The Dark Sight of a Loon (apologies to Messrs Walters, Gilmour, Mason & Wright)

I am not unique, many people have dealt with illness far more serious than the experience I had years ago when I was diagnosed as having M.E.

In fact my son has also been diagnosed with the condition and is making steady progress towards a recovery.

Each sufferers' experience although in principle should be similar it's not ME is very much about me, I, the first person. But is it as singular as it sounds?

Almost more tragic is the effect it has on the ones that love us, care for us, hold us to together when we are falling apart, put us back together when we have fallen apart... (the same is true of any illness)

When I went through my ME experience I could not have done it without my dear wife, Lindsay, and my children, Sian and Daniel, it was their unconditional love that shone through all the blackness and despair.

Why am I telling you all this?

Last week I was off ill with a really nasty virus, the pole-axing, proper 'flu type virus, in fact 9 days later and I still feel like ... Anyway one night last week I awoke having had some very frightening and disturbing dreams and I suddenly felt lost, afraid, and swamped with doubt and black despair...

I used to keep a weekly diary of how I felt so I could discuss it with my CPN (the diaries don't exist now as I destroyed them when I got better) anyway, I lot of my observations were written almost as poetry


So if you were ever wondering what goes on in my head and if the diary still existed and I had written what I had felt after those dreams it would have been something like

why does the light
no more pierce the darkness
I see the flame, feel its heat
yet I am blind
the cold blackness of despair
envelopes my very soul
why does the light
no more pierce the darkness
what demons within
swallow up hope
turn all to night
what cruelty keeps me sighted
yet forbids me to see
why does the light
no more pierce the darkness
is this my life i see before me
why...