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| Autumn colours |
Up
to this point, the Union hadn’t asked for any details about what I was being
accused of and only now did the Rep ask to look at the list of ‘allegations’
against me. He asked me about the 17th
point: ‘None of this is new’. This made me realise he was not going to be much of
a support to me. I gritted my teeth and
explained that I had made notes detailing my response to all the ‘charges’
including that one (which he showed no interest in reading), and I reiterated
that if I was so crap at my job why had nothing been said or done about it before?
The
meeting was hosted by my boss’ side-kick, the Deputy Director and the administrator
was there to take notes. At the outset,
the DD came out with some platitudes to the effect that will people had said a
lot of negative things about me during the investigation, that there were some positives. Hang on, I
thought, was she going to launch into another attack on me based on her
gathering more information from my so-called colleagues without me having my
say? I interjected and said I was still digesting the original list of 17
‘areas of concern’ and what about my right to reply to these first before
coming up with more? I then proceeded to give my side of the story, using the
notes I had written but had so far not been given the chance to pass onto anyone.
It was very difficult for me to sit
there and do this but I really felt I had to do it.
As
predicted, the Union Rep was no use whatsoever; he hardly even spoke during the
meeting, let alone stuck up for me.
Having never had to call on Union intervention before I wasn’t sure if
this was normal but he seemed to be just observing and making sure policies
were being followed (my partner refers to these sorts of people as ‘plodders’).
On
the walk back to the station, I told the Rep that regardless of their actions
now, my employer had already contravened policies by telling me that I could
not take out a grievance before the disciplinary process was complete. He told me this was in contravention to ACAS
guidelines. I said I knew that, but we might as well let them do their stupid
investigation now they’d started, as taking out a grievance at that stage would
hold up proceedings. Also, I still needed to know what ‘evidence’ they were
going to come up with and details such as exactly who had said what and dates
when instances were meant to have occurred so I could respond fully.
I
was absolutely knackered when I got home, with a thumping headache and very achy
shoulders. I had expected it to tire me
out though; just physically being in a meeting was draining, let alone having
to relive the horrid episode that had made me ill in the first place!
I
hardly slept at all that night despite being exhausted and taking 3 quiet life
pills. I got up about 3 a.m. and tried to think things through to see if that would
put my mind at rest but it didn’t help much.
The next day I needed to send some notes to the administrator at work
based on what I’d said at the meeting and this took me quite a long time.
My
sleep pattern remained disturbed all week and when I mentioned it to my partner
one morning he told me to stop fretting about stuff – I tried to explain again
that it was more complex than that; I didn’t necessarily wake up thinking about
the shit every time but that it was more to do with extreme anxiety and high
levels of chemicals in my brain.
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| Post-flood woods |
Anyway,
I couldn’t do anything about the shit until I got the notes from the meeting and
the ‘investigation’ report so I tried to keep my mind off it by being busy. I spent some time with friends and tried to
write some funny blogs (but found it very hard to keep this up) and started
experimenting with making body scrub. It was gorgeous weather that weekend and
we spent a lot of it out and about. We walked in the Woods and spent an
enjoyable time wandering around the post-flood altered landscape and investigating
bits of pottery that had surfaced.
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| Archaeology finds |
We decided it looked better – loads of crud had
gone from the ponds although the ducks had also scarpered due to lack of food probably.
We
also visited a few pubs including one which had just re-opened and spent some
time catching up with people and getting the gen on what was happening with
other closed pubs. All the activity made me very tired again – but in a good
way for a change.
I
then had the aromatherapy massage to look forward to on the following Monday
which was very nice indeed. It made me
very sleepy though and when I got home I was really cold as well so I went up to bed for a rest but some workmen outside
were making loads of noise which was annoying and made it very hard to sleep.
In
the evening we went out for our friends’ birthday which was lovely but when I
got home I was absolutely shattered and had aches in my back, neck and shoulder
from the massage. I had a disturbed
night again and the next day I was forced into driving my car to help a friend
in need. She texted to say that she thought she had broken her foot and asked
if I would take her to A&E. I was a bit worried about driving after such a
long gap and being so tired but needs must.
It
was okay as it turned out. My friend had
torn a ligament in her foot but nothing broken.
Obviously I was sorry that she had hurt herself but it did make me use
the car and I felt like I had taken a step forward.
Later
that week I had tons of hassle caused by having to change my doctor’s
appointment due to a clash with the aromatherapy session. When I had originally rang to cancel, the
best they could do before my sick note ran out was to book me in for a
telephone appointment. On the morning
that the call was due, I made sure the ringer on my phone was turned up to full
volume, it was by my side at all times and I even took it with me when I went
to the loo. So how I managed to miss the
call I have no idea!
