1/ It's been a long while since I logged on to Twitter, and I'm still not entirely sure how to put words to everything that's been going on with me, but the story in a nutshell is this: I've decided to quit academia. And it's the most bittersweet thing.

2/ This won't really affect many people... I don't work at an HE institute, I don't have colleagues in this realm, and my absence won't make a jot of difference.
That's fine, I think. For one reason or another, things just never worked out. "This is the way", as Mando would say.

3/ To an extent (and here's what I dwell on in my darkest moments), I've been bullied out. Was kneecapped before I ever had a chance. I remember that Cambridge rejection letter all those years ago labelling me "socially inadequate", that feeling that I'd never belong.

4/ More recent events have had an impact. Last year my former PhD supervisor - someone I trusted, one for whom I hand-wrote a wedding invite once upon a time, who once gave me dating advice - labelled me a "burden", used her power to belittle me, to shoot me down, and to harm me.

5/ But as scorching - scarring - as the ordeal was, it also crystallised my place in this world with absolute clarity. Reminded me of the occasions when I waited tables at a conferences during my grad student days. I was invisible. I was furniture. On the outside, looking in.

6/ I've done well for an invisible man without a support network or an affiliation. Publications, conferences, a small name for myself. I've even got one more potential iron to be fired before all is said and done. But none of it has brought me *joy*, I don't think. Here's why:

7/ I think, through it all, I've never stopped trying to prove myself to the Cambridges of the world, to those in positions of privilege who overlooked me or saw my background as unworthy.

8/ And that, really, is academia distilled to a single, poisonous droplet. I'm not alone: I've seen far too many people give and give too much of themselves to a system that gives back so little, and which mass-produces rejection and imposter syndrome and feelings of inadequacy.

9/ A toxic system - so full of negativity, of cliques, of bitterness - doesn't deserve the best of you. It doesn't deserve the best of me. And at the end of last year, I took a deep breath for the first time since 2010. I exhaled a tainted dream. Then I felt lighter. Hopeful.

10/ My story won't be in journals or daft robes at draughty institutions. It'll be in the students I teach; in steaming coffees on cold days; in puns and good books. In the small, brilliant, joyful moments I share in each day as a teacher, husband, and (I hope, one day) a father.

11/ In short (and, if you've stuck with me this far, I salute you): I'm more than good enough. I always have been. And I choose the role of helping young people see that they're good enough too. That's not "inadequate" or a "burden". It's opening my eyes. It's rising above.

(And I'm not naive... I'll continue to have good days and bad days. I'll always struggle with severe depression. I'll always wonder "what if?" But by stepping away from hurtful people, hurtful things, I might just be able to sleep at night. I might just breathe easy.)