Part 4 - August 2012

Garden on a plate

My first day of being officially ‘work free’ was spent mainly writing up the events of the previous day - I started keeping a separate dossier so I would have evidence of the appalling treatment I had received.  I also rang my Union, which was almost as stressful as the events of 8^th August as I had to relive the horridness .Later on that day, I went to the pub and had several pints and regaled various people with my sorry tale, which made me feel quite a lot better (temporarily). I knew this was a slippery slope though and that I needed a better solution than self-medication.

The next day I went to the doctors.  He seemed sympathetic and understanding and after some discussion, signed me off for 1 month ‘for starters’.  I told him about the sleeplessness and he said he expected this to go back to normal after about 15 days (which proved to be woefully optimistic as you will see later) and offered no further help on the matter.

When I got back home there was a letter from work waiting for me as expected, saying there was going to be an ‘investigation… that could result in disciplinary action’. I rang the Union again and they kept asking stupid questions and jumping to conclusions.  This made me quite angry as they weren’t listening to me and making pre-judgments and then they decided I was too stressed to deal with the situation!  I replied that if I put it on hold, the situation would just drag out but they said they wouldn’t represent me in the state I was in and to get back in touch when I returned from holiday at the beginning of September. So I wrote to my employer and told them that I was too ill to engage with the process, and I was just about to enclose my sick note when I realized the stupid doctor had not put my name on it so I had to go back to the surgery to have that put right before posting the letter. 

Then it dawned on me that I was totally knackered…  Luckily, we had nice weather that week so I sat outside in the sun for a bit, then I went to bed for a rest.  This was to become a regular pattern over the coming months and indeed is still the case now. As I don’t get enough sleep at night, I have limited energy during the day and can only do a certain amount of physical activity before getting tired and I often need a rest in the afternoons.

That weekend we went to Halifax show and even though we had a nice time, when I think back on it now, I can distinctly remember the mental effort involved in constantly trying to keep the shit out of my head, to focus on positive stuff and to enjoy my leisure time.  Someone remarked that in effect I had been given a ‘License to Chill’ by both the Doctor and the Union. But it was so difficult – a constant strain. Also, the price I paid for staying occupied during the day and keeping my mind off the negative stuff was that dark thoughts would, more often than not, return at night making the insomnia even worse.

How dare that tractor smile when I am in so much turmoil?

Inevitably, there was a strain on our relationship and sometimes it got quite fraught but often we managed to have a conversation rather than argue. I got frustrated that he didn’t always understand how I felt and how the illness was affecting me. To be honest, he had more than his fair share of stress to deal with himself but we agreed that everyone has a different response to stress and different ways of dealing with it.   Also, being ill with stress is totally different to being ‘a bit stressed out’ and I really don’t think that the majority of people, even professionals who are meant to, really understand it and how to help us sufferers deal with it.

Sometimes after a particularly bad night I would burst into tears when I woke in the morning.  I was so exhausted but if I tried to go back to sleep after 7 a.m., I simply couldn’t.  I just wanted to run away from everything or stay under the duvet and hide from it all.  But I didn’t as I knew this could easily lead to depression, desolation and despair.  I always forced myself to get up even though it took me a good hour to come round first thing, and tried to keep myself busy during the day.  I would do a bit of housework  and the grocery shopping but got tired very quickly doing anything physical and would spend far too much time on computer games watching daytime TV! I would make myself go outside though. If it was nice weather, I would sit out and maybe do a bit of weeding and I also continued to make the effort to go and see friends, or go for a short walk. 

The best distraction round that time was the dance classes which I attended on a Tuesday. I loved this above everything else as I really, truly didn’t think about anything else when I was dancing.

As we had a holiday to Crete planned, I started doing some research on things to do when we were there and also my 50^th Birthday was coming up the week after our holiday, so I spent time planning for that too. My partner had booked tickets for Patti Smith on my actual birthday and a nice restaurant for Sunday lunch the following day so I decided to make proper invitations and hand delivered or posted them.

Despite my efforts, my mental health showed no signs of improvement whatsoever and when it got to two weeks without hardly any sleep at night, I got the doctors to prescribe sleeping pills. The first lot they gave me was a mild dose of some stuff that worked the first time I took it but then hardly made any difference after that.  I saw one of my neighbours on the way to the chemist and she could tell straight away that I wasn’t right and invited me round for a cup of tea and a chat.  It turned out that her husband used to run courses in this sort of stuff for the Unions and I got some advice, reassurance and relaxation tips from the two of them.

On Friday 17^th August I set out on what proved to be a failed mission to my  Mum’s. I had an ominous feeling in the morning but tried to ignore it and made some food to take her, loaded the car and stopped for more supplies at Morrison’s on the way. Then the car broke down …. It was sat in the supermarket car park and it just refused to start.  I rang the RAC then my  Mum who said ‘oh. I’ll have my lunch now then’ (i.e., not thinking at all about the fact that I had made her a pile of food and was now stuck with a broken car or how long I would be waiting there.  She even asked me was I still planning to come over, as if I could psychically predict what was wrong with the damn thing!)

