This is The Other Question that people always ask. They’re also looking for “A Reason”, an exposition. Maybe a trauma, an event, as described, something that perverts my brain away from its vital task of the everyday, and makes it weaker, and tired, and colours everything grey.

And this question is actually a “Good Question”.

Because, sure, lots of things have happened to me. Things I can consciously recall. Bad things. Good things. Awful things, surmountable things, shameful things.

But what if something happened to me that I can’t recall? My memory feels like a beach bathed in fog.

Or worse, what if I did something? Something wrong? Something bad? Something I’ve forgotten. What if there is a dark secret lurking in my head?

And if there were, could you help me uncover it? Your programme seems ideally placed to do so.

If there is no grand, insidious secret, if it turns out that life is just a steady trickle of events, a slow and creeping succession of little traumas, a collection of hurt, if you will, then your treatment may also help me come to terms with that.

Either way, my mind is being eaten away steadily. In the better hours, I can just about remember my name, and that I am married, and that I used to be a Mother, have a life. Other times, the words escape me. Because words are tricky, aren’t they? In the time it has taken you to read this far, I have told you that I no longer want to live. Perhaps I’m already dead. Who knows? You can’t see me, you can only see my words, like footprints left behind in the sand.

Do you believe me? Why would you? If I was serious, then I wouldn’t be sending this letter, would I?

God, I’m tired of myself.

I’m writing with no expectations, only desperation. Words, marching quickly across the white page like dutiful ants going about their business, and that business is this: alive, or dead.

Heads, or tails. Black, or white.

Seems simple, doesn’t it?

It isn’t.

Please help me.

Yours, with hope,

M

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VOYEURS