# preamble

Firstly. Let me apologisfe for the length of this post. It is long enough that I feel it needs a preamble.

Secondly. In addition to the usual content warning this deeply personal post mentions suicide, self-harm, depression, and glacial geomorphology.

Thirdly. I started writing this on Tuesday 12th August 2025. More was added on the 13th. It was handwritten, in Italy. It was typed up and lightly edited between the 16th and 19th, in Scotland.

Fourthly. There is some foul language. Nothing too bad. Sorry (not really).

Fifthly. I'm not sure why, exactly, I'm posting this. Who is it for? Is it for me, or you? I don't know. But I felt it needed to be written.

Sixthly. Because of the fifthly, I will likely delete this post at some point.

# where to begin?

On the wall over there → is a portrait of my great grandfather, on my mother's mother's side. He's my connection to this place. This beautiful valley that I've had the luck and privilege^[1] of visiting semi-frequently^[2] since childhood. This valley with the older, spikier dolomite peaks and waterfalls on the east side, and the younger, rounder tonalite mountains hosting lakes and glaciers on the west. I love this valley. I love being here. The view from the balcony is amazing. The hiking is glorious and smells of pine. The road cycling is tip-top. It is clean. There are water fountains. The tomatoes taste of something. The coffee is strong and cheap and readily available in Rifugios over 2000 m. In short: it's great^[3].

I have long imagined-dreamt-fantasised about living here—half a lifetime ago, when first applying to university, I considered a course that had a year abroad in Padua, not too far away—but employment and language, two totally surmountable barriers, have, for some reason, proven too big.

Maybe I lack courage.

Since I just mentioned employment, let me expand on that a little.

# work

• There's a reason someone is willing to pay you to do it
• Love what you do and you'll never a work a day in your life
• A means to an end
• Don't let your job define you

etc etc etc... blah blah blah.

These adages, and many others like them, either have limited utility or, I have not been able to correctly digest them.

Work sucks.

I am deeply ashamed and embarrassed^[4] of my CV. And my experience of employment means I percieve the whole enterprise very negatively. With the exception of a few brief honeymoon periods, every job I've had as an adult has made me very miserable and hasn't made me like me. As the overpaid spreadhseet monkey / corporate city-wanker, where the nearest likeminded individual was fuck-knows-where and the temptation to drink at lunch time too often too great. As the insecure sandwich delivery guy marching through busy offices bellowing 'soup and sandwiches', all the while hating myself. As a nervous bike mechanic who too often felt like I didn't know what I was doing; struggling to talk to customers; avoiding the phone; terrified of complaints; and not in receipt of the training and support and feedback I so desperately craved. As an embarrassed cycling instructor who most enjoyed travelling between sessions and who was proud of my colleagues, but not of myself^[5].

A common thread running through these is embarrassment. I was embarrassed. Embarrassed that that's what I was. Yes, I am defining myself by my job, which is silly. But, "what do you do?". These jobs all challeneged me but not in the way I wanted to be challenged and stretched. They challenged me in a way that was stressful and anxiety inducing, that made me not want to get up in the morning. That made me seek comfort in drink or self-harm or suicidal ideation.

Furthermore, I was a drop-out. I hadn't finished my degree and all my friends had^[6]. That gnawed at me. I'm vain and competitive and insecure.

I suppose that just about leads me to education.

# education

I went back to University^[7] to try and become an expert. I wanted to unlock a future where I'd have a job with a purpose, that challenged me in the right ways, that I was good at, that I was proud to say I did, and, crucially, that I didn't fucking hate. That didn't make me Miserable. I applied to study Physical Geography, and my covering letter said something about wanting to be able to understand a landscape.

After my second first^[8] year at University I came to this valley and hiked up to the edge of Vedretta del Mandrone, an arm of Ghiacciaio dell'Adamello, just above Rifugio Mandrone. Mouth agape I watched sediment rich meltwaters gush into the newly exposed and named Lago Nuovo. I walked along the margin to a point where it was possible to duck under the ice surface. Inside (Fig. 1), it was cool and dark, with a captivating soundtrack bubbling and dripping all around. I was dumbfounded. In the preceding semester the Geomorphology module included a week—tops two—on glaciology. That was the full extent of glaciology on the entire syllabus^[9]. I sent the video a friend with the caption:

i want to be a glaciologist.

