This week my wife and I went to the local adult social care unit to see a man about her declining mental health. We went and sat in a room and talked about her current issues, and her medication, and how she feels and how she sleeps and what we're going to do about it. Then I fell asleep. She hasn't forgiven me for this lapse since. Before I put in a word in my own defence, I should like to put in a couple in hers, and explain why this perhaps innocuous error has been a source of such anger for her

The first thing you need to understand is that sleep doesn't come easily to my wife. One reason for this is that she is in constant pain. She can't really get comfortable because she is never going to be properly comfortable. Secondly, she is always on a heightened state of alert. This is common, for abuse survivors, who often find that they never really feel safe, even in their own homes with doors locked and people they trust around them. Their safety was violated so early in childhood that, perhaps, they never really learned it at all. This is a point we'll come back to in a minute, so hold on to it. Then there is the fact that in her sleep the memories come back to her. To be clear, if I haven't already by now, these are VERY clear memories. It's not ‘I don't want to go to sleep because I will remember bad things that happened to me' – it's more, ‘if I go to sleep, people will do horrible things to me'. The recollections are so vivid it feels as if they have just happened all over again. As if all this weren't bad enough, apparently I snore.

Then there's the issue of why me falling asleep in a meeting made her so cross. I am supposed to be there to help and support her in these things, so she doesn't have to go through it all alone at a time when she is running out of willpower for one more meeting and one more set of things that will probably be sorted out (ish) in a month or so. But more than that, we sat in a small room with two people. Including a man, who we didn't know. R sat as close to the door as she could, one eye always on the need for escape, but she felt safer because I was there. And then I feel asleep and she was all alone. I let her down when she needed me to keep her safe. Nothing happened, you understand, but she felt alone and isolated and very frightened.

Anyway, now to that word in my defence, in the hope that you all understand what an appalling thing I did. For me in my life the most tiring bit of being a carer is the mental exertion. Trying to remember which pill is which, and what they're all for. Trying to remember what things I should be doing, or not be doing, to make wife's life easier. Staying awake at 2 in the morning and trying to coax her nightmares out so she can tell me about them, and figuring out what best to say and how best to respond. So here I was again, listening, concentrating, remembering, absorbing. Also, in the small part of the world where I am an independent human, I had a headache coming on that I hadn't noticed yet. I was also warm and comfortable. I felt quite relaxed since she seemed to be getting on well with the guy (who, it turned out, had the same rare health condition as she did) and I hadn't really had much input thus far.

Anyway, right now I'm tired. So, since nobody seems to need me at this precise moment and since I seem to have told you all I need to today, I'm going to have a cup of tea and put on a DVD. Have a good week.

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