For difficult reasons I’m semi-reclusive (not proud of this) so I don’t think my brain had engaged with the full reality of what is happening in the world. Last night was tough, but at 5.45 this lifted my thoughts away from statistics. Never been so grateful for the dawn chorus.

I’ve never really admitted that on here before. It has stemmed from rejection and stigmatisation by my neighbours when I had post natal depression 14 years ago. When I had my 2nd child I formed a small baby group here to try to make sonething positive in my community-to change

the way I was viewed by people, to stop me being seen as mad and weird and make something good that people might respect. Then my sister had a catastrophic brain injury and was close to death. My second daughter was 11 weeks old. I mentioned it in the baby group and was slightly

tearful. The group continued without me. I was never told when they were meeting. I would see them pushing their peaks past our cottage. When I walked around the village with my toddler and my baby in a sling they ran inside their houses if they saw me. I’ve never written this

down before and it’s really not a good time for this in your feed, sorry, but lockdown has shown me that...I been in a self-inflicted semi-lockdown since 2008. The things I write about are what have helped me through it but I’m determined to be able to enjoy the world again after

this. I will never have respect from my neighbours. I know they see me as mad and weird and the wrangle over the mowing of the woodland meadow and me trying to protect that habitat really brought their bullying (I do think that’s what it is) into focus, but I want to enjoy the

world again and not keep myself inside all the time because of what they did. I see it was deeply unkind and maybe not about my value as a person but at the time I was new to the village and turned my feelings inward. I thought their behaviour meant I was awful to be around.

Pushing their prams. This thread is garbled and pretty tragic and embarrassing , but I needed to write it down. What they did has eroded my ability to make and keep friendships, to see myself as a good person to be around. It was two doses of total rejection. I will go and see

friends after this. I will try to be more sociable and have fun again. I’m tired of inflicting lockdown on myself because of how they behaved. Strangers come to my house and I teach them things and they seem to have a lovely time. I did that. Maybe I can do it with friends too.