I've been back at the bottom of the pit during the turn of the year, which wasn't a big shock - all that reminiscing, summarising, analysing - ach, it's been hard enough living it once, without dragging it all up again.

Also, we are passing through the dark days, the anniversary of the death of our lovely JB, who was last seen alive just after Christmas in Spain and whose body was found by her car, at the bottom of a ravine, in early January 2005. Her sister is one of my close friends (sadly not geographically) and she felt it very deeply this year. So there was that.

Then yesterday I went to the fb page of KF, a friend I made on the recovery programme we did together from 2008-10. We'd hung out together until this spring when he made one too many (too many for me) suicide attempts - there was too much life and death stuff going on in my family for me to support a (relatively) new friend with such complex, severe needs and he did have a circle of close friends and a dedicated medical team, but I still felt bad about it - I spent hours discussing him in my therapy (where, unusually, I was strongly advised to stay away from him) and composed endless letters in my head, none of which succeeded in explaining my abandonment of him in a non-hurtful way. He's a gay man, by the way - I tend not to get into friendships with straight men as most of the ones I know are dickheads.

I last heard from him in May this year, when I was on the ferry boat on the Thames with YD, going to the tower of London to take pics of people taking pics, for an artwork she was making, after I'd spent the last few days talking her into staying alive. A text from KF popped up saying, "Shall we communicate?" and I was pleased, but didn't respond there and then because I was with YD and it required thought. And when I thought about it, I knew best not.

I missed him in my life. He was kind and funny and clever and interested in and knowledgeable about gender politics. I have several online friends who are recovering from mental health problems, but only SC in real life and hell, she's kept on working right through, she's in a league of her own. You need people you can talk about, laugh about all this shit with and he was great most of the time. But he did want to kill himself, and he did, back in late summer. His last post (showing a pic of his new black toilet paper) was in July, and in September friends are leaving sad messages of love after his memorial service. He'd unfriended me but I went back to his page to see how he was, not often enough. It won't let me write on his page so I messaged him - mad, I know, but I felt the need to say something, and whilst I don't think he can see it, I don't know fersure that he can't. Poor K. I wish we'd both been stronger and had been able to grow old together in friendship. He was fifteen months when his mother died as well (references to Mum in posts past and future mean the stepmum who arrived in my life before my second birthday).

So there was plenty to be miserable about, and miserable I have been. I still can't quite bring myself to mention the passage of time thing, but I hope you know that I wish you all the best whatever the fucking date is.

And today Bloke drove us up to see ED in her care home and she was cheerful and funny (if a bit, well, a lot, unusual in her thoughts) and the black hole of despair has melted away. The company that runs the care home came in at 21 on the Sonday T1mes list of best big companies to work for, based on anonymous questionnaires that members of staff felt inspired to complete, which is very reassuring - they all seem pretty chipper, considering.

I am grateful for: the ability to sit at the page and write - scary when that vanishes; Bloke for driving through horrendous weather; SIL for being lovely with ED; a clean, tidy bedroom - it's been a shit-hole for months but on NYE I managed to trudge through hours of tidying and even hoovered, very nice it is now; the fb word cloud of status updates, which demonstrates that things weren't always bad in '13 - or at least that I was able to present a cheerful face



Sweet dreams and HNY xx