Question Time with Claudia

Claudia – one of the main characters in Hard Time – was my girlfriend when the SWAT team smashed our door down.

Zara asked: Are you and Claudia still in touch? Did she overcome her drinking problem and her depression?

Shaun: I never got back with Claudia, but we are still friends, and she is helping me with the next book, the prequel to Hard Time. She has a boyfriend, and seems happy now.

Claudia emailed:

To answer the reader's question, I barely drink anymore :) Only to have fun, not to escape! And it's rare these days that I do. Maybe a glass or two of wine or a few pints of beer at happy hour once a month. I got over that, though it took time. It just kind of disappeared!

And I do suffer from anxiety and depression that comes and goes ever since the arrest. I will be fine for a year or two and then it will hit me. It seems to come around summer time (May-ish and it will last for a few months). Sometimes I get medicine and stay on it for awhile and I will stop when I feel better, sometimes I suffer through it with no medicine. But about every year or two it strikes. It is hard and seems to get worse, but hopefully it will go away over time. I am in the midst of it now and have been for a couple of months. It does seem to be lifting.

Shaun: Claudia, You mention getting a depression every year, whereas around that time, May 16th, I get a yearning to be with you, and I look at your pics - which makes it worse - and read what you are doing on Facebook - and see how happy you seem, and I know after everything I've put you through I don't deserve to disrupt your life, but I still think about you a lot and about what could have been.

Please post any further questions for Claudia in the comments section below

Click here for the last blog I wrote about Claudia while in prison. 

Shaun Attwood