Written at 05:14 hours

YESTERDAY I felt worse than at any time in the recent past. On top of depression, I had a constant sense or irritation bordering into unfocused fury. Unfocused because I was angry about everything and nothing in particular. I felt stirred up and upset every minute of the day.

Usually drink helps. (The doctor who originally diagnosed me accepted this as fact, amazingly, without adding the platitude that "drink is a depressant so it will make you more depressed". He knew how much I was drinking, which was very little. Maybe that's why he didn't argue.)

But yesterday, alcohol made me feel even worse.

So I did something I'm not proud of and called my dealer. The heroin was considerably stronger than normal. I hit up £20 in ten minutes and amazingly before I knew it, nearly all traces of that hideous depression had evaporated.

Paradoxically this merely rubbed in the fact that I cannot rely on heroin to steer me out of negative moods. I just can't. I now have been addicted to heroin and that noxious, largely ineffectual substitution rubbish they call methadone for over 12 years. I now want to be drug-free more than anything.

Apart from an hour's sleep while waiting on the exceptionally tardy dealer, I didn't go to bed at all yesterday daytime. (My extra sleep occurred in an armchair in front of the telly.)

To give an example of an ordinary day: I was in bed by 5pm on Wednesday. Got up at 3:30am and then slept from about 7-11am. That's 14.5 hours' sleep. A sure sign of despair.

Today I went to bed at midnight and woke at four, not feeling tired. So I'm going to make the best of this early start by going to work on my kiddie-book. Before anyone gets too impressed by my prodigious-seeming work schedule, it is necessary to bear in mind that this is going to be a wafer-thin volume for 6-9 year olds. Pages of giant print, interspersed by half-page illustrations. I doubt the entire story will exceed 8-10,000 words. That's a TENTH the length of an adult novel. So when I say I'm intending to produce three in a row, that's not very much writing. And besides, it's what the publishers will want.

Writing for children is supposedly a rare gift. So if I really do have that talent ~ wow! That's one thing I have going for myself.

Please God let me feel OK in the coming day. It's 5:30; I've only been up for 90 minutes and already fatigue, depression or something of the like is creeping back upon me.

Amazingly, despite feeling too ill to bother doing naything else this week, I'm still able to write. Nothing except catatonic depression or severe mania ever stops me writing coherent English. In mania I literally do lose the ability to string meaningful sentences together. In depression, it's the will to write that goes.

Though I haven't achieved any kind of creative high this week, I have found distraction in my work. And I hope my critical faculties are switched on enough for me to hone my prose into the best it's ever going to be. I'm never going to be one of those arty writers. I tell my tales simply and directly. And that's what six year olds want.

One last fact to make you laugh: when I stubbed my toe the other day ~ blood all over the place ~ I caused more damage than first envisaged. I'm now limping everywhere. The nail is still in place, but it's gone white. It no longer appears to be fully attached to my toe. And when I press it down, pus leeches out of both sides. Pus which smells of dustbins and shit.

I couldn't get a doctor's appointment before 10am Monday, so I have to suffer till then, with only a box of 48 ibuprofen for company. What I desperately need is antibiotics. And I hope the nail won't have to be amputated.

PS after writing this I slept from about 7am to midday. No further writing was achieved. It's now past 3pm and I don't feel as depressed as yesterday. THANK GOD.


Illustrated: the wonderful Cheska from Made in Chelsea, the only docusoap I ever follow. Her Dad committed suicide last November, poor girl.

SCOOTER: C'EST BLEU A song that has been going round my head