If you’ve read my blog before, you’ll recall that a clinical psychologist once explained to me that they felt writing was keeping me alive.

And they were right.

Like many disabled people, or indeed non-disabled people, purpose is something I’ve struggled with, particularly in my work life.

We got married 16 years ago, just after I’d left college. I worked a few part-time jobs to bring money in before finding something stable.

I got married in late October and lost my job the following January. This led to eight months of scrambling, alternating monthly for different bills, and catching up when I got a job at Iron Mountain – a file storage company for medical records. There were a lot of horrid days where I ran myself into the ground. Turns out carrying heavy boxes when you struggle to walk isn’t a great idea.

Then swine flu broke out, and I worked at NHS24, reading out an algorithm that determined whether the caller needed medical attention. As the calls dwindled, I spent long shifts writing my first book. I’ll be the first to say it wasn’t great, but hey, it’s one more book than most people write in their lives.

I took a job at BMI Healthcare later that year – to date, one of the worst jobs I’ve had the misfortune to work. Selling private hospital appointments and surgeries on a shift pattern best described as random – any eight hours between 08:00 and 20:00, with weekends thrown into the mix.

Their crappy systems meant I’d often have to work through lunch or stay back at the end of my shift to actually log the appointments I’d booked. Things grew worse when I found out someone had been stealing my bookings, and management refused to do anything about it. Let’s just say I did something about it, and the person who had been stealing my bookings promptly stopped.

After 11 long months there, I took a job at Tesco Bank. Again, I didn’t love it, but that was until I found my niche. I became an expert on credit cards, which made me very useful to the social media team, who had a glaring knowledge gap in that area.

I aced the interview and spent the last three of my eight years in a team I genuinely cared for. They were a great bunch, and I’m still friends with them to this day.

I then moved to Monzo for two years, ending up in their vulnerable customer team. I took to it like water, using my own mental health struggles as a bridge to connect to customers going through pain, trauma, and all manner of difficulties – oh, the stories I could tell you.

The job was fully remote, and ultimately, I missed being in a room with others. It turns out I really like the water cooler chats. For this reason, I shopped around and found a job at 3 Mobile – they were setting up a vulnerability team – and I was the only hire from a non-collections background. I was so excited to start until I realised I’d made a terrible, terrible mistake.

It became clear they weren’t going to put the effort in to get this right. I won’t go into detail, but I’ll just say that the telecoms industry is often predatory towards vulnerable people, with many shops taking advantage of them to make a sale. This didn’t sit well with me as a disabled person.

Throughout my two years at 3, I fought depression, and it won on most days. Friends would comment on how I always seemed so low, my family were concerned for me, and hell, I was concerned for me. Hence the psychologist.

To get through these moments, I’d write. Those dark thoughts, frustrations, and anxiety proved easy to channel into poetry – poetry I’d then perform at open mic nights and poetry slams.

During a period of “sickness” in January 2024, I pulled together the pieces I’d written and compiled them for my first collection, Joe Logue Writes Vol. 1, published in February 2024. It featured 22 poems written during periods of physical and emotional pain.

Now, here’s the wild thing. When I put myself out there, things changed for the better. I was asked to perform on BBC Radio Scotland, I received my first writing commission, and I was selected to compete in a poetry slam at Paisley Town Hall, where I got further than I expected.

Then, in May 2024, I secured a job with purpose – a job that used all my strengths. I was offered the opportunity to travel, write, and inspire lasting change.

I found purpose, I grew less depressed, and now that I’m largely fulfilled… I find it hard to write.

Those feelings that once fuelled my work have largely abated. Now I have a new challenge: finding that incendiary substance again.

I’m now experimenting with more pleasant thoughts, character work, humour, and even throwing a wee bit of romance into the mix.

It’s difficult but exciting. Let’s see what works emerge in the coming years.