I
then had to wait for the duty doctor to ring back and then she hardly asked me
any questions – just about sleeping. She gave me no useful suggestions to help
at all and would only sign me off for 2 weeks as she hadn’t seen me. What a palaver! I wrote a letter to my boss to
accompany the sick notes as I didn’t want them thinking that I was going back
to work in a fortnight.
I
also tried that e-couch lark the counselling people suggested. What a load of rubbish! My questionnaire responses indicated that I
had ‘high levels of Anxiety’ (no shit Sherlock!) and told me to go see a GP or
counsellor. The CBT
I Toolkit was completely crap and
the rest of the website was full of obvious advice. On the plus side, I did
learn a bit about different drugs.
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| Autumnal still life with fruit |
Again,
I tried to distract myself with other activities. There was a lot of art involved one way or
another. I had done a terrible still
life in art class (my pumpkin was quite good but the aubergine looked like a
warped bunch of grapes) but I knew I could
do better so I started to paint another one.
On the Saturday our friend drove us all to Tate Liverpool for an
exhibition and we had a lovely day out. After perusing the excellent exhibition and buying the obligatory postcards, we did some sightseeing at the docks, and then went for a beer at The Pumphouse. Later, we drove across town to look at the 'bombed out church' and had a rather nice meal in Chinatown.
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| Arty beer bottles at Albert Dock, Liverpool |
The
following week had a really bad start. When I tried to get up on the Monday morning I
felt really fuzzy and it was hard to stand up as my legs felt dead stiff, my
elbows really hurt, my eyes just wouldn’t open properly and I generally felt rubbish. I tried to sleep again but couldn’t so I got
up about 10 even though I really didn’t feel like doing anything. I had no motivation at all and it also
occurred to me that I had absolutely no idea how long I was going to be in this
state of never feeling well. I decided to do some research on the internet
which turned out to be inconclusive – the bottom line was that I could be ill
for several weeks or several months or even years. Well, that’s helpful then!
I
really had to ring my Mum. I had been avoiding it as I still didn’t know what
to say without telling the truth while explaining why I hadn’t been to see
her. It was her Birthday that week so
she would really notice if I didn’t at least call her. I told her I had a post-viral thingy as I
reckoned she would buy that as an explanation, with the symptoms being quite
similar to stress. Interestingly, she second-guessed I might not go back to
work which would later ease the shock when that transpired to come true in real
life!
I
went back to my art work and also got an idea for a theme for a calendar and
played around with photos and my paintings and started making some collages in
Photoshop. This was turning into quite an engrossing distraction as I was
getting interested in exploring how learning to paint was influencing my
photo-based creations and vice versa.
I
was worried that I wouldn’t be able to get more Temazepam as the doctors seem
paranoid that you are going to get hooked on valium, but thank goodness they
did give me more on my next visit. Although
these pills didn’t guarantee undisturbed sleep, they did calm me down somewhat
and appeared to be the only thing that made any difference at all to the
quality of my sleep and I was willing to settle for that even if it was only in
two hour bursts. I really did wish
sometimes that I could take them every day, but I knew that was the road to
addiction, same as if I started going to the pub every day( welcome as
alcohol-induced stupors are, it would be a really bad idea). I think it was
coincidence but I happened to switch to a different doctor around this time who
would prove to be very supportive over the next few months.
While
I had to contend with sleep deprivation and feeling rubbish for most of the
time, a pattern was emerging of feeling extra crap on a Monday and I started to
feel quite depressed about it. I
originally put this down to having nice weekends when I could enjoy being out
and about doing different things, spending time with my partner and other
friends and suppressing my negative thoughts and I thought, maybe it was just
the come down from that. Also, it did
(and still does) make me very tired, same as doing anything active. But I began
to wonder if there was more to it. Was
it to do with drinking at the weekends and not drinking during the week? Was it because even though I couldn’t go to
work (and didn’t want to after what had happened to me) I kind of missed it, in the sense of having
something to get up for? Or was it the
thought of having a week alone stretching ahead of me?
I
really didn’t know but by the end of October I was getting really fed up with
it. And to top it all, I had to chase up my
employer as I still hadn’t received their ‘investigation report’ almost a month
after the meeting. I sent an e-mail to the administrator asking when I could
expect the report and took the opportunity to comment on the meeting notes
which had arrived mid-October and I’d put off reading as I just couldn’t face all 9 pages of it when it landed on the doormat. I got an auto-response as she was on holiday
all week which was extremely annoying having spent half the morning writing the
bloody message!
It
was half term and my partner had taken some time off work to do some jobs round
the house, but ended up having a cold. Typical!
Not only did this mean my sleep was even more disturbed by his coughing
and wheezing during the night, but of course I caught the dam thing as
well. Before it took proper hold of me
though we had a strange trip to Blackpool...
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