I've had to be drunk to start this article. It's peach liqueur with ice. My parents are teachers, so this makes this article even harder to write.

School is a form of child abuse. I cannot even begin to talk about the amount of anger and resentment I have towards teachers and the school system. I'm numbed out to it. Underneath my peaceful facade is a raging devil monster that wants to burn down every school down and liberate the children. But of course I can't do that because it's socially unacceptable - I'd go to prison - and my freedom will be over.

School is supposedly a good thing. It educates kids. It helps them read and write. Do maths etc. But really it's a form of mind-control, soul-destruction, shark-tank mentality that requires children to self-multilate to survive.

I don't know about others. But I'm going to talk about my experience here.

Primary school was miserable

First of all there is a very sinister power dynamic between teacher and pupil. The teacher decides when you're allowed to use the toilet. The teacher decides what is worthy of praise and what is to be criticised. The teacher has ultimate power. You are not allowed to defy, criticise or cross the teacher. If you do, you're sent to the headteacher. You're punished, criticised, attacked in some way - their aim, to make you compliant, shut up, shut down and "do what you're supposed to".

As a 5 year old I knew better than my teacher what I needed. I was intelligent. I knew if I needed the toilet. I knew if I was too hot/ too cold. I knew if the material was boring. I knew that I would be better off playing Zoombinis or Homeworld on the computer. Or drawing something I wanted to.

The girls in the class smelt of fish. The other children were dull. They told me off when I started humming my favourite songs from computer games. They didn't like me either.

So I was trapped in this place for 30 hours a week doing pointless things, with people I hated. "I go to school because I have to and I go home to learn" I told my mum.

As time passed I picked up various hobbies. I learned HTML/CSS - I made websites. I learned Photoshop and designed things for people on Neopets. I even started a club where I taught others how to code websites. I also made a school newspaper. This was all before I was 12.

One of my websites from 2004. Image errors due to servers going down

I got into tearful arguments with teaching assistants because they would say I need to do something from a textbook. And I knew I didn't need to. I could see this textbook, this place, this entire system was a complete waste of time. It was a complete brainwashing machine... but nobody trusts children. Nobody trusts children to know that they know what they need.

School forces children to look outside for external validation. School enforces that: "you must trust and follow the orders of authority, if you don't you will be punished." Even if every fibre of your being disagrees with that authority - you can't argue.

They're too stupid, too insistent on being dominant and authoritarian - that there's no point in arguing.

Ultimately you learn to play along. Then a lot of that anger turns inwards. You begin to hate yourself a lot and you attack yourself. Anything that's not in accordance with authority - you hate. You think you're a bad person. You think you're so deeply wrong and faulty. You doubt yourself. You think that you'll never be acceptable. Everything is a losing battle. You can't speak up. You can't communicate. You conform - but that never fulfills. No achievement is ever enough because you've killed yourself and your spirit, just to survive.

I hoped and prayed that secondary school would be better

But they were even more backwards. They were obsessed with everyone getting A grades and into Oxford or Cambridge, or at least a top 20 university. They didn't care about us, our wellbeing, our energy, our souls. Anything.

It was all about moulding, pressing, squashing us into compliant pineapples with top grades.

You could see the mental toll it was taking on kids. Many found alcohol and whatever drugs they could get their hands on. I hopelessly and woefully looked for support in the form of a relationship, love, all that. That was a disaster I'll write about another time.

I won't repeat various episodes and arguments I had with teachers and parents. But it felt like the walls were closing in. I cried myself to sleep a lot. I listened to Daniel Beddingfield's "I've gotta get thru this". Also Sewn, by the Feeling.

I attempted to run away a couple of times. I thought about taking my life - but I promised myself that things would get better once I left school. It was just so totally and utterly grim. To be 13 years old, knowing you can do nothing about your situation for 5 years. You're trapped in a stupid system, with stupid people, doing stupid things... and being completely powerless to do anything about it.

I hated and resented myself for a long time. I got lots of As and played teachers pet because that was the only way to survive. If you can't get out the system, then you may as well play along, rather than resist.

Ultimately when I was 18, I could leave. I could escape. Finally I was free. When I earned my first paycheck - I felt so free. I felt like a man who'd just escaped from prison. The world had a new colour. Of course jobs, bosses and the workplace became the new oppressor - but that was nothing compared to the meaningless joyless oppression of school.

What followed was a lot of busyness, unravelling and getting to the bottom of what's going here. I relieved a lot of the pressure and am now fairly content in rural Spain.

How schooling damages everyone

I don't know if I'm alone in having a horrble time with school. I'm sure some people loved it. Most people hated it. Most people didn't really realise there was an alternative.

If I ever have children I will homeschool/unschool them (unless they insist otherwise).

By enforcing compliance on every child, you get a society that mistrusts itself. It's passive. It's terribly insecure. It has all kinds of mental problems. It looks for external validation everywhere. It a society riddled with addictions. And it's a society that is incredibly inert and lacking in energy. It's a society that feels powerless.

When I was going through all that, I vowed that when I was an adult - I would change the system. I would destroy it. Rebuilt it. Whatever. Now as an adult, I don't think that's possible. Or at least - it's not worth the effort. Doing that would require such immense effort, arguing, trying to change opinions etc. - that it would be several lifetime's work.

So I guess the alternative is offering support to people who had a crap time at school. And also encouraging people to trust themselves again, their playfulness, their sillyness, their dancing-in-the-showerness. Because what's the point in being a rich, high-achieving adult if you can't play?

The fact is - the sitting down for 6 hours, the busywork, the authoritarian oppressive atmosphere, the grade targets, the total denial of independent creative activity, being forced to be with other (bullying) kids... it's toxic. It's vile. School is 200 years out of date and is a form of child abuse.

The future needs curious, playful, creative, energetic, imaginative people. And schools (at least in their current form) bash that out of children. And if kids can't even question the system they're forced to endure for 14 years of their life... that's abuse of their souls.