In Early March I wrote about my experience of dealing with the Estates Department of the bank my late uncle held his account with.

The bank (Nat West), have been unfailingly kind, helpful, professional, supportive and empathic: something which, these days, we no longer expect to find.

On Friday I needed to contact them again (because, as many of you who have done this sort of thing know, winding up an estate is a very long drawn out process).

Again, the person I spoke to was helpful, professional but also warm and friendly. In the course of the conversation I mentioned that I had blogged about how good they had been.

There was a slight pause and the lady said "That was you? One of our staff found that blog and our manager pinned it up on the notice-board with a note to say that this is how we know we are doing our job right.

"It made us all so proud" she said "And it made me cry."

Which made me feel very humble – because all I'd said was "Thank you; good job."

A lot of the time at the moment I can't face people in real life. I can just about cope with a telephone conversation and (thank goodness) I can still write, but I was feeling rather guilty about physically isolating myself so much and withdrawing from the world while I recover.

Knowing that the writing is reaching even people for whom it was not intended is really quite powerful medicine. I'm feeling a warm glow and even a little pride. The feeling of worthlessness common to depression just got eroded a little more.

So we're all more powerful that we think we are. In these days of the internet, emails and the phone, we have to work really hard to isolate ourselves completely. Reaching out is easier than we assume it is – and we never know who we will touch when we do reach out!

Mary

A Moodscope member.