I feel absolutely empty and have done for days and days. I'm cancelling my counselling session this week because it's pointless. I cannot tell the counsellor everything I think and feel and remember, just scratch the surface. I can't tell her, for example, that when I was 20, I felt I should have my eldest offspring. I just felt I should and that was that, never mind that I was a student and abroad and unmarried. Looking back, I realised yesterday that had I not had that offspring, I would be dead by now. I don't know how I would have died but suicide isn't to be counted out, purely because I felt so incredibly and utterley WORTHLESS.

That man made me believe I was worthless to my mother. He also made me believe that if I didn't do or say or think exactly as he did, I was worthless to him too.

So today I feel worthless and useless and like none of this will ever end. I'm not going anywhere: my little family and I are fine, but I will never tell the offspring these things. They will never know that the only reason I didn't drink myself or smoke myself to death ten years ago was because of them. I have given up trying to remove the results of Parental Alienation from my brain because it's tiring and hard and never seems to end.

I said a while ago that I am redefining everything. This now extends to my future life. I am planning a different life to encompass the years beyond my children being at home. I have a new career planned which will probably consume my life because it's a subject that interests me greatly.

I cannot get over my mother being dead. I cannot get over him deliberately hurting me so much. SO MUCH. I can't bear any of it. I haven't smoked or drunk alcohol or coffee for 3.5 years but I'm considering resuming all three. I didn't feel pain like this when I smoked ten cigarettes a day or drank four cups of coffee.

Sleep - still bad, still nightmares. I feel for Britney. I hope she gets well. I hope she sleeps a lot over the next two weeks, although her loss is giving her nightmares too.

I thought realising my mother loved me would be the beginning of a new mindset or a new start to my life. It hasn't been. I feel the most incredible loss not just for my mum but also what should have been.

If I saw that man today, I'd punch his lights out. I want to hurt him so badly, I feel like a criminal - and I don't even use smacks to punish my offspring.