Dreaming of What Might Once Have Been.

The rain has been falling much of the day. Grey but mild, typical England on the first day of the First Test of a much delayed cricket season. I have my balcony door open to cool off a little. Rain like this doesn't annoy me except when it interferes with the cricket.

In its stead I'm listening to Don Giovanni and reflecting on an odd few days in what should be high summer. My terrible inadequacies at living independently and the anxiety that brings me have very much been to the fore. Problems with my car and my flat have kind of been resolved. I do need to go and get a tyre change but I'm hoping that can be resolved in my week off next week.

With the anxiety comes low mood but it hasn't been constant, I'm not rapid cycling and on this Wednesday night I'm fairly content. My hair is finally cut, I've mainly eaten well and I have all I need. Work has been quiet but mainly going well.

So what to say on this wet evening? Well to be honest it was a dream that was most memorable. You may recall how I am at times plagued by terrible nightmares. At best my dreams are weird and disturbing. Certainly it has improved since I stopped smoking in 2014. But still they haunt me. I do not get sweet dreams.

The shock of waking up at 4 am, sitting bolt upright in bed yesterday morning after a glorious dream was worth noticing. If you have read my books you will recall my breakdown and subsequent three decade battle with mental illness was overshadowed by a girl I call Rachel. That is actually her middle name, I do not use her first name publicly. What might have been but was not haunted me through hallucinations, mainly aural but sometimes I saw a terrifying image of a faceless young woman I knew to be her. Who can forget the chapter entitled Psychotic Zadok in A Pillar of Impotence in which a whole cathedral was taken over by a voice only I could hear? Her voice.

Almost twenty years since she last contacted me and with the help of Risperidone I'm no longer haunted in that way. I rarely think of her and the flashbacks and dissociation have largely receded. But she came in the early hours of yesterday morning. And it was so glorious. A wondrous dream which mainly faded but did not leave me terrified and sweating.

What might have been thirty years ago is not what turned out in the present. We take paths in life, some chosen, some enforced. But others also take paths in the same way and much of our lives paths can collide and intersect.

People sometimes ask me if I had my life again would it be without mental illness? A troubling question that is both superfluous, worthless and impossible to answer in a single word. What I do know though is that was what happened. I'm rarely bored. I've met amazing people. And I've helped a lot of those people. So good can come out of despair.

Until next time.

I Heard a Voice.