I have begun to be fixated on self-doubt, begun to question things that seem to be more fundamental than the matter of my existence. There is something curiously addictive about scrutinising the patterns of your life, about seeing failure, dissatisfaction and unhappiness in the pattern of your past, and then seeing it again in your present. Most likely, this is merely a substitute for other, more regular addictions - but drugs, alcohol and even sex take more time and physical energy than I have at present. So, self-doubt is seriously in season.

I've started taking the advice of well-meaning people, making sure that I get a quiet half an hour most days, in a hiding place where only one person can track me down. I intended to use this time to clear my mind, to plan and to strategize, but I've become addicted to reflection and thoughts move around my head like guests at a wake, unsteady on their feet, with mixed degrees of grief and embarrassment and an undercurrent of regret at needing to be there at all.

I think I understand more about madness than I ever did before, or at least about certain types of madness, and I'm not at all sure what to do with that knowledge, either its existence or my awareness of it. More than once I've imagined myself running amok in the hallways of the courthouse, cutting down parties with a randomness that I ought to find chilling; or doing the same at home, with my aim directed at intangible responsibilities and expectations, most of which are probably my own. There might be something very welcoming about such a release but there must always be control; it is one of the patterns of my life, running through the structure of my existence - like the veins in marble.

Maybe I have a strength I have not found and will actually manage sucess at work and parenting and life. I wish I believed that way and there are moments, instances really, in which i sincerely do, but then my faith flickers like a candle in a draft, and I doubt.

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