A fire was lit. I was Motivated. Capital fucking M. I worked and I worked. Furthermore, I worked in the geography common room from which all my lecturers' offices were accessed. I saw their day-to-day. I spoke with them about their marking, their papers, their grant applications, their gripes with petty university admin. And I saw a thing that I thought I could maybe do.

I enjoyed helping other students with GIS assignments, using some teaching skills I'd learnt as a cycling instructor, but applied to a domain I felt more comfortable in. Unsurprisingly, I feel more able to talk to people when I know that I know a thing.

I applied for a PhD program. The project was looking at the evolution of supraglacial streams and whether they could be analogues for bedrock rivers. I didn't get it. But, UNIS accepted me onto two of their glacial-themed summer courses. Which meant a few months in Svalbard, and the chance to compensate for the scant glacial knowledge acquired during my undergraduate. Later, I secured a place on a Masters' course; picked a glacial / remote sensing theme for my thesis; and elected to do all the cold climate / polar modules.

Over the course of the following year I gained a Masters' and was admitted onto a good looking PhD program, with a lovely pair of supervisors, on a theme that I was genuinely excitied about. Great. UNIS again offered me a place on one of their summer schools.

# disruptions

# exogenous

COVID-19 came along right at the end of my undergraduate, and did its thing. The aforementioned luck and privilege meant I, and the majority of those I know, escaped the horrors. And so this^[10] is mostly petty middle-class naval-gazing pity-party grow-up-and-stop-whining bullshit. UNIS cancelled the courses that year. The following year travel restrictions prevented me from attending. No Svalbard for me.

# endogenous

Despite the generally optimistic tone adopted during the previous section, I was stressed. And depressed. Putting enormous amounts of pressure on myself. Dismissing every piece of positive feedback and stalking and hunting and hoarding all the negatives. Screaming at the top of the hill on my ride to campus. Drinking at lunch time. Thinking about suicide.

Since my early-teens self-harm and suicidal ideation have been my companions. And since my late teens citalopram, reboxetine, escitalopram, venlafaxine, chlorpromazine, mirtazapine, diazepam, sertraline and vortioxetine have been variously deployed to stop me feeling like that. I might not be a scientist, but I have learnt how to think like one. Hypotheses. Evidence. Clinical trials, public health data, statistics. All beautiful things. Progress. And without question a net-fucking-positive. But. But I can't help but feel that all those pills Have. Not. Worked. (for me. your mileage may vary - whoopie for you^[11]). A very well-intetioned path was therefore chosen. The goal was to access support that might actually help. After a long and slightly unpleasant assessment, I was given a sticker. And that sticker said: autistic.

A great many things made sense through that lens. But it also didn't sit quite right. ASD is a big umbrella, and that's unhelpful. It's too big. I am very self-aware in social situations, and even self-aware on behalf of others who aren't. When in uncomfortable situations nothing feels natural. Everything feels deliberate and chosen^[12]. I'm more in my head than in the moment. Being given a label with a boat-load of unhelpful stereotypes and a long list of traits, turned my meta-awareness up to eleven. I was often left tongue-tied and unable to navigate moderately uncomfortable interactions because I didn't know how i was supposed to behave.

This did not feel like help.

The diagnosis came just as I was starting my Masters'. Later, when meeting all my peers at the start of the PhD program, I didn't know how to be. This, coupled with the embarrassment & shame of being a decade older than everyone, whilst also not having (or feeling like I haven't) achieved anything in that decade, meant I felt like shit. I got into a rut. I didn't know how to get out. I never got out.

# not going up

Cima Presanella. It is the highest in the Parco Naturale Adamello Brenta. It is visible from the balcony, and it has been on the list for a while^[13]. When my mother was here as a teenager there was a plan for her and some cousins to summit it. But, as the legend anecdote goes, great-grandfather over there ↙^[14] didn't wake her up in time, and the others went without her. She claims to have run into town to try and catch up with them, but nobody's memory is perfect.

