This cannot be fixed by relentless positivity and boundless enthusiasm.

I turned a corner again yesterday.

The previous three days – Friday, Saturday and Sunday – were incredibly difficult; hellish. Lying in bed in the early hours of this morning, trying to switch off and sleep, I found myself feeling as though someone else had lived those three days. I had some memories from those days and yet, in those moments lying in my bed, it didn’t feel as though the me lying in bed was the same me who lived through those three hellish days. I haven’t considered it as deeply since, I’m slightly afraid to do so.

I was certainly very depressed during those three days, triggered by further bad news about my financial circumstances that has, for now at least, eradicated all hope of avoiding becoming homeless in December – with nowhere to go or stay. It is a harsh reality. Coming after so much loss – almost entirely due to the abuse I endured in childhood and beyond – losing all family, friends, my career, previous good health, the chance to have children, my marriage, independence, a significant amount of memory, even a not inconsiderable amount of hair due to alopecia, and more related to those losses – the prospect of further loss is terrifying. More than that, it’s unbearable.

I’ve survived all the rest and coped, often alone, I feel unable to cope now. Finally I’m saying I can’t take any more. Despite intensive efforts, I’ve as yet been unable to find support to avoid this feared loss becoming reality. I need a miracle …

In that terribly depressed state during those three days and yesterday too, before I really started to emerge from it, I was more readily accepting of that harsh reality. I am generally a realist. I don’t tend to shy away from harsh realities or stick my head in the sand.

The me that has emerged, from those three days and more, is still very much aware of the horrid reality that I’m facing. It’s a me that is still very much depleted and strugging, but it’s not deeply depressed. That ‘not-deeply depressed’ me (something far closer to the essence of me – some might call that my ‘authentic self’) wants to go ‘Tigger’…

You remember? A.A. Milne’s terrific tiger with boing. He of relentless positivity and boundless enthusiasm. I’m a bit Tigger, certainly relentlessly positive and possessed of boundless enthusiasm, deep depression notwithstanding. Lying in bed last night, thinking as I was, I felt Tigger me, desperately wanting to find hope, desperately wanting to find a way to live.

With the best will in the world and despite having ‘where’s there’s a will, there’s a way’ as a life maxim, logic tells me that I cannot Tigger my way out of this situation.

My own collection: Tigger is the one with THE tail, much as I am the one with a heck of a tale. I’m afraid that my story cannot have a happy ending.