The Doctor is In

Tuesday

Tuesday's I go to an open-house sort of a place, Pathways. Mostly for me it's a means of getting out of the house for some company. Mairi comes to pick me up from my place and we drive over. Then it's all about who's in and what's going on. Sitting around chatting and drinking tea and having a smoke. Pathways To Recovery In Mental Health to give it its full title. Just about to move to new premises in town (Dundee). Liz is doing aromatherapy sessions at the moment. Anyway, the reason I mention it is because one of the chaps in today was vocalising his situation and it reminded me of myself. You probably know it - it's when things get so bad that you want to hurt someone; or be hurt. A sort of terrible dilemma between knowing that it's rampant emotional malovolence and yet also being drawn to the possibility that acting on the impulse would be so easy. It's really bad to experience. The nitty gritty of being unwell. And the worst of it is that even though I know of similar circumstances and thought patterns to the ones he was describing, I still felt shocked when he put his feelings into words. It started to sound like a tabloid stereotype of mental illness. There is a tendency when we get through our difficulties to forget how awful it was. I reckon he'll be OK. It's a matter of sticking with it and managing things as best as possible. Eventually these things begin to fade.

I'm still kind of sore about what's been happening lately but I'm not quite yet ready to deal properly with it. See you later, Alan.