This post is uncomfortable to write. It will doubtless be uncomfortable to read. If you are one of the people who object to the fact that I write (and heaven forbid publish), then please click on the little red x button. That is what it is for.

The night before last, Wednesday 10 February, my life reached such a nadir that I could not continue with the pain of living. I had run the gauntlet, directly and indirectly, of family telling me that I was a disgusting person for even thinking to leave my husband. I was told that the reason my family forgave my husband his affair of 10 years ago (with a woman I entertained at a party we threw, who stayed overnight in my home), because I was the one responsible: I drove him to it.

Yes, I have children. They are never out of my thoughts. Suicide seemed to me a way of protecting them from me repeating the mistakes my parents made with me. I felt they were young enough to be able to recover and carry on with their lives. On that point I couldn’t have been more wrong, and I will always live with the guilt and regret of that lapse of judgment.

The ambulance was called (and the police via a very kind friend on Twitter to whom I shall be forever indebted – I don’t even know how to begin to thank her: all she knew was my name and my home town). I spent the night in hospital attached to a drip and I slept – I had a month’s worth of Diazepam to thank for that. In the morning the Crisis Team of two nurses came and pronounced me of sound mind and that there was nothing more hospital – either general or the nuthouse – could do for me. I went back to my cubicle, ripped out the cannula, put on my coat and shoes and began the slow cold 2 mile walk home.

I was met with silence from my husband – he has yet to speak to me other than telling me he is going to the pub, I have had messages of vilification from my family, but more importantly I have had messages of real support, real concern and real love from these so-called non-existent invisible friends deep in the mists of the internet.

Life is no less easy, in fact it seems a lonelier place than ever, but to those real and true friends I can never be grateful enough. Thank you just doesn’t do it – even though it is from the bottom of my heart.