No sleep. Too warm - turn on the fan. Too cold - cover up. Bad dreams about people choosing to die! What's that about? Toss and turn. Turn on the light; read for a few minutes. Book is good, but not enticing. Turn off light. Try again. Can't sleep! Get up. Wander around house looking out the windows at the darkness; shadows thrown across the lawn by the streetlight. All the houses are dark and mute. Try laying on the couch - not sleep worthy. Back to bed. Turn off fan, beat pillow into submission. Sleep for 2 hours. Another day begins.

I used to journal.

I didn’t call it journaling. I called it self therapy.

It was a way of sorting through the chaos of the overwhelm to figure out where it came from. Overwhelm is insidious. It is vague. It is real.

My method was simple. I’d begin with the question: What is bothering you? An answer would come. Then the next question: What about that is bothering you? An answer would follow. The pages would fill until clarity came.

Later when my children were in the fangs of overwhelm we would use this technique. Theirs were called “worry lists.”

I find it surprisingly easy to be with and move amongst an incredibly diverse range of people. This wasn’t always the case. There was a time when I would feel excruciatingly awkward and out of my depth with strangers. But the nature of my job here in London, which requires me to sally forth into schools and liaise with such a wide range of professional agencies, not to mention working with children who are at times severely disaffected, even damaged, has forced me to confront and come to terms with my innate shyness in ways I once couldn’t have imagined.