Permanency and ill health retirement. Or Not!!

So the time is ticking by and I am getting somewhat twitchy about a few things.

Supportive people can explain the logistics will work, federation reps can promise that things 'should' go smoothly but when it is your life, your finances, your grocery shopping in jeopardy, going onto half pay seems to be all the more daunting.

Since August I have visited our new force medical officer, the occupational health doctor and she has made it clear to me that she thinks it is highly unlikely that with my various medical complaints I will ever be fit to do my job as a police officer ever again.

I have chronic debilitating Fibromyalgia with no known cure, I have PTSD, I suffer with Depression, I struggle with Anxiety and I have two prolapsed discs, but she feels after nine months off sick that it is too early to ask any questions of my force about ill health retirement as she says the application would fail at this juncture as we have not exhausted all possible medical remedies/cures.
She says we might be ready in 6-9 months time.

They all say I have to prove 'permanency' , that my illnesses cannot be cured, that I will not be magically restored to full health to serve out my last 2 years of my 30 years service.

What a complete joke this system of ours currently is!

Show me the hoops and I will jump through them all, I will moan and groan, I will post on twitter how dissatisfied I am, but I will do whatever you ask of me to establish the facts to satisfy you, but when you do not specify the hoops, when you leave me in what has been described as a 'fluid' situation what the hell am I meant to do?
It's like playing hide and seek in the dark, whilst blindfolded, with your hands and feet tied.

It is so flipping riling!

I am suffering with an illness that induces me to suffer extreme pain when I get stressed or tired!!

I wonder what they think in their ivory admin towers, Oh I know let's take away half of her pay, tell her that in another 6 months we will stop paying her altogether and then make any escape from our employment as improbable to conquer as reaching the summit of Everest alive! GRRR

To what end? Whom does it serve? I gather the government because they fine any police force that let's an officer retire on ill health! Or should I say Theresa May? Of course it's all chuffing marvellous for a single parent, crippled with a variety of ills who simply cannot work anymore.

It seems like the only person who could start sorting the mess out is me, but I'm a shell of my former self and the mere idea of fighting my own corner seems horrifying. Should I be paying out of my half wage to visit pompous over priced 'experts' to prove my 'permanency'? I could I guess but then I wouldn't be able to pay the utilities and I'd have to rely on a food bank.

Ultimately I am told it will be just one person, an SMP, Selected Medical Practitioner, who gets to decide if my woes add up to permanency and early release! Not a panel, not a jury just one solitary  person. I'd stand more chance of release if I'd murdered someone!

There is a set order of procedure and before any decision can be made the police authority must put specific questions to this medical practitioner selected by them (the ‘selected medical practitioner’) to determine whether I am permanently disabled for ‘the performance of the ordinary duties of a member of the police force’. The selected medical practitioner will consider such issues as my ability to:

• run, walk reasonable distances, and stand for reasonable periods;
• exercise reasonable physical force in restraint and retention in custody;
• sit for reasonable periods, to write, read, use the telephone and to use (or learn to use) IT;
• make decisions and report situations to others;
• evaluate information and to record details;
• understand, retain and explain facts and procedures.

Even if I'm assessed as permanently disabled for the performance of the ordinary duties, it does not automatically mean that I will be retired on ill-health grounds.  The police authority will consider my specific disabilities and overall capabilities to see whether there are alternative duties which I could undertake whilst remaining a police officer!

If and it seems like a big IF I was found by the selected medical practitioner to be permanently disabled for ordinary duties and there were no suitable alternative duties that I could undertake the police authority 'may' decide whether to retire me or not!

At the very least it's all so frustrating, at the worst it borders on being downright inept, exceptionally stressful and seemingly unfair.

Just let me go, please. Pretty please?

I'm broken, I'm a recluse and I'm soon to be broke!

Cut me loose, I want some sort of life back that isn't governed by stress and pain.

SIGNED -  A broken. chewed up, mangled mess of a former police officer.

What's your mental health kryptonite?

Last night I had a horrible dream. Well I guess perhaps it should be described as a nightmare. My eleven year old daughter drowned and died over and over. I felt the hopeless bottomless feeling of despair. A black bottomless pit, you're falling downwards and no one or nothing can stop you. I cried, I grieved. In fact it went on and on what felt like all night and when I woke up I felt so low.

