Jonathan Ford

Jonathan Ford was born in the UK in 1963. After attending Oxford University he embarked upon a career in oil trading on both sides of the Atlantic, a career for which he could not have been more mentally or emotionally unsuited. He has four children, two with each of his ex-wives.
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Depression: Oil Trading and a Mind at War with Itself

Memoir

From a largely joyless childhood in the UK, Jonathan shares his troubled family life, with an alcoholic father and domineering mother, through the school and college years and to the present day. He chronicles his agonizing struggles with severe depression, anxiety and personality disorders that caused massive marital strife with his two wives and career upheaval, almost resulting in suicide. His mental illness could not have made him more unsuited to his chosen career as an oil trader during which he suffered many failings, disappointments and betrayal that threw him into deep despair and his life into turmoil and ultimately near financial ruin. His unfailing love for his four children from two difficult marriages shines through the darkness and has been the principal factor behind his survival. He has been plagued by a life long internal struggle that has all but destroyed every facet of his life. Jonathan offers valuable insight into the murky world of oil trading, supported by his first hand knowledge of the industry, as well as a trader's perspective on the Enron era, sprinkled with eye-opening, fascinating and often amusing anecdotes. Finally, a harrowing and stunning epiphany enables him to see his past life with a new heartbreaking clarity that provides a spark of hope that as usual is extinguished by the icy wind of reality.
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