Libido: In Hypomania, In Limerence

from my personal experiences

 

I wanted to write a short piece on my experiences with my libido in the separate states of hypomania and limerence, and show the contrast of how each influences and is influenced by that desire.

I had the privilege of working with a client a few years ago, who opened up to me about their experience of having an increased libido in manic periods. They were managing, what is now commonly called, Bipolar disorder, with contrasting and oscillating chapters of depression and mania. In the latter state, they would take themselves out to unfamiliar places, without fear, and seek the sexual attention of others. In the former state, they would be anxious to step outside of the house or pick up the telephone. I am incredibly grateful for them sharing their experiences and feelings around this aspect of their life with the condition, as it helped me and others to understand a significant additional driving factor for their behavioural choices. I am also grateful, because I had never really reflected on my own sexuality or libido as I have gone through, and been in, these different mental and physiological states.

Some definitions of libido:

1. the life instinct or, specifically, the sexual instinct.
2. sexual desire / sexual urges or drives

3. for Freudians, libido means the desire to ‘unite and bind’ with objects in the world.

 

(Your Pleasure Is My Pleasure - III)
 

In terms of hypomania, I had considered some of its common effects. One, many experience, is the feeling that you are ultra resilient and powerful in an incredible way. Some feel they can stop the force of an oncoming train just by standing in front of it, for example. It is common to feel that you have such super powers. Although I do not believe I have had an experience strong enough to be considered mania (although I’m not sure), in hypomania, I have been able to recognise my fearlessness, and my extreme confidence to manage any situation in front of me, however complex, however much beyond my skillset or capacity. I have believed, with absolute confidence, that another’s feeling of happiness is in my power to create, for example, regardless of other things that might be affecting that person’s mood. I have noted that in these periods, too, I am more ‘output’ than balanced in my communicating with the world. It is true that I am experiencing everything in stronger way (sensations, emotions, thought processes etc.), but the possibility of my engaging in dialogue (spoken or otherwise) is reduced. I am not receiving the information in that way in this phase. I am going beyond a mechanism of doubt and scrutiny. I am riding ecstasy.

It follows, that I, too, in periods of hypomania, have a much more confident view of myself and how attractive I am, to myself and to others. In the same way, I feel I have capacity to improve every person’s experience in my environment. I feel my presence can only be celebrated. In certain situations, a person behaving in a manic way can be exciting and can boost an occasion or subvert social restrictions which are containing the collective life-force of all. In other environments, this behaviour is unwanted, upsetting and careless, and potentially dangerous for the safety of the person and anyone they come into contact with.

In hypomania, I feel the libido is carried more wildly towards wanting to make a connection, towards sex and sexual attraction. Everyone is beautiful. You are more beautiful than anyone I’ve ever known! This mental state is optimistic, unworried, creative, without boundaries. Metaphorically, it is like putting a blindfolded on a person, so they can only see aspects and shrouded light, but no clear forms. Then that person is guided into an unknown room, with their arms open, thinking everyone is their friend and wants to engage with them.

I worry in this state that I’ve not properly interpreted reactions or other forms of communication from others. As I am ashamed of my anxiety in steady phases (as it affects how I truly want to be by limiting and destabilising my intentions) I can ashamed of overly bashful and righteous behaviour in manic episodes after I’ve come down. Unlike with anxiety though, there are times in my hypomanic state that I truly feel myself in the most honest way.

I worry that whilst in a hypomanic state, my understanding of my own experience is confused, which is incredibly unnerving, as multiple interpretations of an event (perspectives of an event) might be true. I may have a very clear belief about the feeling of a certain interactions, but in this raised state, how much of the feeling is coloured by my internal excitement. And in following periods of time, it is hard to scrutinise; either in the remaining state of hypomania, or after the come-down. Memory is so strongly linked with emotions, and emotions are informed differently depending in which state I was experiencing them.What I have felt I have seen or witnessed in states of hypomania have been filed in my memory, which, when I have recalled and raised with others, a long time after the capture from the event, in a settled state, have sometimes been confusing and upsetting to that other person, who remembered that situation very differently.

I experience colours more brightly, sound more clearly and majestically in hypomania. The dimensions and possibilities of beauty are extended mightily. The world is more incredible and my ambition to adventure in all of it is ramped up, full steam ahead. As well as external sensations, thoughts, feelings and memories are also more vivid, important and trusted.

