which has been a repeated theme of the past 5 years - and sad memories of a ruined childhood, which has caused me vast amounts of problems... all becomes irrelevant again, as my health and wealth are regained, and my quality of life improves manyfold.

Yes, my crutches are going to change from alcohol and medications, to be luxury holidays and other trappings of wealth, but I don't care. Alcohol and medications lead to misery and death - they're a dreadful trap, which leads nowhere positive.

I still have suicide as my 'retirement plan' but that's a simple matter of practicality, given that I'm now unable to be likely to accumulate enough wealth to enjoy a comfortable retirement before my health starts to deteriorate. It's something I'm going to have to learn to live with. Or rather, it's something that's going to kill me. C'est la vie. C'est la mort.

Tags: #alcohol #medication #debt #suicide #parents #bullying #childhood #lockdown

This is a story about starting over...

My cat is missing. She's been missing since 26 June. I've posted leaflets through the door of hundreds of homes in the vicinity. I've posted all over social media. I've alerted all my neighbours through private messaging groups. I've spent countless hours walking around, calling her name, shaking her food. I've put her litter, her blanket and her favourite toys around outside my house, in the hope that she'd smell the scent.

All to no avail.

She's gone.

Was she stolen? Was she hit by a car or a train, and the incident didn't get reported; her body wasn't found? Has somebody started feeding her and taken her in as their own? Was she stolen for profit by an unscrupulous rogue? Is she out there somewhere, lost and hungry?

Whatever has happened - and I'll probably never know - she's gone.

Of course, I can play the coulda woulda shoulda game. In the course of my search for her, I've found out that there are lots of cats just like her which are living quite happily in this safe neighbourhood. We live in a leafy, wealthy suburb, plus the streets have been extra quiet and safe because of the Coronavirus lockdown. Perhaps I could have turned my house into some kind of maximum-security cat prison, but why did I need to worry? I live in a nice place and I have nice neighbours; plenty of cats just like her live very happily in this area.

Whatever has happened, she's gone and I can't do anything about it now.

I don't have a time machine. If I did, would I go back and change anything? It's not realistic to put a metal grille over your windows. It's not realistic to install air-lock style security doors. It's not realistic to secure every skylight, window, door and air-vent, which your determined would-be escapee might use in their bid for freedom. I'm trying to live my life, not become a prison warden to a cat, living in some kind of concrete bunker with bars on the windows and heavy metal cell doors.

If I was messing around with time travel, maybe I should go back further and not get the cat.

Maybe I should go back further in time and not give my first cat to my parents, during the messy divorce.

Maybe I should go back further and fix my marriage.

Maybe I should go back further and not even get with that girl who I later married.

Maybe I should go back further... and not even be born.

This reductio ad absurdum reasoning leads me to conclude that it's futile to start wishing to change things in the past, not least because it's impossible anyway. It's futile and unproductive, and it leads nowhere good.

Maybe I'm just covering my ass because my cat is lost and I feel bad about that; somehow responsible. OK so my decision has led to my cat becoming lost. There. I said it. Does that bring my cat back? No.

Anyway, as is often my way, I'm making another point: there are heaps of things which are less-than-ideal in my past, but I can't do anything about them. I've had a really rough bunch of years, and it's caused me a whole heap of problems, but I can't expunge those unfortunate events from history so I'm going to have to live with everything that's happened.

I had a lengthy break from blogging and social media. I felt like it wouldn't be good to be writing every day during lockdown. I thought that the time would pass incredibly slowly if I was writing my blog during the repetitive and monotonous stay-at-home period, where I've been cooped up under the same roof for more than 3 months, with no company except my cat... who has now disappeared.

My intention is to begin writing regularly again, but I hope that my improved mental health, finances and a generally improved outlook to my life - much more stable than in recent years - will provide a backdrop for a period of writing which seems more like a normal happy life; less full of disaster and violent mood swings; less full of powerful negative emotions and terrible memories; less full of bitterness and hate.

