I have written a number of blogs over the months - well not written so much as voiced out to myself whilst walking the dog. Then I get home and she wants her dinner and life happens and the world ends up saved from my ruminations.
So what is different today? Well instead of deep and profound insights to issues in the big wide world, or at least round the corner, today is just a vomit of emotion that I need to vent.
Trigger Alert
First of all I need to say I am safe. I am not at risk of acting on these feelings.
When it takes all your energy to surface in the morning, when walking the dog through woodland provokes thoughts about whether a branch would take your weight or be high enough to ....
And I know that doughnuts don't really count as lunch but they fell into my hands at the petrol station.
Yes I turned up at a meeting, yes I went to lead a school assembly, but through it all I craved my duvet and yearned for the oblivion of hiding under it in denial of all responsibilities.
I am 42, an adult, a professional, even told I am good at my role as a minister. I go to national committees and actually feel more functional there than at local meetings where I expect my cover to be blown at any moment.
I live in chaos and clutter - not enough to drown me but enough to add to my sense of failure to be a coping adult. I don't recall happiness only lesser degrees of depression, Even my mad active times are not happy but driven.
This morning we were challenged to think positively and that was highlighted as the small plodding steps. But did they, could they, grasp what it is like when takes all the effort to merely surface each day, and to distract yourself enough from the scream in your head to be able to look functional? Some do I know. Yet still I feel alone, even knowing I am not. Such is the deep fog - a crowd can travel the same path but in isolation from those just two steps away/
I live. As one of those internet meme says 'So far I have a 100% success rate at surviving each day'
