For far too long I’ve felt like surrendering to my pain and allowing myself to drop deeper into the black hole that has become my life for the last eleven months. Instead, I went to see the doctor two weeks ago. She said I was depressed, that the last few years have caught up with me and that it’s okay to feel overwhelmed. I refused the medication she could prescribe; instead, I went home, called a few counsellors and made an appointment with one called Jane.

Today I met Jane for the first time, and all of the courage that I felt when booking her walked out of the door as I walked in. I sobbed my way through today’s session. I can’t even recall in detail now what we talked about other than how I can’t cope with feeling like this, how my life is going nowhere, how lonely I feel on a daily basis, how it seems the whole world has turned their back on me and forgotten that I even exist, how Maxine’s death became the catalyst for my spiritual death, and of how much I love and miss Tom.

Once I started talking, I couldn’t stop. The deluge of shit that is my life spewed its blood and guts relentlessly.