Of course, my writing is therapy for me, and part of therapy is venting - catharsis - so I shall no doubt be launching myself into the occasional angry rant from time to time, but I'm hoping to somewhat turn over a new leaf and start with a clean slate as much as possible... although I can never escape my past, and doubly so because I intend to leave this blog in place unedited, containing all the difficulties I've been through in the 5 years I've been writing it.

I'm hoping that by writing a load of new material which is coming from a much more secure and happy place, it will put some time, space and distance between me and the bad stuff in my past.

Tags: #cat

Blogger's Digest: a Novel

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Nine

The summer had felt endless at the time: stepping out of the house in light clothing; shorts and flip-flops; T-shirts and sunglasses. I completely relaxed and enjoyed the good weather, setting aside any concerns about the future, in order to soak up the enjoyment of that pleasant period. I had a tendency to be somewhat absent, brooding anxiously about potential issues, which might be weeks or months away, or indeed might never materialise.

Earlier on in our relationship, Sian would snap her fingers and say "hey? where'd you go?" noticing that my thoughts had wandered and my attention had been diverted away from the present moment, and I had retreated inwardly, ruminating endlessly about a particular future concern of mine.

I had grown comfortable with staying at Sian's house throughout the winter, and spending time on my yacht was a novelty which we enjoyed, even if it was just sipping Prosecco on deck in the marina in the evening, as the sun went down. We engaged in a bit of friendly chit-chat with the yachtie folk, in fine spirits during the summer months, when everybody seemed to be wearing a permanent smile and our skin was sun-kissed and brown, physically epitomising how good our lives were at that particular moment.

I had somewhat taken my eye off the ball.

When the weather became more unpredictable in September, but we still enjoyed a lot of good weather during an exceptional Indian Summer, it was romantic to have to dash below decks when the heavens suddenly opened and a torrent of rain lashed down; the droplets creating an almighty racket as they pelted the thin roof over our heads. We cosied up under a duvet and spooned in post-coital bliss, watching the water as it moved over the hatches and portholes, and feeling incredibly snug and warm - the only thing which could have possibly improved things would have been to have a log fire to watch, as well as the rivers of rain which swept across my deck and drained into the marina. It was better than watching television.

Again, October was upon me and I had made no preparations for the winter. I began to feel very trapped.

The first winter with Sian had been amazing. The pain of the breakup with Caroline was beginning to fade and it had been extremely welcome to be able to begin to move on. The heating situation aboard my yacht was an unanticipated problem, which had caused me a great deal of stress, and Sian had provided an almost-instant solution. Now, however, I felt it was unfair for me to expect to stay with her all winter, again, and I also felt a kind of obligation; a debt of gratitude. Sian was a very easy-going person and there was never any pressure or expectation, but I did feel a natural obligation to please her and go along with her plans, given that she was keeping me warm through the coldest months of thee year. This sense of indebtedness was not something I was used to, and it was particularly exacerbated by the fact that it was to a person, rather than a faceless organisation, to whom I owed that debt; it was a debt which was hard to define, so it was hard to know how it could be repaid. Certainly, I wanted to be relinquished of the burden; to feel free.

I considered my options, of which there were three obvious ones.

Firstly, I could retro-fit a heating system to my yacht. This was likely to be an expensive and time-consuming process, which would be unlikely to be finished until well into the new year. It would be highly costly, yet it would add no value to my yacht, because most buyers would not value it as a feature - hardly anybody lives aboard their yachts in the UK, and in fact most are pulled out of the water and kept on hard standing from approximately November to April.

Secondly, I could sell my yacht and buy another one, which had been designed and built for sailing in more northerly climes. Most of the yachts for sale Nordic countries had efficient heating systems as an intrinsic part of their original shipbuilder's design, and the interior had been sprayed with insulating foam, which was a process which could only be done before the interior of the yacht was fitted. This would be by far the better solution, because a retro-fitted heating system would be highly inefficient without the insulating foam - having to change the gas bottle every week, was an added inconvenience which I didn't want, but a well-insulated yacht would require a fraction of the gas to heat it. However, the process of selling my yacht and buying another one was not going to be quick or easy, and shouldn't be rushed.

