I am very quick to think the worst of myself. If I’m having trouble with my homework it is immediately because I’m stupid. It isn’t that it has been five months since I tried to do any. It isn’t that it is because I’m grumpy and hormonal. It’s because I’m stupid.

I am having such a hard time walking this line, pushing myself is all I ever do. I demand near perfection in almost every area of my life. If I don’t succeed it is because of some fundamental wrongness in me, not because of outside circumstances, not because of a one-off mistake. Now I have to stand back and watch while I try to navigate what is normally so easy.

I’m nervous of the gym tomorrow. What if Malcolm doesn’t believe that I’ve been ill? What if the gym music is too loud for me to hear him? What if my teeth get to hurting too much and I have to stop? What happens when the music is loud and all I can hear is my pulse and he tries to explain things? What if I’m so far gone after five months that I have to start over from the beginning? I always think people who see me and listen to me rattle off my usual exercise routine think I’m lying. I wish my body reflected my efforts.

I’ve been trying to do one homework assignment for nearly two weeks and I keep hitting mental blocks. I want to be a counsellor, but I don’t think I can do all the study required. I think I could be an excellent counsellor, but all the knowledge, skills and tools feel so beyond me.

I really hope this is nervousness, hormones, worry and anxiety climaxing and nothing more sinister. This is what happens when you’ve been bitten by depression, not once but twice. It stalks my every bad mood, every strange day, every frightened moment.

And now I can tell myself I feel better because I let this beast out.