2.If I go down - I go down on a black run.

Where is it all going? I used to be a person with a plan—diary full, head clear, heels on—a woman who knew where she was going and got there. These days… I don’t get a break. Yesterday I wanted to drive, just get in the car and feel the road, feel something normal again. But no. “Not safe,” they said. My eyesight is fine—but Benson and his ants distort everything. They crawl across my vision, bend faces, twist rooms. I look at people and wonder—is that you? Or is that him playing games again? I feel sorry for Maurice sometimes. He watches me searching for him in a room he’s standing in. What will I do? I want to go back to work—but who would hire me now? A woman who speaks and then questions if she’s even speaking to the right person? Satire, they’d call it. If it wasn’t so bloody real.

But then—Kate. Kate, my dynamo, bursts into the coffee shop—always hilarious, always loud, always exactly what I didn’t know I needed. She arrives bristling with gossip, eyes sparkling, words tumbling out faster than I can follow, and for a moment everything shifts. Benson backs off, the ants scatter, the noise in my head goes quiet enough for me to breathe. She fills the room with laughter—the kind that shakes you back into yourself—and I remember… there I am. God, I needed that. Maurice is at home later watching PSG v Bayern Munich. God, he loves his football. I used to love it too. Black and white in my veins—I’m a Geordie girl, through and through, conceived at half-time during an England v Germany, so it was never just a game. It’s in my blood. I watch him shouting at the screen like the referee might finally listen, and something in me stirs. I remember this. I remember me. The roar, the tension, the way the whole room holds its breath at once—the feeling of belonging to something bigger than the noise in my head.

These days it moves too fast. Faces blur. Names slip. But sometimes—just for a second—the crowd lifts, Maurice shouts, and I’m back. Not gone. Not yet. I remember my Z4 on the M4—parked, hazard lights blinking like a warning no one was listening to. Water rising. A tidal surge creeping in like it owned the place, like the road had just quietly given up. Other cars backing off, people standing at the edge, deciding it wasn’t worth it. Door open. Water flooding in—cold, fast, unapologetic. It soaked the seats, climbed the pedals, filled the footwell like it was settling in for the night. For a second everything paused. Did I panic? Did I fuck. I stood there and watched it—really watched it—watched the water rise, then watched it turn and pour straight back out again, like the car was laughing at it. Like it was saying, is that all you’ve got? People staring. Maybe I’d lost it. Maybe I had. But I knew something they didn’t. This wasn’t the moment I stopped. So I got in. Wet seat, wet hands, no time for comfort. Key in. Engine on. That familiar growl—still mine. Always mine. Because a girl with a meeting… is going to that meeting. Water trailing behind me like I was dragging the river with me—but I was moving. Forward. Always forward. That was me. That is me.

And then I said it. Out loud. No hesitation. “I’ve decided,” I told Mindset Maurice. “I’m doing a podcast. I’m singing for Dementia. That’s it. Done. Fuck you, Benson.” He looked at me—half proud, half worried, probably both—and I kept going. “You do the motivational piece. I’ll do the song. Let’s be honest—you can’t sing.” And we laughed. Proper laughed. The kind that cuts through everything. Because here’s the truth you don’t get to take: my identity is mine. Not yours. Not the illness. Not the chaos. Not the people who walk away when it gets uncomfortable. Mine. And if I go down—I go down on a black run. Not quietly. Not politely. Not disappearing.