A tearfully bad day ...

Okay today is a bad day, tears streaming down my face, feeling hopeless and dark.

 'Shaking and blubbing like a baby'

Despite my blogging and shouting on social media I have yet to pluck up the courage to look for help. I had convinced myself that like the last time this happened two years ago that I could do this on my own but it's looking very much like I can't. Some days I can be quite balanced and strong, others just pathetically weak and weepy. Today is the later ...

I've been off sick since Christmas and haven't really been out much since then. Well I have ferried my daughter around, had a couple of meals out and tackled some medical appointments but what I like to do most is sit in the house with the curtains drawn so the world can't get to me. An old friend caught me out walking the dogs yesterday and suggested he pop around for a coffee, he drove off leaving me thinking he'd be around at my house soon. Well I panicked wholeheartedly and text him very quickly saying I had an appointment and could we do it some other time. I raced home, pulled the curtains, locked the doors and hid upstairs until he'd answered 'never mind'.

I do not want to face people, talking, noise, movement, just about anything really that isn't encapsulated inside my own little world inside these four walls.

I've lost what I thought were good friends because of my sociable ineptitude, well I guess they weren't worth worrying about if they got the hump about their damaged feelings because I hadn't been out recently or when they told me my mental health was irrelevant but it has still hurt me to know they weren't the people I thought they were. Needless to say my anxiety has risen its ugly head and blamed me for it, so I've been battering myself about it for two weeks, getting in a right state whenever I have to go near these silly people. I have to put myself first now though so I need to try and not be bothered about their hurt feelings and instead deal with my own.

This morning whilst answering a random tweet I suddenly realised as I burst in top tears yet again that I really don't have this 'episode' under control. I'm a wreck masquerading as an astute adult.

What I needed back at the start was someone to book me an appointment with a psychologist and just take me there! To assume a mentally ill person is capable of arranging their own treatment is a big ask if |I am any example to go by!

Plus I have a phobia of telephones, do not ask me why because I don't know - well I guess if I was to get all Freudian I would say it was probably because my Mother and I last spoke to each other 15 years ago over the telephone. On that occasion she was abusive, putrid and downright rude to me before disowning me for refusing to divorce my Father at the same time as she did! We've not spoken or seen each other since. She has only met my eleven year old daughter, baby bear, on one fluke occasion. Some Grandmother hey?!
So I suspect it is that, but knowing does not help me escape from the fear that grips me, or the tears that flow when the telephone rings or I know I have to make a call.

The other thing I have stupidly been forcing myself to do is walk endless miles. My poor little dogs are exhausted!! They've only little legs which are getting shorter every day!! Why is that a bad thing I hear you ask? The Fibromyalgia diagnosis means alongside my many symptoms I have significant joint pain daily and that's before any exercise, as such I have been advised to exercise little and often.  But something inside me feels driven to try and walk it off, the #FunnyFibro that is or perhaps its my attempt drive out the depression?  Maybe it is the later because if I'm hurting myself physically and I'm exhausted I won't have to face or deal with my feelings of hopelessness, being ugly or feeling like a waste of space will I? I did 5 miles yesterday and my right knee joint is now swollen so that it looks like the knee cap is actually a melon, plus the numbness is back and my foot keeps going dead! The dogs are still exhausted today, as am I to be honest!

The odd thing is when I meet someone out walking or have to face people I can still just about summon the cop genie! What an earth does she mean I hear you shout?! Those that suffer with depression or have done in the past know exactly what I am about to type don't you? The veil we can hide behind, the doppelganger we can swap with?

The cop genie fights off the black dog and brings me a professional face, an articulate voice and makes me sound like I know what I'm talking about!

I even have an invisible uniform and public order shield!  I can jump back into that old skin and convince the world that I have this down and I'm coping absolutely fine! That time span however is dependant on how well you are feeling mentally... The genie can be summoned for varying time spans, for instance until I fell off the magic carpet at Christmas (went sick/got ill!)  I could summon the cop genie for almost eight hour stints barring a little blubbing in the toilets here and there.

But the more poorly I get the less able I am to find the magic required to summon or sustain the cop genie and the black dog invades my mind. When the cop genie is beaten by the black dog I'm left with the hollow husk of a drained and broken human being flailing around unsure of herself ,wracked with anxiety and self doubt. Unable to cope, unable to do anything other than blunder around, shout at people, get cross, cry, sit staring into space, or typing a blog entry!

I managed to summon the cop genie this morning for a few minutes just to send an email to the charity Safe Horizons UK asking for help. I'm not sure what help I'm asking for, I'm not sure they can help me, but I have extended an arm, reached out to them anyways.

Plus I've written this today so all is not lost!

Despite all of this, or perhaps because of all this, I am still determined to bring together suffering cops into my Black Dog Pack. If only for you to feel united, not alone and that someone 'gets' what it is you are feeling. I know the trials of living with depression and anxiety in todays police service, which sadly, is still mostly riddled with stigma against mental illness.

I have been considering getting some Black Dog Cop bracelets made up, so that we can all wear them, then we could know each other show and share experiences and support one another. Non-sufferers have also shown an interest in that they would like to show support for our struggles and even indicate themselves as a 'safe' person with whom you could confide and talk.

Let me know your thoughts @BeachHutBabe24

MH STIGMA & FIBROMYALGIA

So a week has passed since my last blog and I thought it worth bringing the situation up to date if only for my own sanity and remembrance in the days that follow.

Plus a lot of you will only know me for discussing depression and anxiety and I wanted to clarify how this recent diagnosis fits into my jigsaw puzzle.

On Monday I had an appointment to see a rheumatologist as I had happened to mention upon my last GP visit to get signed off with depression/anxiety about my aching joints and some of my other symptoms. This was done as an aside to and diversion away from discussing my depression at the time! I have said before on previous blogs that discussing my madness is a horrid experience that makes me squirm in my seat, I feel like I need to fold myself in on myself to escape from the overwhelming waves of embarrassment. It couldn't be any worse if I was sat there naked!

I digress, ... again!

Anyway for the past two years I have suffered with what can only be described as a plethora of physical symptoms. After the first few months they left my GP sat looking at me with a blank expression on his face if I dared mention anything more to him.  He glazed over with boredom at my repeated moaning after numerous dead end consultant appointments!! It did start to look like I was a hypochondriac even to myself!

Two years ago he had taken me seriously initially packing me off in an ambulance thinking I had a subarachnoid bleed after I had repeatedly complained of horrific headaches and sensitivity to light.   A day in hospital, a CT scan and a lumbar puncture all discounted any illness and I got the feeling I had a back mark placed against my name as a malingerer.

Then he referred me to a neurologist to see if he could help with my headaches So I waited months for an appointment then on the day in question, he, the consultant, told me I was on too much medication and that was why I was having headaches. sadly I had a Victor Meldrew type reaction to this news

'I don't believe it'

I may have said words to that effect, but my anxiety kicked in and I cried tears of utter frustration then upped and left leaving him opening and closing his mouth like goldfish!

Then there was another visit to the force FMO when he noticed a lump in my neck, so back to the GP I went. X-Rays and an ultra sound later I'm told I do have cervical spondylitis in my neck to match my bulging discs at L4 & L5 in my back but its just one of those things that comes with age.

Then there were the episodes of my heart racing and me getting all hot and sweaty for no apparent reason. Back I went. Blood tests revealed a lack of iron but no hormone imbalances or menopausal indicators.

