Imagine the road through life, straight or winding, broad or narrow, longer or shorter, whatever is how you visualize it.

It seems to me that the majority of people travel more or less down the middle of the road - they may stagger a little as they aim to walk alon the white line down the centre, but most of the time they are pretty much in the middle.

Now look at the margins of the road.

There are dangers at both sides and parents are forever warning their children to stay away from the edges.

GRAVEL SLOPE

On one side, there is a steep gravel slope.

If a child falls over on this slope, there is nothing to grip on to.

The childs only chance of rescue is to call for help, out loud.

If a relative or a passer-by reaches down, the child can grasp the helping hands, and be hauled to safety.

However, if the child does not shout soon enough, they continue to slide down the slope, and very quickly disappear over the edge of the cliff, and fall into the sea below.

Yes they can be hauled out of the sea also, but the process is much longer, and a lot more uncomfortable.

LUSH & WET

The other side of the road of life also has a steep slope on it.

However there is lush vegetation with brilliant flowers growing right to the edge of the road.

Because of the attraction of the flowers for the child, this is the more dangerous side of the road.

As the child reaches for the flowers, they lose their balance, and tumble through the vegetation, disappearing from view before anyone has time to realize what has happened.

And because of the vegetation, It is more difficult to see where the child is located, so rescue from this side is especially difficult.

This image is similar to what happens in bipolar depression.

The gravel slope is like the depressive part of the illness.

The person has some idea that they are starting to slip down the slope.

However, in many cases they underestimate both the danger, and their own inadequacy to pull themselves up.

People often do not admit their need for strokes, not even to themselves.

The luxurient growth on the other side of the road is like the manic aspect of depression.

The colours of the flowers are unnaturally bright, and the greenery is unhealthily over-developed.

The person dallying on this side ignores the warnings of friends and relatives, and stubbornly takes risks, with predictabley unpleasant results.

When they fall over the cliff, their condition is little different to the person who fell over the obvious cliff.

It would seem that the problem is one of discounting the initial dangers on either side.

What the person has to do is to grow up and stop behaving like a child.

An adult's task is to proceed along the road to the distination, rather than dallying on the way to pick pretty flowers or gather attractive pebbles.

WARNING SIGNALS

Some warning signals that a person might ignore or discount are as follows: A build-up of unfinished business Overtiredness or other physical neglect of food or exercise External pressures, either circumstantial, or self-invited.

Others might be: Dangerous level of OVERCROWDING - too many people or too much work Dangerous level of PARENTAL-TYPE PRESSURE Lack of Assertiveness Greed for EMPTY TIME.

PERCEIVED SOCIAL ABANDONMENT - otherwise known as loneliness.

It may seem strange to mention both OVERCROWDING AND LONELINESS.

Both of them are concerned with being accepted as one is at the present moment.

They are about a deficit of BEING STROKES: Overcrowding is about other people not being able to accept that I need space; Loneliness is about me not being able to accept that I need people - that I need to go looking for BEING STROKES from other people.

Loneliness is about not being able to give myself BEING STROKES, and about not being able to ask for any kind of positive strokes from others.

STROKE ECONOMY

As so often happens, this article ends up with the Stroke Economy: That set of rules that we must learn to break if we are to achieve our potential for travelling as mature humans (not super-people) along the road of life.

STROKE ECONOMY (Steiner 1971)

Don't give strokes when you have them to give;

Don't ask for strokes when you need them;

Don't accept strokes if you want them;

Don't reject strokes when you don't want them.

Don't give yourself strokes.

And the saddest of all, don't remember the good strokes you receive!