In early 1999 I was stood on the Clifton Suspension Bridge and planning to jump 350 ft to my death. I chose not to, and phoned my father to explain that I had walked away from suicide.
He tricked me into seeing my GP who asked about what led me to the desperate act. I explained the delusion that was dogging me, and ultimately I was introduced to a psychiatrist and two social workers where I talked myself out of a Section and instead attended a day hospital for nine months. I had a positive relationship with the mental health system for the rest of my life to date.
Mum found me directionless and bored, so when she heard I was doing a City & Guilds in Journalism for Print and Radio at City of Bristol College, she supported me into getting onto my Masters Degree in broadcast journalism at Falmouth. In 2005 I graduated, again floridly psychotic due to the disulfiram medication I was on to stop me drinking and, my delusion being focused on the BBC, this stymied me from getting a job there. Drifted a while and I became a print feature writer and columnist with Mental Health Today.
My career has moved into other fields since, but there’s more to my story. In 2020, aged 45, I was diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD). This explained the misery I had suffered through the privileged upbringing I’d had – I couldn’t understand the people around me as I was neurodivergent.
This is what makes me different from other social affairs journalists – I see myself as one of those I am often talking to.
- The abstract debates about welfare cuts are about my people and have been about me.
- Cuts to mental health services and the NHS are to my people.
- The shortage of social housing affect my people.
- The hijacking of the Labour Party by billionaires and wealthy interests are stealing the party and its policies from my people.
My ASD and wayward mental health has been a barrier to my overall success at times. But someone who can walk from almost committing suicide to writing books, completing a postgraduate degree and enjoying a decent income as an expert in global transportation is not one to be cowed.
Have a look at my social affairs writing portfolio below.
Beat Stress – Feel Better. I co-wrote this men’s guide to tackling mental distress.
UK prisoners given tents and methadone on release– a report on how many UK prisoners end up on the streets straight out of prison.
UK to Remove No-Fault Eviction Clause from Private Tenancy Law– a report on changes to UK tenancy law that should favour tenants.
I did an investigation into corruption in the US prison system, interviewing the then Inspector General of the US Department of Justice
Features
Winning the Mental Battle. An exploration of positive psychology as a step beyond traditional mental health treatment
Swings and Roundabouts – May 2008. Discusses the service user’s statutory right to advocacy.
Safety First – October 2008. A discussion of the use of police cells as a ‘place of safety’ for service users detained under s136 of the Mental Health Act
Perspectives column
I was a columnist for MHT between 2009 and 2017. Here are some of the best examples.
MHT Perspectives negotiation (Opens as a PDF) – for my Perspectives column, a discussion of negotiation between mental health staff and service users in light of famous schizophrenic John Nash’s Non Cooperative Game Theory (for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics and had a movie made about him
People with schizophrenia should be encouraged to aim high in life. An examination of the ‘Dustbin Diagnosis’ idea.
Fears as mental health beds cut– a sample investigation I did for the national newspaper.
Download
In this piece I looked at the prizes and perils of support groups coming together to fight for special educational needs provision.
LDT Mental Maze MayJune 2014 p12-13Download
Face the Facts – April/May 2012. A look at the barriers to research small scale organisations face in order to get novel treatments accepted in medicine
On the Edge – May 2011. How some families struggled to pay for the care they needed owing to local authority cuts
Here’s an example looking at the Nordic Alcohol Model, showing how alcohol related harm does up when taxation and other government measures are loosened. Download
A look at a potential pharmacological treatment for autism-related Face Blindness
Lobbying and protest – how it is high time the disability movement went out on the streets to oppose austerity