My eyes got very dry and itchy and thinking I had an eye infection, off I went. 'No all normal' the GP says. Urghh!

I happened to mention at a regular medication consultation that my weight was ballooning and despite trying all the normal tricks to drop some weight nothing was shifting. We discussed the surgery I had previously had for a hiatal hernia some ten years before, the fact I was experiencing feelings of nausea fairly regularly and he wondered perhaps if the acid reflux might be affecting my digestion so once AGAIN off I went to another consultant. The acid was in fact burning my oesophagus a little and I was put back on Omeprazole.

Then there was the urge to go to  he toilet which started getting very urgent and much too frequent. So off I toddled to the GP. A wee dip did show an infection up initially but subsequent visits for the same thing revealed nothing.

By now I feeling like a marked woman, paranoia probably but to have had so many things going on and to mostly keep getting knocked back that they were nonsense I myself was even beginning to think I was creating these things just to cover up for my depression and anxiety. I knew how much a physical problem would have eased my psychological suffering, to have something without stigma to cling on to, that would explain why I was feeling so lousy would have been great. So the more I reflected the more I thought all the things I was experiencing must be manifestations of my madness so I should stop discussing them.

I sensed other people thought that too, so I mostly clammed up keeping quiet about the majority of my physical  troubles. Although the fatigue was difficult to cover up,  when you're arriving at work at 0900 hours knackered, yawning, sitting in front of a computer struggling to keep my eyes open people tend to notice. I struggled with fatigue really badly and I am not sure how I never crashed or fell asleep driving home.

Anyways, other than that for two years I put up with the horrific migraine strength headaches, the dry eye problems, bad sleep experiences constantly, dizziness, poor memory, anxiety, depression, weight gain, flu like symptoms, multiple joint pain and stiffness, nausea, urination problems, a clunking jaw, dysmenorrhea like nothing I had ever felt before.

Just feeling permanently like crap yet all the time whilst wholly blaming my anxiety and depression,  keeping quiet about the rest for fear of sounding stupid or obsessed or worse even madder!

Finally my hands started to swell and ache too and this was the final straw for me as I could barely type, I couldn't manage simple motor functions and life was getting embarrassing not even feeling confident to hold a full mug of drink fearing I would drop it. So it was this that made me pluck up the courage to speak to the GP again after months of keeping quiet about everything except the depression.

He referred me!! AGAIN!!

So that was what happened this Monday, I went to my rheumatology appointment. It was like breathing fresh air after being confined in a low oxygen environment for a long time. The relief was palpable as she asked me about all the things I had felt it necessary not to talk about for so long.

I could admit to her that I forget where I park my car! That my eyes crust up every few hours and need bathing, that I can barely walk up hills, or get into the bath for the stiffness in my joints. I could tell her about getting stuck in a field because my stupid body couldn't climb over a small five bar fence and that I lie awake at night aching all over. Relief on so many levels.

She examined me too, an ancient skill it would seem these days as few of the medics have actually dared to lay hands on me. Not once in two years as my GP touched me, well other than for a BP check!

When she reached her conclusion I was both relieved and a little apprehensive all at the same time.

Fibromyalgia?

She explained that I was a classic case, I ticked 16/18 boxed needed for a diagnosis. It was like playing fibromyalgia bingo marking off all my symptoms! Finally I felt vindicated, finally I knew it wasn't all down to the depression and anxiety. Finally I knew it wasn't all the madness!

There is still along road to travel, that I know. My pain needs addressing as I have put up with it for so long and there is no cure, so it's listed as a chronic disorder. Where that leaves me for the future as a police officer I do not know.

With my back/disc issues, my stomach problems, my depression/anxiety and now this I feel pretty useless. I was lost enough mentally but now I have had it confirmed I'm physically malfunctioning on so many levels it feels like a huge undertaking to get myself anywhere fit enough to get back to work.

My depression and anxiety are still prevalent, clearly they are not going to evaporate, but knowing all this pain is not in my head too has helped me a lot. I feel less burdened, less troubled in some ways.

I am still driven to try and change the way serving officers are treated who admit to suffering with depression or any mental illness. I have had so many wonderful people contact me since I started blabbing about my troubles, I have been overwhelmed with support and the tales of 'me too'.

BUT and it is a big BUT, listen up command team members, 75% of the serving officers contacting me and believe me I have had many, do so by a DM on twitter. Why are they happy to talk to me openly? Well they are only confident to do so because twitter is anonymous. Take that bosses. You have numerous officers out there suffering who do not say a word,

... yet ...

for the day will come when they can tread the thin blue line no longer for the burden of their troubles will become too heavy.

They are scared to talk because of the stigma  against MH in the police service, because of the fear of losing their roles, for fear of being marked as unsuitable for future promotion or specialisms for fear of losing themselves.

I do not know them, they do not know me yet they admit these things to me,  they have not told their forces or their supervision, some haven't even told their loved ones, some are even thinking of leaving the service altogether as opposed to telling anyone?

Seriously? Are you content with that? Things are seriously messed up out there on the ground if someone would rather walk away from their career as opposed to telling someone that they are suffering with depression?

I do think mental health is a bit like a religion, you either 'get it' or you don't. I have referred to people who don't 'get it' before in previous blogs as non believers and I truly think (know) that there are many in positions of rank out there.

They, much like I cannot get my head around GOD, cannot get theirs around MH.
People believing in something they have never seen/cannot prove means that I have chosen to be non religious, however non believers feel the same way about MH, they simply do not believe it is a reality.

I have a very good friend who supported me two years ago when I was poorly. Back then she was a non believer, she would say things like, 'look on the bright side' or 'I'll be there to help it'll be fine' or 'pull yourself together' All were said with love but came from a view point of a non believer. Now she is in a relationship with a MH sufferer and her whole demeanour towards my mental health has changed. She no longer thinks I can just snap out of it, she no longer tells me that I am a confident capable woman so therefore get on with it. But the point I make is that it takes a significant experience to change a non believer into a believer it is not something you can just decide to change.

I'm not sure where that leaves us but I do feel that much as sexism was outlawed overtly, despite the fact that sexist pigs do still roam the corridors, at least they have to do so now subversively, do it on the QT.  I think Mental Health will have to be treated the same way. Add it to the Standards of Professional Behaviour as a perquisite for professionals in a professional police service.

It has to be the way forward and it has to be front, centre and bang in the middle of discussions with new recruits throughout their training then like sexism has changed so will attitudes to mental health.

Bring back force counsellors, make them a yearly necessity, plus refer officers who have dealt with certain incident types to them. Bobs your uncle, fannies your aunt... it is somewhere to start.

Give returning officers from MH illnesses a buddy, much like addicts get help through life. A sponsor, someone who does 'get it' to guide them and chat regularly.

These things need to happen to see change...in my humble opinion because...

Mental Health Matters

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!!

Meeting the Black Dog

If ever there were a contrast then the last three days have shown me one. I've felt the blackest of the black stages of depression through to the light contented feeling that I currently have. So precious is the feeling that I am currently experiencing, that I have switched off the television for fear of seeing something that may taint my mood! I am not going to touch my emails or answer the phone until the school run forces me back to reality. For the here and now I am going to enjoy a buoyant mood.

