I can do nothing without fearing the effect on my body. When I see others twice, sometimes thrice my age, running to catch buses, gaily digging flower beds, beating mats, painting walls, my eyes go beady and hard. 'They've nothing to worry about', I think coldly. I snarl to myself over all the hours I have to waste, lying with my handkerchief over my eyes. I wonder if I am living for an improvement, or if that hope has really died in me and I'm only pretending to so.

Frustration like this has never come to me before. There is so much sensible, obvious reason for feeling it that I am made helpless. I used to think that encouragement, appreciation, could help me do better and better, could keep me happy and busy all day long. Now they are bitter goads prodding me to impossible tasks. There should be many new words for what I mean, words that don't whine and pity. But now, if one does not use whining or self-pitying words, there is only the dreadfulness of cheerful optimism.

Denton Welch, Journals, 23rd January 1948, shortly before his death.