Monday 14 July 2014

Plans

I'm really angry at myself for not being able to properly format and keep this blog in a professional manner. Well part of that is it is so difficult to think straight cause of the constant head pain from the migraines and the extreme drowsy side effects of 60mg of Fluoxetine a day but it's also that finding topics from my daily life that are worth reading don't exist as I completely isolate myself. Don't get me wrong however I like being alone. I feel safe this way and I can live vicariously through media.
I do have to plan this blog out a lot better than I have till now if I want it to be of any real use to people who have mental health issues and as an educational tool for those who don't. I usually just write off the top of my head once I pick a topic. Seems that isn't going to work now that I've exhausted my personal issues.
I will have to make a list of topics that affect people with mental health issues and slowly write about each one, one by one. Can I really do that though? I can barely stay awake most of the time. Well I can but try and who knows maybe I'll learn a new skill... that I quickly forget cause of the medication. ^_^ heh

Atos second attempt

So just had the second attempt at a home assessment by ATOS for PIP but since the company requires an audio cd of the audio recorded assessment we had to reschedule again as the cd-r's I ordered have not arrived yet. I haven't owned or used cd-r's in almost 15 years. Do people still use them?
The woman who is doing the assessment on me is very kind and understanding. She seems like someone you can trust and be at ease with but who knows what ATOS themselves and the DWP will do with her report once it's done. Ignore it perhaps?

I was so anxious about todays assessment that I was physically sick all last night. The sheer terror of having to interact with someone on any level, no matter how understanding and nice, is overwhelming. People have to be the most terrifying thing on the planet. As I get older this phobia only gets stronger.

Time to take more painkillers. I can already feel the more painful migraine forming.

Not a very helpful post or past few posts I know and not what I had intended for to be written in this blog at all from what was originally posted last year but I found that I have to be very careful not to repeat myself. I do this often without realising and theres only so much you can talk about in regard to mental health. Though there are still lots of topics to tackle that I haven't touched I don't know how to approach them. This is going to take some time.
As for the more unrelated posts like this one and similar ones before it should I delete them? I don't feel they serve any real purpose in helping people and just degrades this blog into a personal rant site which is not what I had intended at all. I am so frustrated and angry with myself.

Friday 4 July 2014

Atos home appointment set and personal dreams.

It has been a while I know and I am sorry to both my readers and to myself. I want to write so much more often than I currently am but as always my physical health makes it very hard. I will think of something eventually I guess.

So a letter from ATOS stating the date and time for my home assessment, 7th of July, arrived today. Almost one year after applying for Personal Independence Payment in the UK. I am of course freaking out. In order to stay as calm as possible I just keep repeating to myself over and over again that it doesn't matter, I don't matter, nothing matters. So long as I hold no hope, desire or expectation for anything at all or sense of self preservation then I am able to keep my anxiety from turning into a full blown panic attack. Though I wonder how well that trick will work on the day of the assessment with a stranger sitting across from me in my home, my sanctuary from the world of madness outside... We shall see.
I fully expect that my application for PIP will ultimately be rejected and I will have to spend another year going through the appeals process. Why go through all this trouble? I don't want to trust me. In fact I don't want the money but sadly because of the way modern society is constructed I do need it to survive which is infuriating. I would love nothing more than to find a cave somewhere and live out my life in solitude there but I'm not so foolish as to think I could actually survive. I live with my grandparents and am nothing but a burden on them. My grandmothers memory is slipping and she often repeats things many times thinking she's saying them for the first time. My grandfather is registered blind. I am ashamed to be a burden on them. I should have a job, my own place etc but I know I am not capable of it. The money from PIP may give me just enough to afford a place of my own and I would no longer be such a pathetic burden on my family.

While thinking of the forth coming ATOS assessment my mind turned to possible things I could make employment out of. I spend hours on Google Earth using street view to explore the rural areas of Japan for small village shrines and Buddhist altars etc. I have a deep obessession for Japan in general but particularly the historic culture, away from the cities. It got me to thinking, if I were to travel to Japan and spend a few months exploring the out of the way areas that interest me culturally could I write about it or video it and somehow turn that into some sort of travel documentary employment? Would anyone at all be interested in such content? How would I turn such a thing into payed employment? Self employment? So many questions and no answers to a probably impossible dream.
Firstly I don't have a passport and secondly where would I get the funds to do that kind of trip? The more I think about it the more impossible it sounds. Yet I still dream of it. The only dream I have left that I hold onto. Maybe one day... maybe...