I was overwhelmed to see my daughter, hold her and know she was alive. My pillow was wet and my hair soaked. Not a good night. 

I recount this with you as since my mental health has been bad again I have been having very realistic dreams. So much so that I have to stop myself when I'm awake and try and decipher whether I am remembering a reality or a dream. Quite unnerving.

I'm having a rollercoaster all around with my depression at the moment, two blogs back I was at my lowest, today I am also very low but yesterday and the previous days I was quite content if not reasonably balanced.  I can never tell until I wake up which extreme I am going to find myself at.

Yesterday I realised a lifelong dream and self published my book. I started writing it during my last depressed time two years ago and have worked on it around work ever since. It is kind of auto-biographical as the DS suffers with anxiety and depression and I've used all my personal experiences to create the character of DS Sarah James. Her emotions and difficulties with mental health are me, they are my experiences within the police service. She does my job, on my department. the murder didn't happen but the characters are true to life and it was cathartic to write.

So yesterday I published my masterpiece,  Money for Old Rope by Leasa Wilkes on Amazon Kindle eBooks',  that was a lifetime highlight and very exciting. Of course it was tainted with my normal self doubt, a need to apologise for fostering my work on the world and a massive fear that it is useless but that's fairly standard for me. Paranoia and self doubt figure in everything from parenting to supermarket shopping.  I have however had this daft dream that it will take off and earn me enough money to retire from the cops early allowing me to escape from my demons, but I fear that's just one of my dreams as opposed to a reality!

Yesterday I also had my second, 'how are you' email from work in the month since I have been off sick. Thankfully the boss did email me not ring but I can't help but thinking the timing of his contact means HR have prompted a contact as opposed to someone really caring. I suppose that could be my paranoia talking but that's one e mail every two weeks.

The thought of the office, work and even the people there makes me feel like I want to turn myself inside out. Its a creepy feeling that is somewhere between nausea and a panic attack. Revulsion even.  I feel allergic to an environment that has formed the basis of my working life since I was 19 years old. I now hate it and love it in equal measures, it is my greatest accomplishment yet my biggest weakness all at the same time. It's like my kryptonite, I feel weaker, sicker and darker when I think about work.

I made another step forwards today. I emailed Steps2Wellbeing, a free talking therapy service in the UK.  I was in their system two years ago having counselling but just prior to my fourth session and whilst I was sat waiting to go in I was told the counsellor had gone off sick with stress! Now I have always struggled with the concept of counselling as I recognise from policing that professionals are humans with their own garbage and are therefore only listening to me prattle on for their wages! So when she went sick I absorbed the blame as it felt as if all my misgivings had been confirmed. I made her sick, she didn't want to listen to me at all, she did have her own baggage and it is purely a job and she didn't give two hoots. Steps2wellbeing never re-contacted me to book me in with somebody else, or for that matter to apologise for dropping me out of their loop and I never re-contacted them.

So bearing in mind my current 'trigger' with telephones that I have covered before I have emailed them. phones make me sweat, hyper ventilate, panic and generally feel very unwell. Let us wait and see what comes of my email. But the email itself was an achievement trust me it's taken me a week since seeing the GP to get around to actually writing it!! But apparently according to my GP to even stand a chance at being considered for a PTSD diagnosis I have to see a psychologist via them?

On a more positive note I have had some great feedback from you all about these ramblings and whilst I feel I have something worthwhile to throw into the mental health mix I'll keep on writing. Feel free to follow me on twitter @BeachHutBabe24 if not already and if you're feeling really generous perhaps you could spend 99p on my book, read it and give me an honest review!!

