Thursday, July 29, 2010

Hottie

My hot water bottle split last night, it was just after I'd filled it and was lying on the couch and it started to get really hot on my chest and up my side. Before I realised it there was boiling water soaked through everything. It was okay though, I realised pretty quickly what was happening and managed to get into the shower to run cold water on the scald.
When I took Molly for her walk today I had to go to the Chemist and pick up some scripts so I bought a new hottie, it was $9.99.

I'm on a benefit, after paying all my bills I had $20 left for the week for food, and I just spent half of in on a piece of rubber.

But the thing is that my last power bill was huge, I don't totally understand why, I have a small oil heater. It's not like I have lots of long showers or anything. But I know the rates have gone up. And then my mortgage went up this week, so that's an extra $30. So I can't afford to have the heater on much.

So I really need my hottie. I use it even in the summer, for easing of pain that I get 'down there'. For years and years I've had Urinary Tract Infections and some Kidney Infections, it started when I was quite young. And the pain is intense, indescribable really. So either you've had one, and you know what I mean or you haven't and then you'll need to ask someone else to describe it cause I'm not so good at being accurate about the 'down there' stuff. Anyway, what has happened over the years is that it's gone from taking 24-48hours to being in agony and only really help-able with IV antibiotics in hospital to taking about 20 minutes to being in the same state with it being difficult to walk or stand.

There is an article "Psychiatric Disorders, Sexual Trauma Linked to Urinary Tract Symptoms" CME News Author: Pauline Anderson CME Author: Hien T. Nghiem,MD

This is a quote from the article:
"A new study not only confirms the relationship between psychiatric disorders and lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) but also shows that the effect of such symptoms on quality of life is more dramatic in women with depression, anxiety, or a history of sexual trauma."

It really just goes on to talk about a study showing a relationship between women having ongoing problems with UTI's and Sexual Trauma.

Anyway, it's all alot of technical jargon really, but the thing is that it was actually quite validating for me when I got given a copy of that article last year.
This has been a 'problem' that has altered my life for over 20 years, and because of where it is, it's something I have difficulty talking about. And the thing is as well is that I don't think sometimes people understand just how sick you can be with this and not really 'look' it on the outside. It can be really bad and the only noticeable visible symptoms is perhaps that I am quite pale or pasty with dark smudges under my eyes. When actually 'the burn' as I call it is awful, often peeing blood, and most days, these days, if I go over 12 hours with out taking pain medication in my back on either side below my ribs it feels like I've been booted on either side. It takes about an hour a few pills and several cups of hot water to be able to move.

The thing is that this probably just sounds like a whinge. But it's awful waking up from a nightmare of being raped with burning 'down there', it's hard to try and do things like walk Molly and get to appointments when the pain is bad.

For the 12 months up until October when my therapy was disrupted by ACC I had only had TWO visits to hospital as a result of this.

For the previous year it was about THIRTY visits.

I firmly believe that stress manifests physically. I know that when I was in therapy and 'getting better' that it also equated to my physical health improving to a more manageable, less painful level.

Anyway I've got my new hottie for tonight, and what have I really got to complain about, I was cold last night, but not as cold as sleeping under a bush in the rain in the middle of winter aye, and I guarantee there will be people out there tonight in the open somewhere trying to stay warm.

Just a girl, trying to stay warm.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Shortland Street

Yes, I watch it, sometimes - this doesn't mean I don't watch Campbell live which I can watch on TV3+1 after. And I am a far cry from some 'Coro-Street Watchers' that I know, that if they are not home, or organised the recording of their beloved episode will try nothing short of extreme manipulation to have the tellie changed to watch it at someone else's house.

I was just thinking watching it about which of the character's I would like a copy of in my life. I guess that must be part of successful tv, for it to seem something imprint-able. I would like to have Rachel as a friend, I think with everything she has been through she would be quite understanding of what's going on in my life. I would like to have an older brother like Hunter, with the protective-when-needed mates. I think I would like to have Tracie as a friend too, she seems no nonsense, like would be supportive of helping me deal with situations that happen that I still seem to lose myself in.

Today it was 2 for 1 at the dvd shop. Most of the time these days I know that dvds are not something that I can afford. But I'd had a particularly bad night. I've been quite low for a bit, and then I managed to embarrass myself on National Radio last night. I rung up The Nutters Club on Radiolive, just to say hi and to give some ups to the Guest, a guy named Ronnie, who just had this awesome story of adversity in his life and just really overcoming it, and continuing to want and work on a positive life. But instead of sounding like a rational human being when I was on-air I ended up bursting into tears. Anyway, I had a shitty night, trying to distract myself with things like trying to read a book but the memories and images in my head just wouldn't go away and I felt like putting my head through a window just to escape.