Wednesday 11 June 2014

A beautiful day to be a caged bird.

It's a beautiful day outside. I should go outside, I'd  like to go outside but I can't bring myself to do so. It's like I'm fighting against myself physically in this struggle between oppositions.
I could go out for a walk but after being assaulted so many times in the past by complete strangers for no reason I can't bring myself to go out anymore.
I could sit in the garden and just relax in the sun but no doubt neighbours will try to talk to me. People talking to me is the last thing I want.
So here I stay in my cage made of escapism and walls that I have made for myself in order to cope.
Some would think me mad, others would call me pathetic but I am what I am and I am fine with it.

If only people could let me be who I am and let me be alone.

Is that last part so much to ask?

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is
to become so absolutely free that your very
existence is an act of rebellion.” —Albert Camus

Monday 12 May 2014

ATOS health assessment appointment. Letter received.

It has been some time since I last posted. Mostly because I write part of a post and then forget what it was I wanted to write while in the actual process of writing it. So have numerous unfinished posts that will never see the light of day.
So I have come to a decision to just post unfinished posts from now on and if I forget what it was I wanted to say perhaps someone out there can help me remember. We shall see. Think of this as an experiment.

ATOS, Hospital, Crippling migraine pain, fear, anxiety, realization that none of it matters, panic.

Last week I finally received a letter from ATOS 9+ months after applying for Personal Independant Payment. Of course I instantly started panicking, "This is it, my only source of income will be stopped because of government bureaucracy. What will I do? How will I survive?", this is what I was thinking though through most of it I wasn't thinking at all and just mindlessly panicking. I was terrified. After a couple of days I finally managed to calm down to a reasonable level though still badly agitated. Coping only by convincing myself that none it was really happening, that none of this exists and so none of it matters.

ATOS naturally has a very poor reputation and with good reason. I have linked two videos below for those who don't know what ATOS is and what they do. I have also added the direct links to the videos in case the embedding doesn't work.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/_SEpwFBhqA4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
http://youtu.be/_SEpwFBhqA4

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/n3t4GUuZQqI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
http://youtu.be/n3t4GUuZQqI

During my panicking I reached out to people on twitter in a mindless plea for help. I wasn't thinking in the least. I just needed the comfort of knowing that I wasn't alone and would have people to turn to if everything did go wrong. I'm sorry to those I bothered, some of whom I barely even know.

The only reason I am not mad with fear and panic right now is because since I live with my grandparents I have very low outgoings financially and a small amount of money saved. So if my only source of income is stopped I can continue for a short while without it. The question is what do I do after that? What alternate source of income could I find? I can't work, no sane employer would hire someone who can barely stay awake for 3-4 hours at a time, suffers from chronic migraines everyday and is terrified to interact with people on any level. What sort of employer do you know would hire someone like that?
So thats the big question.... what do I do to survive? I have no idea.

This all culminated it seems into a migraine so painful over the weekend that the pain almost drove me to making a hospital visit. People seem to marginalize the pain felt during a migraine as just a form of headache. It is not. The pain generated is excruciating.

Today I have a doctors appointment to discuss having my ATOS appointment at my own home rather than traveling to a place I don't know alone to be judged and manipulated by a stranger as to the intimate details of my health situation. I would never travel anyway, I barely leave the house. So hopefully I can at least get a home appointment organised. After that... I don't know. We shall see and thats want I don't like. I have no power over my own life. None at all but then have any of us really had any power over our own lives to begin with? I have to wonder.

Thursday 20 March 2014

I am still alive...

... though barely. Have been very ill these past few months which is why I haven't updated in that time. Very difficult for me to focus or even think. Staying awake for more than a couple of hours is a struggle. I'm trying out some alternate methods and if they work I will have a few posts up within the next month.
Apologies for the wait.