It is much like walking a tight rope, I am confident and strong. Perfectly balanced, however it wouldn't take much to make me wobble and fall, so with that in mind I wanted to write whilst I feel positive and hopeful.

I think the cop in me is constantly looking for a solution to problems. Instead of comforting my daughter I'm always giving her strategies to solve the issue when all she may really want is a cuddle. Cops solve peoples problems and we expect to use the same tools on our families and emotions. We find it frustrating if not down right confusing when the same strategies fail.

I cannot help but think I can 'solve' depression which is essentially tosh as it is an illness much like diabetes or cancer. You can't snap out of those any more than you can depression.

So as a result of my 'problem solving' approach I find myself reflecting what it was that I wanted or needed from the police over the last two years since my diagnosed and disclosed depression that I didn't have?

Now support comes in various guises doesn't it? When you ask someone you know after they've been ill, "How are you?" what are you really expecting to hear? I am positive our British culture means we should accept the "How are you?" solely as someone being polite and showing an interest in you. They do not actually want to know the ins and outs of your illness. What they expect back is a 'Fine thank-you" before you move on to the weather or sport or soap operas. Our coded British conversations devoid of emotional connections other than on a superficial level. Try it out and I bet you when someone starts to actually tell you how they are, you'll switch off, raise your internal eye brows and then cut them short. We are a nation of stunted emotions!

Now that does not bode well for the person suffering with depression and anxiety because emotions are front and centre of every darned day whether you want them to be or not. Some days are good and some are bad, some days you want to cry, some days you want to lark around and have fun but ignoring these emotions and maintaining a stiff British upper lip will not wash.

• Talking therapy when you can actually discuss 'emotions' would have helped.
• Talking to like minded people would have helped.
• A buddy up scheme, would have helped.
• An hour of weekly counselling in job time, at job expense would have helped.
• Someone drawing up a coping strategy, identifying triggers, would have helped.

Instead the stigma prevents these things happening. The coded canteen culture when discussing people being off sick with stress is inevitably followed up with some form of skiver comment and there is a sad inevitably to that in my experience. I've done it, haven't you?

Yes there are people that may swing the lead however you never ever know what someone is going through. Depression is not a rash. It isn't worn as a badge so if you consider changing one thing, never automatically assume someone who is off sick with stress is a skiver. You cannot tell if someone suffers with depression unless you ask or they share. Often the nosiest, funniest people can be suffering the most. Robin Williams was a prime example of that.

I would have liked to have become part of a buddy scheme. A group of people, well police officers and police staff who suffer with mental health illnesses who could perhaps initially meet each other through an online/force chat room scenario. I personally wouldn't be able to meet someone face to face or go to a group session straight off the bat but if I built up trust through anonymous chat eventually followed at your own pace by a meeting or group meetings in job time, that would have helped.

I also think each force needs it's own counsellor. On the books, paid for, that automatically sees officers that have dealt with certain types of incident or who those who work in certain departments plus all those of us who need psychological support. I'm pretty certain it would pay for itself fairly quickly by keeping officers mentally healthy and fit for duty. Using outside agencies for counselling services, numbering the amount of qualifying sessions you are entitled to even before you've got their or assessed, expecting you the depressive/anxious person to arrange/book these terrifying sessions when you A/ hate phones B/hate new environments C/avoid counselling at all costs are all barriers to success. Force counsellors are the way forward boss people out there.

As it was I had a back to work interview with my line manager followed up with a risk assessment?! He might as well of had a placard with,

"You're a nutter we're covering our arses"

on the wall behind him. The boss completing the risk assessment asked me about my 'triggers' a fair and pertinent question. However I made the mistake of being honest. Certain office idiots had been  fairly brutal with their belittling and put downs. Explaining this to the boss though as one of my triggers met with a derisive snort immediately followed by him concurring with them and putting me down himself! Of course I then clammed up  just nodding and saying yes or no where necessary.
Apparently the risk assessment was due to be reviewed regularly but it wasn't and I didn't push it as that initial session had become a 'trigger' in itself!! But that's not the point I did need support and I didn't get it.

I battled on in the same department for two years,  a negative, counter productive environment. I started talking about my 'madness' openly and loudly out of sheer bloody mindedness as acknowledging my struggles publicly helped me deal with my daily ups and downs.

Not long before I fell ill again just before this Christmas I had two separate conversations with my two line managers. they job share. Suffice it to say that both expressed amazement that I was still suffering with depression?!

"But that was two years ago"

one said! Their little faces quite the picture when I reminded them that I was medicated for my depression and anxiety and had been throughout the last two years. I didn't miss the shock and disappointment on their faces either.

So in the absence of a force counsellor talk to your staff and colleagues. Ask them about their triggers, especially people with anxiety.

As an example - I hate telephones, talking on them makes me hyper ventilate, my heart races. They are a necessary evil but just recognising I may need some time to work myself up to a telephone call in itself would be helpful.

My message to police managers, if you have staff that suffer with depression or anxiety, talk to them about it, discuss their triggers with them and maybe even help them to draw up a coping strategy for dealing with those triggers. It's far easier if someone acknowledges the black dog in the room.

My slippery depression slope

At the moment the only things keeping me moving forwards are my daughter, my dogs,  my writing/twitter, and a very small handful of trusted friends.

Yet even so I am barely moving at all, both from a physical perspective and a psychological one.

I have never ever felt this bad, so lethargic, so overwhelmed by something I cannot control. It feels like someone has hollowed out my brain and removed the majority of it. I am a husk, an empty shell floating around on the breeze totally aimlessly.

I cannot concentrate or focus enough to make food. I stand in the kitchen staring around me, lost, confused. I cannot be bothered to lift the pans out of the cupboard and I certainly do not have the brain capacity to think about how to cook something. In fact any activity that isn't utter simplicity itself is just too complex for my subdued brain. I manage takeaways, something & chip meals or prick and dings.

I know there are things that I should do, emails that need sending to work re sick leave dates, daughters club dates that need putting in the diary but try as I might there is insufficient willpower within me to lift my head of the sofa let alone manage a complex task like putting dates in a diary.

I have never struggled quite this badly, tears are always close by and desperation a constant companion. What are usually simple tasks like driving my daughter to a club or filling the car with petrol are becoming hugely testing and exhausting expeditions. Just trying to remember how to put petrol in the car or recalling what my daughter needs are for her clubs feels like an A level standard test.

This my friends is what depression is currently doing to a police officer with 27 years service, a Detective Sergeant who was competent and capable. Professional and proud. Who has worked fulltime, juggled a home life and parenting yet here I now am reduced to the capability of a child. I can't cook a meal, I can't concentrate, I can't even think about what to watch on the television whilst vegetating on the sofa. To whom washing has become an arduous and often ignored chore instead I sit in stale smelly clothes watching endless random television and wondering when or if someone will ever plug back in my brain.

This is probably complete nonsense to some of you. A fairy tale or nightmare. This is the reality of mental health. This happens. This swallows people up and spits them out, if they're lucky enough to escape or get a reprieve.

I feel suspended in time, unable to move forwards or backwards. Feeling numb and beginning to hope that I can actually cling on to the slippery slope that I now find myself on. I've never felt quite so out of control or helpless with my previous bouts of depression as I do this time. Perhaps you fall more heavily and harder the more often you fall of your perch?

