Still Here

Auuuuuuggggghhhh!!!!!!!!!!

The last week has been pretty rough. I don't know if it is a bit of sunshine today or what, but I think I need to keep documenting this, keep writing.

Today is the first day in a few days that I haven't felt suicidal (feel like that is another 'taboo' word but...). I've mainly been on the couch or in bed just trying to hold on and not do anything stupid to myself. It has been hard trying to work out the 'right' thing to do when everything seems so confusing and foggy.

I don't know how to totally describe how I've been feeling, it's not that I want to die, but I have been having thoughts of not being able to live, if that makes sense. In my head it's been like I am in this holding pattern, this no man's land, feeling like until the 'New Clinical Pathway' and my personal claim review's are processed that I just have to sit and wait while it's felt like part of WHAT I HAD achieved in therapy has crumbled away.
My ability to interact with people has now snowballed out of control. I don't know when it's ok to say what I think and feel or when I should be apoligising. I learnt a long time ago when I first entered recovery that everyone has a different opinion about what I (or you) should or shouldn't be doing, and that there is no way they can all be right or I can keep everyone happy. While I was in therapy I was able to learn and practice skills to be able take the bits that were best for me and take a quiet step back from the rest. I remember getting better and better at doing this, and in turn the relationships in my life, the interactions I had with people became better, more satisfying, calmer.
So the few interactions I've been having with people haven't been so good for the most part. I know I am overtired, messy in thought, invariably trying to make things better has been making them worse.

BUT I am going to be brave and have asked someone to come with me to the supermarket tomorrow. It has been years since I haven't been able to go to the supermarket by myself (is that a double negative?) but now seems to be the way it is for awhile. But there you go.

I was very kindly visited today by my local Labour MP, she came for a cup of tea and a chat. I tried not to talk her ear off, but just talked with her asking if there was perhaps some community services locally that I am not-so-far aware of and that I maybe able to get a little help from with various bits and stuff, even if it isn't 'specialist' care so to speak for rehabilitation from my trauma, just some help to keep my day-to-day living a bit more manageable, keep my head above water, and not get so low. I got a chance to say how things had been for me, she was very kind with the time she spent with me and it sounds like she might be able to help point me towards a couple of helpful more short-term things, I'm not having any expectations about it BUT I felt really heard today, and with all the written invalidation from ACC over the last 6 months validation is like a eco-friendly bottle of ice cold water in the middle of the desert!

At best the earliest 'results' from any of my ACC reviews looks like August/Sept or later, so I can't just tread water by myself for that whole gap from now until then, so I've got to keep reaching out even though sometimes it feels hard and uncomfortable.

Just for today I've been able to 'act as if', as if I feel up to helping myself when maybe I want to just curl into a ball in a quiet place.

If anyone else needs to know I've received an email regarding the Review of the New ACC Sensitive Claims Clinical Pathway, and I quote the following -

"The review panel welcome submissions on the Clinical Pathway.
Could you send this care of ClinicalPathwayReviewSubmissions@researchnz.com
or send by post to the following address: PO Box 1039 Wellington (Key St)."

Apparently the Review Panel are accepting both written, audio, and video submissions. I'm not sure of the date that they are required by, as I said above it's been a tough week and I haven't really been aware of that much. I am hoping that I'll work out how I should submit something appropriate for the Review Panel.

No this is totally off-topic, but check out this story I saw on the news tonight by clicking HERE, I got this warm fuzzy feeling (and maybe a tear) and the intensity of the mother's love, and the humility of the rescuer in this report.

I really, really want for things to get better than they have been lately, so I am doing ALL that I can to help myself. (but phew!)