After having no sleep last night I spent a couple of hours this morning trying to go to sleep and just couldn't, so I thought 'what the hell' with less than $50 left on my almost maxed out credit card, I who am and have been so careful micro-managing every dollar I spend, when I make it to the supermarket buying the cheapest of everything, not buying anything like clothes or going to a movie or anything like dinner or a show in over a year now... but I was so despondent this morning that I thought, f*%k it, and went and got a dvd.

I've what has been happening is all the crappy things that have happened in my life, around me or too me, everything physically, mentally, sexually awful, everything from nasty put-downs to car accidents, to the beatings and worse. When I think back to all that stuff, every single time, every single time I had to do the next hour, the next day, whatever, as if I was ok, there was no 'time' or 'space' or 'whatever' for me to think or deal or reflect or process. Alot of times it was essential for me survival and sanity to try and push it all down in my head, as far away from myself as quickly as possible so I could try and look after myself the next hour or the next day. This is the worst it's ever been, with the flashbacks and the memories and I don't know how to make them stop. I refuse to act out on my addiction and revert to being an active addict, not because I am so brave or strong or anything, just because I know that it doesn't really actually work and it will leave me even sicker and in more pain than I am in now.

I am trying to just keep doing the next right thing. But I hate where I am, I hate the disgusting things that go through my head when I fall asleep. I hate that things were starting to get better with my therapy, especially last year, and that now it is worse than ever. I wish I had known my treatment was going to get chopped off half way through, I probably would have never bothered trying.

I don't know how to stop the pain, how to stop crying.

Someone said that it is 'human nature to not want to discuss the kinds of things I am upset about', and that hurt me, it makes me feel dirty and ashamed and sad and angry...but also on some level I actually understand and agree with them. I need to keep in mind that I've spent almost 20 years running from all this shit, and just because it's spilling out of my soul right now it doesn't mean that anyone else should know or want to deal with it, it's just about driving me, well, driving me somewhere dark with the spill.

I've just had a few weeks with a very kind therapist who kindly gave me a discounted rate, for the first few sessions I had the financial support of a loan of money in the form of weekly payments. That stopped. So I started just using my credit card. That has run out now. My mortgage is going up this week by $30 (it's a 100% mortgage basically if anyone wants to have a go about me 'owning a house'), my power, water, insurances have all gone up over the last couple of months. Before these financial changes I had $39 budgeted a week for food. I keep hearing John Key on the news saying that with the new Budget and GST that no one with be worse off. I keep thinking that he must be talk about me, no-one. I have no idea how things are meant to come together practically in my life and I think I am unable to work it all out.

I am often to scared to have a shower, figure that one out. I am like this person who has so much potential, I could do some good things, I don't need anything fancy like fame or wealth. A simple job, maybe helping people or animals would be nice. We don't remain static, for years I managed by going sideways in my life, then I stopped 8 years ago and started to try and go forward. Slowly slowly, baby steps. Now I am sinking. As of October 2009 I have been sinking.

These are my ramblings probably. I can't re-read what I have written and edit it. I'd give a progress update on my STUFF with ACC, but there is no progress, no updates. Nothing.

Just a girl, not wanting any negative judgement right now, I have enough thanks.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Sleeping Rough

Whenever I am feeling down and there is that very heavy rain, that sounds like the heavens have simply opened up with a torrent of water, it reminds me of being out in that weather for almost 2 months. I try and use it as an opportunity to remind myself that no matter what else is going on that I have a roof over my head while the weather is outside and I am inside, and that is something I need to be grateful for, and therefore not take for granted.

