What are you meant to do when someone tells you that your mind is- is broken? No one says that, of course. Not like that. My psychiatrist didn't sit me down and tell me my brain is messed up and damaged and irreparable. She said it was an illness, but this isn't an illness, this isn't flu or cancer or something that can be fought against or treated. It can be managed- managed- but I was born with a predisposition to this and then something triggered it, and now, my brain is good for nothing. It's been broken since my first psychotic break and I'm going to die with a broken brain and I can't do anything about it.

I was sobbing because what was going on? What was going on? Where was- they were following me, they were following me but everyone says I'm mad, and they were following me and what was going on? My boyfriend held me and I was sitting on the sofa and holding onto his hand for dear life because it had caught up, everything had caught up, and now I was broken, and I couldn't be mad, but what else could I be? I'd known, I'd known from the start, that people, that spies, following me couldn't be real, I'd known that, it was just a silly little idea that everyone had. And that sensation of being watched, of being constantly looked at and monitored, it stayed and it became reality and now my reality was broken and I was going mad, wasn't I? They'd been following me and I'd worked up the courage to tell them to go away, because I wasn't mad or a threat, I was just me, and the man in the suit who I'd confronted had looked at me like I was crazy and asked if I'd needed help.

And of course that's what they'd want me to think- if they messed up my mind and made me think I was crazy, then no one would believe me. But I'm not stupid. I'm not a conspiracy theorist. They were following me, I knew it, and then the man who looked like he'd come straight from the office but who I knew was working for the Secret Service had looked frightened- just for a split second- and I knew he was a spy just as I knew he was probably on his lunch break just like me and probably worked as an accountant just down the street, and that was when reality cracked.

I suppose- I suppose really that my hold on reality had been broken before that. But I hadn't noticed. It had crept up on me. I looked and saw the same people coming after me and suddenly more helicopters, more police helicopters than were surely normal were hovering overhead. And it started off as just this secret, nagging suspicion, and then I saw a hole in my bedroom door, a perfect spyhole, and I started checking public bathrooms for cameras and I needed to know no one was following me. I looked at my boyfriend and wondered- did he love me? Was this real? I knew he was real, don't worry about that, but was he being paid to do this- to kiss me and hold me and take me out on dates?

Was my mum feeding information to the Secret Service? Were my friends in their pay? And it was stupid, it was stupid, wasn't it? I'd been their friends for years. This was too long, they wouldn't bother doing this for me, would they? And yet- and yet I still knew I was being watched and tracked, and who else could tell them where I worked and what my favourite make up counter was and where I took the dog on a walk? I knew a dog couldn't spy on me and sometimes I'd hide and pet him and wonder if there was a person a million miles away watching this through a secret camera and making notes. I'd get angry, too. My life, my privacy, was being invaded, being destroyed- for what? My friends and family and boyfriend had sold me out and I had done no crime.

And that wasn't real, was it? I'd always been torn in two. Which was better? To feel constantly watched and know it was true, or to feel constantly watched and to know it was just because you were crazy? You still felt the same. But I'd always been healthy, you know? I've always been healthy. I've not broken a bone, never felt depressed. I'm confident and happy. I have a degree and I work in an office and I go out to dinner parties and I'm going on holiday to see the Roman remains in Albania next year and people like me don't imagine being watched, do they? It just doesn't happen.

And then the man in the suit asked if I needed help and I realised it was happening and maybe I was being paranoid, over paranoid, and maybe I did need help. so I said sorry because what if? What if I was mad? What if he was a spy and just good at his job? What if? And turned tail and drove like a madwoman- and isn't that funny?- home and asked my boyfriend if he thought I was being watched and if he thought I was mad, and sobbed into his arms.