Part 5 - September 2012

Raki madness, down a backstreet in Chania, Crete

We had a nice time in Crete, even though I hardly slept during that week.  Added to the now-normal experience of not being able to get my brain to rest at night, I had severe hot flushes which of course were worse in the 30 degree plus heat (I guess the obligatory raki with every meal didn't help much either!)  I resorted to putting a face cloth in the ice box to use at night but even that was warm by about 3 a.m.

  

My favourite wall plaque at my favourite restaurant in Gerani, Crete

We were both very tired when we got home on the Tuesday evening.  I took two quiet life pills to ward off any anxious feelings returning during the night. I managed to sleep for eight hours but as usual, not in one go, waking every two hours on average and getting flushes throughout the night.

  

The next day I opened the mail that arrived while we were away and there was a letter from my boss suggesting an informal meeting, offering to come and see me at home.  I was flabbergasted! I thought: she just doesn’t get it, does she? Why on earth would I want her coming to my safe space after what she did to me?  

I wrote back saying I wasn’t ready for any kind of meeting and would be in touch again after I’d seen the doctor and spoken to the Union Rep again the following week.

I hoped that I’d be able to forget about horrid stuff for the time being; I wanted to look forward to my birthday weekend and put off dealing with horrid stuff that week. Also that day, someone from Oakdale rang to arrange an initial assessment for counselling. I kept myself busy the rest of day sorting out all those bits and pieces of everyday life, but then I had quite a torrid night, plagued by hot flushes and with stuff churning round my head. 

In the morning I mentioned to my partner that I had hardly slept at all and he asked me if I was worried about stuff.  What does he expect, I thought? That this shit is going to magically disappear?

I had a killer headache and I decided to run a bath to see if it would help. I was quite upset that the crap feelings had come back so soon after my holiday – only been back 36 hours! My partner came in to say goodbye and didn’t notice I’d been crying; he just said ‘is it a headache?’ I just said yes, and let him get off to work but I was annoyed he hadn’t noticed.

After my bath I got dressed and went downstairs for coffee and felt a bit better but still crap. I  went to the market  and saw a friend of someone I used to work with (who had also ended up being ill and being ‘retired’)  and I told her vey briefly about my situation. She was quite shocked, as her mate used to think that the sun shone out of the boss’ arse!  Yes well, I said, she’s a complete bitch as it turns out. 

I felt really knackered and rubbish the rest of the day and took 2 sleeping pills that night. I still woke lots but the pills seemed to help me to get straight back to sleep again. They made me feel very groggy though. On the Friday I was outside hanging washing up and I talked to a neighbour. She had noticed that I’d been at home a lot and asked how I was so I told her. She had also had a similar experience and was off work with chronic fatigue brought on by stress. I was beginning to realise how endemic bullying and harassment in the workplace is! It seemed that almost everyone that I mentioned my situation to had experienced something similar – there sure is a lot of it about!

The next day was  my  50^th birthday, and my partner  made us smoked salmon scramble (my favourite brekkie) and  I looked at my facebook messages and opened the cards I had received  (including a spa treatment voucher off  a really good friend which was an ace idea for a gift). And the pressies from my partner – which were all ace and wrapped in posh wrapping paper!

It was a lovely day and so we went out for a wander and saw some friends then went in search of cake.  We then wandered round to a pop up bar.  It started to get really hot and we were in danger of getting sun stroke! We watched the Up the Buttress bike challenge for entertainment and bumped into a couple more friends but sensibly came home after 2 pints for a cup of tea then got ready to go out again.

We went to the Turkish restaurant for dinner and who should turn up but Patti Smith!  I embarrassed myself getting an autograph for my good friend who couldn’t make the gig – I had texted her to tell her that Patti was in the restaurant and she texted back to ask if I’d get her to sign a napkin.  I’m not doing that I thought, but then I had an idea.  I went to the loo and noticed that Patti and her dinner companion had empty plates in front of them so on the way back, I stopped at her table and asked her if there would be any CD’s for sale at the gig (as I wouldn’t feel as stupid getting a CD signed).  She said no, but thanks for asking.  I then thought, well, I’m talking to her now so I might as well ask for an autograph so I asked her for one.  She said okay, so I got a pen out of my bag and a piece of paper for her to sign and then the dam pen wouldn’t work!  I could tell she was getting a bit annoyed and she threw the pen down on the table and growled ‘get me a pen that works and I’ll sign it!’  Luckily, her table was near the bar so I asked one of the waiters for a pen and got the autograph but I really wanted the ground to swallow me up. But at least I can now say I have sat on the same toilet as Patti Smith!

