En mai, fait ce qu'il te plaît

This popular French expression roughly translates as "In May, do as you please". Which is all well and good, but supposes that you have a clear-cut idea of what would, in fact, please you. And I? Really don't.

I want to be released from this hospital, because I've been here for more than 3 months and it's really not easy spending so much time in a psychiatric hospital. But the thought of being home on a permanent basis fills me with both terror and horror. I don't feel ready at all to have to deal with all the day-to-day crap that normal people deal with without difficulty. And you must remember that the last time I was let out of this hospital, everything went pear-shaped again within 4 months, and within 5 I was back here. I don't want that to happen again, I don't want to fail again. There has been enough failure in my life already.

Another example: since June 2013, I've been a "protected adult", meaning that a judge appointed a guy - a mandataire - to deal with my personal finances (note: personal, not professional). That sounds great, but it also authorised him to remove all means of payment from my possession, leaving him to give me a (small) amount of cash every month for basic expenses. He's done a lot of good, cleared a lot of (again, personal) debt, made my bank account healthy again. But last week, I received notification from the judge saying she was withdrawing me from "protected adult" status and restoring my right to deal with my own affairs. On Wednesday, the mandataire came for the last time, gave me back all the paperwork and stuff, and left, leaving me to my own devices. But as I said, he essentially dealt with personal finances, so my professional finances are a mess - I have a huge (and very overdue) VAT bill, I owe the URSSAF (the French administration dealing with social security) a huge amount of money, my professional tax forms are full of mistakes... You get the picture. I've longed to be free of protected adult status because it's humiliating and restrictive. But now that I am, indeed, free of it, I feel very, very fragile and scared. The fear of failure looms very large, I must say.

So what would please me? I really don't know. There's so much in my life that doesn't please me right now: I feel that Y is unhappy and nothing I do or say seems to change that, yet I want him to feel good, feel happy with me; The girls are being spectacularly difficult and unpleasant and disobedient (though they're currently in Paris with D and his mother till the 7th), causing me much pain and sadness; Zorro remains terrified of everything and has now, to top it all, started pissing all over the place (on the bedroom carpet, on the duvet, on a blanket used while the duvet dried, on a plastic bag in the sitting room...), making it even harder to accept him as a sort of replacement for Tom... the list is seemingly endless. I feel old and a failure at life in general.

Maybe if all that were to clear up, that would please me, but I just don't think I'm capable of feeling peace and happiness and joy. My brain isn't wired that way (despite the electric shocks supposed to kick-start it).

May is supposed to be a good month - lots of bank holidays (though they change little for me, I've always worked on bank holidays because I work just about every day, always), good weather, my birthday... But the weather isn't great, I'm dreading my birthday because come on, 45 for fuck's sake.

I think I'm a lost cause. And I wish May were over (even though it's only the 2nd today).