Two Bells and All's Well

Except it isn't all well in my head.  There are comings and goings outside and the sound of the hounds.  My kitchen looks out onto the road, and I feel exposed, as though people are going to look in and stare at me.  Back to Bedlam.    Is it paranoia or are they really looking at me?  Hopefully, they will all disperse and go to the pub for lunch.

Kate has written a piece for The Guardian to coincide with World Mental Health Day on the 10th October.  It's excellent and I hope they publish it.  How ironic to be ill over Mental Health Week - usually, I'm all geared up to go to events and take part, but at the moment I couldn't care less.

There's a man staring at my car and he's standing next to it, trying to look in at the window.  Bugger off and leave me alone.  There are horse boxes everywhere and people in hunting garb walking about.  It's a culture that I just don't understand.

The rubbish needs to go out and the sink is still full of pots and pans.  I'm not opening my mail.  Life has stopped for me - I exist from minute to minute, fag to fag, coffee to coffee.  Earth to earth, dust to dust, ashes to ashes  The next bit goes "In sure and certain hope of the resurrection" - I wish I had faith.  It would be tremendously comforting, but I'm not sure it works when one is depressed - it didn't for me when I was younger and believed in God.  In the silences of prayer, my thoughts would rush in and overwhelm me - there was no room for God, only for the Devil of despair.  I think I'm quite a spiritual person, but I have no regular faith.  I was brought up as a high Anglican, and can still recite all the services from the Book of Common Prayer.  I know hundreds of hymns by heart.  I am moved when I go to church - I feel I am in the presence of something bigger than me, but for me it has no name.  Churches have a presence that is comforting - one can feel the hundreds of years of worship in old churches, and there is a sanctuary about them.  There's no sanctuary for me at the moment - I am oppressed by despair.