Shattered.

KfW2 phoned and asked me to book a taxi. I was happy enough doing that. I told her to keep her phone close and I'd keep her informed. And a few minutes later the taxi was on its way. I sent KfW2 an ETA and the car details, and that was it, or so I thought.

About five minutes later the taxi driver calls me.

"Where are you?"

"It's not me you're picking up, it's my friend." I described her outfit.

Another call came through. KfW2.

"The taxi's not here. Where is it?"

I explained where the taxi was.

"What are the details?"

"I texted them to you five minutes ago - it's a white car..."

What seemed like an eternity later, she had spotted the cab and got in. I hung up and went back to entertaining the kids. This is when KfW2 can be frustrating, it was as if she expected me to "fix" the missing taxi issue despite being miles away and on the end of a phone.

Fifteen minutes later and there was no sign of her. It's roughly ten minutes from the pub to my house via car. The phone went. It was KfW2 again.

"I've lost my purse, can you do me a favour and pay for the taxi?" She was in tears and sounded quite distressed, which is unlike her.

"Yeah, that's not a problem."

"Thank you so much!"

Another ten minute later, the taxi pulled up. As KfW2 got out of the back of it, I chatted to the taxi driver.

"What's the fare?"

"£16, but I'll take £15." He explained about the purse, that KfW2 was not in great shape and that she had asked to go back to see if they could find it. It later transpired that one of her co-workers had it, so all good there. 

I handed a twenty over.

"Keep the change."

As the taxi drove off, KfW2 walked towards me and then, with no warning whatsoever, had a full-on mental breakdown right in front of me. I want to clarify here that this wasn't KfW2 shedding some drunk tears or a drunken rant about something illogical, this was immediately, and obviously, something a lot more serious than that.

She calmed down a little and I ushered her inside, into the kitchen. Over the next hour or so, she careered from lucid to panic attacks to having weird verbal/vocal tics. There was literally nothing I could do apart from try to calm her down, which I did by giving hugs and just talking quietly to her when she was manic. Her husband turned up around this time (I had called him and given him a head's up) and we tried to get KfW2 through another few episodes, though the panic attacks diminished, the verbal and physical tics remained.

KfW2 and her family left my house at 11PM to go to A&E. The out-of-hours doctor had suggested maybe a drink had been spiked, but I didn't feel this was the case.

I texted KfW2 earlier. They couldn't find anything wrong in her blood tests, she explained and they did no other testing, and sent her home at 3AM. When I texted earlier, she was back in A&E having had further panic attacks and a recurrence of the tics.

I'm presuming that this is a mental health issue. That was my assumption last night, and I maintain that theory now. She's had a bad time of it recently. I know work has been bothering her and there have been family issues too, to deal with. The purse thing was just the straw that broke the camel's back, I think.

I don't really want to go into further details and I feel I've already said too much. I'm not actually even sure that I'll hit the publish button on this one, but let's see how the next day or so pans out.

*This was originally written on Saturday evening, but I decided not to publish it at the time. I might still revert it to a draft as it's not sitting right with me that this information is out there, even if it is somewhat anonymous.