On Opening Pandora's Box

This has been a hard week.

About 6 months ago I was advised to make a claim on an income protection clause I didn't know I had on my personal pension plan which at the moment I've been still paying into even though I've not worked for over a decade now. I was in two minds to make the claim as I knew that it would mean assessments by doctors as insurance companies always want to turn claims down (which they couldn't in my case as it was made on a historic basis, as me being out of work is undisputable) and then if they can't do that, then they want exit strategies to keep the payments out low. Oh joy, the doctors they're employing to give them impartial medical advice on a hour or so's meeting. Me, cynic? of course not ;)

Monday, I had such an assessment and I was surprised. Yes, I've felt like poo since, having to remember/recall as much as my addled brain can about things in some cases I have started to forget and trying to piece together timelines when I can't remember what I started talking about 2-5 minutes ago. But luckily the psychiatrist was understanding - sometimes a rarity, it feels, as others keep looking at their watches seemingly thinking of their queues or which round hole they can put this square peg into to best show how their targets are being met. Oh well, don't mind me then, we must meet your targets...

Anyway he said to take care as we said goodbye and offered to write to the mental health team that I'm hopefully going back to, to have another bite at the cherry or even help me to help myself, saying that he would look through all the doctors' notes he'd been given to do the assessment, the notes he had taken and would like see me next week to go through it and decide on a forward plan. However, when I got home and told the middle people for the pension people, they were not happy about that (having further meeting = further cost and expense for the insurance company), so it's looking like that won't happen, unfortunately, as he seemed supportive, as I said that I was trying to be assessed for BPD.

The middle people said that they would get back to me (and haven't so far). Why do people always say that when they would know from my medical claim I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety? I once told some such HR/personnel/pensions person nearly 5 years ago that the worst thing someone could do was to tell someone with anxiety that something was going to happen "shortly" and then not do it for over a fortnight... which was particularly as they were part of my ex-employer who'd a few years before had had a big thing about "managing customers' expectation" - obviously it didn't last.

That night all the thoughts, scenes and words of the past ran round my head. And the nightmares kept me from sleep for a lot of the night, tears uncontrollable, hot on my face. The racing thoughts ran the next day, but since then I've managed to put back the past that had emerged back.

I was supposed to be doing an Open University essay for my Art History course this week, but luckily I've been able to put back hand-in date till next week, as I knew this was likely to the case. Sometimes I wish I had a broken arm as you'd never be asked to lift a weight just to see how the injury's healing and its new breaking point, picking at the scabs and scars.

xx