When I was 15 and first out of home I used to go into what was then call ‘Social Welfare’ which is know known as WINZ (Work and Income New Zealand), on Lake Road in Takapuna. I would go in there and tell them that I had nowhere to go, no place to sleep, no money, no food and that I needed help. They told me that because of my age that there was nothing that they could do to help me, they suggested that I try the Community Advice Bureau. This was before the park opposite Shore City was developed, and also the area of land on Takapuna beach waterfront along from the Sailboat Club there. There were random other ‘homeless’ youths, I guess ranging in age from about 12 to up to about 30. So I would often head up to the Salvation Army office, it was just off Hurstmere Road then up a flight of dingy stairs. I was always full of shame going in there, so tried to not go if I could help it. But they would have food packages that would be the alternative to standing outside Shore City begging for spare change to get enough to go upstairs and get a cheeseburger and perhaps some chips from the MacDonalds up the top. I don’t remember all the contents of the food packages from the Sallies, but I remember several times having to enlist the help of one of the other random homeless people around to help me open a tin of baked beans with a rock, with the understanding that it was to be shared in exchange for the help. The number of evenings eating cold baked beans out of a tin with an old plastic spoon. There was a run down house down on Takapuna beach with a filled in pool, the rumour at the time, which now looking back doesn’t make much sense was that it used to be Rachel Hunter’s house. It was two story and was a mess, it had literally been stripped, with most of the windows smashed out, and upstairs there were portions where rot had caused the floor to fall through. BUT for a time it was a place to find a corner out of the rain to doss down for the night. Usually carefully with one or two others, cause you never knew what kind of crazy was going to turn up during the night.
I’m not sure exactly what happened, but it got covered in signs saying that it was due for demolition, then all of a sudden there was Security Guards patrolling it at night and then a metal fence went up around it, with the demolition work eventually coming after that.
So around this time I met this guy called *****. He was 3 years older than me and seemed like heaps older and more on to it (at the time) than I. He did smoke quite a bit of pot, which despite the ‘scene’ was something I had decided after the first half dozen times I did not like how it made me feel, so it was something that I never did with him. But anyway, one night I had absolutely nowhere to sleep and he said that he had somewhere we could go. It was already dark and we walked up to the Pumphouse, down by Lake Pupuke in Takapuna. We walked around down past the pumphouse, around by the lakes edge past bushes and trees, quite a way around. Then there was a clump of bushes from underneath he pulled an old ripped sleeping bag. He unzipped it, it was a cool night, but not yet the middle of winter, so we hunkered down under the bushes with the sleeping bag covering us both as best as possible. I don’t think I got a lot of sleep that night, I know that I was constantly exhausted with it having been awhile since I’d had a good night’s sleep, but it was so dark and kind of spooky around there, but I know I eventually got some sleep.
So over the next couple of months this area would become a place I would regularly come to try and sleep at night when I had nowhere else to go. I actually ended up coming here most of the time by myself, even though I was scared of the dark and being by myself at night, I had seen things like people get stabbed who were sleeping in other more well-known areas for people who had nowhere else to go at night.
This was before the Pumphouse got it’s re-vamp, and so there was the two public toilets which were pretty bare, sparten, often not very clean, they had the basic metal toilet with no seat, a sink with a cold tap and a ‘mirror’ which was just a piece of polished metal screwed to the wall that was pretty scratched up. Apart from that it was just brick walls and a cold concrete floor. I think it was meant to be locked up every night, but occasionally the Security Guards would forget and I would be in luck and would get to curl up on the floor in there for a few hours, invariably though the Guards would do rounds and eventually find me in there and tell me to move on. Even during the times later in winter when they were more on to the system of keeping it locked at night, it would be unlocked in the mornings and I would have somewhere that I could go to the toilet, and use the cold tap and if there was toilet paper something to try and wash my face and under my arms.
So for the times that I could get into that female toilet area I would make my way around the lakeside, the Security Guards would actually check in the grassy area a little way around, so I’d have to go far enough that it would probably be further than they would bother, sometimes I would get it wrong and they would find me and tell me to move on. Otherwise there were a couple of particular bushes that helped take the brunt out of the rain as long as there wasn’t the wind driving it in any direction but down. I managed to claim possession of that sleeping bag, often at the beginning of the night (cause it was the middle of winter) it would still be soggy from the night before, but I would still use it to try and provide some sort of protection from the torrential wind, rain and cold. I don’t think I have ever been as cold as I was some of those nights during that winter. Looking back now the ‘sleep’ that I would drift in and out of in the cold, was probably more dangerous than I realized with how cold I was.

Why am I telling you about this?
One year before I was mainly living in a Boarding House attached to one of the most expensive Private Girls’ Schools in New Zealand. For most of my school life I’d been above average achiever, with an active long term interest in Speech and Drama and Public Speaking. Ironically a year or so before getting several Firsts and Placings in the New Zealand Speech Board Speech and Drama Competitions held at the Pumphouse in Takapuna.

