Tag Archives: work

The Next Step

So, where to begin. There is a post that is sat in my drafts section that I just cannot bring myself to post. Even by my standards it’s a whiny pile of crap. Yes I guess if you read it you could feel a modicum of sympathy for my current situation but in the long run I really should just take the ball and start running my flabby arse off to get to the next part of my life.

As with everyone who is reliant on Benefits there comes a time when you realise that things cannot go on they way they are and you have top make a choice about where to go next.

In short, my family doesn’t have enough money to get through the month. It is no ones fault. We are a medically crocked family. E.S.A. is what it is and as I have mentioned before I have gotten away with more than my fair share of luck in the whole process. I have been in the past so wrapped up in my own claim I let matters that effect others in my family slip by. So whilst I was defending myself I was letting down others and not fighting their corner. I can’t change this situation now, but I can alter how things are ahead of us.

On Monday of this week I had a CPN meeting and I spent pretty much 50% of the meeting explaining about our situation and my CPN asked me outright if I was willing to go and meet with some people who MAY be able to help me out in search for work. Put on the spot I had to think quick. Of course ever since October 2008 I have thought about the prospect of going back to work at some point. At 38 I am to young to be on the scrap heap of life. I know I have more to offer, more to give someone who could be willing to give me a chance. I agreed to meet with these people (hoping that they weren’t some kind of slave traders who sold the disabled too unscrupulous employers for peanuts.)

That night was the night Panorama and Channel 4 broadcast their programmes about ATOS and the Work Capability Assessments (WCA) I have only seen the Panorama show so far but one line of narration in that programme pricked my ears up on stalks, it went something like:

Employment Support Allowance recipients in the Support Group are the group who are not expected to ever work again!

Other things in that programme gave me conflicting thoughts and gut reactions. There were people who quite plainly had more (different) healthcare issues to myself and in my eyes most were worse off than I personally feel at this time. Without getting into the debate of who is more entitled, I had to think more on the subject of the question of could I work again if given a chance?

I spent the rest of this week up until today (Thursday) thinking about how I could go into a meeting and explain my situation. I did what I always do.. I winged it. I just answered the questions as I was asked them in the most truthful way I could. The lady I spoke to listened and wasn’t at all pushy and has left it up to me to decide if I want to go forward with joining them in my efforts to find paid work. She was adamant about a couple of things though. She insisted that I sign up to Do-It and at least apply for one volunteering position. This is an easy thing to do as I had been on this site before (albeit at 3am one morning where I didn’t sign up to anything for fear of it coming back in the cold light of day and biting me on the arse).

So she sends me off with an information pack about their organisation and an agreement to get in touch in a week and let her know what I had decided. I headed home with so many more questions in my head than I had before I had gone in there but with one firm resolve…

I had to start somewhere to get somewhere.

As the title suggests, there IS a next step and I have started that ball rolling. I have signed up to Do-It and I have applied to the local branch of Rethink. I had met one of the people who run that branch during my Recovery Group sessions and bad health had stopped me from getting in touch before hand but I have now made the leap and I now just have to wait and see if they get back in touch. I am formulating a plan in my head that will help me help myself with help from others. It’s not going to be a quick over night transformation, but I have a goal now and I have the startings of a purpose again.

Until Next Time…

My Secrets Laid Bare

It’s been a funny couple of weeks. Life had been a swing and a roundabout away from being liveable. I haven’t had to many down periods but then again I haven’t had that many up periods either. Just fleeting glances at happiness, or deep looks into an abyss that has no bottom.
What makes it even stranger is that I have NOTHING whatsoever to complain about. We are doing fairly well financially at the moment I just got a new iPhone and all our bills are paid, we have plenty of food in the kitchen so why don’t I feel contented. What’s missing from my life that I can’t just be happy and get on with my life.

It’s been about 18 months since I “gave up” work. If you don’t remember I was let go from my job because they could no longer support my absences from work. It was all done quite amicably and in the best of humours, but 18 months on I seem to feel at a loss at what to do. I occasionally wish I had worked harder at keeping myself well enough to keep a hold of that job. If I could have sucked it up for half the time I caved in to my depression, I may still be employed and getting a salary that would keep me out of the Benefits system. I don’t have any objections to being on Incapacity Benefit. Of course I would rather be earning a living rather than just getting by on what the government says I need to live on, but I guess that’s not going to happen until I get my life sorted and can keep my head out of my ass for longer than a weekend.

As I mentioned in my last post. I am on Facebook, I don’t contribute to much. I just use it to keep track of what the world is doing around me. I am an observer and not a participator. I sometimes wish that I had more to say about my life in general but I am sure no one wants to hear daily updates of my life:

12:30 – Had a banana for breakfast.