Thirdly, I could rent or buy a house of my own. Rushing into a house purchase seemed like insanity, so the only realistic option was to rent, but there were many reasons not to rent a place. I objected to spending a large sum of money, for which somebody else would be receiving the benefits of the yield on their asset - it was dead money; lost. Also, it would be a little hard to explain to Sian why I would want to spend vast sums of money renting a place that I would almost never live in. She was sure to take it as somewhat of an insult; a slight on her hospitality, or perhaps even an indication that I wasn't fond of her, which ran completely contrary to my objectives and my feelings. I was extremely fond of her and she was wonderful host, but that's what made me feel trapped, and as though I owed her something, which was a feeling I wanted to escape.

There was a fourth, completely ridiculous idea, but it was somehow the most appealing of all of them. Because it was such a stupid idea, I tried to dismiss it.

I could have my yacht transported, by road or sea, to Greece or Turkey. She would be lifted out of the water, her mast detached, and then she would be put in a transportation cradle, which would hold her securely, ready to be craned onto the trailer of a lorry. The lorry could either deliver her all the way to my chosen Mediterranean port, or to a UK shipping port, where she would be loaded onto a cargo ship. I hadn't looked in detail at the costs, but the latter seemed to be the cheaper option.

What I should have done was to move her at the end of the summer - to sail her to the Med with a couple of experienced sailor friends who owed me a favour, and maybe some crew members who were looking to increase the number of logged miles they had spent at sea, in order to obtain a Royal Yachting Association Yacht Master qualification, which was necessary for anybody who wanted to work as a professional yacht skipper. Instead, I had almost forgotten entirely about the impending winter, and chosen to enjoy the summer while it lasted.

There was another consideration.

I would have to quit my job again. Human Resources would never want to re-employ somebody who had left the bank, not just once, but twice. This meant that I would have to try my luck as a consultant, hoping to gain a short contract each Spring, which would last me until the Autumn, when I could return to my yacht in the Med. The prospect of escaping the worst of the British weather each year was immensely appealing, and my friends at work were mostly employed on short contracts, earning vast sums of money. Having left my job and easily been re-employed, I felt confident that I would have no difficulty becoming a contractor/consultant to the bank, working for just 6 months of the year. However, it was a radical departure from the lifestyle I'd always known. What would I do about Sian, for example?

* * *

"You know that book you're always saying you're going to write one day?" I asked Sian, as innocently as I could.

"Yes" she replied, already a little suspicious, because I had long since become rather bored by her regular talk about her ambitions to write a book, but had never seen any sign of an attempt to put plans into action. My eyes had usually glazed over when she began to talk about her book.

"Don't you think it'll be too hard for you to write, while you're working full-time?" I asked.

"I have the summer holidays. I was planning on writing my book last summer, until you came along and messed that up!" she said with a cheeky grin. She gave me a little kiss.

"Do you think you could write your book in just a couple of months? Wouldn't you need longer?"

"Why all this interest in my book all of a sudden? I didn't think you were interested" she observed astutely.

"I was interested, but it just seemed like it might've been all talk. I'd really like it if you were able to write your book. You've always been very passionate about it, and I think it's a shame you've not had the opportunity."

"Opportunity? This sounds like you have a proposal of some kind. Why don't you stop beating around the bush and tell me what you're getting at" she said. She was incredibly perceptive and smart - which is why I liked her so much - and I appreciated her directness, but this wasn't the softly-softly approach I was hoping to take.

"Well, you know your colleague... the one who took a sabbatical in order to focus on her artistic career?" I asked.

"Yes. Shiela. It was a big flop, and she came back to work."

"Well, she didn't really lose anything, did she? I mean, they just gave her her old job back, didn't they?"

"She spent her life savings!" replied Sian, aghast at the suggestion that her colleague suffered no loss as a result of her attempt to follow her dream.

"Yes. Well. We're talking about you writing a book here, not trying to launch yourself as an internationally renowned installation artist. Shiela spent vast sums of money renting gallery space and promoting her art, didn't she? You'd just write your book on your laptop, wouldn't you? Zero costs."