 

(Longing - c.h., 25th August 2017)

In contrast…

In limerence, my libido becomes suspended at a relatively low level. The state of limerence, for me, is one that cultivates a passivity in my physical form, whilst in the mind, it seems to motivate a hypnotic reverence and wonder at the person and their beauty. The objectification may take many forms away from physical beauty (i.e. objectifying their behaviour, their opinions, their experiences etc.) and it was because of this variety, I found what was happening harder to discern, because it felt like I was truly engaging fully with the person.

As I have learned more about limerence, I believe any sense of consideration and feeling for the person in the body and mind, although started by an external dynamic or reality (i.e., their aesthetics, behaviours, ways of communicating etc.), quickly flies from presence and reality, and indulges fixed states, imagination and uncritical superficiality. It is a plane which leaves the present for a fantasy journey/destination. I am incredibly ashamed of this, as for many years, I thought what I was doing was truly showing love and appreciation for the person I felt I was in love with, though unrealised. Although it is true that there were true parts to this appreciation - my mental health issues, which allows limerence to flourish, stopped me building a truer intimacy, and misdirected me to infatuation and suspension.

It is this nature (the mind removing its focus from reality) which leads me to believe that limerence is heavily connected with trauma/PTSD. In limerence, one’s safety is determined by what is managed in the mind. If one was present, that person would be vulnerable to interventions and factors outside of their control - rejection, the possibility of learning something which meant they would have to take action to reject another perhaps. In the mind, with ‘eyes closed’, denial, that person feels safe from having to truly engage with other people and objects in the world. Limerence in the mind, and ghostly bodies. Of course it is not as black and white as this. Depending on the situation and people, the ghostliness of a person may drift in and out, depending how authentic they feel they can be. In limerence, the thoughts of the mind are, to a large degree, safely managed by the person. I believe the more able a person is able to communicate their needs and feelings in an environment, the less chance of them experiencing limerence is. When a person is on their own, the less present that person is with their outer environment and sensations, the more chance there is to experience limerence in rumination.

I wonder now, therefore, that the reason that libido is repressed in this state is because the person does not really feel safe. On some subconscious level, the desire to ‘unite and bind’ is curtailed, and yet - limerence makes the bones and skin of the body buzz. The body is aroused, but demotivated to ‘engage’ with the person / situation that is making them feel like this. When I say ‘engage’, I mean be able to share; to be open, trusting, clear in communicating feelings and needs. I know when I have felt this, sadly, misinterpreting the forces at play, I have simultaneously wanted to in the company of the person making me feel this way, without the words or desire to develop anything further. To remain suspended, grateful to be at the base of the pedestal, a lucky life beneath the sky of stars. Now, as I consider it, I believe that any desire was, in fact, massively outmatched by the need to stay protected and hidden. I have been like a loyal dog, ready on command, but with no intention and ability to make a choice. It’s as if this condition, and the feelings, are the perfect ingredients for stuntedness, for sitting on the fence. For so many years, I interpreted this ‘buzz’, as an indication of strong (and positive) feelings for a person I thought I was ‘in love’ with. Over the last couple of years, when I consider this, I think it is more likely that it is linked to anxiety, and feeling unsafe.

The sensation didn’t feel unpleasant to me, and why it has avoided my suspicion for so long. Even now, with an enlightened understanding, it is something pleasant for me to work around, not unpleasant. Leave the heroin alone. Perhaps as this sensation was normalised to me in my pre-teen years, and I had mistakenly connected it to what people describe as ‘butterflies’, this is why I never questioned that I might be experiencing something different to other people. In fact, what people describe as ‘butterflies’ (the sensation of starting to notice that your feelings are developing for another person) matches the description of limerence quite well in many ways. Where limerence deviates, is that where the sensation of ‘butterflies’ usually motivates action in a person, which then changes those feelings into further ones, rooted in the improved, or otherwise, relationship between those people - limerence, continues to grow the flutter of butterflies to an overwhelming, all-consuming extent. This magnitude of emotion then feels too strong to speak. The possibility of loss from rejection feels too much. Ideas such as ‘the one’ come to mind. Before, I would see this strength of feeling as a positive, that my emotions were even more celebratory of this person I liked. Now, I feel that the reason my body diverts my emotions this way, is to curtail the possibility of true intimacy. At some point(s) historically, intimacy has had a traumatic outcome, and limerence is created to offer a substitutive experience, whilst trapping oneself from taking any action or making any progress with that relationship.