I hear myself talking to my daughter but its almost like its in the third person, like I'm somehow remote from myself. I paint on a smile whilst feeling like a fraud and hoping she doesn't notice that her Mum's been swapped out for a fake version. Am I the fake or was she? The capable one?

And yet through it all I'm somehow hoping honesty will help. If I tell it how it is, if I describe my dirty little secrets then maybe people may just start to see mental illness in all it's degrading glory.

I'm out of wine, that's an issue too. I drink every evening. Varies in amount but sometimes a bottle, sometimes less but I have none left. I feel like I need some right now.

The weird thing is as I've said,  I feel numb, unconnected to the world. Remote and unplugged yet I want the wine to dull the way I feel, to self medicate as it were. Isn't that a"contradiction"?

So for now I'm planning that on Monday I will email work, do the diary entries and then email Steps to Wellbeing for an appointment. I can't ring them. Phone calls make me feel ill, very ill. Panicked even, and cry, yes definitely. Even at the best of times I hate telephoning people but at the moment its just not possible so the doctor said I could make an appointment to get assessed by email instead. 

So that's my plan, survive the weekend, get daughter back to school, come home walk dogs and then do these chores and maybe write some more blog ...

Self loathing and the FMO

Hello,

Today as I am writing this is Sunday and I have been away from work sick since 28/12 last year, nearly three weeks now.

Tomorrow I have to go and see the FMO or Occupational Health as some refer to it. I'm guessing this early referral is because I was actually honest this time and stated depression was the reason for my absence. The last time just over two years ago I wasn't referred to the FMO for several months but initially I did not know what was wrong. (Full story in earlier blogs x)

I'd like to think the referral this time is out of compassion, concern and a desire to offer me support yet I can't help thinking it's more about bottom covering and the edginess I've created by daring to use 'that' word. In the email from my boss advising me of the need to refer me to the FMO he referred
 'to that type of illness'
being the reason for referral?! Which one is that then boss, that illness we must not name?! In not being able to discuss it openly he reinforces my feeling that it is a sordid little secret that should remain covert. Do you know if I am certain of one thing this time it is that I will not be quiet about it anymore. I will not be silenced in discussing mental health, its time the stigma ended.

By the way I am happy the boss emailed as I find telephone conversations with him difficult and my paranoia and anxiety kicks in.  I end up hearing all sorts of things he may not actually be saying. I take insinuation and can read between the lines like no other person I have ever met. Even when I'm well I can sense people's emotions like a blood hound, I feel emotional waves coming off them like bad body odour especially if they are talking to me. Times the strength of that scent by infinity if they are talking to me about my sickness record. No it is far safer to see the words written down to have time to evaluate their meaning before I go off at the deep end for no reason whatsoever.

I do feel anger towards this boss, the job as a whole, the department I work in, in fact generally I'm just angry. Angry that I feel the way I do, angry that I can't fix myself, angry that it impacts on my daughter. I am an angry person

Anyways back on to the matter at hand, the FMO. I feel anxious about tomorrow. Anxious that I won't be able to convey just how broken I feel more than anything else. I've been covering my tracks denying my mental health problems for so long that it is a new experience trying to be honest about the state I'm in. I feel confusion at how to explain how muddled my head space feels, how to speak about the fact that I could sleep for a month and yet still feel tired, how I can't remember things at all from one minute to another and just how fragile I feel with life in general. Writing is my only method of communication, ask me to speak out loud and I just ramble, feel stupid and then clam up.

I am finding Twitter an enormous help at the moment for this very reason, I can write it down, I can interact with like minded people and I don't have to speak a word. Bliss.

So as I contemplate tomorrow I feel my head pounding, the start of an anxiety headache, the ones that feel as if your head is in a vice that gets tighter and tighter making you feel like your head will explode. My guts are churning and growling out loud and I want to sit and cry. My joints are swollen and my limbs feel heavy. In fact I feel like the wreck I know I am.

You know I look in the mirror or at photographs and hate what I see. I have a set phrase that rattles around my mind when I am looking at my own reflection, I say to myself over and over 'gee you sure is ugly'.

I feel self loathing and disgust to the point that nothing matters. I don't want to wash or put on clean clothes, I do so for my daughter but not for me.  Going out is consuming in a bad way, the thought of seeing real people or more importantly them seeing me gives me chills. I wish I could go out but be invisible then I would know for certain that I'm not being judged or hated. I think I dislike myself so much that I can't help but wonder why anyone else would tolerate me.
I think that is borne from the abandonment of my Mother who always said I was useless and wouldn't amount to much and then is confirmed time and again by a Father that talks the talk but never walks the walk.

It's probably why I rely so heavily on dogs for support. They don't judge, or hate. They're loyal to the bitter end even when you're ultimately taking them to their death. Pure unconditional love, and dogs are the only source I've ever found.

So there I am ready for tomorrows events! NOT!! Laters....

Police officer with Depression ... over here!!

As I was walking the dogs this morning I started pondering my mental health, as usual, and came to the conclusion it was high time to be more honest with myself.  Honesty about mental health within the British police service is in its infancy and I find myself on that front line with a responsibility to speak out.

My personal mental health struggles go around and around my head more often than most anything else. Things like, am I imagining it ? ... and I am really just a skiving bitch? or ...Why did this happen to me? and... Now I have accepted that I suffer with depression and anxiety why can't I beat it?

Things like, can all my physical symptoms solely be attributed to depression or are they real?
Well they are real because I feel them, they hurt, they ache but are they really just figments of a brain being ignored on a conscious level that is trying in its own way to bring me down of my perch?

The police service and us the police officers remain locked in an environment where mental health is something that happens to other people and not us.
When I joined the service in the late 80's people with mental health problems or 'nutters' as we were referred to, were definitely 'them' and not 'us'. They were the people we got called out to, people who caused problems, societies drop outs, trouble makers but definitely, one hundred percent, categorically not 'us'. They were the S136 calls, the concern for welfare incidents and the vulnerable mispers but they were not police officers.

So when mental health came knocking at my door after a harrowing few months running a sex offender unit, I denied it access, turned it away, refused it a home, slammed the door in it's face because when I looked in the mirror I saw a police officer, not a drop out or trouble maker. I refused to accept that I could have 'those' sorts of problems for I was none of the things I associated with a person suffering from mental health illnesses. So the first time 14 years ago when I fell off my perch I accepted my branding as a skiver, after all being thought of by colleagues as swinging the lead, although hugely damaging, was no where near as horrific as contemplating facing the truth. I climbed back up the ladder onto my perch and battled onwards for another 12 years.

I lived in a twilight zone of self hatred and loathing,  of spiralling debt and sabotaged relationships. But any hell was better than facing the stigma of being a 'nutter'

Yet coming to terms with my reality, my bias, my stereotypical point of view has been and continues to be blooming hard work and that's from me the sufferer. So, as to what hope the rest of the police service has in getting their heads around what mental health really looks like I really don't know.

It wasn't until a couple of days ago that I finally publicly tied my mental health firmly together with my police career. I was asked to contribute to a 'Police' magazine article on mental health within the police service. Which after careful consideration I have done, although I have now received coded warnings from colleagues of the dangers of my speaking out and 'do you know the trouble you may land yourself in for being so honest' ??! Just think about that for a minute... the federation will print an article on mental health which I have helped with, which I am very honest in, yet my colleagues are fearful that I will get in to bother for it? What does that say about the current state of play? It reminds me of the stereotypes I spoke of previously and proves to me that the service may utter relevant words and try and sound like they are on top of mental health within the police service but its not yet having much impact. So far its just words and hypocrisies...

