OK - last time I tried this it timed out on me. I wrote the fucker and it timed out on me. Gratitude. I was postulating the idea of simply staying up all night because no-one’d know. Oops, my alarm just went off, so that means I no longer need to postulate, I’ve done it. Ah well. I was saying something along the lines of “If I stay up all night, who’d know, apart from my gran” And the reason why she’d know (she probably does know, it’s her birthday today and I feel evil for having subjected her to this mood of mine, but I have little choice) is to do with empathy. Empathy is something you hear about in StarTrek, something of science fiction, except it’s not really...and therein lies the problem. When I was younger, we’re talking 16, maybe 17, just after I met Mark, I used to go to a dropin centre in Norwich called the Mancroft Advice Project. This place was cool for two reasons, 1) it was funded by the local church, but, unlike so many others, decided that the people who came through the door mattered more than what they believed, and secondly, it did good coffee for 5p So I started going to this place because friends of mine went there (Feg was told that it was worth checking out, so she went and liked it). As an upshot, I was considering my sexuality at the time and was very confused and naive as are most newly discovered bisexuals. MAP offered counselling, which after a short time of being there (and seeing Feg after she’d come out of the sessions) I decided I could probably do with some counselling as I was very confused about who and what I was. I had learned from an early age, much as my gran had, that if I got close to people, when they were upsed or confused, I’d feel it too...it’s at this point that sensible people leave the conversation, fair enough, but hey, there’s more to see... My gran (although I’ve never talked to her about this) has gone through her whole life feeling to some extent what the other people in her life feel. I was lucky! I went to MAP and met a wonderful woman called Brigid (I’m pretty sure I spelled her name wrong, but it’s late/early so I’m not that bothered). Now Brigid was cool for two reasons, one, she didn’t subscribe to the chrisian dogma that was kind implied in the place, she was gently ribbed for believing in tarot, etc, and two, when she was a young girl in London, her family doctor was Dr Bush, Kate Bush’s dad. I had counselling with an amazing woman called Barbra (Bob to her friends) however, Brigid was very perceptive. She recognised in me the empathy thing, and explained it to me (without prompting) and told me that it was a gift, but a double edged sword... She explained how easy it was for someone as empathic as myself to burn out. This made sense to me, as every person I was close to was in the middle of a crisis, she also explained to me how to temporarily stop the empathy thing, so I could get some peace and gather my own time...It involves visualisation and it’s a bit tricky to do right, and if you’re empathic and used to it (as my gran is) it’s very weird the first time you do it. Basically because you remove all the external thoughts and actions just by the power of thought, and it’s *very* odd for the first time...it’s almost like silencing a part of you. well, thinking about it, it’s exactly that. You are silencing the other people that make you feel sick in your stomach, and it’s very very odd the first time around. Now, it’s my Gran’s birthday today. I would love to give her the gift of being able to block this out, but I’m really not sure how to do it...I could explain to her, but she finds more truths in her self help books than in reality...and I don’t know what to do. Although I’m pretty damn sure that if I turn up with a hole in my arm she’ll not listen to a word I say because she’ll be preoccupied with almost losing a grandson