Goal setting
Discusses generalised suicidal ideation. You can probably assume everything I write will do that My CPN (Community Psychiatric Nurse, the professional...
How the hopes turned out
Contains some abstract suicidal ideation and brief discussion of pregnancy/infertility The hope I talked about at the beginning of 2025 turned out to be an...
Thames Path: Kingston to Woolwich
Kingston was familiar ground for me. When Scunthorpe used to have London matches, I would always make a quick detour to visit the fabric shop there. Even if...
Thames Path: Henley to Kingston
Apart from my kid's term dates, my other constraint was around Henley-on-Thames: I needed to pass through before the famous regatta brought in so many...
Thames Path: Oxford to Henley
I had a decision to make in Oxford. The next recommended stop, Abingdon, had no campsites and no cheap hotels. Since I don't quite dare wild camp, that meant...
Thames Path: Thames Head to Oxford
My brain seems to have interpreted my hope to walk the Thames Path this summer as a commitment I made to myself, and my horror of breaking commitments is...
Inertia as harm reduction?
Discusses self harm and drug and alcohol abuse The acute phase of my mental health crisis had a sort of sick glamour to it. I followed up my arrest with some...
Arrested and in crisis
I wrote this in early April, just after it happened, but for various mental health reasons held off on posting until now. Includes discussion of suicide,...
"Deserving"
A few years ago, the therapy group I was in was discussing coping techniques, and the facilitator asked what might be some barriers to the crisis team's...
"Just like a household budget"
When politicians are making the case for cutting public services, they often use the analogy of a household budget. If you, the member of the electorate...
The shadow of AIDS
I'm from the generation that was raised to be well and truly terrified of AIDS. The first blitz of leaflets and adverts that came with the understanding that...
Kazuo Ishiguro: Never Let Me Go
I read Never Let Me Go for the first time on an overnight trip to Barrow-in-Furness. The surroundings - a bench outside a nightclub and a railway waiting...
Superstitions
I freely admit I'm very superstitious about football. Given that I walked a mile out of my way last Saturday to buy a sandwich that I hoped would make us...
The men I meet on Grindr
About three years ago, I had several people suggest to me that signing up for Grindr might be safer and more convenient than travelling to a distant city and...
"Not interested in politics"
What is the politics that people aren't interested in? Is there another kind?
"Stop self-diagnosing with depression"
What it really means to stop self-diagnosing with mental illness and why it's actually quite sinister
Further thoughts on rubbish
It's not just broken donations. We seem very uncomfortable with having to throw certain things away
Don't donate a headache
Give generously to your local charity shop. But try to give thoughtfully too
Hopes for 2025
The date changes, so I might as well take stock
Transphobia and the trans child
Letting children be trans is child abuse, the media screams. I've been through that argument before