Over the past few weeks my life has been wracked with self doubt, volatile and generally low mood, and a once proud ego wavering into fragility. Life is not as awful as it can get -by no means am I back in the grip of my madness-but it has not been good. Even my work has felt as if I am a novice once again who really doesn't know what he is doing. Doubt is not something I experience often.
In the light of that I needed a sign that am still good at what I do in my maverick way. Yesterday that came. I rarely work with people with anxiety disorders-I usually pass them onto others. But what of those who have been there already? So I was presented with a young woman with startling eyes so anxious she barely went out who had been failed before. For an hour we spoke and I thought I too had failed. Yet no, we had the first breakthrough of her battle. No one was as surprised as I was. She will be back.
Later I was at my best. How can someone who has never been psychotic understand the world of psychosis? The answer is not at all or in a very limited way. But I understand. I spent an intense hour unpicking the psychotic delusions of an as yet undiagnosed bipolar girl whose life is going into post mania free-fall. I knew and she realised that for the first time she was understood. Is that priceless? That is for her to decide.
I needed that boost to my flagging self doubt. I do know what I'm doing. Sadly it did not carry into today and I'm in nowhere land again. And so to cooking. I'm braising shin of beef which I will chill and dress with a Sichuan dressing. That is for my friends in the pub. I will stir fry some pork tonight then curry on Monday. Oh and I had a snack of Jarlsberg cheese, Iberico jamon, and grapes-it was very good.
Now it is time for tea-finally managed to get some loose Twinings Darjeeling, thank goodness for Sainsburys.
I Heard a Voice.
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