IT'S A HARD LIFE AND THEN YOU DIE

I've been sitting here all morning, surfing: not writing, and watching Topcat chase two huge flies around the room. She caught one between her paws on the window ledge, and her whole body froze; she raised one paw a fraction and peeked at her prey, then she ate it.

I think I'm going to the burntout flat with Amazon today. I've been too busy with the job to go there and didn't realise that she was in such a state because everything had just folded on top of her. She didn't tell me anything and I was getting annoyed, thinking that she was just being lazy, and that she had fallen out with me - she wouldn't answer her phone. When she finally did pick-up she couldn't speak for crying. This was last Thursday; I asked to leave work and turned up at her flat in a taxi only minutes after talking to her. I'd tried to get her to go to the doctor and she finally got me off the phone by agreeing to go after she freshened herself up. I knew she wouldn't. I made her take a bath and dragged her there in a taxi, and went in with her to make sure she told the doctor about all the symptoms she'd been experiencing. She's all twitches; almost like someone with tourettes syndrome - except for the swearing.

The doctor says it's probably stress, related to the custody battle and the fire; and the good thing about that is that there will be a definite end to these problems. So she gave Amazon something to take before bed that will relax her and help her sleeping patterns, and hopefully the nightmares will go too. It's agonising to watch your daughter go through this kind of pain; I'm trying to keep it together so I will be a good support but it's so hard when my face wants to collapse into my throat. And of course there is the guilt because I returned to Glasgow to help her and ended up focused on myself and a new job; this working life will kill me. Maybe I need a nice man to look after me so I can give more time to my children. But when would I have time for him, or me? And when will my children not need me? When I'm dead is the answer to that.