Thanks for all the kind and helpful messages people have been sending me. They've made me feel that I'm not alone in this world and I'm starting to realise that having a few people who really care about me is better than having hundreds of so-called friends who don't. (But why am I so obsessed with numbers?)

I was really sad when Rob moved to the other side of the world and thought that I would lose him as a friend but it's amazing how much support and love you can get from people far away. It just shows that you don't need lots of friends on your doorstep because modern technology allows us to have friends everywhere and having friends far away means you just have to plan longer and better holidays to go and see them. Hurrah!

Yesterday I felt fine, as I said, but obviously I was a bit unsettled about how my mood had been turned on its head the day before. Today didn't start so well. I was meant to go to the Post Office for H but slept through my alarm and so missed the tiny window of opportunity for picking up undelivered mail. (I hope it wasn't too important.) I woke up at 12.15 and had to quickly get ready for my FLASH appointment. I mentioned FLASH a few weeks ago but although I'm meant to go weekly, I haven't been able to go because I've been so busy - surely a good reason.

I saw a different facilitator-type person today but it was another good meeting. On my way to FLASH, I couldn't see how they could help me. I've had such an up and down few days that I thought I needed a really good counselling session to talk about the issues and why they arose, but that isn't what the FLASH people do. I went in and said that a lot of my original goals weren't valid anymore because I could only get up early on my working days. Also, I said, because I'm more tired now I realise that my goals are a bit over-ambitious. But the FLASH-person told me that it's fine to revise goals. (News to me.) And she also made me realise that I'd made huge steps forward, in that I'm doing so much more than I was doing a few weeks ago and that I should be pleased with my progress.

I mentioned the criticism incident and she drew a diagram showing how a situation can lead to thoughts which in turn lock you into a negative cycle. From that, we realised that while the situation was the trigger, it was my thought-process that was the problem. Which means I'm a classic case for cognitive behavioural therapy. (It's been said before but nothing's ever really happened.) She also helped me realise that instead of seeing myself as this un-manageable unsolvable issue, I saw that I had a contained problem which, with work, could be resolved or at least improved.

It's not her job to do this with me but she can support me in my task. She showed me three books which make up a self-help course to overcome self-esteem. She said she could either photocopy the pages or I could buy them and so I'll be ordering them online later. (I don't think my local bookshop will stock them, or maybe I could ask them to order it. Umm...) Anyway, it was the most productive 20 minutes I've had in ages. Self-help course to the rescue.