These are just initial muddled thoughts around libido, hypomania and limerence. There is much more detail to be written about around how the body reacts and responds to each state, and the situational consequences of either phenomenon.

Ultimately, through the lens of desire here, I think I conclude, broadly, that hypomania comes from a reactionary place of deep acceptance, as a release from the denial of the life force that depression has imprisoned. It is condition that tries to sustain life through extremities. It is wild and lacking in restriction, contemplation and measurement. It is not wise, but it is trying to connect.

Limerence, on the other hand, comes from a place of withdrawal from desire. It shames desire, and rationalises that shame by convincing the person experiencing it, that they are in the presence of unimaginable beauty - and that they cannot possibly connect on a level with the person who has stimulated their feelings. It is something for the addict that is missing connection, who does not have or cannot use the tools to bridge themselves to what they truly need. Here, have your heroin to pass the time. The feeling of limerence is the painting, book, or song, capturing something beautiful, but not that which inspired the art in the first place, the person who is alive and changing and mortal and can disappear and can leave you.

The more I look, the more I see these variable modes of mind as protective and/or desperate behaviours to counterbalance what it has been through before. The complexity of that journey makes it hard to recognise what has inspired the alterations of behaviour, and therefore, what might be needed to be put in place to restore a more predictable nature.

- c.h., 29th May 2025

(Small alterations made from original version published 26th May 2025)
(The term ‘hypermania’ changed to the correct term ‘hypomania’ on 31st May 2026. I used the wrong term in my original piece, thinking I was describing a less severe and durable form of mania)

talkRadio & Manufacturing Consent

talkRadio exists to manufacture consent, on behalf of the wishes of its owners, Wireless/News Corp/Murdoch. They try to coerce their audience into advocating certain viewpoints and to behave in ways that will benefit their owners/board members - i.e. voting for a specific party - with the aim of creating the conditions with which to increase the wealth and/or power of the company/stakeholders. They blur the line between news and commentary to avoid certain types of accountability.

Where it is seen that their audience will choose to behave against what will benefit the enrichment and empowerment of their stakeholders, they will use tactics to divide their listeners from their peer groups, present details disproportionately to create doubt and confusion around topics, and use single hot-topic issues to compel allegiance to the narratives they want you to follow, ultimately, again, with the sole mission of steering behaviour.

They present as wanting to hear from a range of their listenership; to give a platform to their voices - but out of a long day’s worth of content (including a lot of advertisements) calls take up a small proportion of the time, in between the presenters rallying a certain viewpoint, using guests only as a proxy to that certain goal.

Agreed Talking Points flow from presenter to presenter, with some nuance to give the illusion of difference and variety. The most passive listener will have casually pick up carefully selected messaging throughout their day, even if they have had the radio on in the background. All ‘questions’ posited to their audience, at the head of segments, are phrased in a way which leads to certain responses which they want.

The presenters will champion the idea that you are part of a community! In truth, the relationship is mostly one directional. Any listening the station does to its audience, is to recognise dynamics it can manipulate to its overall goal. All call-ins are triaged by a researcher/producer, and are selected, or denied, to suit the purpose of the station’s messaging. When a channel such as talkRadio reaches a certain volume of people, the requested feedback will include a range of views for the station to pick from. That caller will then be a ’useful idiot’ for the messaging. Cleverly, they will still present contrary views, to continue the illusion of fairness/balance, but the treatment of each view will be quite different, and dissenters will be debated in bad faith and ridiculed.

As soon as you, as a listener, no longer perform the necessary outcome function for the owner/board members - including voting the way they want you to vote, support the lifestyles they want you to live, to buy the products they want you to buy, to undermine the groups they want you to undermine - then they will ridicule and reject you too. 

 

The music used between segments is repetitive and seeks to instal a mood in the listener. A heavy, minor piece with violin stabs creates a sense of import and drama. Such a piece might be used to soundtrack a crude thriller. The contrived excitement marries extremely repetitive content, seducing the listener to be highly alert but also comfortable with their own repetitive behaviour (in their job, and/or listening to this station) and not taking any local action for themselves. The station just wants you to listen more.

talkRadio endlessly campaigns to damage the BBC because it wants a completely privatised news market, of which it wants the lions share to push messaging that suits its shareholders. There is no circumstance they will support the BBC because they do not really care about integrity - talkRadio just wants power.

