Those with mental health problems must be brought in from the cold

On most counts, I scrape in as a human being and for that simple reason I have lived through moments when my grip on the slippery pole of sanity has all but deserted me. I have raged at, cried at, despaired at, sung at and soared laughingly over the treacly bog of loosely connected experiences which passes for life. Hours, weeks or months of penetrating gloom or grief have been balanced by periods of rapture and excitement. But always, no matter how far from the sane centre-point my mood has swung, I've always felt anchored by a cast-iron lump of normality; mad - probably - but only mad like other people.