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News – PIP is still alive
A new date arrived in a letter. The good news the venue is much closer and accessible by public transport and two busses away.
So the anxiety can now start to weave it’s magic into a fragile persons life.
Going through the mill of coercive control
A family member and their partner are having a difficult time with their personal relationship and there is only so much moral support and guidance you can give them without becoming frustrated as the facts of the situation are taking them to separation and children are involved.
Their relationship is fragile. One of them pushes the emotions of the other without understanding there are penalties and consequences of all life’s actions – with speech it is a memory. There is an accumulation effect where previous ‘pushing’s’ are added too and a saturation point will arrive where change or break is the fork in the road: Decision time!
One person will simple talk in a passively aggressive way to the other and not listen to reasoned argument. They have a point they want to get across at any cost and will not give in for any reason no matter how rude they are or how off topic they become. Tempers and emotions on both sides are raised. The other person is engaged with the argument but is, due to the relentless barrage over a two year, or longer period, ow tries to become disengaged; but this aggravates the situation and that is then the new snippet argument that is taken forward.
No matter what happens it is only stopped by walking away and taking further abuse about not wanting to conclude the argument that is circular in nature and can’t be changed with out a mindset update.
It’s all about me: gas-lighting? Narcissistic attitudes? An abusive relationship?
Joint counselling has been tried, but one side does not acknowledge there is a real problem and even if there was it’s not mine attitude is prevalent. I have not witnessed this but from conversations it is evident that one party is guarded in the conversation during counselling for fear of retribution at a later date. There was a fortuitous event that meant only one person could attend and true openness was allowed.
Footnote: separation is now happening but counselling has been agreed. I just hope the children are not held hostage!
The Future is Bright, the Future is Mental Health.
This was me (below) but life has moved on. Counselling showed me I was not to blame and I can change my perspective on the past and remember it. It is okay, safe and not disloyal to others to remember what happened without the negative effect that came to drive my life.
You don’t need me to tell you how mental health has come to the fore but this blog has evolved for me, as mental health issues are affecting every part of my family and family life. It is as though from nowhere we are all involved at a deep routed profound level of existence.
I have now given myself a wider remit as I want to record what is happening as, to be honest, I can’t believe what we are going through. I thought we were a normal family and if everyone is as normal as we are it is a rum life we have.
This was me: A confused person suffering with PTSD. Confused as I feel a fraud. People I know still see the old me, old because I know I have changed, and I feel cannot understand what I am going through on the inside. I would consider myself a mild sufferer as I don’t exhibit every PTSD trait.
Bloody PIP
Well, the PIP process carries on. I took time off work to take our sons partner to her PIP interview. The journey was uneventful but anxiety showed in her as we approached our destination. Cold sweet, stammers in her voice and a reluctance to want to attend took over.
Once we found the place it was off for a comfort break. Tea and coffee later we went back.
The chap on reception was very helpful and polite and we waited and waited. Our sons partner became more and more agitated and went outside and was sick.
On her return I had to break the news her paperwork was not there and they did not know where it was. I expected a full blown outburst, was pleasantly surprised at how calm we all were.
Her paper work was in a far off distant office as a home visit had been requested by the CPN and needed a Doctors approval but no one was bothered to wait until it had been agreed before making the appointment.
Controlled tears were shed and a reticence set in that acknowledge that it had all gone wrong again.
We left not really knowing when the visit would be or where.
Total meltdown
Starting on a new course is an exciting thing. It may come with trepidation but not with fear. That is to say a stereotypical thought and does not apply to some one with anxiety. I missed a trick in trying to deescalate a situation and paid the price.
Time had been built into the day to allow for changes and arriving relaxed. I was providing transport and child care. The car seat was moved into my car but not fitted. We had time!
Securing the car seat was a bit of a faff as my hands do not allow the clip to be passed through the seat covers with ease, but it was done as a joint effort. The next step – secure child in seat proved so difficult that it did not happen. The webbing between the child’s legs had been pulled tight, by me, that in no way could the shoulder straps be positioned over the child’s shoulders unless they were of only paper thickness.
Neither I or the parent could release the tightness of the straps. We tried every which way we could but no. We took the chair out and looked and poked it everywhere but the shoulder straps would not budge.
All this time my grandson was climbing through the gap between the front seats thinking every time we moved he was being chased. Buttons were pushed in more than one way! The parents temper broke and harsh words spoken, and not because of that his full nappy started to leak, yes out over the car seats.
The parent went passed that point where talking would help recovery. I spoke to the course organiser and explained the situation and it was my fault and this was understood and appreciated. The parent was now in shock and could not be reconciled. Thoughts of failure were spoken, thoughts of nothing every going properly were said and my suggestion of calling for a taxi was rebuffed by pointing out to me that this, say 15m, was the farthest she had been from the front door in over a week.
