Stretford Dogs Club was born out of a project I started to help me cope with the pain of grief after suddenly losing my mother in 2009. At the time, I had never experienced grief before, and I needed something to focus on - something to pour my energy into while I tried to get through one of the roughest periods of my life.
In those early days, it helped me more than I can properly explain. But eventually, time caught up with me. I realised that, at some point, I would have to face the grief properly and find a way through it. That was 17 years ago, and in many ways, it still feels like yesterday.
Trying to juggle work, club events, DJing, and everything I was carrying inside eventually became too much. I sought refuge on the beautiful Spanish island of Mallorca, somewhere I had lived before when I was 18. I chose not to take the obvious route and go to Ibiza, because I knew the risks of living somewhere with such a strong party reputation. What I wanted was a quieter life - but one where I could still stay connected to music, which has always been one of the biggest passions in my life.
I settled in a small Mallorcan village called Sencelles, a place where life moved at a much slower pace. Living in the countryside with my dogs, my girlfriend at the time, some chickens, and even a peacock gave me the space I needed to begin coming to terms with what had happened.
Five years after my mum passed away, disaster struck again. This time, it was my father who was gone. The pain of losing both parents became unbearable. I was dealing with a sadness I couldn’t properly describe to anyone - something so dark that it consumed me in every way.
I lost my way for a while. I tried to ignore the pain and push through it, but eventually something had to give. Unfortunately, that something was me. It was a battle I couldn’t win by pretending it wasn’t there.
In 2016, the year of my 40th birthday, I celebrated a little too hard. After a weekend at Sónar in Barcelona, I was hospitalised and diagnosed with bipolar disorder - something I didn’t even know I had. As you can imagine, it came as a huge shock.
I knew nothing about bipolar disorder at the time, and experiencing mania and psychosis for the first time was frightening. It led to me being admitted to a psychiatric ward in Mallorca while I recovered.
The recovery was difficult at first, but with lifestyle changes and support, I slowly began to get better. Over the next couple of years, I managed to get married and build something that looked and felt like a normal life. But the grief was still there, and now that I understood I had bipolar disorder, I began to realise why that grief had felt so severe and so hard to deal with.
Bipolar disorder can feel like the lowest of lows combined with the highest of highs. There is a sweet spot somewhere in the middle, but staying there can be difficult unless the medication and support are properly balanced. That was something I struggled to get to grips with for a long time.
Even then, something still didn’t feel quite right. There was an underlying issue that made recovery and day-to-day life harder than I could explain. After a lot of research into mental health, I began to realise I may also have undiagnosed ADHD running alongside my bipolar disorder.
I returned to the UK in 2019, back to Manchester, and tried to get treatment. There were two major problems. First, the NHS waiting list for an ADHD assessment was around five years. Second, treating bipolar disorder alongside ADHD is extremely complicated. Some of the symptoms can look similar, but the treatments are very different, and finding the right balance is not easy.
I was also self-medicating at the time to try to ease what I was dealing with, which is common for people living with both bipolar disorder and ADHD. Eventually, I decided to seek a private ADHD diagnosis. The results showed severe ADHD, and I finally thought I had found the right medication.
Unfortunately, using stimulant medication alongside bipolar disorder triggered another episode and took me back to square one.
There was a non-stimulant medication I wanted to try, but in order to access it, I still had to wait for NHS approval and clearance from my psychiatrist. That process took another four years. Finally, in the summer of this year, I was given the go-ahead - ten years after my initial bipolar diagnosis, which I’m told is around the average time it can take to get the right diagnosis and treatment in place.
In April 2026, I started taking Atomoxetine. It takes around eight weeks to build up in the system, but gradually I began to notice small wins and real changes in how I was feeling. The latest two-year period of depression began to lift, and the black cloud that had followed me around for the last decade finally seemed to move away. I hope it stays that way.
Unfortunately, the years have taken their toll. I lost much of what I had built over time, and I now find myself back at the beginning, having to rebuild my life again.
But I do have one very important thing: my amazing six-year-old son, Felix. He has kept me going and kept me in the game since the day he was born. Without him, I honestly don’t know what would have happened.
The reason I have started this blog and website is to draw attention to mental health, especially within the music industry, and to help people learn more about different conditions. Music has always been the way I’ve processed life, pain, grief, joy, and everything in between. Moving forward, it will be at the heart of how I rebuild.
Right now, I’m stable, and I have been for a little while. I can focus. I can concentrate. I’m eating healthily, looking after myself, and, for the first time in a long time, I feel genuinely good.
I know there may still be pitfalls along the way. That comes with the territory. But while I have balance, I can be productive again. I can start doing the things I love most: bringing joy to other people through electronic music.
Here's the first mix I did from my attic in Stretford back in Feb 2009, the beginning of my journey, a journey I'm still on but hopefully the storms have passed now. Every day I'll be adding new mixes to the site and playlists so make sure you join the mailing list on the home page to get access to them and also any future events I might be planning.
Music for mental health.
Woof!