This Is Madness

Continued from last post...

So, having had an awful night which resulted in me being taken onto the Crisis Team's caseload, I had to wait for a PIP assessor to come and assess if my condition really is all that bad. Her time slot was 10:30 to 12:30. We'd arranged for her to come to the house my late father left me (because my husband is renovating the house so we can move in, and as I am a risk to myself I have to go with him.) I only go between our permanent address and the house which will become my permanent address. They're the only places I feel safe, and they're only a 10 minute drive apart.

Any way, as I said, we'd arranged for the meeting to be at my dad's but at 10:36 the assessor phoned to ask where I was because she'd gone to the other house. The conversation went like this...

Assessor: But this is where you live.
Me: Yes, but we have another house we're renovating and my husband called last week to make sure you could come here, not there.
Assessor: Oh no, we can only see people in their home. We'll have to cancel and reschedule.
Me (becoming ever more frantic, anxious, and frustrated): But this is my house too. It's where we're going to move to. My husband phoned and arranged this! Don't you understand what you're doing? How anxious this meeting has made me? I have a mental health problem. Anxiety has led me to cut over this. I had a panic attack yesterday and cut loads. I had to have the Crisis Team out last night because I wanted to kill myself!
Assessor: Ok. It's ok. I'll come to where you are.

She asked for the address. She asked for the post code. Fifty minutes later we'd pretty much come to realise she'd lied and wasn't prepared to make the ten minute drive between houses. Five minutes later my mobile rang and I handed it to my husband because I couldn't bear to answer. Sure enough it was Atos saying they were going to have to cancel they appointment and rearrange something. They guy on the phone asked to speak to me. He said there'd been an altercation. A claim I denied. I'd gotten frustrated but there hadn't been an altercation. Anyway, I couldn't grasp what he wanted considering it was their mistake which had caused the problem, so I gave the phone back to my husband.

It turns out the guy from Atos didn't mean altercation. He meant alteration. They'd altered my address of one database but not the other, and the assessor took my address from the unaltered database. Basically, they were adding further uncertainty to the life of someone suffering mental distress because their assessor had read the wrong database that morning. Yet that meant I'm going to be logged as having missed my assessment. It wasn't great news when I was still suffering the after effects of my night of panic and self-loathing.

I honestly feel sorry for my husband. He had to speak to the first Atos guy extensively, then he had to talk to one of Atos's nurses who was supposedly checking I was alright. Then he had to speak to a DWP nurse supposedly wanting to know the same. Then he had to speak to a nurse saying they wanted to try to process my application without a meeting, but the Crisis Team wouldn't release the information they needed. Matt then had to phone the Crisis Team, but accepts entirely that they can't release information without written permission from me. He then had to phone my doctor's surgery and leave a message with my GP stating that Atos would be contacting her and she had permission to release details. Then he had to talk to the DWP nurse again. 

Basically, he was on the phone all morning trying to sort a mistake Atos made. Not only that, but he asked if they had an email address because we've received several assessments on my mental health since I completed my initial application and we were more than willing to forward that information. He was told no, they only had a phone line...

Basically, we can't pass the information we have on.

We could have given them extra documentation the same day, instead, they couldn't get anything because it'll take time to get the Crisis Team and my GP to release the same information. It's madness...

(This is madness...
Madness? This is SPARTA!!!!!!
... sorry, I'm a bit of a nerd.)

The thing is, that in this version of '300', Atos are Leonidas and I'm Xerxes messenger. They're madness is pushing me into a black pit, and I could die down there. I don't know what's happening now. I have no idea if I'll get PIP. If they'll rearrange a meeting. Or if they'll cancel my application and I'll have to start over. My statutory sick pay is ending and I'm going to have nothing. I'll need to apply for ESA too, probably, in the coming months, but the PIP process has terrified me. I just don't know if we'll have the money to pay the mortgage and bills, to buy food, never mind give our children Christmas presents. And it's all just so unnecessary.

On top of that, there's an issue of trust. The DWP nurse phoned the Crisis Team to ask for information. Even after they said they couldn't hand that out, she continued to ask them if I was alright. The Crisis Team told my husband to be careful of her, that she'd raised they're suspicions.

Are Atos and DWP trying to sort my claim, or are they trying to protect themselves because they've caused me, someone with a mental illness and suicidal tendencies, excessive distress? I don't know the answer to that. Right now I don't have answers to much, and that's having a negative impact on me.

Continued in next post...

Pseudonymous Zombie
xxx

The Things That Drag You Under

I've been having a bad week, as will be evident from my recent posts, but yesterday decided it had it in for me in a way the weekend hadn't. The result was more cuts on my leg. Then, as I'm running out of space on my calf, some on my arm as well. I only stopped taking a blade to my own skin and using the sting to soothe as it was time for my kids to come home from school. I won't cut while they're around. Self-harm is an addiction. I'm reliant on it but protecting my children and giving them a normal childhood is more important than watching my own blood well as a distraction technique.

Anyway, back to the point... Yesterday had it in for me. It started with a phone call, which I didn't answer because I was in with only my three year old and my husband wasn't available to answer instead. Anxiety affects every aspect of how I interact with others.

I managed to persuade myself to listen to the voice message which was left for me and discovered the caller had been HR from work. It was the message I've been dreading... "We need to have a meeting about your return to work and whether you will be returning. It's just, from a business perspective, you're the only one in your role... and your sick pay is about to end..."