We returned indoors where I had to bath my grandson due to the nappy explosion.
We agreed I would visit the course venue and check what we should do as she was very worried she would be kicked off the course. They understood and it was not a problem.
Questions – questions
Each week I had homework to do … think about this, think about that. No problem to me as it was mostly thinking … and thinking about me.
I had a standard form to complete each week that was used to gauge my improvement, or decline in attitude to my life and anxious moments. It stayed pretty constant.
One thing did surprise me, and it should not have done so, was a question as to whether I had contemplated suicide as a solution. No, not at all. I only thought about it when I read the question for the first time.
However, I did want a sanguine revenge though: I wanted a number of people to know how they had contributed to my plight and what it had done to me.
That was not going to happen as they were too well connected both within and outside the company for me to be listened to.
Been advised not to write
Only a little keyboard exercise 🙂
I am undergoing counselling sessions and been advised not to write down my feelings. I fully understand the explanation but miss this outlet like hell.
I think that while writing I am incorrectly solving the problems I have and I need to be counselled with unfettered thoughts that have not been cross-influenced.
Time to Talk is talking
I had the all-important telephone call … come in it’s time to talk. But first …
It has taken a great deal of time to get this counselling; this is not the fault of the lady who I was scheduled to meet, but the system, which if you break that down further comes down to resources.
When resources are short, it is, I think, a natural instinct to try and cope. This applies to life in general not just this situation: look to reduce waste, look for better ways to process information, try and cut-out unnecessary activities, redesign activities and process etc. When these have been exhausted, future options become difficult.
All my working life (could be 40 years – can’t be bothered to calculate it) I have tolerated politicians of all persuasions saving me money on the services I have to use. Time and time again ‘… we need to reduce wastage. Yes, on the back of the last bout of waste reducing policies we just made and have not yet completed.’ Services I have paid for, services run by people who are dedicated through and through to public service with compassion and humility – good people who don’t subscribe to profit at any cost. Let’s make it clear, that is not the same as being anti-capitalist at all. We have all benefited from capitalism regardless of political persuasion and I do not want to offer this forward as for speaking for everyone else, but I am against rip-off-capitalism.
Our Government, I believe, do not have to publish accounts to prove what they are saying is true and correct. They all stumble between projections of what they want and shortfalls made by previous post holders.
Austerity is just a rouse through which the Government use to put a veneer over its hidden agenda of privatising everything through rip-off-capitalism; the great British public are not supposed to have any common sense at all, through another set of policies in education, to be able to see the bigger picture that in general is profit orientated – capitalism of the rip-off variety and not compassionate service based.
So we are in a situation where the first past-the-post system of representation allows about 25% of the populace to have their way and dismantle society without being challenged. BUT the people who are doing it don’t have the balls to tell people the truth.
I felt it necessary to say this as it is why I feel my appointment was, I would think about three months late.
There was an administrative mix-up about venue which we resolved. I felt very comfortable talking to the lady, who reassuringly was able to interject with facts that we had talk about over the telephone, possible two months previously. I felt she had taken the trouble to research my predicament and understood what I had been through. We discussed the process I was going to go through and with a layman’s hat on it made sense. I say process as I think I have to unpack things, unlearn things and repack only what I want to move forward with. Even having gone through various things over the last three months and felt happier, note happier, not happy, I still have reservations about the ethics of letting go of the suicide victim. I am happy where I am, but I know I have to revisit that aspect.
On balance I feel this accident was the opening that exposed a vulnerability to my true feelings that had been there, possible since the previous train accident, which I had not addressed. It may sound trite but it may be a man thing. ‘It’s my duty to be a man, cope, ignore it and it will go away.’ It don’t.
I was given a form to complete that recorded my emotions to daily successes and failures. I appreciate what it is for but I don’t see my life in this way. My job involves ‘designing’ solutions to problems. I regularly go through failures as that is an intrinsic part of the process. I have my work peer reviewed and questioned daily, that is not failure or success, it is a professional way of working. Well, it was the arrogant removal and substitution with unprofessional people in this process with people who do not know the difference between hay and a bulls foot that was the trigger at work for me to stand my ground. (Read unprofessional in attitude and not professional qualified to do such work.)
My thoughts on how I handled the situation have changed since I was off work for a month: I am far less benevolent. I have witnessed many other people being treated in a similar manner to myself and have seen similar responses. Four people have left the company, I have moved to another group and two more are on the verge of leaving. In summary 280 years of experience reduced about 10 year’s. In my opinion a real masterclass in constructive dismissal.
I do think regularly about my situation and while it has been just over two weeks since my last blog entry my thoughts are about ‘where am I’ are not negatively biased but more around, ‘I can change whatever I want’ and ‘where do I go to get out of the mind set I am in’, and critically ‘where do I want to go, what do I want to be, what type of person should I be’. I an still trying to understand me and my normal.
just me and cross 