I'll try not to sound patronising, promise myself that I won't utter the words 'when I was your age' and instead try to articulate myself in other ways. I reach into the dark depths of my adolescence, searching the dusty archives of my mind in order to tap into how I felt back then. The quiet desperation, the helplessness, the utter and ineffable sadness. The guilt that ensued...What right did I have to feel like that? I had my health, a home, food to eat, a loving family. What right?

It was inexplicable. But it just was. And I had to deal with it as best I knew how. I know what it's like to use all of your might to resist that temptation, to inflict in order to numb the darkness that descends. Wanting to feel something else, something other than this. Oh yes, I've looked that particular evil in the eye and I'll tell you this secret, I didn't always win - sometimes I succumbed. But I fought it mostly, and I banished it from my life.

But that was then and this is now, and I'm not trying to compare my past affliction with what you are going through now, I can see how terrible you feel and I know that mostly I was consumed by a feeling of hopelessness and that I found ways of coping. Whereas your situation is still so raw.

I found escape by hiding, by carefully concealing the truth, locking it away as it began to drip and congeal like tar. I'd find solace in words; writing words, reading words, as long as I could avoid dealing with my own feelings.

That was another me in another time.

Okay, I know that on occasion, when I am at my most vulnerable, I will be touched by a smattering of that sadness and it will trip me up, causing me to falter temporarily. But the more I learn and the more I feel, the more I realise that I am me and people are people, the more I realise that things can get better.

They can.

I promised to lend you some of my happy songs to listen to, so here's my starter for ten...stop listening to those sad songs, if only for a while, and try and be nice to yourself...and if anyone else in blogsville wants to lend some happy songs, please leave your answers in the usual comment box. Thank you.

Just like heaven - The Cure
Mamma Mia - Abba
Sometimes - James
Sir Duke - Stevie Wonder
Sweetest Feeling - Jackie Wilson
Concrete Jungle - Jurassic 5
Tread Water - De La Soul
Turnipfish - Sultans of Ping FC
Live as You Dream - Beth Orton
A Minha Menina - The Bees


And hey...feel better soon okay?

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