Sit down, please, for we need to have a little talk. It won't take long - the length of this diary entry will do.
For some weeks now I've hinted to you, dear readers, and friends beyond this column, that life is moving on.
Son Matt, the lost boy who used to pick me up and throw me round the house, offering a kicking if I got up, has not lived in Madmum's Cottage for six months. He hasn't even been there and has given up trying to get back.
Some of this is down to police action, and some down to me in that I dug in, deciding: "This must stop before one of us kills the other."
Yes, a dreadful thing for a mother to acknowledge.
He's now in a bedsit, still on the skunk that sent him over the edge. But, perhaps, he's starting to use less.
The relentless and threatening phone calls have stopped. Now he approaches me with caution, even some consideration. And, two weeks ago, he landed a job in a hotel kitchen. They're working him round the clock.
What's more, he will be 20 in a couple of months, not the 15-year-old who first ran at me in a cannabis-fuelled rage.
You know where this is going, don't you? Yes, to complete my recovery from this appalling family crisis I am going to stop writing this diary. From today.
It's the right time - I know this because I am also, happily, giving back the alarm system installed under a Home Office scheme.
This month, the last taboo of domestic violence - children on their parents - landed firmly on the national agenda courtesy of prominent author Julie Myerson.
Julie has incorporated her own mother-son crisis in her latest novel - that of evicting a teenager because of the sheer damage his skunk use was doing to her family.
No more shame or fear of being labelled a bad parent. Most of the debate about Julie's revelation has been about whether she should have 'hung the dirty washing out to dry'.
No guesses needed on where Madmum stands on that one.
So what will I do now? Well, continue sorting out MY life. And I'm going to help support groups instead of lean on them. I've already written an extensive 'case history' to help social services staff training in the best way to assist parent victims.
And we need our own website to enlarge the support network. I can help with that.
So, finally, thank you one and all. I want you to know that even by just reading this diary you have held my hand as I found my way out of the mire. I treasure your letters, emails and passed-on phone messages.
God bless - and good luck to us all.
