Well, since we're going to be friends, I recorded a 'Boo' to introduce myself to you....and get the awkward stuff out the way. I tend to post about my mental health and like people to realise I'm perfectly comfortable talking openly. I wish more people did - it can often feel like a lonely thing to be mentally unwell, yet all the stats show there is probably someone going through identical challenges just around the corner.
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I graduated in 1992 in Psychology - the irony - but went on to a career in the city of london Lloyds Insurance Market, as a negotiator. It was extremely stressful, and when I lost some very large cases in the English Court of Appeal, I suffered a mental breakdown. It was not to be the last.
I had suffered from Irritable Bowel Syndrome for 8 years or so. It is now clear, from the medical help and advice I received, that this was directly caused by a combination of a trigger - Chronic food poisoning when I was in Thailand - and I mean Chronic! - and the stress my career was already causing.
To cut a long story short, those 8 years were full of anxiety - not professional anxiety, I was good at my job - but IBS related anxiety. My IBS 'profile' was one of extreme diahorrea - needing to pass anything between 6 and 26 times a day. This could occur in a meeting with a FTSE 100 CEO, during a trial, sitting on a bus in a freshly laundered suite, whilst pretending to enjoy a nice meal with clients (I couldn't eat most things - but was always to keen to please to refuse them, so I continually made myself ill).....and it really took over my life. I grew to think of a Saturday night in, with food and not too many toilet visits, was my idea of heaven. I craved to not have to excuse myself throughout the day, to run to the nearest toilet. I even have an ID card from the health service which requests access to Any toilet in the UK - it saves having to explain each time....you basically flash it at a train station attendent and he rushes and unlocks the nearest toilet. Very convenient. Hugely embarassing. Every time.
So, anyway, without getting sidetracked, all of this led eventually to my 2 breakdowns. 6 months apart. The second on Christmas Day at my Parents home. That was December 2008. I haven't worked since. I have however taken every opportunity to learn. I have always been a geek - I began machine coding on a Vic20 and never looked back. However, due to a love of making music, I tended to stick to using Sequencing software to power my home studio, and tweaking my PC as little as possible, for stability.
This last year I have learned lots about various platforms and languages. I am a big fan of Drupal, having tried most of the open source CMS products, it's the one with the modular, truely forward thinking and flexible architecture. Plus with my limited php skills, some CSS and HTML, and mySQL knowledge, it's a mighty powerful tool for mashups. I've built many with it - and then lost them due to being ridiculously bad at nuts and bolts - much better at chaotic creation!
My plans now involve a pending move to the countryside (April 2010), slow and sure development of some of my more interesting ideas for web-apps, and continuing Game Level design, and my role running my Game Community - Playstuff.net. I'm under strict instructions from the Psychiatrist not to challenge myself - but i'll be damned if i'm going to sit around watching daytime TV when I could be learning and creating.
So, that pretty much brings you up to date on me ;) Feels odd saying that and of course I don't expect you to be interested in the slightest. However, if you notice the odd personal, life type thread appearing here, now you'll have somewhere to find out what the hell i'm on about.
Oh, and i f your interested, here's my Gowalla entry (i talk about it in the Boo) - how tragic that the only spot i appear to visit regularly is the compost heap on Hackney Downs :) http://gowal.la/s/45HH
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