This is my last column for The Herald. With this, I close a five-year relationship I have had with the Bay area, the first 18 months of which were exceedingly difficult, and left me ill for more than 12 months.

During the last few months of my time at Nelson Mandela University, the doctor’s notes were first that I overworked myself, and “he pushes himself too hard”, and then that I was “mentally and physically burnt out”. A therapist detected PTSD...