"What about my mortgage?" she asked. "I don't have any savings to support myself."

"What if you rented this place out?" I suggested.

"Have lodgers? I don't want to share my house with lodgers!" she said indignantly.

"No, not lodgers. Rent the whole place out."

"Where would I live then?"

"On my yacht, with me."

"In Brighton Marina? I mean, it's alright to spend the night down there once in a while, but I wouldn't want to live there, amongst all those middle-aged men in blue blazers with gold buttons, trying to have sex with women half their age by flashing their cash."

"No not in Brighton Marina, silly" I said, even though I knew I had not fully explained my idea to her yet. "We would cruise the Mediterranean. We would hop between the islands of Greece. We would potter up and down the coast of Turkey. We would drop anchor wherever we found a beautiful secluded bay, and you could tap away on your laptop, writing your book, and then we'd sail off to a little fishing village, eat fresh fish, and wash it all down with local wine."

This was the elevator pitch. To me it sounded like the very definition of living the dream and I hoped Sian would agree, especially with the bait of her being finally able to write her book.

Next chapter...

Blogger's Digest: a Novel

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Five

I was sat in a small meeting room in the headquarters of the investment bank from which I had resigned.

"Why do you want to come back to work for us?" asked the lady from Human Resources, who was interviewing me.

I had passed three rounds of interviews, and this was the final interview, which would include salary negotiations. It was also an opportunity for Human Resources to veto my re-employment, if they felt that there was any reason why I should not be allowed back into the firm. This lady from Human Resources was giving me a grilling.

* * *

After nearly two years of back-breaking labour, spent covered in brick dust, plaster and with fibreglass insulation irritating my skin, earning a modest income as a self-employed electrician, I'd had quite enough of living the dream; being my own boss wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

My customers had been mostly nice people, but one or two had formed the mistaken belief - due to watching too many sensationalistic TV programs and reading the Daily Mail - thinking that everybody they dealt with in the building trade was a rogue trader; a cowboy. There was a general impression that the work I did was easy money, when in fact I often under-charged my customers, because I wanted to build my reputation for value-for-money. I wanted to get word-of-mouth recommendations, but it took a lot of time and effort to establish my business.

It wasn't helpful that every customer thought that they were a master of price negotiations, and that my quotations included exorbitant mark-ups, on the assumption that I would be beaten down on price. Pay less; get less - that's the simple rule of thumb when dealing with tradesmen, engineers or other professionals. I'm not saying that I cut corners, but you can be damn sure that charged for every single item which wasn't on the original quote, if the customer had insisted on haggling over my original quote.

One particular awkward customer had caused an almighty scene and threatened to make a complaint to the professional body I was a member of, demanding to have me struck off as an approved and certified contractor. She was upset because the invoice I presented her with included a lot of extra things, which she had asked me to do, which had not been part of the original quote. I had told her - verbally - that I would have to charge extra for the time and materials, to which she replied "just add it to the bill". After patiently and calmly explaining that I was not operating a charity, and that she, as a first-time property developer, must understand that my time and materials must be paid for, or else I would make a loss, she continued to have a tantrum. I lost my patience and said that I would begin the process of removing all of the wiring which I had installed. She thought I was bluffing, but as took my wire cutters out and made the first moves to begin to sever all brand new cables, she quickly backed down and agreed to pay in full.

A couple of weeks after the incident with the customer who had threatened to make a complaint against me, she phoned me and begged me to come back to do some more work for her: word had got around that she was a hopeless dreadful amateur wannabe property developer. She had been effectively black-balled by the local tradesmen, who all gave her quotations which were ten times the amount they would normally charge, because she was such a pain to work for.

The customers who accepted the original quotation and paid their bill quite gladly, were unfortunately far fewer than those who tried to haggle and then grumbled about parting with their cash. It was dirty hard physical work, and there was little gratitude from the customers.