12:45 – Had to eat something else as the banana wasn’t enough

14:30 – Just got back from counselling session – More depressed now than when I went.

15:40 – Had a muffin as the Something else had worn off

You know you get the drift, my life aint that interesting. (That’s probably why I get no readers here).I sometimes think I should just make shit up to put in this blog, just to keep it interesting. I should become a Walter Mitty or a Billy Liar. My fantasy life is much more interesting than reality. But I don’t want to disillusion myself that any form of my fantasy life could ever become a reality so putting it down in black and white is just tempting fate for another depressive phase. But to that end I have started writing a short story. Well it’s planned to be a short story, I am not the most succinct writer in the world and my editing skills are poor to say the least. I just start writing and let it go until I run out of things to say. See, I am giving all my secrets away. I just told you that I put no planning into writing and my only saviour is the wavy red lines under misspelt words that my word processing prog catches… me and my big mouth.

Jumping to a totally different tack now. This past Saturday saw the return of Doctor Who. The New series heralded a new Doctor and a new Companion. Matt Smith as the new Doctor is great.. mad as a box of demented frogs and his sidekick Karen Gillan as Amy Pond is just great. If you went by looks alone you could swear she had a touch of bipolar as in the series opener she was either in a Tarty Police woman’s outfit or in her nightie and dressing gown. I know it’s a generalisation but that’s how I am. I am either in my skimpiest outfit or in my Batman Pyjamas.
The new titles and opening music are going to take a couple of watches to get used to after in not really changing for the past 5 years, but all change is good. The atmosphere of the episode not being London centric and based in a little village almost harkens back to classic who stories where it was an almost nondescript location.
All In all I loved the new series and by the looks of the trailer for the rest of the series to come, it looks like we are on to a winner and the next 12 weeks will most likely be a banner period for Doctor Who as it goes from strength to strength. Saturdays are worth looking forward to again.

Well that’s about it from me… I ran out of things to say for now. So…

Until Next Time…

Good days and bad days

I guess one could say that my mood and my mental state is improving. I have my good days and I have my bad days. Heck I can have a good hour and a bad hour. One thing that triggers a bad hour is the thought of having to go back to work. I just know that no matter how many pills they change and how much the dosage is altered I am never going to be ready to go back to work. Now Never is a mighty big word and I don’t mean that I never want to work again, because that would just be stupid and a reckless thing to wish for. The only way I could possibly stop working period is to win the lottery, and aside from the odd tenner we don’t have much luck on the old 6 balls dropping.
I wish I knew what kind of work I could do without the stress that working for my current employer hands out. I would love to work with computers in some respect. I would love to learn how to build websites properly and make a living from doing that. There is a problem with that idea though… and that is you need training and qualifications to do that kind of work… that or an amazingly artistic streak that I don’t have. You have seen some of my art work on these pages and they are nothing to shout home about. I don’t know how to use industry standard tools like the adobe suite of tools, I chose the easier option of learning Paintshop Pro. I think I am too set in my ways now to start to learn anything else. I have fun doodling with what I know but I need something to be able to step up to the plate and do more with.

I’ll not go on with my little ramble about work, just so far ask to know that I have three weeks to make a choice about what to do next.

I spoke with my pdoc on Wednesday and we decided that I should come off the Aripiprazole and increase the Reboxetine by another 2mg. I m fine with this and I think my body has become used to the reboxetine as I am no longer getting the Insomnia I was getting for the first ten days I was taking the drug. It was getting to the point where I was waking up at 3.30 am and being wide awake and not being able to sleep again until 4 or 5pm that afternoon and then going back to bed at midnight and doing it all over again. Touch wood I am over than now.

That’s it from me for now.

Until Next Time…

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Time Confusion

I hate today. I spend the whole day thinking it’s a different time to that which it really is.

You see the clocks went forward today and I spend the whole day every year thinking:
“Oh It’s 3pm… but really it’s only 2pm… but it’s really 3pm”
And by the time I have my head around it being 3pm it’s actually 4pm and I think it’s actually only 3pm. It’s a vicious fucking circle that will take days to break.

In other news after 8 weeks off work I am going back to work tomorrow. New hours and new desk (no doubt). I should say that I was only off sick for three weeks… but I had to wait for clearance from all kinds of doctors to let me go back to work. Basically it took almost double the time to get back to work than I was actually off sick. Go figure eh!!!!

Oh well off to iron my trousers for work tomorrow.

Until Next Time…