I didn't want to post this. But here you go ...

Please bear with the negative attitude; I was feeling very down when I wrote this earlier today ...

THE COUNCIL gave me official signed proof of address today ~ a tenancy contract.

I fell asleep on the couch with The Deer Hunter playing. There's no TV here until I get the Sky dish plumbed in so I'm reduced to DAB digital radio and DVDs.

I woke up about ten times overnight. Eventually I turned on a talk radio show and that sent me out like a light. Which might say more about BBC London than my sleep habits...

The council had given me an appointment for 10am ~ far too early. I trudged down feeling miserable and sick. I had hoped the walk might help my bad mood, but it did no good at all. As for my proof of address crisis, I've come to terms with the worst: that I won't be able to prove who I am or where I live and so will be stuck in limbo for weeks. Sorry to be negativistic but that's how I feel.

I've come down to earth with a bump and now feel sad, miserable, guilty, run down, sick and tired. That's probably just normality. Reality. A return to my actual shitty ordinary self. I never got used to it before. Maybe I should ditch the medication and just learn to live with it. I have after all been living with it for years. I just wouldn't have taken seriously the idea that I was hypomanic last week (would just have thought I was in a good mood and couldn't sleep) ~ wouldn't have realized I was bipolar. I never realized I was bipolar until the manic high had gone so far I felt like I was on drugs when I was on nothing at all. This is quite a common mental state but it's full mania, not hypomania and means you're seriously mentally ill. Paradoxically it was when I started hearing voices loud and distinctive (as opposed to the murmurings of years past) that I actually realized I had gone "mad" ... Well you all know the rest of the story. I've had these problems for years but didn't take them seriously because of the drugs. I had always assumed that if I could only pull myself together, clean up and put some effort into life, I'd eventually turn out OK. I still thought I'd get a bit derpessed from time to time. I've always been prone to depression. But I never believed the friend who told me I was bipolar more than a decade before I had any formal diagnosis. I mean, we all have ups and downs, don't we...?

I'm not taking the quetiapine (Seroquel). It doesn't seem to work that well. I had to stop taking it in order to be clear-headed enough and awake enough to be able to move house.

So now I don't know what to do. The housing office keep asking about my support worker: do I have one, when am I going to see him. As if it's a matter of urgency. Deshane has not been in touch THIS YEAR. Like most professionals he probably found me warm and intelligent and engaging and thought that equalled an easy case. When my troubles turn out to be at least as deep-rooted and pervasive as everyone else's (why else would I NEED a Support Worker? ~ he gives up on me. Just like all the rest.

Why the housing office think I need such support so urgently, I'm not sure. I thought I came across as pretty "normal". Then again my friend Pinky ~ yes it is as in Pinky and Perky, only Perky committed suicide in 2010 ~ accurately discerned that I was hypomanic when I just thought I was high on life. Then again hypomania IS being high on life as a stage of bipolar disorder ~ that's what it means "below mania". For years I never genuinely believed I ever suffered even from depression, long considering the medical word to be a mere excuse for a bad case of the "can't be bothereds".

Then I got diagnosed "schizoaffective" and looked up what schizophrenia actually was, and found out that low-grade depression, a failure to engage with life and a "can't be bothered" attitude are a major part of the condition. Whereas ordinary bipolar clears up between episodes, schizoaffective leaves you with residual symptoms. Also the severe episodes can be more extreme than plain bipolar. Which is why, when I was really ill, I started getting signs of catatonia on top of the mood syndrome.

But I'm not catatonic now. Just exhausted. I'm going to bed now. (This was written in the early afternoon.)

One good thing about feeling this sick (and I really did feel bad when I wrote those words) is that I can justify going to bed during the day. That's what sick people do ~ lie in bed. And I feel very sick indeed ...