I don’t like me or my life very much

FRANKLY, it’s impossible to read this without feeling very anxious about you, and so I must urge you to seek help as soon as possible. When you feel that life is not worth living, don’t hesitate to call the Samaritans (day or night, for free) on 116 123. They also have an email service: jo@samaritans.org — although, of course, that takes longer.

You have multiple health problems to deal with, plus the menopause, plus a broken heart — and as if that were not enough, it’s clear that you have a personality prone to melancholy.

In itself that is not unusual; the idea that everybody can and should be ‘happy’ is a modern delusion which does little to help people cultivate that all-important resilience which enables us to cope with normal sadness and disappointment.

But at the moment things feel much worse (as you say) for millions of people because of the virus and lockdown. You sound as if you are suffering from very real depression, which is why I ask you to badger your GP for an appointment as soon as possible.

See also this website: www.nhs.uk/ service- search/find-a-psychologicaltherapies- service. And visit www. welldoing.org and www.bacp.co.uk.

Do you have the will to try to help yourself? Can you see a future? You say you have ‘nothing’ to live for, and yet you love your mother and say you are staying alive for her sake.

That actually negates the bleakness of your last phrase — because you do cling to something. That relationship.

You live with both parents, and presumably they need you as much as you need them. That has to be a starting point.

What’s more, you have no i dea whether or not you will find love again. You found the last chap relatively late in life — and, even though you’re still grieving the relationship, there is no reason why that shouldn’t happen again. But only if you decide to work to make yourself better.

It will be hard, but please take the first steps for your mother’s sake.

You say you’re sorry you were born, so I suggest starting a conversation with her about how she felt when she first held you in her arms.

What kind of little girl were you? Did you have a favourite toy as a baby? Find out those details, some of which might be funny, and understand that each one of us has played a role, through every breath we take, in the history of the universe.

You say you feel ‘dark’. But I wish you courage against the odds, to step forward into the light.