Maybe it’s because it’s winter.  It’s been bitterly cold, the rain pissed down relentlessly all day yesterday and I’ve had to get used to the idea that the much vaunted Indian summer just ain’t gonna happen.  FFS, it’s November.  Get over it already.  I know.  Really I do.  Not that anybody has ever suggested my depression is down to SAD or anything like that.  I can be miserable in summer as well as winter.

And yet, this year, it’s hitting me harder.  I’ve been hitting Napster fairly hard as an antidote to all this.  Music has long been my therapy, and Napster is a great way to find all kinds of tracks, especially when you have fond memories of a particular song but can’t remember whether it really was good enough to justify buying the damn thing in the light of your adult critical reasoning, or whether 20 odd years have given it a quality it never earned at its composition.

So part of me has been meeting up with some old friends, in that sense.  Along with this, my battle with the Trust for appropriate treatment is allegedly reaching its close.  I say allegedly, because I was told I would hear something by, oh, last Friday.  Predictably, nothing has been seen or heard and neither I nor my advocate are any the wiser.  I hate that this has become the predictable outcome in my dealings with the Trust, but they seem determined to dump on the LRI guidelines whenever the opportunity presents itself.

As things stand, it seems you can tell a psychiatrist that you’re suicidal, safe in the knowledge that he will do no more than get his secretary to set up an appointment for one month hence to discuss which anti-depressant might be appropriate.  I wish I was making this up.

Constant throughout this, the voices and faces of friends and family.  Concern, fear, anger, yes, but most of all love, unbearable in the weight it places on me.  A love that stains my hands as I reach for the pills.  A love that binds and eviscerates.  A love my tears and pain can’t wash away.  A love that sprays red over the black and white of my state of mind.

Thank you, all of you.  You know who you are.