It’s time I came clean with myself.
I keep deluding myself that I have Bloggers Block, and can’t think of anything to write about. That’s not really the problem. I have plenty I should be saying, and just don’t want to say it.
The simple fact is that I’m quite down at the moment about how slowly my getting better is going, and have refused to put that in writing. After I first went to see my shrink (a sentence I’m still astonished to find myself using) I felt that I was actually on the road to recovery. Of course I knew that one visit and a couple of days of new drugs weren’t going to cure me overnight. Of course I knew I had a long road ahead, but still felt really hopeful.
And, thus wearing my happy head, I’ve produced about six weeks of cheerful bloggery, some of which I’m really quite proud of, and was looking forward to continuing in this vein until my declining years (declining what, I wonder? Drink? Cigars? It?).
Of course (again) I knew there would be times when I’d feel frustrated at my slow progress, and vowed to recognise that frustration as a good sign in itself, a sign that the derealised drifting from day to day was giving way to more awareness and emotion about my illness, and therefore more awareness and emotion about life as a whole. And in general I have, even though I’ve started waking at four a.m. again, and once that happens the days just become daze. But recognising that there will be setbacks and accepting them when they come in one thing, but being happy all the time about it is enough.
So I’ve had nothing funny to say (yeah, yeah, I know), and should have been saying this instead. After all, this is my safety valve, an outlet for my frustrations, angers and fears as much as for my desire to be entertaining (one of my strongest needs, I have to admit). But I’d been enjoying writing the lighter stuff, and just didn’t want to go back to, well, whinging.
And I know you won’t all look at it like that, and I know you’ll be concerned and supportive, and I hope you all know that your encouragement really, really helps me, but I just didn’t feel like putting you all through it again.
Which was wrong. You’ve all stuck with me this long, I should have realised sooner that I could dump on you all again.
That’s what friends are for, and that’s how I think of you lot.
And I’m gonna hit publish now, before I get embarrassed about that last sentence.
Part of their argument is that Christine Laird, in a pre-employment questionnaire, answered ‘no’ to a question about whether she considered herself disabled.



