That's it! I have taken my first step towards making even more of a fool of myself than I already am. Who in their right mind will be remotely interested in the ramblings of a mental case? This question has been dogging me for a good long while now but - you know what they say - you can't keep an idiot quiet so why should I buck the trend?

Besides, and if I am totally honest here, I am writing this for me. I fervently hope that this little book will be of some help to others of course, but I am writing this for me first. Why? Because if I can squeeze the slightest little bit of meaning from my experience of mental illness (dear God, how I still hate that label!), if I can extract a milli-ounce of learning out of it, and if there is the slightest chance that someone else could be helped by it, then it was worth living  through the agony, the despair, the destruction, the living death that it was.

(I have just re-read my last sentence and thought "drama queen or what!" but what I wrote, dramatic or not, is the truth, my truth. So, slightly embarrassed but still determined, I carry on...)

Because mental illness is no laughing matter, I intend to make fun of it as much as I possibly can. That's my revenge. ** "Le rire est le propre de l'homme" wrote Rabelais and I will just add that it is "le propre de la femme" too.

And remember, nothing here is really worth reading without YOUR input.  So, here goes... and, whatever else you do, make sure you read my Concluding Coaching Tip No 11. Beware also of worshipping at the altar of my suffering: I learnt the very hard way because I was too dumb to learn with ease and with joy. I say I am a twit and I mean it...

** "Laughter makes a man" (and a woman too).