A Halloween Full Moon.

The rain has been hammering down all day. It is gloomy, desolate and not enticing. A shame as I was looking forward to seeing the first Halloween full moon in 76 years. In a way it is our day. Many have said to be over the years that their mental illness is at its worst on full moon. There is no scientific reason why this might be but the world of mental health is not one of science, more one of anecdote.

My apologies for my recent silence. Many times I have wanted to write. Usually on the hard and angry days. But that is not wise. Better to let anger dissipate. I've learned that through bitter experience.

The days where I want to give up, walk away and tell the world to fuck off keep coming. Usually just a day in duration they nevertheless affect my sleep and my anxiety rises. The older I get the more I realise anxiety has been there most of my life. With each passing day I'm beginning to make sense of mum's last tormented years before her sudden death in 2012. That my life was unstable then is a memory. Well it should be but it keeps coming back. Why worry about small things?

The last two weekends I've had visitors. Great but what worry I experienced. It came into sharp focus how out of control I feel in my life. My cooking is so important but I need to concentrate and not be distracted. I need a cup of tea. I want a bath. These requests are little but to my delicate sense of self they sky rocket my anxiety. I certainly struggled with patience earlier in my life. Seems others do still.

My little life is insignificant in the grand scheme of things. I give it two weeks max before we are shut in our homes. I've watched from half way round the world what lockdown has done to my friend Georgia in Melbourne. They are finally allowed outside but what price have they paid with their minds? I think that will come to us.

So I must focus on what I can do. And on this wet day Handel lightens up my life. I have a chilled glass of wine. I'm nice and warm. And I have lamb to cook. Flavoured with rosemary, thyme, fennel, bay and cooked on a bed of onions and steamed in white wine. Never tried it before but pretty much everything  from Sam and Sam Clark's Moro books comes out brilliantly.

Take care out there in the rain, marvel at the full moon if you see it and remember my friends, madness is not constant. I have a mental illness but a lot of the time I cope. Just letting go of the bad days, the powerlessness, the fear and the anger, that is the key to surviving mental illness.

I Heard a Voice.