A few weeks later I was ‘found’ by someone who had already sexually, physically, verbally, mentally attacked and abused me. I was hiding out from him at a caravan park on the West Coast. He found me, and he was very angry. He tied me up and over the next day and a half with the curtains drawn in the caravan he did, well, he did a lot of things to me. There was one point where he had the knife at my throat that I really truly believed that I was going to die. I can’t begin right now to describe everything that happened during that time. It was something that I am still running from. So I had written all that above about trying to find somewhere to sleep in the winter because when I escaped from that caravan, when I escaped from him. When I hid under the desk of the Caravan Owners Office while that Police came, when they asked me if I wanted to file a complaint, all I could think about was that he had told me that if I told anyone what he’d done that he would find me and kill me, and then he would find my family (he knew where they lived) and he would kill them. So I was very young, very scared, very very confused. And I didn’t get any help, after the police checked that the caravan was empty and had a look in the surrounding bush I didn’t or couldn’t talk, I couldn’t find my voice to explain what I’d just been through. I had no idea how to handle the situation that I was in. The person, my attacker, during his time with me, had cut up and destroyed every item of clothing except for a pair of culottes and a singlet. I remember thinking that I had no underwear and I didn’t or couldn’t even ask for help to explain that I didn’t have any clothes and I didn’t know how I was going to be able to get some more without even having any underwear.

So this is something that happened, something that has had a ripple effect in my life. And that I needed treatment and help for. I wasn’t able to ask for that until many years later. I am still scared of it all. My treatment got stopped in the middle, and now I am left with THIS STUFF, with the lid off the can. And now I am in a dark and scary place. And I don’t understand how ACC have let policy decisions re-traumatise me, a person, when they could have let me keep trying to be brave and get better. Instead I have gotten worse, and it’s a dark and scary place with the lid off and I can’t put it back on.

Monday, July 19, 2010

Stupid O'Clock

That's right, it's what I affectionatly like to think of as stupid o'clock. It's actually sometime between 3-4am, I've been up for an hour or so. I went to sleep and got a couple of hours before a bad dream, and decided that even though I am tired enough to probably get back to sleep eventually, that I just don't want to. That there is probably 50% less chance of the dreams being not-so-hard to deal with if I go back to sleep once the sun comes up, so that's what I'm doing. I feel like I am being a petulant child, making a statement like that, I guess it's because it seems like something that is not really the 'best' thing to do, like not the most 'functional' thing to do, to just stay up for the rest of the night.

It seems like alot of my choices that I have left are things like that these days.

I started this blog never knowing whether it would see the light of day, for the first few posts and months treating it like a private diary that I didn't know whether or not I would make public. BUT THEN I eventually did, and I must say that it has been a different experience writing once people 'know who I am', I am a little bit more self-conscious I guess, with a bit less anonymity I have been a bit less secure in the words that I write and what others think of them and me. In tandem with the hugely invalidating experience I have been going through with ACC my sense of self that was fragile at the best of times, is something that I just can't seem to find at the moment. I've basically stopped posting on Twitter. This was something that I did before 'all this ACC stuff', I was just another person on that social media site. One of the comments that I have received on this blog was a negative judgement on me for tweeting my blogposts. I guess it's just another one of those things that when one is not doing that great anyway, I'm not really feeling confident enough now to go on there, the good thing about the site was that it was allowing me to connect at a time when isolation has been something I've been battling with, but now if I start to write any comments on there I can hear all these negative voices in my head of people judging me for what I say.

I started writing this blog after a conversation with a person, who at the time, was a very dear friend. This person was privy to some of the finer details of what was occurring with ACC and me, this was actually the person that I phoned after I recieved that phone call from ACC back in October last year telling me I only 5 sessions of therapy left, but to have a good day. Anyway, so sometime after I rang that person, I had collapsed almost screaming on the floor of the hospital, I could barely get the words out, my brain couldn't comprehend I don't think what was happening, or maybe it was the opposite, my brain could suddenly see forward with what was going to occur to me and in my life with my therapy disrupted and taken away. Anyway sometime after when I saw this person (someone who had known me for quite a long time, through good & bad times) we were talking and they said they likened it to what happened to the Jews at Auschwitz, and they said that it was important that there were people that made it through this because it wasn't going to all get better overnight, and it was important that when it came time to hold accountability for what was happening, for the decisions and actions being carried out by ACC staff members, that the way that victims of awful awful things were being treated when they were only trying to get help, ahhh, I can't even finish this sentence off properly I am too emotional. But I hope you get where I am going with this, and what I mean.

This is the reason that I did the newspaper article in the Sunday Star Times, because what I believe is that what ACC is doing with Sensitive Claims AND to all the victims of rape, sexual abuse, and sexual trauma is so very very wrong.