In fact, as a major power within the privatised market, New Corp/Murdoch would like as many public services privatised as possible, so they can seek to buy-off or crush competition directly. For this reason, talkRadio shows will regularly disparage the NHS as an institution, as it represents to many a great achievement of the public sector. talkRadio will advocate for the privatisation of the NHS, without highlighting that their model would leave the poorest in society without healthcare.

talkRadio messages that there is 'no opposition' to the ruling political party because they want the ruling political party in charge. Their shareholders benefit from low taxes, and internal division between the lower middle / working classes. It may be true that there is small difference in the idiology of the two main parties, but there is a choice you can make - in the voting system, but more so, in how you choose to live your life and work with people who do inspire you on a local level. The stakeholder's of talkRadio benefit from a population that feels apathetic and despondant.

talkRadio wants its listeners to be angry at migrants because it distracts their attention from seeking to make changes to the tax system, whereby the wealth of the rich of this country could be more evenly distributed, creating fairer conditions for all. talkRadio is concerned with protecting the economic situation of its rich stakeholders - expanding those conditions even.

talkRadio loves talking about 'wokeism' because it likes to aggrevate and upset its listeners because if they are distracted by ‘culture wars’, they will not be organising or channelling their efforts, arguing for material change and gain for the working classes from those in power - more progressive taxation, better services etc.

This station presents as being supportive of the Working Class, but every presenter is paid a large salary to sit in a chair for a few hours, to push messaging that argues against and undermines ideas/changes that would enable greater wages for working people, for better health care for working people, for better housing for working people, for more community between working people.

These presenters, and their teams, might be ignorant of the part they play in the machine they support, or they might be complicit in understanding their role as soldiers for their rich boss’ fortunes, and happy with their cut. Either way, the cause and effect of this station is toxic to the population it claims to advocate for, and its business model means it will always function as such, because to change would mean to advocate for a world where the interests of the rich are curtailed, and those funding talkRadio do not seek to diminish their wealth and power.

- c. h., 17th May 2021

Thoughts Around My Renting

I have a strange identity in terms of conversations I see online in terms of renting/owning property.

Firstly, my belief is that property is theft. This world is all of ours, no part of it should belong to one person. Lives are all a transition. We rent it (Dido was spot on)

From Uni and following for a few years, I rented places, with the security of my parents, that when things went wrong (due to my ignorance, selfishness and mental health issues, at different times & overlapping times) they propped me up.

I was a student and then worked a minimum wage job in different locations at this time. I rented flats in Wakefield, Leeds & Newcastle.

In Wakefield, I lived with 2 friends in a terraced house, the rent was very reasonable. With cars going in one colour, and out another from his property, and our landlord requesting cash payments, I have reason to suspect he was not paying the requested tax.

Of course, my rent contribution then was propping him up, and that potentially hidden capital is another butterfly wing...

When he came around for the rent money, my friends and I would feel obliged to listen to his and his friend's sexual exploits. We did not encourage this, and it was hard to curb his monologues.

He was a cheerful person, and, outside of the behaviour previoiusly referenced, friendly to us.

In Leeds, 2006-2007, there was a culture of pushing 'luxury rents' to students, regardless of the financial capacity of students wanting to come to Leeds Uni to study.

Many of the front-facing offices for the agencies pushing such rentals looked like bullshit spaceage offices...slick, yuppy aspirational...

I believe there was an individual who profited from a number of these subsidiary companies/agencies... He would be taken to court every so often around violations but was so rich he could distance himself from accountability

I came from a background that was not in a place to rent 'luxury properties', but I rented a room in a 7 room house with student friends. It was a lovely structure but a bare and uncared-for house.

It was hard to find a place to move into, and I was grateful that group of people invited me to join. Getting the agency to attend to anything took forever. Once we were all in and paying, that was their concern exhausted.

I then got very lucky in finding a studio flat nearby some friends. It was just over a quarter of my wage, but was one ensuite room in the basement of a terraced property. There was a double-glazed door, and this was the only source of light, at lower than street level.

My mental health was getting worse, and I was exacerbating this with smoking marijuana more regularly. The lack of light, isolation, and unfulfilling work made the larger issues I was struggling with unmanageable.

I developed a psychosis of sorts, hiding from visitations. Remaining still in my room until those knocking on the doors left. I was fearful of conversation. I would unplug the phone.

