“I know every day is a battle for thousands of people out there. For too many, just walking down the stairs, taking a bath, getting public transport or being alone among strangers takes real courage. And the only thing that makes you want to cry about how hard this can be is all the other people out there who do all that without even having to think about it. To them all that stuff is trivial, the reflex of life – the nothing on which you layer your everything. The upsetting bit is not that others take it for granted. They should. I would. You never wish that other people should suffer to make you feel better. This is not about wanting other people to struggle or feel worse. You don’t need someone else to be suffering more… (And if you do then you need to go and sit in a corner and have a bloody word with yourself.) Everyone should take walking down the stairs or having a bath for granted. My kids do, and I couldn’t be gladder for them. The thing that gnaws away at you is the fact that you can’t, and that these ordinary things take up so much head space. So much of what you might usefully apply to exciting stuff, or profitable stuff, or happy stuff is used up with nonsense. You go to bed hoping the night won’t be too dreadful, that you won’t have a major fit, that you will wake up with your arms in their sockets and with a tongue that hasn’t been bitten into such a bloody pulp that you sound like a deaf person when you speak.”