The gig itself was really good of course - apart from the sycophantic arseholes who would have clapped and whooped if Ms Smith had just stood there farting!  After the gig we met our friend in the bar and I gave her the autograph, and said, I am never, ever doing that again so I hope you appreciate it!

The next day was the planned Birthday Sunday dinner. It was really nice, I got loads of cards and pressies (some cool, some funny and one completely naff – a box of Black magic literally from the corner shop!)  The meal was very nice and excellent value and everyone seemed to have a nice time.  My partner insisted on paying for everyone even though a few of us tried to stop him!  Generous to a fault that boy but gorgeous with it. 

When we got back home, we sat outside with a few people drinking coffee and tea and then more wine... after everyone else left, we took our mates from Scotland for a drink then to the train station as they were staying in Blackpool, then we went to catch up with our pub friends where we were forced to drink black sambuca and get stoned – had managed to stay fairly sober all day up to that point!

I slept quite a bit more that night – so THAT's how much you have to drink to knock you out, I thought!  After my partner went to work I looked at all my cards and pressies again and reflected on what a lovely weekend it had been and I was so glad that everyone else enjoyed it as well.  With having such a nice time I had managed to not think about the horrid stuff too much but it occurred to me again what an almost constant mental effort was required to make myself NOT think about it!

Around this time, I was meeting up with friends at least twice a week.  I met one friend regularly for lunch or a walk and I also regularly visited another friend on a Monday afternoon for a chat and a cup of tea.  This was great for me as I found that Mondays were often the worst day.  It was odd that I still got that Monday feeling even though I wasn’t working.  I wondered if it was post-weekend blues, or because my partner was going to work and leaving me on my own in the house and often I did not feeling like doing much at all.  It was really good to have a reason to motivate myself and get out of the house. Sometimes we talked about ‘the shit’ as I now called it, and sometimes we talked about all sorts of other things. 

The next time I saw the doctor, I updated him on how I felt.  I was not quite as hyper as when all this shit started but still very anxious and little else had changed including the sleeping (the pills helped me sleep a bit more, sometimes as much as 4 and half hours in one go but they made me feel woozy and it took me ages to come round in the mornings) and still feeling scared of going places .He gave me a note for another month and different sleeping pills but said they were not a long-term solution which of course I was aware of. The chemist near the surgery didn’t have the right pills so I had to go to the other one, and then they only had 6 in stock so I had to go back and get more later in the week.

When I got home and read the instructions for the pills, it didn’t specify how many to take and said they were for travel sickness!  I rang the surgery for more information and was told by the receptionist (sic) that they were also good for stress, but to ring the chemist about dosage.  Honestly!  All this faffing about took me a whole morning – being ill really is a full time job sometimes!

That week was the last week of the dance class I loved, which was another blow.  ‘Lily’ was giving up Latin and ballroom to concentrate on that burlesque lark! (A subject I may return to later).

By midweek I found I could think about ‘the shit’ without getting really angsty so decided to ring the Union and write to my boss  to tell them that I wanted to go ahead with the formal stuff.  I really didn’t think my mental health would get much better until there was some progress.

Later, I had one of the regular meet-ups with my good friend and we chatted about the idea of a market stall to get rid of some stuff we didn’t need any more and to make a bit of dosh, and I spent some time sorting through my jewellery box for things to sell. Over the next two weeks or so, I spent  quite a bit of time sorting things to sell and checked prices for some of the more valuable items on eBay. I found it very therapeutic having a project to concentrate on, although I was still having to split the work into small chunks so I didn’t get completely exhausted.

Also that week I started taking the new sleeping pills, but they seemed to have the completely opposite effect as what they were meant to – I just could not sleep at all!  I ended up getting out of bed I was so restless and I was really angry; almost as angry as I was during the first couple of weeks of this illness. When I went back to bed, there was a wild storm going on – back end of hurricane ‘Lesley’ (what a stupid name!)  I woke up loads of times and had some weird dreams. In the morning I felt really groggy and it was still very stormy with sheets of rain driving down the valley!!!

