5. Down the pan

I was trying desperately to cling on to normality, but normality as I knew it was unravelling before my eyes. "Normal is as normal does", I told myself. I tried to continue doing the things I loved, being what people expected me to be, and to try and embrace new things as they came along. Being what people wanted me to be offered me some solace, but the truth was very different - I was falling apart.

Life was getting more difficult, more puzzling, and frighteningly frustrating. My previously buoyant confidence was diminishing by the day. I couldn't complete simple tasks without becoming distracted. I would be separating light washing from dark, and wander off, only to return hours later to two piles of unwashed laundry. This doesn't seem much of an issue, but the frustration I felt at not being able to complete the most mundane of tasks was overwhelming. My hand-writing was becoming worse - I put this down to laziness, or just being tired of having to write so much. My right foot became worse and worse at football, and despite being left footed, surely it had never been this bad?! I became less inclined to try the adrenalised activities I had once loved, or put myself in the more hazardous situations I once enjoyed in the course of my work. I would see photos of myself posted on Facebook, and remark to myself how sallow and drawn my face appeared. Again, I just assumed that being thirty-ish was as bad as others had made out, was it all downhill from here??? I look back now, and can see the link between these symptoms and what I was going through, but as I looked at myself, all I felt was despair and disappointment.