I personally have had the 'nutter' badge proudly pinned to my lapel since the last time I fell of my perch about two years ago, yet publicly to other 'police' folk especially on social media etc. I have been reticent to 'show out', for them to know that I am one of 'them' , to let it all hang out so to speak.

But I came to a decision out walking those pooches today. Someone has to be honest, the words, the sentiments are all very well but unless 'us' the sufferers on the inside of the police service speak out where will we get? It feels wrong, it feels scary and sadly it feels like I am being a 'Judas' somehow but we need to see the wood for the trees don't we?

So with that in mind I am going to be very brave... speak a truth that I have never uttered, never told to a single soul.

I have contemplated suicide in the past. There, I said it. (no lightening bolts yet!)

I have always answered 'no' to that question on the doctor's forms,

Have you considered taking your own life? NO. I always put NO.

After all if I answered honestly then I would definitely become one of 'them' wouldn't I?

I am not sure I would have gone through with it but there was one particular weekend before I fell off my perch two years ago when I sat and planned how I could make my death look like a fatal road traffic accident. Even in death I was not prepared to be judged as a 'nutter'. I wanted the world to see my death as a tragedy so my daughter wouldn't have to live with the stigma of having had a mad mummy. Thankfully I haven't visited that dark place again where death feels like the only option available but I want to reach a place in time where I would at least feel able to speak the truth about my state of mind.

Sadly I am pretty certain that I will never be a mentally healthy person whilst I am working within the police service. The police service environment has a very long way to go before it is totally accepting and understanding of having the devil on the inside of the organisation and I hope to retire well before I think things will start to change. But in the meantime I will keep speaking and spreading my truth in the hope it may just help edge the change along more swiftly.  LAW24

My mental health in the police service...

So lots to catch up on...

I guess the biggest news is that I fell off my perch again. I have been trying to think about new analogies' for my depression and I conjured up these two...

Number one - A game of Snakes and ladders is after all just a kids version of life. There are plenty of snakes out there who want to see you 'go down' and there are plenty of ladders too if you're healthy enough to attempt the climbs. Throwing the dice, pure chance, again like a lot of life. Being in the right place at the right time and not what you know but who you know are mantras I am all too familiar with and are positive experiences if you are on the right side of them. A lot of my life I am content climbing those ladders and throwing those die, however once and a while my anxiety and depression kick me down a snake. Sometimes one of those small ones where you only lose a few squares but sometimes it gets me from the top of the board to bottom in just one throw. Floored, having to start afresh again...

Number Two - also equates to a game I recall from childhood that used to be on television as part of a UK kids television show called crackerjack. The game I think was called 'Double or Drop' although I could be wrong on that but essentially a child was handed one toy, boxed or otherwise after another until they could hold no more. Then they were told they could double their winnings beyond what they were already holding  by taking just one more parcel without dropping all the others.

That's my life, me stood on a raised platform being given parcels to hold, daughters bullying, work anxiety, family politics, cleaning, shopping, bills, car servicing and so on until I get to that place where I know if I take one more parcel I am likely to drop the lot. I always do though, take the next parcel that is, as the lure of wining is just too great.

Then inevitably it happens, in trying to take that one extra parcel, in pushing myself just that bit further I drop every single one of my parcels that I'm holding on to for dear life.

Or I slip from top to bottom of that snakes and ladders board and bam the world spins and I end up a blithering wreck back in the doctors waiting room.

It was coming for weeks, I think I even blogged about feeling the wobble of my Jenga blocks... (I do so like a good analogy!) but they've toppled and I've fallen by the wayside. I also think the more often you fall that maybe it gets harder to get back up again? This is my third major episode in adulthood, one was fourteen years ago, one was almost three years and now another. I was already wobbling but then over Christmas 2016 my beloved Penny Dog, a loyal friend of fourteen years, who actually saved me the first time around, died and taking her to the vet to be put to sleep was brutal.

So brutal in fact that it was the final parcel so to speak, so not only did I fall but I crashed and burned into the dirt big time taking all my parcels with me.

I kidded myself for a few days that I would bounce right back after I'd had a good few days of crying but I didn't and here I am again having to break the news to work bosses. Going to the doctors and admitting another defeat.

At the moment I'm feeling completely ruined but I keep trying to bolster myself up with the previous successes I've had at pulling myself out of the dirt. Watch this space and I'll try and keep a progress log of how things go third time around.

I have also helped write a piece on #MentalIllness for #Police magazine which is utterly frank and truthful about my personal experiences of mental health within the police service.

There is a lot of talk about what 'we' do to support people in the service who are suffering from mental health problems but personally to date I've not seen any practical evidence of that, I've just heard and read the words. The smoke screen as you like.  However let me clarify this is a personal blog, about me and what I feel and think. My experiences...

I'll let you in to a little Police secret... those strong, competent, astute, brave, police officers who go out  into our societies day in and day out, night in and night out, festive season or not, are human beings!
Shock horror, I know its a lot to take in!!
Another secret...they have feelings, they have families and they are made of the same stuff you are! Who would have guessed!

We break like anybody else but our police culture is such that coping and being the problem solvers is what we do and what we're expected to do come rain or shine. When we break we think we can and should just fix our own problems, after all that's what we do.
So generally we tell nobody of our woes as we think it'll spoil the illusions we've created of us being some kind of superheroes who don't bleed or feel.
When we realise that we can't actually fix ourselves or reboot there often comes another phase, a period of time where we 'womble' around!! Now when 'we' the afflicted womble about we look just the same as your normal common or garden problem solver, yet this wombling soul will be much like a robot whose programming has corrupted. We may talk slightly oddly or slowly. We may sit staring off in to space. We may snap with fury at the smallest provocation yet eventually someone will notice the womble and offer help. TAKE IT!!
Eventually the mask or underpants will slip off the womble otherwise and reveal the human being beneath in all their crumpled glory which can have catastrophic repercussions if it happens at the wrong 'job' or with the wrong 'client'

Have you been, or are you being a womble? Do you know a womble you could help?

Mr or Mrs, even Miss or Master Womble ... Don't wait until you drop your parcels or slip down that snake... go and get yourself some help you deserve it x

MONEY FOR OLD ROPE ... Murdering police officers? #amwriting

Well I was only thinking the other day, why don't I write a blog and then it struck me!

 I already did !!

Two years have flown by and I'm still working 'there' but with retirement fast approaching I'm lurching along hoping I reach that mile stone before I crash and burn!

I sated my need to write over the last two years by writing a novel. A crime murder/mystery.

The main character a Detective Sergeant has anxiety and depression... mmm... who could that be based on?! Set in a PSD department of a small force it takes the readers on a fast paced, excitement packed journey of discovery uncovering corruption and evil as it goes.

 MONEY FOR OLD ROPE is what the trade describe a police procedural.

 

My book opens with the murder of a member of the public who has filed a complaint against a senior police officer alleging they were in an inappropriate relationship together.

The victim, Melanie Adams is then found hanged in her opulent flat just before she was due to provide crucial evidence in this misconduct investigation to Detective Sergeant Sarah James of the local Wessex Police.