I had a realisation when we were having a conversation one morning about why I still couldn’t sleep properly. In the first couple of weeks, I would be churning the shit round in my brain and would often have scary thoughts and nightmares.  I knew that my employer was going to tell lies to get themselves out of a hole that they had created by not following the policies and procedures correctly, and was scared that I was going to end up fighting a losing battle. But now, a month and a half down the line, I did actually feel a bit calmer and made a big effort to relax at bedtime.  So it wasn’t that I was necessarily thinking about ‘the shit’ when I couldn’t get to sleep or woke up during the night - it wasn’t that straightforward and I wanted to know more about what was actually going on in my brain.

Later in the week there was a letter in the post form my employer inviting me to a meeting in relation to the ‘investigation’ so I rang the Union and arranged for someone to accompany me.  I tried to explain again about the ‘investigation’ thing and how it was in contravention of the Disciplinary Policy but I wasn’t getting through – again. I asked that my Rep ring me back but they said it could be quite a bit later as he was in meetings all day.  

I also phoned the doctors to tell them the so-called ‘sleeping pills’ were useless and they conceded to prescribe Temazepam – at last!  The Temazepam worked a bit in the sense that it did make me feel more relaxed and although I still woke up during the night, I managed to get a bit more sleep and of better quality, than when I didn’t take them. As a consequence, I felt much better the following day and not as groggy as I did with the other pills.

I had enrolled in the art class I did last term which was a good diversion.  The main theme of the term was impressionism and the first couple of sessions involved painting trees based on a photo panorama the tutor had taken.  I was attending the course with my friend who got flooded back in July and she was also going through a very stressful time trying to get her house sorted, dealing with insurance, banks etc.  I hadn’t had much chance to catch up with her the last few weeks so although she was aware I’d had a bad experience at work I hadn’t told her the details at this stage. Although we would talk after class, I found that as it was quite late in the evening, talking about the shit would churn up all my feelings, making relaxing before going to bed even more difficult.  We said we needed to meet for lunch or something and have a proper chat.

As it turned out, she had a spare ticket for the theatre the following Friday, so I arranged to meet her after she finished work.  I was apprehensive as this meant that I had to catch the train all by myself all the way to Halifax! We went for something to eat before the performance and I filled her in on the details of my horrid experience at work and she was very helpful. She explained about the chemicals in my brain – adrenaline and cortisol - being really high. Ah ha! I thought, recalling the conversation I’d had with my partner and trying to work out what else was going on when I couldn’t sleep. Although I did use a few relaxation techniques already, I realised that I needed to make more effort to do exercises which would help to lower these levels.

My Union Rep rang very late the following Monday evening and I had to go through the whole horrid story again (he got the short version as I was sick of repeating it to these people and they always seemed to get some weird version off their colleagues and they just don’t listen!).  I also got an e-mail off my sister about Mum so I replied and told her about my illness (but still didn’t want Mum or my other siblings to know just yet). I suggested again that we needed to try and get Mum to have a social care assessment.  Bizarrely, Mum rang the next day but she was only asking about floods as it had been raining solid for days so of course it was all over the news again!

I had a terrible night that night with really bad hot flushes. I came to the conclusion that having a bath at night made me too hot to sleep. Consequently I was even more knackered on Wednesday and my partner hadn’t slept either and we were both in a terrible mood.  This prompted me to ring the spa to try and book an aromatherapy massage with the voucher I got for my birthday – what a trial that was! It turned out the woman who did the massage treatments only worked there 2 days a week and they kept trying to make me have a beauty treatment instead (I felt like saying no thanks; I’m gorgeous enough – Ha! Ha!)  I finally managed to book it in for 8^th Oct (which meant I had to change a doctor’s appointment for that day – if only I’d known how equally taxing  that would prove to be , I would never have bothered!)

The next day I had a telephone assessment for counselling which lasted about an hour and left me feeling quite drained.  Later on, I managed to do some relaxation and yoga which felt good. Oakdale rang me back later to offer me counselling – choice of a 5 week wait for phone counselling or 6 months wait for face-to-face! I opted for the phone method simply because it was a shorter wait.  They also suggested a look at a website called ecouch.

It was around this time that I developed strange aches in my arms – I mean they felt really achy, from the inside of my elbows all the way down to my hands. I’d never experienced anything like it before.  I wondered if it was just from carrying heavy shopping bags or another symptom of stress.  I also developed really bad back ache over the following weekend.   So, a month which started in a pleasant fashion ended with me feeling crap physically as well as mentally, and I had yet to face my tormentors in the flesh...