An open letter to tyrants everywhere

Dear mental health problems,

Would you feel offended if I didn’t capitalise your name?

Unwelcome guest...

I am, largely, resigned to the fact that you will be my unwanted companion for the rest of my life. I have enough experience of waking up to your sallow breath on New Year’s Day. It has always been an irritation to find that you have not tarried within the previous year like a fair-weather friend might. For auld lang syne. That’s the only reason I am writing to you. No-one writes letters anymore. But the politicians say that a written letter is like a thousand emails to them. So, politician of the mind, making my conscience compass as sick as you are, I understand that a miracle of healing is unlikely. Do you have no responsibilities?

Let me start off by saying you are no company at all. Like a self-obsessed tyrant, you are tiring to be with. You drain me.

This is a little like addressing the weather - no matter how much I reason with the weather it doesn't get any better. You cannot make your peace with the weather. And should you even try? Or should you resist it – screaming into the thunder and storm with fists raised to God (and only because we are human)?

Even the childhood charm of, 'Rain, rain go away come again another day' doesn't work with you. But if you were the weather you would be the cold, pummelling rain of winter. With that thunder, that storm which you even blame me for, as the added bonus.

I can't see this being a regular correspondence.

I do not love or like you. I do not need you. You need me.

Mental health problems, mental health problems go away. Come again another day.

Faithfully,

Your Host