I did not inherit a thirst for adventure, and my athleticism^[15] seems somewhat anomalous against my familial backdrop. I did, however, inherit (or learn, or was taught, or developed, or whatever) how to be overly cautious and fantastically anxious. As such, and despite a strong desire^[16] to go climb a mountain^[17], I haven't. And while none of the reasons/excuses are own their own good, there's a several of them. They can be roughly grouped into the following categories: (a) lack of confidence; (b) lack of skill (see also (a)); (c) financial^[18]; (d) social^[19].

The above isn't strictly true, I have done many other hikes in and around and up and over the valley. All straightforward. Sometimes long, but rarely technical. But. There's always been Cima Presanella (and Monte Adamello, Cima Tosa, Cima Brenta, Campanile Basso etc...) and there will always be those that I haven't climbed, but that I feel I must. Having not done these is a tremendous source of regret. It is a failure. It hurts.

# going up

Parking the car at a little under 2000 m a.s.l. a little before local sunrise^[20]. I set off up Val d'Amola. The sharp and jaggy peaks of the Brenta group perfectly silhouetted behind me. Not a cloud in the sky. It was going to be a warm day. Barely 30 minutes in and I step across the terminator and into the sun. The path is not too steep, well-trod, and way-marked with red and white stripes daubed on rocks. 50 minutes and 400 m of vertical after setting off, I attain Rifugio Segantini (2373 m). Only 1200 m to go. A group of ~10, each with a little running vest-rucksack and short shorts left the Rifugio just ahead of me. As they run-walk-trotted in front me I felt silly for over-packing. They didn't have harnesses, or crampons. I started to get a bit cross with myself. A few minutes later the runner at the back called to those at the front...they were on the wrong path. I greeted them all as they cheerfully back-tracked. Continuing, I felt relieved that I'm not the only one who makes silly, easily-avoided, mistakes about which way to go.

I was alone again, and feeling good.

The path picks up the surprisingly sharp ridge of a lateral moraine^[21], before then becoming very bouldery with no obvious route through. A few sad-dirty snow patches are all that remain of Ghiacciaio di Monte Nero. Crampons not required. An image comes to mind, and I make myself giggle: aspiring to be some sort of rugged mountaineer—hyper-masculine—with gear and the requisite know-how, but actually just being a bit too much like Theresa May on holiday. Around ~3000 m are the first few stemples and cables. Nothing to airy, but the via ferrata helps keep you safe up and over Bocchetta di Monte Nero (3120 m). I pass a number of geological features (Fig. 2) that I can't fathom: the very blocky fractures; small patches on the tonalite where the mineral grains look to have been sheared smooth; is that a roche moutonnée or a whaleback? I'm quite sure those are striations. Was that a subglacial meltwater channel? Not knowing, not having any confidence in things-i-should-know prickles and chips away at my already eroded confidence.

Up and over the Col. On the otherside is the small-ish cirque^[22], and the sad-probably-dead, if not certainly dying, mostly debris covered remains of Ghiacciaio Orientale di Nardis (Fig. 3). I hear, but do not see, rockfall on the far side. Might as well keep the helmet on. I wonder when Sentinel-2 or whichever Landsat we're up to now is next passing over—lovely day for it—and how much this glacier has shrunk in my lifetime. I doubt it's thick enough to flow. What would autoRIFT (Lei et al., 2021) say?^[23] I beat myself up for never fully grasping the skills required to run my own ice velocity processing chains, and instead relying on the already processed ITS_LIVE data-cubes^[24].

# further education

I hoped to learn more as a PhD student than I did. Don't get me wrong: I did learn a lot. And I definitely acquired some new skills. There were many training sessions & short courses, but I rarely left them feeling like I had learnt how to do a thing, instead just learnt a bit about a thing. Or, I couldn't envisage how (or, there wasn't a need) to incorporate whatever fancy method into my project. I never really acquired any ML skills. Or got truly comfortable working with SAR. I constantly felt like I was falling behind.

Unsure of the basics and incapable of the advanced.

