I am so scared right now I could weep. I’m due to be starting work in two days’ time, and one of the names that I gave my new employers as a reference, a former lecturer who supervised my final year Psychology dissertation, is refusing to write me a reference because she is on maternity leave at the moment.

This is the very last thing I need to happen. My new boss wants proper references covering the last three years. Three years ago I was at London Metropolitan University, and the only person who might remember me from that time is not going to help me. Because of this I don’t know if I will be able to start my new job or not. Just fucking brilliant.

I’ve searched the London Met website for other staff from my time who I might once have had a conversation with, but practically all of them have left since then. So basically this one woman who is on maternity leave is the only person who could help me. My future might depend on her. It kills me that it has all come down to this. My career is on the line because I never spoke to the other lecturers, because I kept myself to myself for three years, got on with my work and never asked for help. If only I’d been more visible, if only I’d known how to form relationships with people outside the small drinking circle that I immersed myself in outside lectures – but I didn’t. I was never the type of student to hang around with academics in the hope of bettering myself. That’s the sort of thing clever people do. I never believed I was that clever.

Of course I could be panicking unnecessarily. I do have a tendency to catastrophize the smallest things. Maybe there’ll be a kind professor who doesn’t mind writing references for former students he or she never knew. That’s the kind of person I really need. I can’t believe for one minute that God will be good enough to put that kind of person in my path. I’m starting to think that God wants me to fall at this hurdle, that it was never God’s intention for me to work, that it was a waste of time me going through all that training last week because I am meant to be unemployed forever. I’m clearly not cut out for the world of work, so why should I care that I can’t get a reference from my former tutor?

This time last week I was terrified that I could be on the verge of re-entering the world of work; now I’m terrified that I might never work again. In this world you NEED references for any job – not even the manager of a McDonalds would employ someone without proof that they’ve worked before. I can easily provide references from the past year, thanks to all the voluntary work that I’ve sweated over at London Friend, but it’s the murky past, pre-recovery, that I cannot account for. If the new job didn’t need evidence covering the last three years it would be all right, I would be sailing into this new role, but it was never to be that easy. Oh fuck, what am I going to do?

I should be so happy tonight. I should be on cloud 9. I’ve spent the day with my dad, who seems happier to see me with every meeting. We met in Covent Garden and spent three hours chatting over coffee. At no point did the conversation dry up or get awkward, like it would have done a few years ago. We seem to have worked out how to get along: we know each other’s comfort zones, the things that can be talked about and the things that should be avoided. I’ll never get him to open up about his feelings towards me. But I guess the fact that he’s willing to spend time with me, after all our history, all the acrimony, anguish and heartache we went through, is all the evidence I need about how he feels. Before tonight’s goodbyes he gave me a Christmas card, thinking he might not see me again before the end of the year, and inside there was a £50 note, a sort of early birthday/Christmas present. The most he’s ever given me, without any asking or hinting from me. I guess, unbelievable as it is, he must love me in his own way. All my life, until the last year or so, I lived in the shadow of his rejection. Now I suppose we are like any normal father and son. Not that I need money from him to show that he actually cares about me – his presence in my life says it all.

I should be fucking joyous tonight, but coming home to this e-mail from my former lecturer, explaining why in very few words she won’t write me a reference, has brought me crashing down. The dark thoughts that were going through my mind earlier in the week are now back, and they’re not going away. Drinking, drugging, suicide, I want to do it all tonight. I’d really rather not be here if I have to go to the job centre to start signing on again. How dare God get my hopes up for this job, only to dash them all in one horrible, mean gesture. How dare He?

Who the hell am I to question God’s motives? I should be grateful to have a roof over my head, food on the table, clothes on my back and a bed to sleep in. That is what I would say if I were feeling more sane tonight, anyway. I’m not sane, and I’m not remotely grateful for any of the things I happen to have. I’ve been stuck in this rut my entire fucking life, I want to get out of it. Why am I not allowed to get a job, move on and make a place for myself in the world? Why should I accept unemployment as the content and purpose of my life?

Oh, how deliciously ironic it is that I am bemoaning unemployment now, after all the time and energy I spent desperately trying to avoid work. How humorous God is!

What am I going to do? AA would tell me that God doesn’t give us more than we can handle…right now I’m quite sure that there isn’t much more I can take.