I’m trying to be normal, but it is so much harder than it sounds. I don’t feel quite like me anymore; I don’t feel strong and I don’t feel certain of anything. I’m signed off work with a ‘stress-related illness’ because I can’t function well enough to teach my classes. I’m stuck at home, unable to find anything that will occupy my mind for more than a few minutes, trying to keep myself hidden from my children because I don’t want them to see my pain.
I must have cried enough to drown a thousand people today, but still the tears keep coming. I cry while at the doctors… I cry so much driving that I have to pull over… I cry when I talk to my friends… I cry even harder when my best friend cries with me. I apologise for my tears, as if I could help them, and I try to hold them back.
I want to be the survivor I know so well. I want to be sure that this will come to an end, that I will find my serenity again. I want, more than anything, to be sure of myself, but I don’t know how.
How do I get past waking up in the morning and wishing I could sleep the week away? How do I get past wondering if everyone I speak to is up to something, or after something? How do I find the energy to get dressed and stick on a smile and face the world? How do I play the Glad Game without finding my list full of ‘but’s?
ordinarygirlinbrum 
i get this – i get this completely. it sucks. it hurts. and you cry and cry and when you think you have dried up, it comes back. right now I clawing myself out of this pit – i write alot. forcing myself back into working out. i have found writing and reading what everyone writes has made me feel better – less alone. i hope you feel better.
My heart aches for you. Please take care & best wishes.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you.
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat these two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!
Rudyard Kipling
He makes exceedingly good cakes.