Future perfect

Could I really be afraid of the future? I decided to take the problem to my esteemed therapist Dr Melissa Flinch, at her luxurious consulting rooms in leafy South Belfast.

She offered me a herbal tea and an oatmeal cookie as I reclined in the well-padded armchair among a dense thicket of overgrown pot plants.

Nick: I'm afraid that I'm afraid of the future.

Melissa: Don't be silly. You can't be afraid of something so unbounded, so intangible. It's like being afraid of the weather, or speech, or a blank sheet of paper. You can only be afraid of something specific. Like spiders. Or flying.

Nick: But I'm afraid I'll be overtaken by some awful disaster in five years' time.

Melissa: Then you're just afraid of disaster. That's natural enough. But you're not afraid of some wonderful pleasure in five years' time, are you?

Nick: No, of course not.

Melissa: In fact, you must think pleasure is a lot more likely than catastrophe?

Nick: I suppose so.

Melissa: Well then, you're just a sunny optimist with occasional fits of pessimism. You allow for the very realistic possibility that you can't have pleasure 100 per cent of the time. Sometimes things go wrong. Sometimes they go very wrong. That's life, baby.

Nick: I guess you're right.

Melissa: Of course really you're just afraid of yourself. You're afraid of your inability to cope with any disaster that comes along. You're afraid of your own inadequacy, your own helplessness, your own confusion.

Nick: I'd never thought of it like that.

Melissa: Well, that's what I'm here for. I've seen a thousand tortured souls like yours. I know what's going on in your murky unconscious. I can unravel the tangled strands, lead you out of the psychic morass, restore clarity of thought.

Nick: What would I do without you?

Melissa: I shudder to think. That'll be £100 plus VAT. Mastercard as usual?

Nick: Cheap at the price.

I skipped happily down the front steps, the heavy burden lifted from my shoulders. All at once a rosy future beckoned.
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A new British survey says almost one person in five has consulted a counsellor or psychotherapist. Some 95% of those polled believe it is a good idea to seek counselling or psychotherapy for a problem before it gets out of hand, while 88% thought people might be happier as a result of doing so. Some 88% believe counselling and psychotherapy should be available to all on the NHS. This is a huge change in attitudes from six years ago.

Fear of the dark

I'm nervous of the dark. It makes me deeply uneasy. It's not just what it's hiding, it's the brooding, ominous quality it seems to have.

I know only children are supposed to be afraid of the dark, you're meant to grow out of it. But my nyctophobia seems to be increasing as the years go by.

I do my best to ignore it by keeping myself occupied and looking forward to daylight returning, but that unease is always there in the background, trying to insinuate itself into my consciousness.

Even going to sleep doesn't entirely remove it, as I always have disturbing, unsettling dreams I awake from in a state of mild distress and alarm. Dreams in which I'm being chased or I'm hopelessly lost or everything's disintegrating.

Am I completely unhinged, or is this actually quite a common experience? I've no idea. Certainly nobody's ever admitted to me that they share the same anxiety.

But the return of daylight always changes my mood dramatically as soon as it occurs. One minute I'm still deeply ill-at-ease, the next minute a surge of well-being is racing through me. The instant emotional reversal is as regular as clockwork. Who can explain it?

Psychotherapists would suggest I'm projecting some personal fear onto the darkness, or the residue of some unpleasant nighttime experience, but if that's the case I have no memory of anything that might be relevant.

I doubt if there's any cure. All I can do is come to terms with it, like a deranged aunt holed up in the attic. And be thankful it's nothing worse.