A dangerous electrical installation had nearly killed the young daughter of a customer - she had been mildly electrocuted when he had removed a vital piece of safety equipment while doing DIY. This customer was aggrieved that I had immediately cut all the power to his house until the fault was rectified. It was a very modest sum of money for the remedial work, but this man remained utterly convinced I was trying to rip him off. I feared that he would make matters worse if I left the property unsupervised. I had seen screwdrivers, spanners and pieces of thick wire, jammed into fuse-boards, where somebody had been so desperate to restore power that they decided to do away with a vital piece of safety equipment. I tried to explain that her mild electrocution could easily have been fatal, but he was hung up on the work "shock".

"She just got a shock, is all that happened" he said, repeating himself.

"Yes. The soles of her shoes, wool carpet, underlay, wooden floorboards and everything else between her and the ground insulated her from getting a much bigger shock. If she had touched something like the taps in the bathroom or kitchen at the same time as any of the earthed electrical appliance, she would be dead" I patiently explained.

"But she's not dead. She just got a shock."

"Yes. Every electrical appliance in your house that has exterior metal parts, like your kettle, your toaster, your microwave, your heated towel rail - all of these are currently live because of an electrical fault."

"Why didn't the fuse trip then?" he asked.

"Because you removed the earth rod" I explained.

"But that was months ago. Everything was working fine."

"It was working fine, but it was a death-trap waiting to happen. By removing the earth rod, as soon as you had an electrical fault, everything electrical with metal parts is now capable of electrocuting you."

"But it was just a shock."

"If you touch something live with your hand, you get a shock. It hurts. If you touch something live with your hand while your other hand is touching something grounded then you are going to die." I explained, realising that it was a futile waste of my time, but trying to be patient.

"So we'll be OK? We just won't touch anything made of metal until this gets fixed?" he asked, with his voice and face lit up with the hope that he could avoid paying the modest amount of money to rectify the fault.

"No you will not be OK. Your electrical system is lethal and I have condemned the installation. I cannot restore your power until this is fixed"

"You're ripping me off. This is blackmail."

"Sir, I assure you that all I want to do is make sure nobody is killed."

"Are you trying to tell me that just disconnecting that one skinny little green wire has broken my whole electrical system?" he asked.

"Green and yellow" I corrected him. "4 millimetres thick is not skinny, and it's a vital part of your electrical system. Without it the fault which has developed has made your entire electrical system lethal. I suppose you are correct: your whole electrical system is broken, although the remedy is quite quick, simple and inexpensive, as I explained."

"If it's so inexpensive, why don't you just do it, given that you seem to care so much about safety and wotnot?"

I'd had too many of these conversations, where customers thought I was providing some kind of free charity service. My customers were generally wealthy, reflecting the local neighbourhood, and none of them were pleading poverty: they all had the means to pay for the services which they requested and required, but they felt as though I was ripping them off, and I could not understand why.

Perhaps I was too kind and patient. Perhaps I wasted too much time trying to explain the complexities and the technicalities of the issues. Perhaps I should have just done what other electricians did, which was to simply hand over a copy of a piece of paper explaining why their electrical system was condemned, and drive off, leaving them without power. Perhaps it would have been better to let the customers come to me, begging me to have their power restored, rather than wasting my breath trying to to reason with unreasonable customers.

I had become an electrician because I thought I was providing a useful, valuable, high-quality and good-value service, which my customers would be grateful for, but on the whole, they had viewed me as a rip-off merchant rogue-trader cowboy, and I'd had enough of it.

* * *

There were 4 seats around a square table in the meeting room. I had chosen to sit adjacent to the lady from Human Resources, because it seemed less adversarial - better to have no barriers in-between us. She studied my face with a piercing gaze, sizing me up.

"Why do I want to come back?" I repeated, rhetorically. "I really enjoyed my time here. It's a fantastic place to work"

"Why did you leave then?" she asked.

"Like I said in my exit interview, I wanted to go travelling. I never had a gap year before or after university. I felt that I should see some more of the world before starting a family."

"You spent two years travelling?"

"I spent a year travelling and a year writing a novel" I lied.