Assessment phone call

I've just spent fifty minutes on the telephone to Steps2Wellbeing for my 'assessment' phone call, as referred by my GP.
What an odd experience that was. I found the endless questions that started on a scale of 1-8 how..... very disconcerting. I appreciate and understand the purpose but trying to compartmentalise the way you feel into survey type questions is really off putting.
Then she asked me what sort of therapy I thought I needed? Throwing the ball into my court so to speak! There was me thinking you'd tell me I wanted to scream back at her! So I asked her what there was available not really knowing and therefore struggling to answer her. So she starts rambling on about low intensity telephone based/computer input with a workbook, or high intensity counselling or high intensity CBT. Crikey it all sounded like a work out schedule!
Again having outlined the available therapies she threw the ball back into my court.... All I can say is it's a good job I've been self reflecting and writing things down over the last few days as it gave me a small heads up as to how I am really feeling and what I feel I really need.
As I had explained and rambled away to her on the phone I began to realise that it's more than possible that all my issues stem right back to my over bearing, psychologically tortuous Mother who bullied me unrelentingly throughout my childhood and way on into my adult years. I was explaining to her how I had had a period of stress and counselling back in 2002 and it then dawned on me as I was explaining it that this was around the time my Dad had his affair and left my Mother.
It was also at this juncture that Mother and I had a blazing row on the telephone around the subject and she gave me an ultimatum. 'Ditch your Dad and have nothing more to do with him or I want nothing more to do with you.' She put the emotional thumb screws on saying he'd wronged her and how could I want anything to do with him. I recall arguing back that he had done wrong but that I could still have both of my parents in my life. It was at this point that she started screaming abuse down the telephone and I said I was going to end the call if she continued to abuse me. She continued and I hung up. I have not spoken to her from that day to this.
In 2005 when I had my daughter I wrote to her offering her the opportunity to have a relationship with Ellie if not me. She wrote back telling me it was a 'fate worse than death' and that she would one day tell my darling daughter what a bitch her Mum really was. Charming!
For several years thereafter I tried to maintain a relationship with my family (her relatives) in Cornwall but as she saw them a lot and she seemed to have told them her own version of events and I felt myself turning into a black sheep and for what?
Dad and his new lady Sue married several days after Ellie was born. I wasn't invited.  It took me a while to accept Sue but I did and she was an incredible woman but sadly as I said in a previous blog she has recently passed away.
When I look back at it all I think the way I am, the damaged individual I have become, my history, my family is more than likely where all these issues started.


The lady on the telephone agreed and we decided that one to one counselling to deal with the past was paramount before then perhaps moving to CBT type work. Then the blow.....there's a long waiting list I think she said. I'll get the admin staff to call you but it'll be quite a while before we can help! Great I thought!


Whilst I'm airing my thoughts on family... I haven't spent one single Christmas with my family in 20 years? I haven't been invited to share Christmas or birthdays in that long. Is that normal?
I also recall one Christmas on my own when my parents were still together them ringing me and regaling me with the tales of all the lovely social functions they had planned for the festive season and Christmas Day. They then asked me what I was doing for Christmas Day....I'm on my own I said, I'll have a ready meal for one. Oh enjoy that then was the response. No invite, no love just rejection.


I recall when my relationship with my daughters Dad was failing and I just had to escape from the house I paid for a holiday property down near where my Dad and Sue lived. I was hoping that I would feel the love, maybe they'd want to help me or see me. Ellie was quite small. As it was they didn't really seem that interested all week until they then agreed to come and spend a day with me. I was so excited. I got Ellie up early, bathed her, dressed her in beautiful clothes and went through quite a ritual preparing ourselves for a 'family' day. Then Dad rang and cancelled. Sorry I have my books to do for the accountant I can't afford the time. My world collapsed and I remember sitting on the bed howling in despair. He offered me a crumb by saying come to lunch tomorrow...bring something to eat?! So daft old me ..I did. Whilst I was there Sue managed to drop a clanger by telling me what a lovely day they'd had at the garden centre the day before. Well what a punch in the guts that was I can tell you.
In fact I only ever stayed over with Dad and Sue once. The morning after the 'night' so to speak I wasn't offered breakfast and our bags were brought down from the spare room and put by the front door for us! Bit of a clue I thought to leave!!


Are these the reasons I don't socialise... because I'm scared of rejection?
If you can't trust your parents to love you, cherish you and want to spend time with you, why would anyone else want you?
Is that why I feel like a nothing and a nobody?


I love my Dad dearly but he's always pushed me away, there's always been something more important to do or somebody more important to spend the time with.


Soul searching over for the day...............more laters x