The RAC man spent half an hour not figuring it out – the car’s computer just wouldn’t communicate so after me having to make several hints as he was doing that macho thing of not admitting he didn’t know what was wrong, he took me to Murt’s where I left the car for them to diagnose what was wrong and get it fixed.  In the afternoon I decided to do some cathartic writing (called ‘Angry writing’ – an extract is included below). My Mum rang me later on and I let slip I wasn’t working, but I didn’t want to make her worry more seeing as she is elderly and not well herself so I told her a little white lie that I was ‘taking some time out’ rather than that I was ill with stress.

That night I had a really bad night; I only slept about an hour and a half. I eventually got up at about 5.30 and had a hot chocolate and played on the computer for a bit and later I made tea and toast to take back up to bed then managed to sleep a bit more so felt a bit better.  Later on, we went outside and spent some time in the sun and then went into town for something to eat and a couple of drinks and this time when I went to bed, I slept for almost 8 hours without the aid of pills - for the first time in two and half weeks!  Unfortunately, this proved to be a one-off.

The following week I plucked up the courage to text a colleague to see if he was still planning to come to my Birthday lunch.  Since the terrible episode, I really felt like I could trust no-one that I used to work with; I had no idea who had started the witch hunt against me and was totally paranoid that everyone hated me, but as I had confided in him when this unfortunate episode began, I was hopeful that he was still my friend.  Luckily, he texted back to say he was still coming. 

Then I had a nightmare that I went to a meeting at work and everyone was there and everybody knew everything and had notes about me. It took me ages to come round the next morning and get motivated. When I eventually went downstairs, I plucked up the courage to open the mail – a letter had arrived the previous Friday and I didn’t know who it was from so had put it to one side. It turned out to be from my colleague saying he would still be there to talk to but ‘outside of work’.  He must have posted it when he got back from holidays and didn’t realise I was physically off work. Meanwhile I was fretting about contacting him.  God knows what he made of my text!

. Later in the week I had a nice dream for a change which was a welcome bit of light relief. I was on a beach somewhere hot and saw Madonna on a sunbed:

Me: ‘Pleased to meet you Madonna. Not as fabulous as I hoped but nice all the same. 

Madonna: ‘yeah, I get that a lot’

Madonna - not looking fab.

That aside, I was starting to get really pissed off by still hardly ever being able to sleep and not feeling any better so I decided to be pro-active and I phoned the doctors and told them I needed counseling.  I went to see the practice nurse at the surgery who annoyed me quite a bit by telling me what to do!  He also went on about how bad bullying was and how endemic it was in the workplace these days.  That’s all very well I thought, but that doesn’t really help me, does it?  Anyway, I got a form to fill in and return to him.

My Mum kept ringing (sometimes three times in a day) and I was cursing myself for letting slip I wasn’t working. I had actually stopped answering the landline during the day in case it was someone I didn’t want to talk to. At the same time, I was finding it quite hard to talk to her because I couldn’t help her in the state I was in and I didn’t know what to say.  Added to that, I had developed an irrational fear of travel (especially driving) by myself which now made it impossible for me to go and see her. I was still managing to get out locally during the day but when I planned to go further afield,  such as to go shopping in Halifax I would start to get really anxious and just couldn’t do it.  I started to worry that I had a severe case of ‘Valley fever’

The last weekend in August was mainly taken up with packing and getting ready for our holiday in Crete. The taxi came to pick us up at 5.30 a.m. on Tues 28^th for a week in the sun which was a lovely break in many ways but I still had to come back and face the music…

Angry writing (August 2012)

Grrrrr!!!!!!

This is string-of consciousness all the stuff that’s bothering me and trying to purge myself of negativity so I can concentrate on fun stuff!!!!!

Shit that has gone wrong in the last few weeks:

Flash flood – scary!  And sad for friends that have been affected (especially Emma)

Stupid work deadlines

Walk of horror

Mum being ill

Car breaking down

Pièce de resistance and why I am ill: Bullying at work by the boss bitch

Any more???? I’ll tell you if I think of any!!!!

Life is really shit right now and having proper stress is bollocks.  Try as I might, I can hardly keep my mind off the shit that has been going down the last few weeks.

How I feel (In no particular order)

Angry

Depressed

Sad

Anxious

Apprehensive

Worried

Frustrated

Like I have little or no control

Tired, no correction: exhausted

Lonely inside

Isolated

Tearful (sometimes)

Stress/trauma/PTS

In turmoil

Guilty – f or not being with Mum in her time of need; for not being able to support friends (especially Emma) as much as I’d like.

What is good in my life?

Support from friends and neighbours

Support of doctor and Union

Relationship

Having a laugh

Time for me

Eating healthy

Dance classes

Being able to sit out in sun (sometimes)

Time to read

Having lie in’s/getting up when I like