Why would I lie? It seemed to me as though my time spent as an electrician would detract from my spotless CV and the fine reputation I had when I'd left the world of investment banking. I knew that it was acceptable to go on sabbatical to pursue rich-man's hobbies, such as travelling, or to work on a project like renovating a house. The ideal answer would have been to say that I had been building a school in Africa, but I wasn't prepared to lie to that extent.

"What's the book called? Can I read it?" she asked. I had the distinct impression that she was feigning interest, and merely testing me to see if I was lying.

"It's not finished yet. I'd rather not talk too much about it. I'm going to publish under a pseudonym. It's quite personal."

The Human Resources lady shuffled her notes and re-seated herself. She seemed a little irritated, but to continue to press me for more details about what I had been doing since I resigned, would be confrontational and rude. With resignation which was physically palpable, she moved onto her next topic.

"Do you think you'll get wanderlust again? Do you think you'll write another book?" she asked.

"No. The whole point of taking the career break was to get all that out of my system. I can write and travel as much as I want when I retire" I said. "I'm already going to have to work extra hard to make up for lost time" I joked, with a wry smile.

This was a pre-planned strategy. I wanted to hint strongly that I was going to be more dedicated to my career than ever, and that my focus was going to be on building up my pension pot. I needed to send an unambiguous message that I could be relied upon to never take another career break, and that I would work hard until the day I retired. This is what the Human Resources lady wanted to hear.

"Did you know that the role you applied for is based in our Brighton office?" she asked.

"I had no idea" I lied.

"It's also not a front office role"

"Yes. I knew that. I fancied a change. The front office can be a little too intense after a while. I felt that the middle office might suit me, having had some space and time to think about the direction I would like my career to go in"

"Not very many people want to leave the front office. Normally it's people from middle office who want to get into the front office roles" she said, a little patronisingly, but she was probing; trying to find out my true motivations.

"This role sounded particularly interesting though. I felt as though it might be a great opportunity for me to bring some of my front office expertise into the middle office, when - as you said yourself - so few people move from the front office to the middle office."

I was lying through my teeth. I knew that leaving the front office would be considered utter madness by almost everyone in the bank, but I had an ulterior motive, which the Human Resources lady was unable to fathom.

"I would, of course, prefer a front office role. Perhaps you're right. I think maybe I will wait for the right front office role to come up. I'm sorry I wasted everyone's time" I said, and began to stand up.

"No, no. Please hang on, Gavin. Just a second. Please. Sorry. I think we maybe got off on the wrong foot" she said, apologetically and with a somewhat smarmy manner. "We have a great deal of difficulty in finding high calibre people who are prepared to move to Brighton, let alone leave the front office" she explained.

"Oh?" I said, as casually as I could manage, feigning a little surprise. "I suppose that comes as no great shock. Most people want the prestige, the salary and the bonuses, which the London front office has to offer."

"And you don't?" she asked.

"No I do. I worked very hard to get into the front office. Like I said, I think it's best if I wait for the right front office role to become available."

"What are your salary expectations?"

"If I could come back on the same salary, before I left, that would be acceptable. I wouldn't accept any less."

"If we were to offer you a signing bonus, generous relocation allowance, and the same salary, would you consider the Brighton role?"

"I would want a more generous pension contribution, to compensate for the lower bonuses I would get in the middle office."

"Would 12% be acceptable? It's going to be a struggle for me to match the total remuneration you were earning in the front office, but it's the best I can offer."

Jackpot. This is exactly how I had planned the negotiations. Of course I wanted to move to Brighton. My relationship with Caroline was on the rocks and maintaining our London lifestyle had made a major dent in my wealth. If I was going to wear the "golden handcuffs" I was going to do it by the seaside, with a London salary - I could live like a king in Brighton. During my time as an electrician, I had learned to be a little more frugal and careful with money.

I was going back into investment banking, but in the sedate world of the middle office, I could do the job with my eyes closed and my weekly working week would be less than 50 hours - a fraction of what I had been working before.

I had sold out, again, but I was happy and excited about setting up a new life by the seaside.

Next chapter...