Before starting, I naively thought I'd have the time to reacquaint myself with the maths and physics I'd learnt over a decade earlier and duly forgotten. It would have been so useful. I tried a few times, but the task felt too big and the benefits not immediately obvious. I further regretted dropping out of my first undergraduate program, and my choice of course and institution the second time round.

A quirk of my funding meant I'd been allocated a desk in an office in another department, the other side of town. I didn't like the office, or where my desk was in the office (just floating in the middle). I used it for a while when no one else was coming in. As soon I had office-mates, I fled.

The twice-weekly meetups for the research group were pitched as informal. And they were. I found them utterly terrifying. I withdrew. Pathetically. Uselessly. I felt so unconfident. So unconfident in the basics of my field. So unsure of the work I was doing. So much shame and embarrassment of my past. Being seen became a thing to avoid. I knew that avoidance would only make it worse, but I totally lacked the whatever-it-is-one-needs to participate.

# submitting & interrupting

My first paper was swiftly rejected. It was resubmitted to another journal, a practice—which feels grubby and morally questionable—I disagree with, but was assured was fine and normal. Normal maybe, but it sat uneasily.

The reviews came back. Nothing too shocking. But it floored me. I simply did not know how to process it. I could not separate my work from myself. The paper wasn't good enough, therefore I was not good enough. Simple. Having to edit a piece that you believed was the best you had in you is not a skill that is taught early enough in academia. You hand in a report, it gets marked, you read the feedback. Done. Next assignment. The editing and resubmission process brought out the worst of my insecurities and perfectionism. I started self-harming for the first time in over half a decade. I took a break. Different meds were prescribed. I was put on a waiting list.

Some months later I went back, and the revisions were duly submitted. And then, after a few final tweaks it was published. I'm not proud of it. I dislike having my name on it, and regularly think of asking if it can be retracted on those grounds.

I had imagined getting published would feel great. I tried to make it feel great. If it did, it was fleeting. Mostly it made me feel miserable.

# the top

I thought I was on the home straight to the summit, but, after crossing another bouldery section and a small unnamed col, there was a bit more via ferrata to navigate. The rock up here is loose and, for the first time since setting out, there was a bit of traffic. Too many skittish movements sending rocks cruising and crashing down a (mercifully, unoccupied) gulley. I felt good, and in control. Happy. Hot and thirsty, but happy. I still had water.

After the Bivacco Brigata Orobica (3382 m) with its triple bunkbeds^[25] there was a steep and loose scramble to the summit. A small part of me didn't want to summit. I didn't want it to be over. I'd been having a great morning. I was happy.

I'd hoped to have the summit to myself, at least for a few minutes, however, I had to share it with a few others, some of which had come from the North near Passo Tonale. I didn't resent their presence. It was fine. They asked me to take a group photo.

Physically, I didn't feel too shabby. Despite being five hours in, 1600 m higher, and the heaviest and least fit I've ever been. Mentally, it was bliss. It felt so natural to be there. On the way up I'd been in good spirits the vast vast majority of the time, making the morning very anomalous in the generally dismal gloom and stress and angst of the last few years. The first section in particular, when I was alone in the dawn, marching upwards, exerting myself just enough that the thoughts subside. These are the moments when I feel in control, at peace.

But, fuck. This sort of, maybe. I don't know. Fuck. This wasn't supposed to happen.

# descending

I began preparing to submit another article and starting to compile a thesis. Trying to cobble together analyses and results; stitching a method to a sub-standard discussion. Distressing viva dreams and noxious peer review nightmares. It was consuming me. Unsure of everything I was doing. No amount of cheerleading from my excellent supervisors worked. I couldn't—I can't—hear the praise. I felt so rubbish. I couldn't concentrate. The suicidal thoughts were raging. I interrupted, again.

I had already come off the waiting list I'd been put on a year before and had someone to talk to. I'm no stranger to talking. Jens, Fiona, that French guy at Mile End hospital, Theresa, Kate, Andrew, Mae. To name those whose names I can remember. Usually the good ones. The Samaritan I phoned from the PhD office one day who listened to me cry for half an hour.

