I've always been frightened
From a very young age
I did everything I could, not to make a mistake
because the consequences were bad
Maybe it was my stepfather's anger
or my mum's breakdown
I've always just had this hyper sensitivity
this hyper awareness of everything
When I got older and went to the pub with my friends
all that fear
evaporated with a drink
It was like when Popeye took his spinach
it just
disappeared
I messed around at Uni
and I was like I need to get a job
I've got all this debt
And a friend of mine who worked for the bank in Glasgow referred me
I did pretty well
got made permanent
I've got this heightened awareness of threats
that made me good at my job
An opportunity came up to move to London
double the money I was earning
and I was like, ooh
I'll be rich
and I wanted a change
I was applying myself getting promotions
In Glasgow I wasn't very senior
and I didn't have many responsibilities
so I can get away with drinking and messing around
But when I moved to London
more was demanded of me
I was working much longer hours
doing more complex work
trying to stay in control
but the anxiety dialed right up
I would never consider going out and getting pissed
before a Thursday
but here
you could do it Monday, Tuesday Wednesday, Thursday
Just blacking out and getting into trouble
Then I nearly got sacked
because of my performance
because I wasn't cutting it
Dealing with the trading desks
was unforgiving
I felt like my head was in a vice
and it was tightening
There's this thing called a stem
It's like a voice box where traders come through to you
and everyone on the floor can hear it
and this
trader who was the head of the desk
took the piss at me over the stem
humiliated me
and I just had to take it
I felt like a fraud
So I went out for a drink
someone near Canary Wharf
ended up pissed
and passed out
It's very difficult to leave the bank
It's a very lucrative business
and you can do extremely well out of it
But the more money you earn
the more expensive life gets
I tried not to drink for a while
and things were OK
Then I went on a drinking spree on a Thursday night
collapsed outside my flat
must have blacked out
Went into work three hours late on Friday
I had to go for a drink that night
cause I felt so bad
Broke my front door trying to get into my flat
felt even worse
Went out again the next day
blacked out
The police picked me up and took me home
I just kept
crashing and coming back up for air
on Monday
I went into work
and I was just
sitting there with this
darkness inside me
this emptiness
The intensity was overwhelming
I couldn't hold it together