I did survive. Just. For the first few weeks I didn’t go to work. I didn’t have a shower for weeks and I hardly ate. I was in breakdown mode, but I knew deep down that it couldn’t go on. In the end it was a work colleague who pulled me from the mire of pain I had almost drowned in.

Fiona knocked on the door and when I didn’t answer, she knocked again. She is one of those friends who you feel like you’ve known for ever and they stick by you through anything. She works in my department. She knocked and knocked. Then she shouted through the letterbox. Like now, I was sitting with my back against the door, willing her to go away. I wanted Charlie and Laura, not someone from work. Instead of going away, she waited and waited until I opened the door. Telling me I was needed at work. That there was a project starting and I was on the collaboration list. It couldn’t start without me, apparently.

Even though I thought it was all bullshit specifically designed to get me to answer the door, it turned out that, in one area of life, I was valued after all. There was a project and they did need me. They’d been waiting for my sick note to run out and when it did and I still didn’t come back they sent Fiona.

‘So when are you coming back, Caroline?’

By this time she was sitting in my foul-smelling kitchen amongst a build-up of half-eaten takeaways, smoking a cigarette. I stared at her. Didn’t she know what had happened? Didn’t she?

‘Of course, I know what’s happened. It’s awful. It is. But we want to support you. I’m your friend. I want to support you. Not feel sorry for you or patronise you. Honestly, Caroline, you’ve got to get out there. We need you.’

I hadn’t spoken to anyone for weeks and I remember being surprised by the sound of my own voice.

‘Give me another week.’

It was weak and small, but it was me. I was still there. Much as I had wished myself away, I was still there.

So I went back to work after a week. Fiona was my friend and she was there for me. I didn’t see it at the time, but she ignored my disgusting house, my breakdown-vagueness and red eyes, and she sat with me as I drank coffee in the cafeteria. We didn’t talk about it. It was round about that time that I realised that I’d never actually articulated what had fully happened to another person. It was all living inside me, festering into my soul until I felt like I was bursting.