For me personally there is so much more I want to write, but I just can't. I'm not really doing so well I guess. Things arn't really looking that hopeful. One day is blending into another and the only thing really keeping me going right now is trying to look after Molly (my dog), and even that I am only just managing to do. There are some days when I can't even manage to walk her and I feel sorry for something else that is being negatively affected by my disfunction.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

secrets

one of the things that i haven't written about is all the secrets. i am not allowed to talk about any of this stuff to one of the significant people in my life, i am not allowed to discuss it (clearly spelt out in email, NO TABOO SUBJECTS to be discussed), or anything else 'difficult' in any way. i have been told that it is human nature to not want to talk about this sort of stuff. i just spoke to that person, trying to explain the difficulty i am having in meeting those requirements, especially right now when everything hurts so much. another significant person who probably should have been present in my life alot more than they were recently emailed me saying they doubted that i could be trusted, so if they were going to consider assisting financially with my treatment it would have to be through another party. i am totally honest and reliable with money. but it doesn't matter, another person that says i am not worth trusting.
soon, acc wont even need to worry about me. i will most likely end up either drinking or using drugs soon, and then we all knows where that leads. and it will be a big yay from denise cosgrove and peter jensen, we all knew that danielle was a bad egg. even her 'significant close-ones' will be able to confirm it.

sshhhh! its not to be discussed!

ACC, PTSD & Me

This is an email that I sent (then sent snail mail also) on Monday of this week, it took me over 10 days to write. I was debating WHEN to post it on here, whether I should wait to see what happens. But at the mo I'm not doing so well, not really managing, so I thought to try and maintain as much transparency as possible with my blogging I'll put it on here now, while I can. It is a response to an ARTICLE BY DENISE COSGROVE (click to see), which I know to contain FICTITIOUS information


"6 July 2010

Denise Cosgrove
General Manager
ACC
PO Box 242
Wellington

(via email)

RE: DANIELLE MARTIN, CLAIM #***********

Request for Official Information

In relation to your letter to the editor (link: letter to editor by Denise Cosgrove) in response to the Sunday Times story highlighting my claim, under Section 12 of the Official Information Act 1982 I request ACC provide me with the following information in relation to my claim:

1. The number of Subsidised or Fully-financed therapeutic services that ACC has funded under my Sensitive Claim (with a clear distinction of the type of service).
2. The costs ACC has incurred for the different types of treatment in relation to the above.
3. Any and all documents, correspondence, reports etc relating to ACC’s interactions with ‘working with the ADHB’ about my Claim, or Care.
4. Any and all documents, correspondence, reports, referrals etc, pertaining to and showing ACC having “worked with the Auckland District Health Board to find a place for her at Segar House.”

I look forward to receiving the information in due course and within the OIA timeframes.

Regards
Danielle Martin

**********@hotmail.com
**********
**********
AUCKLAND ****



So, it will be more waiting.

And as for me, in March I found out there was meant to be a Review Hearing in the Disputes Tribunal Court on 6 July 2010. I just found out a couple of days ago that it has had to be adjourned with a new date to be advised (???) all because of ACC requesting more time to get further "Opinions" ABOUT ME. I feel very disheartened with delay after delay and with all the instability of the last few months, the total insecurity of my life, and whether or not I will be able to manage to get treatment for my Chronic PTSD.

I managed to scurry into the supermarket on Monday morning, I'd been out of food for a couple of days, but Molly (my beautiful dog) had eaten the last of her dog food the night before, so I just had to do it.

I'm probably not making alot of sense, feeling really overwhelmed, tired and anxious. I am now really, really scared of having to go to sleep, and wondering how much and how graphic it will be when I relive it in my dreams tonight, the latest thing that just started in the last week is it is the first guy that raped me, and instead of biting and cutting my lips (which is actually what happened) he is using a needle to sew my lips together while he lays on top of me, doing what he does. Who would want to talk to me or be my friend when that is what I wake up from and am trying to escape from everyday. That's what a therapist is/was/might-be there for I guess, someone trained and paid to talk about getting my life back on track, helping me practice to keep myself safe, create structure, and to somehow make some sort of life for myself. It wasn't my fault what happened to me. Through my therapy my nightmares were down to 3 or 4 nights a week before ACC disrupted my therapy, and I had over 3 months up without cutting (self-harm) myself, might sound silly, but I was so so proud of myself. Anyway it's not like that now. Not a night goes by without some re-visitation of the men that tortured me.

Anyway, I am probably rambling, I just wanted to check in and wanted to post the letter above, say thanks to the people who in thought or action have been showing some care with what is happening.