Yesterday, I got a text from the bank with an authorisation code. I wasn’t trying to spend money, and from the reference I could see that it was a nominal amount for a rental website. I phoned my husband. He decided that he would try again in the evening when I was around.

I’d just sat down to do a bit of piano practice, when I noticed that I’d had another notification text. I called the number out to him.

I’d only just sat down to resume my practice, when there was shouting a verbal meltdown.

I dashed downstairs to see what was up and find out whether I could help.

This lettings website wanted him to upload a picture of his passport.

He didn’t know how to take a photo and upload it using his phone and neither did he know where he’d put his passport.

I had a copy of his passport that I’d made in case we ever had a problem on holiday, but after a bit of a panic he found it.

So I took the picture and uploaded it. Simples.

The next question was about occupation and income. Here I made a critical error: in order to avoid stressing him further, I scrolled up and down the list and the only option I could see that fitted was “unemployed”. I picked it and worked my way to the end of the wizard. It was only then that I said what I’d done.

“I’m retired!” he said, a palpable feeling of despair in his voice, “they won’t give me anything if I’m unemployed!”

Arse. It seemed that I couldn’t edit it, so I sent an email to the site’s administrator explaining the situation.

What should have been a simple form turned into a minefield of panic, miscommunication, and heat-induced stress.

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It was a hot night after a hot day. I opened the curtains and windows so that the cooler night air could enter my stifling bedroom. I had to wear an eye mask in order to sleep because the slightest light wakes me up.

SCREAM

I wake up with a start. I wasn’t sure where it came from.

BANG BANG BANG

OK, that’s coming from my husband’s room. The shock turns to a heavy resignation. I go in and put my arms around him. He’s crying.

“Why do you hate me? You want me dead,” he said quietly.

“I don’t hate you! I definitely do not want you dead!” I tried to reassure him.

I lay there with him, a little awkwardly (its a single bed), until he told me to leave.

Shortly afterwards, I hear him shouting from downstairs.

I go down.

“What have I done to make you hate me so much?”

“I do not hate you!”

“You want me dead. You have got everything you want. You want me dead.”

“No I don’t want you dead!”

Then he returned to phone call that my boss had overheard, the ambulance, and his last attempt on his life.

I cannot remember exactly what, or how, he asked about the police – it was something to do with me always calling the police out on him.

I said that I had only done that once, when I had fled the house in my underwear and a T shirt and needed an escort to get back in to get myself some clothes.

“It was more times than that,” he said.

“No, it wasn’t,”

“Yes it was!”

“Whatever,” I said. No point in having a yes/no argument in the middle of the night.

I suppose it wasn’t a very nice response really (“You’re like a teenage boy,” he said).

He asked about the times the police had come. I told him that it was always the ambulance had called them because they doubted his capacity to make decisions for his own well-being and they are not allowed to force somebody into an ambulance. the only other time the Crisis team had called the police because he was shouting abuse at me in the street.

“I am exhausted trying to balance the practicalities and the emotional stress!” He is overwrought with anxiety. I get it – I really do. I have been there. Not with his specific situation (he is giving up his home and trying to find somewhere to rent), but I have had to juggle my loved one’s illnesses with the necessity of holding down a job and keeping a home over our heads.

I have called more ambulances than I can remember. I have fled the house more times than I can remember, sleeping in the car, or the office, or a hotel. I have spent more days racing from house to work to house to hospital to house than I can remember – trying to look after him, hold down a job, and look after the dog.

I have done all this for years upon years.

I know about that tension between what must be done in order to live and the crushing weight of one’s own feelings that steal life away drop by sweaty drop.

He has additional fears: so much happens online now, and he’s not comfortable in the online world (he has been scammed a couple of times). He’s not had to worry about electricity, gas, council tax, insurance, or TV licence before – I have done everything. Maybe that wasn’t such a kind thing to do after all because now he has to learn to live on his own with the same kind of skills as a young adult in their first home.

I want to help. I’ve always wanted to help. I have said that I will always help him in whatever way I can – but if I fuck things up for him like I did yesterday, then he could do with less of my help.