Gothic Script

We’ve moved on to this in my weekly collage class. A class (2.5 hrs) that is totally owning my butt. I believe this is the correct terminology. I keep telling people that I think my tutor is trying to kill me because the classes cause me so much pain. I’ve used dip pens and nibs for almost a decade, but this is different. It’s learning to write all over again, but with arms and hands that are 36 and a bit fucked. Tiring and also intense. But ultimately enjoyable. I’ve finally got a routine for the day. I make sure I have an hour to travel to the class, and I have enough money with me to have lunch at the college. After that, after angry* coffee, class and food, I am too exhausted to do anything else.

Which is why I’m glad it’s 1/2 term and I don’t have a class.

I have a lot of things to do. First on the list is cancel my Mental Health Nurse’s attending my WCA on Friday. Why? Why? After it took you 8 months to get representation? Because Maximus have cancelled it again. I think this is the 3rd time. They’ve told me to call the DWP. I did, they told me that my claim is being processed. I don’t know what that means. They cancelled the WCA last week, but I’ve only just got round to writing about it, because I’ve been a mess.

The mess is the mess I get when I have a week like this one pending: apart from my WCA on Friday, this week marks the anniversary of my Mother’s Death. I think that’s enough to be messed up by. I’ve had my period too. Which is GREAT. Every day I’ve not had a thing, I’ve been asleep. I slept the whole weekend. I’ve not have a poo in ever so long. And I’m stressed. I’m emotional, powerfully depressed and doing the same thing every day. I’ve not read anything in weeks. I’ve listened to the same audiobook over and over and over and I’ve done the same with TV. I need some proper refreshing sleep and a lot of veg to eat.

*The filter coffee at my Adult Ed college is like burnt soil, it tastes angry.

 

I’ll have more of the same please

I finally managed to get through to the DWP re: Fit Note. My Fit Note ends on November 1st. I got them to acknowledge the ‘Data Input Error’ and change it. I asked where I should be sending my medical evidence, they told me to bring it with me to my WCA. For the first time the person on the phone was not nice. Usually the people on the end of the DWP phone, those who have to deal with deaf me after 30 repeats of Vivaldi, are nice. They are kind, patient and understanding. This person was not.

Apart from a snappy DWP person, I’ve been sick. Still the same crap that’s been bimbling along. I feel sick all the time and I have an unending headache and I’m super duper sleepy with burning pain down my left leg and across my back. I slept all of Wednesday, and still felt exhausted when I woke up at 11pm. I went back to bed very soon and still had to fight to wake up today and I could barely get dressed. I was headachey and heady. I just feel so strange and so wrong. I have no idea of what is going on, or how to attack it. My Dad is also pissed off with me because I’m unable to do things. I think the WCA stress is not helping whatever IS going on, but I can’t think of anything I can do to make myself feel better.

So sleepy.

 

More DWP Crap

Saturday I opened up a DWP letter dated October 4th, telling me I needed another Fit-Note because mine is running out on October 11th. So on the 8th I get a letter telling me I have to get a Fit-Note to the DWP in either Dublin or Glasgow on the 11th, when the next day I can get to the GP is the 10th.

But this is not the point. The point is my Fit-Note doesn’t run out until November. After I got tripped up last time, I wrote the date the Fit-Note ran out on the calendar, and 7 days before made a note that I had to get to the GP to get a new one. I also ferreted out the photocopy I made of the Fit-Note so I could check.

It could be a data entry mistake on the part of the DWP. Recently, though none of my details have ever changed – even my mobile has been the same since the 1990’s – they’ve been getting stuff wrong. This could be part of it. Or it could be part of what they do. When you’re getting a different letter a week from them, when you’re WCA has been changed as much as I have, you do start to get twitchy about these things. Well, I’ve started to get twitchy.

I am, understandably annoyed, but I’m also tired. Really tired. Physically and mentally. I have constant headaches and body ache. I’ve slept the whole weekend, my eyes hurt and I seem to be constantly hungry, which I don’t like. It seems I’ve felt like this forever.

Quackdate The Third

I think this is the Third Quackdate.

As you may remember, yesterday I got my new WCA date: October 28th, a Friday. Well today I spoke to Anita, my Mental Health Nurse. She was meant to go with me on Sept. 29th but when that was cancelled she, quite naturally, couldn’t promise to come with me when the new time came through – we made an appointment for me to see her on 19th October – for her to see how I am mentally. It’s true, I’ve been mentally fragile, mainly due to WCA but also just due to life. Today’s call ended positively: we cancelled the appointment for the 19th – because Anita can come with me on the 28th! Phew. Just BIG phew!

I had expected this news to help with the HEADACHE OF DOOOOOM I’ve had since the weekend, and which had me stuck in bed yesterday and filling myself with pills. But it’s not. The ache is still there. Coffee has calmed it, but it’s still there. I still feel terrible.

 

Fantasy Lifeball

When I am in a pre-mental or physical illness state, when I know there’s something wrong, but it’s not broken yet, I open the door on a ‘fantasy’ world. The door is always there, but I don’t go through it that much. My whole life up until I was 16 was spent in there, the room or palace. But now I just keep it as a Panic Room.

My Panic Room is maintained by TV adaptions of Classic Fiction, audiobooks of the same and films. For a long time Music TV used to play a big part. I used to watch hours and hours of Music Vids. during what I consider of their ‘Golden Age’ – the late 90’s. when Missy Elliot and Hype Williams worked on amazingly overblown productions, and The Smashing Pumpkins made art vids. I didn’t care what the music was, if the videos were good and worked with it. Currently I’m living in the Land of ‘North and South’ – based on Elizabeth Gaskell’s book. I watched the BBC adaption when it was first on in 2004- the last such adaption I watched avidly. I was in my last year of university and a very different person than I am now. I’d never had a boyfriend, but I had had a stalker. Getting my ‘jollies’ from TV films was my only way. I am a Romantic Person. Though I’m not built for a heroine – never been a ‘beauty’ etc. At the time I’d not read Gaskell, but I have now, and I appreciate the book story and writing a lot more. But, as I sit here, I have the Romanced version playing on the DVD player next me. Because I need a Happy Ending at the moment.

Why? Because I am exhausted in 4 dimensions. I’ve been sick since July – coughing, upset stomach. Now I have ongoing headaches and such tiredness. Then there’s the stress – the WCA changing just punched me in the face after repeated punches in the guts from the same direction over months. I’m terrified. My Dad is sick too, with Gout but also he’s generally aging and tired. And there are other, greater family problems. I stayed in bed all day today because I couldn’t sleep with franticness last night. I’ve had to bomb myself with pills and nothing has really worked. I ate properly yesterday but am starving today. And have had to use the toilet a lot – burning ring of fire.

While I was asleep, a new WCA appointment came for me. October 28th. I just hope my Mental Health Nurse will be able to go. Or someone. I can’t go on my own.

Smashing Pumpkins ‘Stand Inside Your Love’ based on Aubrey Beardsley’s drawings for Oscar Wilde’s ‘Salome’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nm4xv3firw&list=PLVoChhStpZg5nj0WZHr9A5xvMyM_yYG-T

Beardsley: https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/aubrey-beardsley-illustrations-for-salome-by-oscar-wilde

Missy Elliot and Hype Williams doing randomness:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opkRF3UZSJw