 

Sarah James a seasoned detective, single mother and depression sufferer is the investigating police officer from the Professional Standards Department. A high functioning anxiety sufferer she risks life and limb to seek out the police corruption she senses and detect Melanie’s murder despite some fierce opposition from within the force. 

 

The murderer’s identity is withheld from the reader until the conclusion.

 

Is there a murdering police officer loose? 

 

Will DS James survive to find out?

 

Why was the unemployed murder victim living in such a privileged circumstances?

 

Ha - I am hoping that one day I might get it published. But best of all is that I have immortalised some of my struggles with anxiety and depression during my career within the police service albeit behind the protective guise of fiction. That way one day my daughter can perhaps better understand 'me'  and why things are they way they are.

 

Why I find social events difficult, why I sit trying to relax yet often find myself fighting an overwhelming panic for no apparent reason. Just why I am the way I am....

 

More soon.... publishers contact me ... pretty please!!

 

#amwriting #policemurder #anxiety #depression

'Fine, Thank You?!'

So I've purposely left my blog until I settled back in to some sort of normality at work.


Plus I entered a book writing competition!! ITV's #thismorning are running a #BeaBestSeller competition! I've always wanted to write so I got my backside in to gear for a change and submitted an entry! Ho ho ho!!!
Anyway back to reality - I'm on a staged return which means stating off at minimal hours and then working gradually back up to normal.
Literally my first day back was the 5th November and I did two hours and left again. My boss did sit me down and gave me a little lecture on how to manage stress and he seemed to think seeing all my complainants face to face and not making any telephone calls would resolve my stress issues.


I think the UK cops have a lot to learn about managing people with depression and anxiety. I have been totally honest with them. Probably too honest! I've told them I'm on anti-depressants and taking beta blockers for anxiety. They know I was off for five and a half months. They know I'm on a staged return. But still I walk back through the door and nothing has changed really. I have not seen the occupational health people prior to or since returning. The job know I am waiting for counselling. There should at least be other fellow sufferers who could mentor you or contact you surely? It feels so lonely and isolating but in reality there must be others going through the same traumas?


I had a very bad day today and at one point was sat at my desk with tears rolling down my face but I gave myself a stern talking to and swallowed them away. The trigger for that particular emotion welling up was the fact HR have sent me through course dates/warnings for next February. A course that runs on three consecutive days from 1330 x 2130 daily. I single parent and have no overnight/evening child care. I stupidly said out loud how bloody ridiculous this was for me. The office sort of turned on me and told me to man up and then suggested 'perhaps do the early one instead then'. Apparently there is also a course at 0730 x 1230. Also no use to me for similar reasons. My daughter doesn't stay overnight with her dad as she gets very anxious and upset. So she is always home with me. The idea of sorting this particular problem out to manage to be able to attend this course was enough to push me over the edge. The office mean well but do not have the faintest idea how it feels to be freaked out by such simple things. They do not know the feeling of being completely overwhelmed and scared by daft day to day worries such as a silly course and child care arrangements. What's is worse is that I know in my heart of hearts how pathetic I sound whining about it and worrying about it out loud. But that is how I feel, I cannot change it, much as I would love to.
It's like people keep asking me how I am, 'are you better?' Grrr my pet hate because I have to lie and paint on a false smile on my face to cover the hurt I'm really feeling.  I was on the verge today because when one person asked I snapped back 'you don't really want an honest answer to that do you? Nobody really wants to know they just expect back that bog standard 'fine thank you' The look I got was priceless and realising the confusion he was experiencing at my outburst I just wound my neck in really quickly and smiled sweetly and said 'fine thank you'!!!
As I drove home I couldn't help but think about my future and how the hell I am going to get through another ten years to make my full pension?! Even five years seems like a life time. If I'm already back to crying at three hours twice a week what hope is there for me?


I was also thinking today how confusing it is to not be able to pull myself together. What I mean is as a cop we generally just shrug things off. Get on with stuff. Keep on moving. But I'm struggling badly as I cannot shake off this darkness. I'm trying to pull myself together so hard but it's just not happening. How long will I get away with pretending to be 'normal' I wonder?! I feel like such a fraud sitting there at my desk dressed in my business clothes looking like I'm a professional when I feel anything but professional!


I feel like an empty husk, the grass seed that was my former self has floated away on an unseen gust of wind!
Anyway making tea beckons..... Catch you all soon x

Hi ho Hi ho - it's back to work I go......

So an update as to my current whereabouts upon life's confusing map is called for I feel!?


Tomorrow I have to start a phased return to work after five and a half months off on sickness leave. I am therefore probably at the opening of a dense forest, heading into uncharted territory! A forest full of mean veracious beasties ready to nip at my heels and maul me at the slightest trip! Or is that unfair of me? Perhaps I'm at a style that will lead me in to a meadow full of spring flowers. A colourful, joyful place that smells sweetly with all the flowers swaying in unison as a mild spring breeze ripples them gently? A soft beautiful natural carpet that will cushion any falls?


If my analogies leave you cold then I'm asking this question...will it be a friendly, happy supported return to work or will it be dark, cold and full of mean spirited experiences?


Time will obviously tell but what I am definitely not sure how about, is how to answer the inevitable question...'Are you feeling better now?' or 'How are you?' I guess it harps back to a previous blog I wrote when I said people really are not truly interested in the answer but merely observing an accepted social ritual by asking that daily question. The answer they probably want is 'Fine thank you' or 'yes much better thanks' The trouble is I don't feel much like lying or saying 'fine thank you' I sort of want to try and explain what's been going on.
I feel that I have discovered a truth about myself that I've been keeping hidden for many years even from my own conscious self and I want to share my new found knowledge. I'm finding it very cathartic to be honest for a change and admit I am suffering with depression. The trouble is if I do say 'I have depression and am suffering with anxiety and panic attacks' I think that people will start treating me differently. I have seen and read from the experiences of other depression suffers that the minute anyone gets to the truth of such an illness that they react in often extraordinary ways and quite frequently side-line individuals or even dismiss them from their lives altogether.
This is clearly borne from fear is it not? Fear maybe of not knowing what to say to people suffering with mental illness, fear of it being something you could catch maybe!? Fear that anyone suffering from a mental illness could at any time turn violent and harm them? What is it that we are scared of when someone says they have a mental illness? Is it purely just an animalistic reaction? Animals eject those pack members that are unstable and unbalanced from their ranks don't they? The weak and unbalanced are hounded out of the group so that their weaknesses and instabilities do not endanger the packs survival. Lose one member as opposed to putting the majority in danger.  Is it then that our human reactions to mental illness are based around just such an instinct I wonder? Eject the perceived unstable and weak links?
In purely visual terms and painting a picture with words AND purely as an analogy I hasten to add... it would be like in a video game whereby the 'heroes' in this instance those not suffering with any mental illness chase down and eradicates the 'zombies' who in this analogy would be those of us suffering with a mental illness!!
I think this may be especially inherent in the  police service where we deal daily with so many calls relating to mental illness sufferers.  Perhaps the rank and file may feel that you, the sufferer, have crossed a moral boundary and become one of 'them' .. the afflicted! Almost as if you've committed some heinous crime like robbing an old lady and become a criminal. Instantly thereby loathed as a low life and thereby drawing an immediate desire to eject you from the group for having crossed a moral boundary?

