None of us live in total isolation. We are all interconnected in a complex web of people, work, home and the interactions we have every day. When I entered the mental health system on a stifling July day in 1991 I kept being told not to become institionalised and must be independent.
That I ended up there was in part because one person made a decision that exploded what I know now was my very fragile life. Still to this day I have no idea why she made that decision.
She's gone from my life now but she lives on as a central player of my first book A Pillar of Impotence and on certain dates. But I'm still vulnerable to the decisions made by others that impact me, my shattered self esteem and my incredibly negative way in which I view my life.
This week has been another devastating one, a mangled wreck of overthinking, doubt, fear, paranoia, intrusive and obsessional thoughts and general you are bad and undeserving. And on and on goes my mind.
On this Sunday morning I'm listening to Mozart's Coronation Mass and trying and failing to switch off. Yet I've done the washing, had my coffee, put my lenses in, brushed my teeth and made my bed. A lamb shank will go in the oven shortly. The nitty gritty of life. Hard though it is I must keep fighting through, doing and surviving despite the emotional turmoil that is in my hesd.
I Heard a Voice.