This is a very personal and straight-forward...almost stream of consciousness piece. I wonder if you've written other memoirs? Sounds like there are a great many relatable experiences that you've had so far in life.

I enjoyed reading this, but am left wanting to hear more from you. I'd expand on this. Explore the many areas you've listed in order to fully share them as well...if you are interested in doing so anyway.

Louise

 I really like the opening and contrast between drafty and crowded, and the description and use of words around a pathway and the choices available. 

This is a very deep and personal subject to be writing about and I really like the way a balanced view has been portrayed.  I love the paragraph below and the explanation around a ripple effect and the retirement plan.  This piece is almost a journey in itself with the words being used giving us a mini insight into what it might have been like on this pathway. 

As a reader I would have liked to have known more about the impact and consequences that this was having on other people and situations. this would have helped me personally to have an external frame of reference as well as an internal one.

Very creative and interesting whilst also deeply moving.

Best wishes

Charlie Cheshire

Each action I take has a ripple effect, as everyone already knows, extending far beyond my anticipation and perception. Had I known some of the effects I would have to live with, I may well have committed suicide. There was a time when I seriously thought of suicide as my retirement plan, something I would do when the children were grown and didn't need me any more. It took years to understand what I would be doing to their psyches if I took such an action.  It took more time to understand how corrosive a life I was living - leading to suicide in slow measures.

 My favorite passage was this:

'Sometimes it reminds me of the television show "Wheel of Fortune", where the prizes are "2 years of intensive psycho therapy" or "incorporate family into recovery plans" (when what you want was to escape the family's constant authority and control), "join an exercise club", or "talk to the friend you trust most in the world".'

Having been through mental illness, I can't say I find the "beauty" in it just yet, but your work definitely highlighted the irony of it all.