With Christmas looming I’m entering my now customary period of reflection at this time of year. I neither love nor hate the season of goodwill, but it does trigger poignant memories of Mandy’s love for it – she used to start preparing for it in February, buying presents, updating her Christmas card list and choosing new decorations for the house and festive tree. I don’t have any enthusiasm for all that these days, and Christmas is just something that happens to other people now.

At this time of year I do miss the elevation of mood that her excitement induced, and I get to thinking a seasonal high might be pleasant. I’ve always considered myself very lucky that I have a regime of medication that works well for me most of the time in the absence of too much stress, and I find myself in the paradoxical situation where I can get high by taking fewer drugs, risperidone in my case – but it’s a complicated process – if I drop the dose too much I run the risk of waking up the voices and getting hallucinations/delusions, so it’s not something I do often or without careful consideration. It’s even trickier now I’m on my own, as when Mandy was here she could give me a gentle nudge if things got out of hand, which adds another complication to the scenario. Still, it gives me something to think about, which in itself is helpful.

While it’s true that no one in their right mind would wish for mental illness, for me some aspects of it are very acceptable – feeling elated and confident, enjoying mind bending flights of imagination and having endless energy have a lot going for them. It’s a very tempting notion at this time of year when I feel like the world’s split into two distinct groups, the first one containing everybody in the world except me, and the other one containing me. Sometimes I spend so long thinking about whether or not to take the plunge that the original urge to do it has passed, and so the decision makes itself. I’ll just have to wait and see...