I turned up to work without fail because I was institionalised not to let down pre-existing arrangements. It was my body in attendance, my mechanics, not me.

That broke eventually. I quit. I was so scared to speak to the reality for which I was really leaving, I lied and said I had another job. This was the only lie I told my boss then. In many ways he had been good to me, and I am ashamed that I lied then.

The next place I rented was a messanine one person flat in Fenham, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. I was looking for work at the time and my benefits were covering my rent. My dependence on alcohol was at its highest when I started renting here. In retrospect, I was not ready to live alone

I say ready, because I had (and still have) the luxury of parents who love and care for me, and have a home of their own that could/can accommodate me. That summer I had been unbearable to them. I do not know how they managed to be so generous towards me, with the way I behaved

In my delusion, I started up in Newcastle-upon-Tyne having applied for an MSc. but although I completed a successful application, in the midst of my Depression and alcoholism, I was not fit to learn at this level, or any basic level to be honest.

Though I was not suicidal, and I am fortunate enough to have never felt suicidal ideation, I was drinking to slowly destroy my body. I felt worthless, and felt this daily act of destruction a fair response to the things of myself that I hated (Of course, in hindsight, it was not)

Anyhows - in terms of renting - this is how unfair our system is. A distant relative, who I had met twice in my life, died, and surprisingly left me an amount of money that I was not expecting.

This is not my money, I did not deserve this money, why would he leave me this money?

But he did. It was enough to buy a flat in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. My parents suggested I do this, and having gone through the past ten years of instability and being a liability when I could not support myself, I felt this would at least give them respite from my burdening them.

Of course, there were many benefits to me too. No rent, I could look after the property autonomously etc... I could take more pride in its character etc.

All this out of nowhere. I was still working a next-to minimum wage job when I moved into this flat in 2009.

I believe I was on something like 12-13,000 a year, something like that, for full-time, 9-5 office job.

Saving to even establish ownership of such a property would have been impossible for me on the wages I was on. It should not have been mine, and yet, it was.

I hated myself when renting, because I always felt on a tightrope, and that any minute I would fall, it would be me that was the burden to others. I did not feel the critique of the system, I felt personally responsible. This perspective is inaccurate. All people deserve a home.

I then hated myself owning my flat because I hadn't *earned it*. Again, this perspective is a lie. All people deserve a home. It reveals that internalised lie, rampant individualistic capitalist culture- you work + that work means you are entitled to the things you have. Bullshit

So what if I'd worked a job, and the money I had from that lead me to have a house. What the fuck are we doing? Because of the job I'm in, I get to manage to do that, whilst others, who are LIVE LIVING PEOPLE, don't? All people deserve a home.

I now have moved from that property, for work and for wanting to explore living in a different place. I now am renting and property and renting our my flat in Newcastle. I am both a landlord and a tenant. I feel extremely privileged to be able to do this.

Also, I would not be able to live in the place I am living and renting, without the support I get from renting out my Newcastle home.

The rent I pay as a tenant is approx. double what I take as a landlord. I feel guilt and shame at being a landlord taking any money for no labour on my part. I comfort myself knowing I pay someone much more for the same absence on contribution. But 2 wrongs do not make a right

I hope one day to be able to either not rent, or rent in a country that gives proper security to those who rent - and not have to be a landlord. I want no house that is not my home.

- c.h. 11th August 2019

My Generation

What will your generation be remembered for?
We were lost.
Is that something to be remembered for?
I’m not sure.


- c. h. 21st March 2019

Medication & Mental Health (Personal Experiences)

Sertraline has proved very effective at limiting 'the bottom' of my feelings. It's true it has also calmed my manic states too, but my happiness can still exercise itself fairly freely. And without the lows, my engagement with people and activities I want to be part of is a net positive for sure.

Please consult with medical professionals before starting a course of drugs yourself. 

Love to all who find it hard to manage their mental health.


- c. h., 11th November 2018

 

The Eleventh Of September

The eleventh of September, two-thousand and one, was our one-week anniversary.
We nervously touched one another’s bodies, with no televisions around. 
Embarrassed by pre-cum soaking through my beige trousers, I held my jumper over my groin when I met her father.
As we all mingled awkwardly in the kitchen, he indicated at a screen in the corner, and said
‘this is going to be the start of something.’
We went back up to her room. It would be years until I felt it.


- c. h., 11th September 2018

Some Thoughts Of A Recovering Alcoholic

Alcohol is the drug that has caused the most destruction in my life.