But having just said all that, could that concept of instability and weakness not just be my depression talking? Are those of us suffering with mental illness not just as valuable members of society as the next person? We are strong people who have fought adversity and conquered life's battles. We have haven't we persisted in quests to weave our way through lives traumas where perhaps others would have fallen sooner?


Rhetoric aside...the fact remains I'm going back to work tomorrow!


As I walk through those gates and in to that building my heart will be pounding....but why? What is likely to happen? What motivates my fears? Maybe it is the thought of people seeing me and talking amongst themselves about me that bothers me so intensely? But why should other people's opinions mean so much to me? Or any of us for that matter? I think a lot of my stresses and strains come from being far too wrapped up in wondering what other people think of me. Why for instance do we draw comparisons of our own lives, looks and achievements with others? Why do I have to live my life according to the 'is that fair' rule ? If it weren't for my drawing a constant comparison of myself to others lives and then my asking the question 'is that fair?' I know my life would be so much simpler and less fraught! But I do ask myself and I can't seem to stop. Don't we all though? Someone wins the lottery...are they more deserving than us?.. 'is that fair?!' That rude person that joins the other check out queue after you and yet gets served before you...is that fair?! There is a never ending cycle of 'is that fair' going on in my head!


So tomorrow morning at 9am GMT as I climb those four flights of stairs to our offices knees trembling, heart pounding to re-join the rank and file spare a thought for me!! Spare a thought for me as I decide whether to say 'I'm fine thank you' or be more candid!


What I need to do is swallow a positive pill. The glass is half full not half empty like normal! The rain is such a gift to the crops not that it's blooming awful and made me completely soaked through!


Positivity would be the key if it weren't for the black dog of depression burying that damned key deep in a big black hole!


Spare me a thought tomorrow x

FIRST STAGE UPP MEETING - Reg 15 Police Regs 2012

So Monday the 27th October came and went.


I got up feeling fairly accepting of what the day was going to bring, that was until I read a tweet from my dear friend and it brought home that it was actually a meeting with some quite a serious implications for me. She talked of being with me in spirit and that everything would be okay. Then I started crying and for a while I was quite tearful on and off. I maintained 'my front' around my daughter however and tried to appear nonchalant and looking as if I was at ease with the world. A skill I am becoming used to.


I walked my dogs up and over the hill at the back of the house and it felt weird thinking I was going to a meeting whereby they would be deciding whether or not to start a ball rolling that could eventually sack me and why? ....Because I've been signed off sick by a medical practitioner for five and a half months.
One would think the half pay looming would be motivation enough, but no the Winsor review brought in these new regulations and procedures. I pondered as I walked about the first I had heard of it and them and it was after I had been off work for a month and my boss who had not been in touch at all decided to come and visit me at home. It turned out that he actually wanted to complete paperwork with me in regards of the Unsatisfactory Performance Procedures at that early stage. He sat in my lounge filling out paperwork in regards of my 'unsatisfactory performance'. There was one question that asked him as a line manager how could the officer improve their attendance and performance?! At the time I was incensed by the question and the whole process as it suggested to me I was being unsatisfactory 'naughty' by being off sick.


Then he put that away and went through all thirteen of my case files asking me where I was at with each job and what I had done. Like a progress review. But let's remember I had been off work a month by now, had been in hospital and feeling horrific with crashing headaches, aching body, crippling fatigue and so on. The pressure I felt was immense and I had to read back through my own logs and progress comments to even recall what each job was and where I was at with it.


I spoke to my boss once more between this one month stage and the service of further paperwork relating to the unsatisfactory performance procedures at the five months stage.




I got home from the dog walk and jumped in a bath wanting to get myself washed and dressed with plenty of time to spare. The meeting was at 1400 hours, I had to drop my daughter to a friend around 1315 hours and meet the federation at 1330 hours so I didn't want to be late or rushing which would panic me more especially with 'mini me' in tow! Then came the 'what to wear' dilemma. Business, casual or a mixture? I didn't want to look to obliging or together but on the flip side not too dishevelled or  rebellious! I stood staring at a flowery blouse for ages trying to decide if it was so jolly and frivolous for such a serious occasion. I couldn't decide and went downstairs where my daughter said I looked 'weird' which helped immensely as you can imagine! By now my nerves are frazzled and jangling and my next dilemma was whether or not to straighten my hair or not!? Naturally curly unruly hair or straight business like bob?! I decided on frazzled like the inside of my head! I also decided the only make up I would wear would be mascara and a small amount of lippy. Again not wanting to appear too 'with it' or ready for work! Overthinking things or what?!


I kept checking the clock it was now 1130 hours.... the clocks having just gone back 'mini me' then announces 'I'm hungry' grrrr and I try and concentrate hard enough to muster the motivation to go and make her some lunch! Then the federation representative started texting me and I got distracted by that! I decide against my 'financial' better judgement to order a pizza as I just could focus enough to fix food. So an order was placed and I start to feel tight chested again....


Then the fed rep asks me if he can ring me.....urghhh...... last thing I need right now I was thinking BUT he's doing an awesome job and I owe him big style so he rings ......


       MEETING CANCELLED   MEETING CANCELLED   MEETING CANCELLED!!!!
                            STAND DOWN   STAND DOWN   STAND DOWN!!!


Turns out that during our text conversation I had told him that I would be returning to work on the 5/11 as I just cannot manage on half pay. He had then gone and fought my corner with my line manager and HR quoting police regulations at them and generally hassling them big style about whose interests it would be in to hold the meeting or to put me onto Stage 1. Initially he said they were not having any of it but eventually they agreed and cancelled the meeting.  Never underestimate having federation support and if you aren't a member and you are 'job' get yourself some membership right now. Incredible advice and support when you need it most and in the current shoot them first ask questions later times and with all the tactics being used you never know when you'll be next in the firing line and in need of their help.


So there I was all dressed with nowhere to go and my daughter was sulking as she had to stay with me and not go to the child care!!! CHARMED I'M SURE!


As it was we went to the park and she crushed her foot on a stepper which has left her on crutches!! That's karma for you!!


Now I'm counting down the days until I go back to work :-( a week today.
A phased return a bit at a time.
I'm already looking forward to my leave at Christmas and hoping I get that far without doing something drastic like resign!


The day after the meeting was cancelled a colleague contacted me to ask me how I wanted my 'long service medal' awarded?!!
Ceremony or privately?
Talk about two contrasting days!

Soul Searching

Do people generally spend time psychoanalysing themselves or am I just a complete freak? Since writing my last post I have had to do a lot of soul searching.


I was awaiting figures you may recall for the half pay scenario to show me how bad things would be if I was still off work sick and the half pay kicked in as of 17/11. Well I'm not too good at maths but the general picture painted to me is that going onto half pay is a no no. Especially if your trouble is stress, anxiety and depression because there are so many variables, and variables' mean uncertainty and uncertainty means stress.  There's the unpredictability of an ESA claim from the DWP and whether or not you would be awarded the £72 a week for 13 weeks and there's also an immense chapter and verse type 52 page form, detailing your bust size to how many times a week you fart, to fill out in order to be assessed for it. There's also a claim to be made and paperwork to be completed for the police federation group insurance which would I'm told make up 25% of your gross salary. There's also the the fact you'd be even further removed from the work place and dealing with the stress of ever climbing back on the work train. In fact it was made perfectly clear to me that this was not a viable option and therefore the only way forwards is back to work.


