The Great Betrayal - how could you do that?

The story so far:

• My partner, Sarah Chilton has suddenly left me: Woman No 1 - anatomy of The Break-Up 

• My employer, Angela has sacked me: The coup de gras - sacked while recovering from suicide attempt

• I have struggled with controlling my diabetes for months.

• I am suffering from chronic depression and anxiety.

• I have tried to take my own life and spent two weeks on a mental health unit.

(These are the facts, not self-pity. Oh go on then, there's a bit of that).

And then the phone rings.

My union rep, almost in passing, tells me that my former partner, Sarah Chilton has been in contact with my former employer, Angela about me.

I am so shocked, I can barely speak. 

How could she do that?

"Are they good friends?" I was asked, "because that's the impression I got." (Not in a million years).

How could she do that?

My mind flipped. Impressions of them cackling together like witches over my demise. Each slagging me off in turn. One encouraging the other. More pain, more hurt, more bafflement.

How could she do that? Make friends and common cause with my enemy? The woman Sarah had slagged off so much previously. Now they were co-conspirators against me?

I didn't know where, when, how, or what was said. I didn't really care.

It was just the fact. The knowledge that the woman I had loved had turned round and stuck the knife into me, again and again and again. With my employer, who had started it all.

And now Sarah, who had been partly responsible for the whole sorry mess, had turned the whole thing upside down. Colluding with my employer.

Was this some stupid '"we're all sisters together", ultra-feminist nonsense? I could not fathom it.

Weeks of turmoil and terror as the question pounded in my head: "How could she do that?" Lost, wondering, doing crazy things, the thoughts swirling all around me. The black clouds everywhere. Searching for an answer.

She couldn't/wouldn't have told her parents what she had done. Surely? Told the father who had given me the thumbs-up when I first began the battle over my job, back in April?  Her mother who had told Sarah: "Matt's forgotten more than Angela will ever know." They wouldn't have approved of this, surely?

But maybe, just maybe, as parents providing unconditional love, they just accepted it.

I couldn't, of course.

God, this was the ultimate betrayal. God, this really was awful.

I talked about it with my daughter and son, trying to make sense of it, somehow. They just shook their heads. “Psycho,” they said.

"She might have felt good about it when she was doing it," said my daughter, with remarkable restraint. "But ten minutes later she won't feel any better about things - or herself."

But it was no consolation. What a foul thing to do. To anyone. Horrible. Nasty. Insane.

Out of revenge.

Perhaps the bewildering disappointment I felt, came because she had always professed such decent values. "Always Labour", she proclaimed to the world on her @chilts69 Twitter account. Her values were surely better than this treachery. How could I get her so wrong? My judgement must be terrible. God, I was so stupid.

I was now very close to the edge again, driving aimlessly around, planning my own death. Anticipating these two women, Sarah and Angela, smirking to themselves about my demise. What strange bedfellows.

There was one glimmer of hope that kept me alive during those awful weeks: perhaps, just perhaps, I had got it all wrong.

Perhaps Sarah would say in astonishment: "what are you talking about? I've never spoken to her!"

The only thing to do, as we used to say in journalistic parlance, was to 'front her up.'

To put the alleged betrayal to her and perhaps, just perhaps, her response would give me some peace.

So that's what I decided to do.

Next: On the doorstep - her face went white and I knew...