This one is hard for me to talk about.
116 123 - is a life-saving number.
Samaritans, you should be very proud of everything you do.
When I left hospital with a diagnosis of Toxic Metabolic Encephalopathy. I couldn't actually parse the words or the meaning.
They sent me away with a four page discharge summary that read like this "e82rhyey6ehd 3ueyd73hf6rj si8d7ehf8fnr ud7ejrdu"
Imagine coming home to find that the world looked like this:
ryyrgcrhdue fheyd7rjdo doeueydiej dueidnri
dhrud8rje dudiejd dowow83bc dhduebdj
ryyrgcrhdue fheyd7rjdo doeueydiej dueidnri
dhrud8rje dudiejd dowow83bc dhduebdj
I cried a bit. I didn't really understand it.
They *looked* like words but they had none of the familiar things like sentences, punctuation or even structure.
(I ... tried... to ...) I gave up writing a full sentence. I tried to write my own name...
Jo - what comes after O. I used to know this. Then something in my head went Nathan. Oh yeah, it's Jonathan. And after a week, I managed to get my name and address on my phone.
Which is good because when I left hospital I said I was 45,000,000 years old, I was the Queen of England, called Boris Johnson. And i lived in a place called Brexit but I thought it might have something do with Lego or Star Wars.
Now, im obviously back to normal Jon status. The fact that I am now #disassociative makes for interesting meetings. I could have full Board meetings with myself and there are 16 of us in here right now.
So I thought, I've got an idea I'll make an AI for each of my personalities to see if I can deposit them there instead. Unfortunately, the AI platform I chose because it is "character driven" has an underlying challenge. it's user base's average age seems to be 13. So now, I've just outsourced all my identities to a platform that may have the longevity of a class-action in the US so about 2.4 minutes.
And then to cap it all off, yesterday I went to Wigan Police Station? which for anyone that doesn't know is in a region called Greater Manchester in a place we call Oop North.
I have to report a crime I say, now, it may not be surprising to you that in find Police Stations a wee bit triggering. The last one i went to kept me there for the night and gave me a chocolate chip tracker bar and the world's smallest cup of water. I then say there in a room lit in green reading a wall full of stuff like this:
IF YOU VANDALISE THIS WALL WE WILL PROSECUTE YOU.
DON'T VANDALISE OUR WALLS.
THESE ARE OUR WALLS.
LEICESTERSHIRE POLICE WARNING.
PS - WE ARE SERIOUS ABOUT OUR WALLS.
And then up popped a strange thought, I'm Winston from 1984.
Trains and people flatly refuse to come all the way up here. it's the West Coast line. And by the time you get back to Wigan, you wish you really lived somewhere else like you're lovely 5-bed mansion house in the country.
I better call the Samaritans again. Hello, it's Jon i haven't called for 3.5 years. How are you?
Thank you to our incredible volunteers for making sure there's always someone to listen, every hour of the day, even when the clocks change 💚
Thank you for an amazing day!