ACC Strikes Again

Hi.

I've started to write a post probably a dozen times over the last month. Wanting to say how I am doing and what's going on. I think it's a mixture of a couple of things that have ended up with me deleting all but one of them before they are finished.

I haven't been FEELING that great, but very slowly I had been adding a few more minutes of structure and functionality to my life and my days. I am half way through a very long post that is basically a 'November 2010' compilation - I am continuing to scan documents and piece them together in this post and like most things hope to finish it sooner rather than later. But it seemed difficult to talk about what's going on now without having updated in sequence what has happened with my claim.
The short version is that there was the hearing date with the Disputes Court against ACC in November, several yucky conversations and awful reports later at literally the very last few hours before the Court hearing, ACC put an offer out - offering me 10 sessions of subsidised therapy, then with a report required detailing x,y, and z - and then I think maybe another 10 sessions.
Anyway it was all done with absolutely no show of compassion on their part, as everyone involved could see they had no evidence to present at the Court date so that is what ended up happening.
It has been hard for me to feel safe and grateful for these sessions. I attempted to see my Therapist at the end of 2010 but couldn't really manage it.
I have however been to Therapy now, once a week, for about the last 7 or 8 weeks. The first couple of sessions were pretty much taken up with me freaking out about some of the awful things written in the Report by Dr Prince in November 2010, and about whether my therapy was going to disappear again. I totally believe my Therapist's reassurance's that they will not abandon me - but I feel like a zombie after what ACC put me through - terrified to let myself think about anything because of how I hurt myself when I do.

I also have had difficulty posting after watching the news and seeing all the effects of the Christchurch Earthquake and the Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami. It somehow felt disrespectful or selfish to talk about how I was finding life difficult when I have power, sewerage and running water.

After November, even though there was the 'positive' outcome of me being granted some subsidised sessions - I was at a place where I couldn't even respond to an email, let alone look at a piece of paper that had anything to do with ACC. By the end of November I had gathered up every single piece of paper to do with my claim and went up to the Stationary shop and purchased one of those large boxes that you put together that you store documents in. I took it home, and filled it up, with only just managing to fit everything in - the box is about 40cm high and it's sitting in the corner of my lounge in the same place as when I filled it up, I tried to move it and it's so heavy that the bottom feel out.
It's only in the last couple of weeks that as I've been wanting to blog about how I am doing in trying to focus on getting better that I've been taking out a piece of paper here and there and scanning them and adding them to this 'November 2010' post that I am writing. I can't manage to finish it right now, so will add the links once I have.

Since January of this year it's involved alot of 'faking till I make it' or 'acting as if' - basically not feeling like I can see much hope, or being able to connect to much faith, and barely being able to remember back in 2009 when I began to have hope for the future. I was really suicidal towards the end of 2010 as I've already blogged, but I made the decision in January that even if I felt that I was not going to act on it and going to keep getting up everyday and just doing the best I could.

Their have been little achievements which I must say I'm not very good at reminding myself of - the second week in a row that I was sitting in the couch in Therapy we talked about how it was the first time in a long time that that continuity had occurred. There's always the flip-side, how sad it makes me that it took almost 18 months for me to be able to go to Therapy safely again.

I've been very lonely for the most part. It was my birthday a couple of weeks ago, and I spent most of the day looking at the phone, wishing and wondering if it would ring. But I have had Molly, and she is a gift. She has been the main reason that I decided that I couldn't kill myself, she is 10 years old now, with slightly failing health. I'm not sure if someone would look after her if something happened to me - and if they did it would involve alot of change, and I don't want to put her through that. So every night, even if I've had a bad day, I put her to bed and spend some time giving her a cuddle. She knows the word 'tummy', and will roll onto her back, very cute. The support network that I'd spent years building up and had in 2009 for one reason and another is gone now, I have the best treatment providers that a person could wish for - but I think with my progressive deterioration in functionality from October 2009, and also with my 'secrets of trauma' spilling over into most aspects of my life instead of being able to deal with the effects in therapy - I lost alot of friends, or was not able to be able to 'be social' - and some people close to me I think felt uncomfortable knowing what had happened to me, and maybe with me 'outing' myself in trying to stand up for my rights with ACC.

