Wright On! A wry look at life, with Shelley Wright

MY friends and I seem to be strapped into the front seats of an emotional rollercoaster which never pulls in to let us get off - and we're all starting to feel a bit sick.

Now I know everyone has their ups and downs in life but when it comes to the number of consecutive extreme highs and lows, stomach-churning bends and sheer, terrifying, drops, I think we're currently on for a world record attempt.

In the last two years alone, we've had marriage and relationship bust-ups galore, moved house about ten times between us and stared death, major illness and other assorted trauma in the face at almost every turn.

I don't know where it will all end. I just wish it would.

Now I don't tend to dwell on things on a daily basis but the size of the problem came to light when my mum did a quick mental health quiz on me the other day. She was horrified to discover I'd experienced almost every recognised source of stress there was - which is quite worrying when you're only 24.

And as the list didn't allow for regional variables we had to improvise a score for spending the last 18 months with a Burnley fan which proceeded to send my total through the roof. It's really not looking at all good.

All this instability is undoubtedly taking its toll. Last night my friends were at my house for a group therapy session when, before we knew it, we'd talked right through our favourite triple whammy of Emmerdale, Coronation Street and Brookside without a second thought. Yes, things have got that bad. We haven't got a clue what's going on in any of them now but why worry I say - that seems to be par for the course where we are concerned.

And anyway, why would we want to tune into the latest soap storyline or the comings and goings of those characters when our daily lives are altogether more intricate - not to mention far fetched?

Then again my friend's little boy didn't seem to think so and kept yawning loudly all night.

Poor lad must have been fed up with our amateur psychotherapy by 10pm but I'm sure he'll thank us for it one day when he runs into some emotional turmoil himself and has no trouble offloading over a cup of PG Tips.

And he was undoubtedly amused by the story behind the chicken pieces on my ceiling, which he spotted while openly counting the ridges in the plaster swirls.

The one about his mum's stupid friend who stood there motionless while someone knocked a cooked roast chicken out of her hands, sending it flying across the table where it detonated, shredded and sprayed across the room like it had hit a ceiling fan, is no doubt doing the rounds as we speak. As are words and technical phrases like 'delaying gratification', 'throwing the baby out with the bath water' and 'spiritual growth' which are just a few terms and ideas I've picked up and thrown into various conversations after reading the Road Less Travelled - the book Geri Halliwell clung to when she ditched the Spice Girls.

Well, I don't know about the Road Less Travelled but I'd be happy to give this rollercoaster a miss for a while.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.