In recent weeks, I have been focussed on meeting the needs of others, by giving my time generously to famly members who have needed my help.

I have been happy to be supportive and generous with my time and resources at their time of need.

This weekend, I celebrate my birthday, and although there has been a general willingness to please me, and to create a bit of fuss around me, what I sense I need right now, most of all, is to be left alone.

My head is swimming with its own struggles and the surface which I project outwardly, suppresses the inner turmoil and continuous struggle which I fight alone each and everyday of my life.

These feelings have been made worse in recent days by the resurfacing of issues of trust in my marriage. My wife saw something which gave her reason to doubt my integrity, which despite appearances is unjustified.

I feel an inward frustration at being watched, being guarded, being doubted, when what I need most of all is to be held and loved and respected.

It seems strange to me that more than any of the suspicions with which I am accused, it is my own fear that makes my intolerable life an acceptable choice.

In the quiet time to come which I crave so much, I need to think about a life free of the shackles of mistrust, free of the constant fear, free of the suppression of my truth, which will come at the price of family unhappiness and bitter disappointment which I can only hope will be short-lived.

William Defoe