I had therapy Tuesday of the week just gone. And was talking about how I was starting to try and set up some sort of structure in my days. Doing things like having set times for gardening, or cleaning, if I didn't have an appointment to go out to then trying to do an hour or two of 'Paperwork' type stuff - since November 2010 I kind of shut down with anything above the very basics, doing the dishes, walking Molly, trying to eat properly, and most of my bills were set up on a/p's thank goodness - but for the first time in my life really, I have about a year's worth of 'thing's to do' that need doing, or are very over-due. Small things that get larger the longer they are not done. But after what happened in November it was like the straw that broke the camels back, meaning anything that required me to engage my brain I just couldn't do, because there was all this awful stuff that ACC had said and done that was making me question my recovery, I felt like I was a failure at getting better - and I would catch myself going back over my progress with a microscope trying to work out what I had done so wrong. I knew that with my therapy I had gone from cutting between 100 to 5 times a day, down to a few times a week, down to THREE MONTHS without doing it - I knew that even though 2 wonderful Drug & Alcohol Rehab residential programs & 12 Step programs had taught me alot about how to stop using and stay stopped, that my therapy had allowed me to look at the triggers that pushed me back towards relapse, things that were a bit too heavy or graphic to be able to share or process through the 12-step fellowship. I knew that even though my nightmares about reliving being tortured and raped hadn't gone away, that they had lessened in quantity and with hindsight I could see how much better systems I was developing to be able to deal with what I was having to relive in my dreams.
BUT despite these tangible things I would try and hold up to myself as proof I've felt that if I was 'unwell' because of what happened to me - then I would be able to access the help I need, INSTEAD of the last year of this battle that has left me feeling like I must be BAD, broken and useless.

I don't want pity. I don't feel as capable at writing as I did a year ago, so I hope what I am writing makes sense.

On Thursday I checked the mailbox and there was an envelope from ACC. Before I even opened it it was like that sinking sensation in my stomach. I had just made a sandwich for lunch and I decided to eat it and have my cup of tea before I opened the envelope because I was scared of what was inside, and I know that when I am upset that self-care like eating goes out the window. It could have been anything in there, it didn't have to be something upsetting - but I think it was some kind of intuition.

This is what was inside:



I TOTALLY broke down - the room was spinning, I wanted to scream and scream and scream. I was on my knees on the kitchen floor and I realised the moans and crying I was making when Molly came up trying to lick my face. I hate her seeing me losing it, I didn't want to hurt myself but I could barely breath.
This is the email that I sent to my Treatment Providers within the hour:

Hello All...

I just received in the mail the attached letter from ACC.

I am really upset, but [Therapist] was able to give me a couple of minutes on the phone, and I am taking half a alprazolam and going to try and lay down and not think, because after reading that letter I feel like putting my head through a window, which obviously is not what I should do.

I am seeing [Therapist] on Tuesday and will try to not look at the letter or think about it or go over it again until then.

But in the meantime I just wanted to forward it to you, along with my concerns:

- ACC have specific instructions that any correspondence is to be sent in writing to all of my treatment provider's in advance of me receiving it: exactly because of how I feel right now, spinning out, instead of finding out in a safe environment
([Advocate] - think you can confirm it was something that we made sure was implemented early 2010)

- I attended a DATA at ACC's request (with my big relapse in self-harm the night before because I was so scared) with an ACC appointed Assessor, ****** ****** - NONE of the recommendations in the following report were carried out by the SCU

- I don't have any idea on how to get there, to Otahuhu

- I don't know who this Barry person is, but if I absolutely HAVE to have a DATA I will just forget about therapy if it means that I have to see some strange man I don't know, and sit in a room with him, etc, I probably don't mean that I will forget about therapy, but I feel like I'd rather hide under the bed than do that.

Not thinking clearly, going to try and stop crying and calm down but wanted to pass this along to you all.

Thanks as always
Danielle

PS - I think ACC are mean mean mean for making everything hurt

I heard back from all of them. The care and are kind. I haven't left the house since then. I can't do it, I can't go to an area I don't know, to see a strange man I don't know and tell him personal things about me right now. I haven't even had the 10 sessions of therapy with the report submitted by my Therapist.

The DATA that I did last time is mostly documented HERE - as I said in the email, none of the recommendations were followed through by ACC - it's hard to believe that ACC SCU are there to help me.

Anyway - I don't know if I've made any sense - I just wanted to write. I feel like giving up but I am just trying to take things an hour at a time.

JUST A GIRL, trying not to think, trying not to hurt myself.