There is only one dress to wear when I am at this stage of the cycle – my burgundy velvet maxi dress with high neck and long bell sleeves with elasticated wristbands. I made it myself when I was at university and it still fits perfectly. I’m the same size at forty-three as I was at twenty-one. That takes a certain amount of effort. When you have a condition like mine, you do what you can to keep the symptoms minimal. Low weight is key. I eat like a bird and exercise for at least an hour a day. But in the privacy of my own home, of course. Someone like me can’t go to a gym. I purchased myself an exercise bike with a computer screen attached to it, so I can do classes with real-time instructors. I noticed a little camera at the top of the screen. It is disabled, but I put some gaffer tape over it just in case. I kept imagining someone being able to see me on my bike. I couldn’t take the risk that maybe they could. That is quite possibly the most horrifying thing I can imagine.

My burgundy dress says a lot about who I am. It all came together for me when a guy I’d had dinner with a couple of times once described me as an ‘Amish Virginia Woolf’. He wasn’t being kind. But, I actually loved the description. I feel a deep connection to Virginia Woolf. It’s comforting to know that genius can lie in the socially impaired.