A friday night visit to the psyc ward where you're put in a room with nothing you can use to hurt yourself. I checked. You're in their on your own for too long because there aren't enough staff. Then you have to tell them how shit you feel before they send you out into the dark rainy night to cycle an hour home trying not to throw yourself under a bus.

No fewer than nine mental health nurses make home visits over the next fortnight or so. I only see one of them twice. Each day a new face. Just checking you're alive. Like a scientist monitoring a withering glacier via satellite, unable to do anything.

The help I tell myself I need is being taught about my subject. Not the bleeding edge. The basics. I felt so out of my depth. An imposter^[26].

Time passed without me really feeling any better. The sick note runs its course and you have to go back. Reacquainting myself with my janky codebase^[28] was hard. Picking up half-written paragraphs is hard. And it took barely anytime at all until I was once again dreaming of the ultimate escape.

From far too young an age I have sought comfort in suicidal day dreams. When I'm accutely stressed they do provide comfort. They remind me that I can make the stress stop. To me, the thoughts are so routine, so normal, that I no longer think suicide is a bad thing. I've been told this is not the case.

Swimming in fear and doubt. I couldn't guarantee I could continue without killing myself. The thoughts were too loud. Too dark. Too constant.

So I quit. I dropped out. For the second time. I've started four degree programs and dropped out of two. Of the two I finished, I graduated top in my year. And this pisses me off. The all-or-nothing. Good enough, isn't. Both capable and unable. Squandered potential. A fucking waste.

I knew that if I dropped out that I would never forgive myself. Because I haven't forgiven myself for the first time. I'm still furious with that 19 year old. So, after abandonning the PhD I went, entirely predictably, into a hole.

I search for jobs and all I see are things I can't do, or things I know will make me miserable. Things that feel risky. Couple that with having to communicate competence and send emails and interviews. And well, having such a well-trod neural pathway for soothing myself in stressful times: I start thinking about bridges and rucksacks full of rocks. Or those pills I'm prescribed that'd be reasonably easy to stockpile. And then I think of this valley. Of how much I love being in the mountains. Of the times before when I've been out of breath and ecstatic. And how I was due to go this summer. And how good I know I feel marching up to a col with a view, or a lake formed by some glacial process I don't understand. And I know that going there would be amazing. And that coming back home, to sea level, to a grey city with no friends and memories of failure would be agony. But maybe.

For several months I endured the dark thoughts and hopelessness. I tolerated them because I promised myself that I'd take my own life there.

(Un)fortunately^[29] I started enjoying myself here.

I'm ashamed to think this, let alone write it down^[30], nevermind letting others read it: if there was a button I could press that instantly stopped it all, I'd already be dead. What has stopped me from suicide isn't what it should be: friends and family. It's the fear that my last thought would be "oh. bugger". I have so little confidence in myself and my decision making that I'd probably regret it. Like I regret most things. I hate regret. And feeling regret whilst the knot tightens isn't how I want to go. I'm scared. And maybe I don't want to die. But I want feel better. But I've tried and I'm tired. And I'm out of ideas.

And so, I came to this valley full of dark intent and promptly start enjoying life. The views. The climate, even if it is a bit too hot some days, or afternoon stormy others. The trees. The smell of the pine. Swallows in the eaves. Ridges and cols, and spurs. Striations and whalebacks.

I don't want to go home. But I will. But not because I want to. I poured eight years of effort and even some blood and tears into trying to get a qualification. Trying to get something that I thought would open some doors. Something that I believed would make me feel ok about myself. Instead, I'm eight years out of the workplace, with the need to explain why I didn't finish, and why I have yet another big gap on my CV^[31].

# postamble

The handwritten scrawl continues for a few more pages. The gist of it is roughly:

• I'm only ok above 1500 m.
  • And a weak argument about thinner air making for a clearer mind.
• The need to climb mountains continues to feel existential. I must.
  • But making that happen is hard.
• this quote (Théophile Gautier)

a peak can exercise the same irrestible power of attraction as an abyss

and some other poorly hewn thoughts.

At present, I have no plans. If you know what I mean.

If you made it this far: sorry & thank you.

# footnotes