A Speccy Man has a Breakdown - day 6
Smiling in every photo. Wishing I was dead.
In case you wondered, I didn’t send a “day 5” email yesterday. Had some lovely responses to previous emails, including great questions, thank you, which I hope to come back to, but I’ve been pulled in all kinds of directions as I race towards this self-imposed end-of-the-month publishing goal.
For instance: I’ve been trying to set up a shop, right here on my website. This has involved complex tinkering, which I enjoy because it turns out I’m nerdy that way.
Maybe I get it from my Mum’s father, who was an engineer. My other grandfather ran a shop, with Granny, and later ran the regional Chamber of Commerce – which may explain why I’m so excited about setting up this here shop. Who knows.
Anyway, as part of the process I had to update the website’s underlying architecture, for the first time in ~5 years, which was nerve-wracking but seems to have gone well.
Didn’t do it alone, I should say. I sought help.
And seeking help is a big theme, in this breakdown series.
Ruminating: I didn’t know how to ask.
Among other things I’ve done today: looking through photos from the year of my breakdown.
There are lots of pictures of me smiling broadly. With family. On holiday. Doing prestigious bits of work.
Looking at those photos you would never guess that for much of the time, that year, I wished I was dead.
And I had absolutely no idea how to tell anybody. I wouldn’t have dreamed of it. The idea!
As a journalist, I had done many stories about the terrible aftermath of suicide. I interviewed people who had lost relatives, and people who survived after trying to end their own lives. Those stories were uniformly bleak – the interviews and the writing alike. I was not (am still not) a qualified therapist. I had no supervisor with whom to share what I was carrying. On the contrary, I had an editor who said, “rather you than me!” and another who would phone and ask breezily for “the suicide correspondent”.
Harhar.
When I got into hospital, the therapist who took my history conjectured that these experiences might have saved me, though I wished I was dead, from doing anything to bring that about.
He may be right.
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👉 If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out to a crisis line in your country. In the UK, Samaritans are available any time on 116 123.
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Last updated: 22 March 2026