It has been raining for ten days, uninterruptedly. The press and the TV circulate alarming news of floods. The bad weather and the black mood that is breathed in this period seem made for my state of mind, far-back to an all-time low. And with no sign of improvement.

No matter how much I reason and force my imagination, I do not see a way out. Problems seem insurmountable to me, the tangle of the feelings inextricable. Thus after many second thoughts I resolved to ask for help. I phoned doctor Vanni and some days ago I had my first talk with him.

I spoke about the doubts, the chaos of feelings that I experience. I keep on thinking of the wrongs, the frustrations, the cheating, the daily little cruelties that I endure since a long time, all the reasons for which I feel so much rancour towards Filippo. Actions which I don’t know how to give a reasonable explanation for, a motive, and that adds abashment to the pain I feel. Sometimes I think that I demand impossible things, that I’m worth nothing, that I deserve what happens to me, that mine is the guilt because I don’t know to live, that I’ve nothing understood.

Sometimes I’d be ready for everything to rescue the relationship with my partner, other times I’d want to forfeit it all, in order to save myself.

Vanni has listened to me nodding silently, leaning on the chair back, his hands tightened to the armrests. At the end of the chat I ended up this point - my head bursting, that awful recurring nausea, my eyes burning. I put on my sunglasses and, I don’t know how, went back home. I left the duty of dinner to Nora and ran to my bedroom. I threw myself on the bed not even undressing and turned off the light hoping to sleep.

The day before yesterday Dan texted me, as usual affectionate and reassuring. I didn’t know what to say and didn’t reply. Today he writes me: “What’s up with you in this deluge? I’m worried”. Goodness knows how Dan has imagined me in these days he has been in anxiety for me. As a shipwreck in high water, clinging to a log, drowning any moment soon, with the only hope of a rescue fast-fading away. That’s how things stand, this image is also within me and represents indeed my situation. I want to capture it for being able to see it again when I’ll need. Perhaps for the first time after so long I succeed to feel the truth of things. To face up the truth, to talk sincerely to myself.

Up to now I’ve tried many times, never succeeding. Perhaps something is changing..