My heart sunk because when my sick leave started, I intended to go back. I was on waiting lists for help. I thought I would have moved forward by now even if I wasn't fully recovered. However, six months later, I'm still waiting. I'm not better. Not at all. In fact, I've sunk further and I feel like I'm drowning. Right now, I don't have professional support. My medication needs a psychiatrist's review as it's not working but there are no psychiatrists available. There is nothing more I could have done to help myself because the support and guidance just isn't there...

So I can't go back to work. My statutory sick pay is ending. I'm going to lose my job because as it stands, even thinking about going to work panics me. It makes me want to die rather than facing either trying the impossible out of duty to my children - go back to earn money, knowing I'll be back on the commute that gave me an opportunity to run away and end everything - or face the meeting that will end my employment. Being made redundant in the past was horrific, but losing a job not because of a global recession but because I'm not mentally strong enough to work? Because I've failed at life? That's enough to push me off the ledge I'm trying to cling to.

When I managed to call back, I was asked to attend an occupational health meeting, which I'd have to go to at an as of yet undisclosed location. I can't even go to my PIP assessment. My assessor is having to come to my house. When I said I couldn't do that, the HR person decided she and my boss would have to come out to my house that week. The very thought made me queasy. I don't want to have to people bearing bad news to come to my safe place. I don't want to hear them judge that from a business perspective, I'm not good enough to keep. I don't want to have my failure held up for me to see.

If I'd had a physical illness I would have been treated by now. If I had a physical disability, I might have been able to advise work on how to make my job manageable to return to. But my problem is something work can't help with - I can't leave the house - and treatment hasn't been effectively put in place yet. I'm in an impossible situation. I tied to get help before I ended up on sick leave, and while waiting for that help I'm going to lose my job. I'm going to lose my family's income. We're going to lose the money we need to survive. The stress will mount up, and I'll get even worse. But when you're already rock bottom, where is there to go?

I still need to get back to HR to arrange the dreaded meeting, especially not this week when the thought of Friday's PIP assessment is looming over me, dread inducing, like a hurdle I need to cross to survive, but a hurdle that seems specifically built to ensure failure. Dealing with both DWP judgment and work's judgment in one week is too much for me to consider.

Anyway, having had that phone call, a letter then dropped onto the door mat of what was my late father's house but is now mine. It was a final notice for a gas bill from a company we've never heard off. When we got the keys to the house, we arranged for another company to supply our gas but apparently that didn't happen immediately and now dad's original company wants money we weren't expecting to pay out. Worse, because it's a final notice the company are threatening us with debt collectors if we don't pay in five days. The problem is, we've never had a bill. We've never had a first notice. And now we're getting final demands. That's enough to send me into another panic. It's enough to make me feel sick. It's enough to make me want to shut down. Go numb. Give up.

I couldn't phone the gas company because of my anxiety. My husband will have to deal with the issue as that letter was enough to have me sobbing without actually having to speak to a stranger.

A demand for money I don't have, especially after a phone call about my job, sent my heart sinking. It sent my mind whirling and triggered thoughts of suicide. Normal people would cope. They'd sort the problems. But me? I'm useless and my mind insists that being dead would be better, easier, exactly what I deserve. Dead removes the need to find solutions to problems I can't resolve.

That wasn't even that last  the day had to throw at me. The final punch might seem small to other, but to me it was the straw that broke the camels back. Half an hour after receiving the gas final demand, I discovered something I'd ordered for Christmas for my kids had been cancelled by the seller. It seemed that the seller had cancelled so they could double the price meaning I can't afford my order any more.

Why is that affecting me so deeply (apart from my depression)...? My kids are going to have a very budget Christmas as we can't afford anything so this is a real blow. We're making them toys out of things we already have in the house because we can't afford to buy toys, that's how bad it's gotten. The cancellation was enough of a blow that, on top of the letter and phone call, there was only one way to calm myself; a razor blade.

Later I also tried smoking weed. I've never done drugs, not even in my youth, and as it happened my asthma meant I couldn't really smoke without choking. I don't agree with recreational drugs but I just need an out because the prescribed drugs aren't helping me. Tonight I plan on seeking help in a vodka bottle. I know that's bad too. I know it's not the answer, but neither was pleading for help from the doctor, from the hospital, from a counsellor, or from the Community Mental Health team.

I don't know how many cuts I've given myself in three days, but it's enough to reveal I'm going to have a bad week. Other people might be able to cope with simple problems such as a bill and Christmas presents. I can't, and on Friday I need to prove that. I need to prove it to PIP and then I'll have to apply for ESA and do it all over again. I need to prove that I can't do what I'm failing to do and the stress of having to prove it is making it harder to do anything at all. It's a destructive cycle.

What is the point?

I feel like I'm drowning, that I'm being dragged under, or pushed under, and that things can only get worse. But how can I explain that in a way that sounds like an illness rather than melodrama? I know it's an illness I have, while still telling myself I should get over it because so many people have told me that in the past, and I don't know how to put the sinking sensation I feel into words.

Maybe I should just open my mouth, let the water in, drown. Then, at least, people might look at my cold corpse and think 'oh, she did need help'. Maybe then it would become believable. It seems like the best course of action to both earn understanding/empathy and end my relentless fear and hopelessness.

If I'm denied PIP and ESA, I know there'll be no option but suicide. I can't go through it again, the struggle just to feed my children and pay the bills. If I'm denied the help I need until I manage to access treatment and gain some stability, then things will come unbearably difficult. I'm not saying that for attention or to help my case. There'd be no point as I use a pseudonym on this blog. I'm saying it because I know what happens when this kind of thing happens. I know what's going on in my head.  I know how my mind has tormented me with the words 'just end it' for sixteen years.

Pseudonymous Zombie
xxx