Hello again.
The final part of my “In Absentia Diaries” which is about money and stuff. Part of the delay in writing this is that just as I was coming to write it some interesting events concerning it came into play so I wanted to think them over and include them.
Being ill and dropping out of university meant I was a member of the public proper, not a student slacker as I had been. I should state the slackness came from being ill and it is not a view I tar all students with. So I am now a member of the public. I am also one of the great mooching masses claiming benefit. Sort of.
In theory I could be availing myself of more financial help than I am but there is no big rush to make sure I am claiming everything I can. Equally though my fiscal situation and health situation is delicate enough enough I need to be claiming what I am claiming.
There is no doubt, in my times of retrospection and clarity, that I kept trying to complete uni and it was making me ill. I was screwed up, inexcusably so and I am sorry for that as I did bring some of that illness on myself (maybe or maybe I was really ill and making myself more ill – no point arguing the toss), but I certainly was not fit for work, I was barely fit from pretending I went to uni. I studied and went to lectures when I could but largely it was a fruitless task.
Now my concern lies in trying anything too soon. I am too unwell for a full-time job and part-time work is perhaps still a little dodgy but maybe by Christmas. I am determined not to rush back into anything. I would love to say the not rushing back into anything is entirely health-related but there are more tangentially health-related issues. Like if I go back too soon and take really unwell again I will have stopped my current benefit claim and need to claim again. The process of claiming and forms and assessments has been stressful enough without having to do it again – which is tangentially health related.
I am claiming the benefit appropriate to being in ill health and have been for about three months. After a set amount of time the weekly benefit will increase. That time is soon.
Thing is though a couple of weeks ago I went for a medical assessment which was, to be frank, scary and horrible and left me feeling a little like they wanted me to find me as a drain to society.The interview can supposedly last up two hours but my interview was over in thirty minutes. I don’t know if that is that I am an open and shut case of ill-health or wellness, or if it is that part of those two hours is to allow for the fifty minutes I was waiting to be seen.
The interviewer asked about day to day living. He asked if I could get dressed, go to the shops, cook a meal, wash myself. These are all things I can physically do but when depressed those things slip or they become an effort to not let my parents know I am having a day when I am thoroughly miserable and depressed and depressing. I get dressed most days mainly to try and stop that creep of intrusive thoughts – to have accomplished at least something, small and stupid and insignificant as it may be. It is tough to accurately put across that though I can do those things physically the mentally block that makes those things an issue.
It was the manic depression specific questions that are where my concern lies. Stuff like:
- How often I see psychiatrist? So paralysed by my fear of being accused of benefit fraud I was exceedingly legalistic. I see my current psychiatrist once every six-weeks ish. But what I didn’t get to say was that it is every six weeks because the resources are not available to see me more often.
- Do I see a CPN? yes but not that frequently and only to adjust to the fact that for about four months I had been seeing a psychologist roughly weekly and a psychiatrist weekly or more often.
- Have I ever been sectioned? No but I almost certainly would have been on numerous occasions if I had been “caught” and indeed it have been told that if I was ever more manic than I was now (during an appt with T) then he, T, would have little qualms about getting me sectioned.
- Have I ever been in A and E for mania? No but I have been kept in overnight because I took an overdose to calm me down.
Perhaps more concerning was that I was then given the script for how things would progress from then and I asked if he needed to know about being in A and E for depression. He said he did and it was a good thing I reminded him.
I don’t want to have to work and then get ill again. I think that I was having to volunteer salient information might make appealing a decision a more realistic process but right now I’d just like for things to work. For me to not have to stress about forms and interviews and be allowed to get well and return to work sooner rather later.
That is it for the diaries. Thanks for sticking with me.
S
Posted in health
Hello again.
The final part of my “In Absentia Diaries” which is about money and stuff. Part of the delay in writing this is that just as I was coming to write it some interesting events concerning it came into play so I wanted to think them over and include them.
Being ill and dropping out of university meant I was a member of the public proper, not a student slacker as I had been. I should state the slackness came from being ill and it is not a view I tar all students with. So I am now a member of the public. I am also one of the great mooching masses claiming benefit. Sort of.
In theory I could be availing myself of more financial help than I am but there is no big rush to make sure I am claiming everything I can. Equally though my fiscal situation and health situation is delicate enough enough I need to be claiming what I am claiming.
There is no doubt, in my times of retrospection and clarity, that I kept trying to complete uni and it was making me ill. I was screwed up, inexcusably so and I am sorry for that as I did bring some of that illness on myself (maybe or maybe I was really ill and making myself more ill – no point arguing the toss), but I certainly was not fit for work, I was barely fit from pretending I went to uni. I studied and went to lectures when I could but largely it was a fruitless task.
Now my concern lies in trying anything too soon. I am too unwell for a full-time job and part-time work is perhaps still a little dodgy but maybe by Christmas. I am determined not to rush back into anything. I would love to say the not rushing back into anything is entirely health-related but there are more tangentially health-related issues. Like if I go back too soon and take really unwell again I will have stopped my current benefit claim and need to claim again. The process of claiming and forms and assessments has been stressful enough without having to do it again – which is tangentially health related.
I am claiming the benefit appropriate to being in ill health and have been for about three months. After a set amount of time the weekly benefit will increase. That time is soon.
Thing is though a couple of weeks ago I went for a medical assessment which was, to be frank, scary and horrible and left me feeling a little like they wanted me to find me as a drain to society.The interview can supposedly last up two hours but my interview was over in thirty minutes. I don’t know if that is that I am an open and shut case of ill-health or wellness, or if it is that part of those two hours is to allow for the fifty minutes I was waiting to be seen.
The interviewer asked about day to day living. He asked if I could get dressed, go to the shops, cook a meal, wash myself. These are all things I can physically do but when depressed those things slip or they become an effort to not let my parents know I am having a day when I am thoroughly miserable and depressed and depressing. I get dressed most days mainly to try and stop that creep of intrusive thoughts – to have accomplished at least something, small and stupid and insignificant as it may be. It is tough to accurately put across that though I can do those things physically the mentally block that makes those things an issue.
It was the manic depression specific questions that are where my concern lies. Stuff like:
Perhaps more concerning was that I was then given the script for how things would progress from then and I asked if he needed to know about being in A and E for depression. He said he did and it was a good thing I reminded him.
I don’t want to have to work and then get ill again. I think that I was having to volunteer salient information might make appealing a decision a more realistic process but right now I’d just like for things to work. For me to not have to stress about forms and interviews and be allowed to get well and return to work sooner rather later.
That is it for the diaries. Thanks for sticking with me.
S
Posted in health