Alcohol has corrupted my path more so than any other drugs I have taken. There is no scale for reasonable comparison.

My consumption of alcohol has cost me hundreds of friendships already; many directly, others indirectly.

It has played a part in writing a history that will lose me friends I have yet to make.

I chose sobriety for a approximately four years in my early twenties before relapsing.

I have been sober since the summer of 2014. I cannot remember the precise date I decided to stop, but it was sometime in the month of June, and I celebrate each year from this decision on the 1st July.

There is no urge to drink left in me because I am emotionally connected with the damage it has done.

Though people compliment my abstinence, my continual or ongoing abstinence is not really an evidence of strength for me. Those people resisting a lust to return, those people should be encouraged with such compliments.

However, I feel making the decision in the first instance (though the intention collapsed) and then the second and final instance, was an act of strength, because I faced behaviour, personality, cause and effects, and I used the skills and powers I had, accepted the help from willing friends and family, and took control. I take comfort in that method and decision as I seek to repair my life, and contribute positively to society.



When I think of the act of drinking, I still imagine the pleasure of the taste, and the highs involved in the feelings it can connect you to. That understanding is not depreciated. I recognise that certain times drinking I have been thrown into wonderful and positive situations. The drinking has sometimes informed that positive curve. Of course, holistically, these positives pale against what was sacrificed in ignorance and fear. 

When someone explains to me that they can just have “one or two” drinks, though I can rationalise their decision, I feel no emotional connection with that idea. Drinking was always an ever lengthening river for me. I would travel with it until it washed me up on the shore. I laid back in its arms. It was my guardian and guide.

When someone explains they drink as part of camaraderie, “a session with friends”, again, I can rationalise that idea but it was never that for me. My relationship with alcohol was personal and bilateral, working alongside relationships with people inside I loved and enjoyed spending time with. It did inform my social patterns to a degree, but I never considered it a social event, but something that was added to a social event. Performing in bars informed my decision to drink too. Working in dissatisfactory positions of employment also informed my decision to drink too.

Those that are modest drinkers and do it because they have been brought up in a culture where it is the norm, and want to fit in, present a behaviour which is of no temptation to me. Though their behaviour, for those that are in control of their alcohol consumption, present less danger than those who relinquish themselves to the act, I am still emotionally attracted to the latter behaviour. This is additional evidence for why I must never drink again.

When I think about drinking, I think of drinks that got me high, as well as the ones that got me drunk. Those drinks that hit the front of my brain. Prince Bishops ale. Various other pale ales. Scottish Whiskeys. Rioja. Other beer got me drunk. Cheap American Whiskey got my drunk. Pernot got me high. Some drinks would perform differently dependent on the mood of the occasion, or quantity of intake.

I think of the escape that I begged for, the confusion in my life, a sense of inescapable trauma, that thanks to support from others, and education, and personal processing, as well as counselling, I have managed to replace with a will to confront and a belief in hope.




I think of the acceptance of alcohol, and rituals involving alcohol, defining the possibility of bonding and unity in certain political situations. It is often a shorthand for shared values and trust. Similarly talking about football can serve such a purpose in this country. Though I know there is judgement and disadvantage for not partaking in some situations, ultimately those situations that result in a  disadvantage are often in the company of those with political spirits I do not share, in particular, some conservative values around social equity that do not fit in my ideas.

It remains a hypocrisy that alcohol is legal to purchase in the UK, where as marijuana among others drugs remain illegal. This contradiction exposes its political use. As a depressant it can numb those who might be served best by feeling. By linking certain drinks to certain prices, it can become a code for an opinion on class, import or belonging.

I think of the first time I got drunk on stubbies at a school house-party. I remember the mild haziness, and the feeling that fitted in. In a way, upon reflection, I realised I must have been wishing for that much more than I would have admitted to myself at the time.

Those who are facing great pressures in this life, those who are affected by alcoholism - I have nothing but empathy for you. Those trying to cope and deal with this world, power to you. Keep going. You are deserving of love. If you can, please speak to people you trust about this, and ask for help. There are many charities that could help too.

I think of alcohol as both a cause and a symptom of problems. In my life it has played both roles. I am accountable for myself when I have consumed it. Others can choose whether to accept their accountability for when their drinking has affected me.



This will do for now. To be continued.

23rd February 2018, Chelsea Hare.