I babysit, if you can believe that (yes - I feel sorry for her too), so that is my daily duty at the moment.

L is 3 and tells me she loves me every day. When she is here we are inseparable and we play the same board games (she invents her own rules), jigsaws, painting, drawing, feed horses, watch Scooby-Doo. It hurts me how much she adores me when I think about how that must change. I don't want her to be like me. It's important for her that she doesn't become so.

I have other family who care about me but they look at me with a mixture of pity, disdain, irritation, and all those feelings brought on by being around a depressive for 20 years. I understand as I feel the same a lot of the time at the various failures. L knows no better though. As she grows she will learn about the dysfunction of her uncle and gain context as other people have, then she too will look at me differently.

When I was 3 my grandad died. In my mind he was my papa as that's what my dad called him and me - being so young - took the same name for him. I still think of him as "papa" although all I remember now is a bald man sitting in a chair drinking whisky and lemonade. The family house changed in the years thereafter. My dad got morose and would sit just staring into space or he would be drinking at the pub or gambling. The marriage suffered. My sister was a teenager and would get in big arguments. I learned to keep quiet and self-contained but I soaked a lot up. That was my childhood really. Walking on eggshells and playing quietly whilst trying to hide any pain from the rest of the kids who would mock me. I developed a very strong inner world/monologue/imagination. When I first went to a doctor about depression aged 22 or so I realised that I was years too late. I had developed my own coping mechanisms of withdrawal and introspection and been burying pain for most of my life.

There was no real trauma there for me, as young as I was, and as I've grown I've met other people with far greater childhood trauma who have managed far better. The damage was in how it changed me amongst my peers. I was quiet, shy, overly-sensitive and easily picked on and taken apart. I resented the jibes about how sad I looked. I was sensitive to comments about physical stuff. I was just sensitive. I could be made to cry quite easily. I'm the opposite these days (other than in certain moods) but back then I was still open enough to trust people and every nasty jibe or cruel comment was remembered and replayed. I learned not to trust people. I remembered their cruel nature. I see some people now and how they've succeeded in life in various roles like the teacher whose greatest pleasure was in "laughing at horrible people". What does that make you though? In this world, there are the strong and the weak, or the butchers and the cattle, and I can't respect the butchers - not even those who hide their sadistic leanings well. My sympathy lies with the cattle - the disenfranchised and dispossessed, the lost and hurt. Selfish perhaps but there it is. I don't forgive.

So sometime early in primary school I separated from the group entirely. There was me and everyone else, and that distinction has remained in my head ever since. I've diverged completely from community/society/even humanity it feels like at times. There is no good life or normal me to get back to.

I'm getting bitter so I'll stop. The reason I'm alive is because of L. I don't want to cause trauma in another. I don't want her to think like I did that she might be bad blood. If the division is me against the world then I want her to be on their side.