The next hurdle is whether or not the force will still decide tomorrow to put me on stage one of the unsatisfactory performance procedures, and then to work out how/where and for how long I go back to work in the first instance. I've been told to consider what are my stress factors, to identify them so they can be considered and possibly circumnavigated.


Well people in general trigger my stress so let's clear them out the way first off!!... yes all of them!


In all seriousness every time I sit and consider this question seriously I start to panic and move away from the thoughts so I can calm down. I'm already feeling panicked and tight chested just thinking about going up to headquarters for this meeting tomorrow. I've been told not to speak during the meeting and let the fed rep do it all!! I hope I don't have a Tourette's style outburst! Sticking tape may be called for!


It's been suggested I work away from my normal station to start with...but I think that's counterproductive. But the advice is confused because in one breath it's you have to face coming back sometime but in the next breath it's work somewhere else. How is that facing things? It just postpones the inevitable and leaves me anxious about what's being said about me working elsewhere by my normal work colleagues' . Plus I'd have to explain to whomever I ended up working with why I'm there for a small amount of time. No back to normal it has to be and let's hope the elastic band in my head doesn't snap! So it's half term this week and my sick note expires on the 2/11. So I'll go back to my GP 3/11, get signed back with a prescriptive detailed 'fit' note and bite the bullet and go back to my normal office and face the music.


Easy to write, not so easy to do! What do I wear tomorrow? Business clothes? But then I'll look 'too' together. Make Up? Or go looking gaunt and manic! Or dirty jeans so I look as unkempt on the outside as I feel on the inside?! God knows...?  I can't even plan that in my head without feeling queasy and why is that? Let's face it all I have to do is drive there, sit in a meeting saying nothing and leave again! I guess it's being judged, being pitied, or maybe being despised and yes definitely being talked about when I'm not there. Just being a focal point isn't comfortable is it?


Something else that troubles me is just finding the motivation and energy to go back to work. Getting out of bed to walk dogs, to get my daughter ready for school. Getting her to school. Getting to work on time. Running around at work, running home. Collecting her from childcare. Making tea and feeding her. Doing her reading etc. walking the dogs again. My working days are endless and full of chores. Yet at the moment just finding the energy or the inclination to switch on the telly, or pick socks off the floor is challenging and difficult. How the hell am I going to get all that done again every day? I sit and stare in to space and time just ebbs by like water in a river.


I feel so lost. I feel so crumpled and inept. I feel like the piece of paper that's been screwed up as it's unwanted and useless. I feel like the bit that's been thrown at the bin yet missed the receptacle and landed lonely and spent on the floor somewhere nearby. The piece of paper that was almost useful once but then was abandoned and left in a crumpled heap on the floor.


I'll let you know how tomorrow goes!

Half Pay Dilemmas

So today is the 23rd October 2014....I will be on half pay from my part time role as a police sergeant as of the 17th November 2014 and quite possibly bankrupt shortly thereafter!!


Golly I have to joke a bit because just when I thought I was making some headway (no pun intended) the ground goes and shifts from under my feet again. I feel like f I didn't try and lighten my darkness a little I might just end up hiding under the duvet for the foreseeable future. I do feel like I'm on the edge of a cliff hanging on to my normality but only just and I really do feel only a very short distance away from disaster. My head space is so fragile and splintered.


I must look calm and normal though as nobody seems to know or guess. In fact people keep saying 'you look so well' and I just keep wishing that I felt just a fraction of that wellness in reality.


Do these things feelings happen to other people or just depression sufferers? It seems to me that I keep picking myself up off the floor like a proverbial skittle that's been knocked over and just as I regain my balance and think 'yes I can stand firm and not wobble' another blooming bowling ball hits me and BANG there I go again!


Yesterday I arranged a meeting with my police federation rep (union rep) to discuss the fact that as of the 2012 update to police regulations the force now view my long term absence through ill health purely through business eyes and ask themselves 'is she providing us value for money?' The answer clearly is no I am not in the eyes of HR. They then can consider implementing unsatisfactory performance procedures. Apparently there are three stages to this process and the ultimate sanction after stage three could be the force dispensing with my services. I am currently being considered for placement on stage 1. I have to attend a meeting with my line manager, a representative from HR and my federation rep next Monday the 27th October 2014 when the decision whether or not to place me on stage 1 will be decided.


So yesterday we were discussing this process and also the notice that I have had from my deputy chief constable placing me on half pay as of the 17th November 2014.


The fed rep is a genuinely nice guy with huge empathy and communication skills. He has come highly recommended as someone that will fight my corner tooth and nail and also someone that knows his stuff inside and out. I have been told to trust him implicitly and follow his lead. Looking at the federation in isolation for a minute the reps don't get a lot extra if anything for putting themselves out an amazing amount for others. They look after multiple officers who are generally going through utterly life changing crap situations. This is a huge commitment on top of their day jobs, often as front line officers and I for one am very thankful.   He said to me yesterday if you want to speak to me at three in the morning just text me and I think he genuinely meant it too.


So it took me somewhat aback when he said to me out of the blue yesterday 'I want you to go back to work' I was shocked to be honest but when he rationalised to me why he thought it was for the best I could see it made perfect sense. Sitting there in that room at headquarters it did seem to make perfect sense. He said he thought it would be best if I worked reduced hours a couple of times a week and at a different location to where I normally worked. Again perfectly logical. He asked me what I thought... I knew the idea of going onto half pay was terrifying me and the not knowing if I'd be able to pay the bills was an immense weight around my neck so it felt the only rational way forwards was to agree and I did agree if with a fairly large dose of trepidation running through my veins. But as I've said I've been told he's the best and to trust in him.


So I left and started the drive home. Well dear goodness I wasn't expecting the panic attack that ensued or the tears. I wasn't shocked that my head felt like it was going to explode as the splitting pain in my head has been a constant since May. But I was utterly surprised by the violent physical reaction to the thought of returning to work and to say it was overwhelming and hugely scary is an understatement. My chest tightened and my breathing became laboured, my eye sight blurred and I felt really dizzy. My joints all started aching very painfully and my right hand went numb again. I felt physically sick like I had eaten a chunk of food far too big to swallow and it was stuck at the base of my throat.


I had to go and pick my daughter and her friend up from school and it was all I could do to function and communicate with them but carry on I did.


Later after my daughters friend had gone home and I'd done the swimming lesson shuttles to and from the pool I had a text from my best friend asking me how things had gone with the fed rep. I replied that I'd been shocked that he had asked me to return to work, told her that I had agreed at the time but that I had since gone in to meltdown and been very tearful.


This whole reaction and chain of events is very worrying and has left me with the obvious question... 'if this is how the mere suggestion has rendered me, how will the actuality play out?'


I will draw an analogy here....an Olympic athlete breaks his leg just before the main race. His coach says never mind you can still compete. Yes he could but he'd fall flat on his face, he certainly wouldn't win and he'd feel pretty humiliated wouldn't he? That's how I think going back to work is likely to play out for me. I'll fall on my face (not literally although I'd never rule it out completely) , make a prat of myself (some would say inevitable) and I wouldn't win the day and be a healthy rounded person.

BUT and it's a blooming BIG BUT

I am a single parent with bills and commitments how can I not go back to work? So now I've started thinking perhaps I could ask the GP for some form of drug that would quell the panic attacks? A sedation type pill that would just get me through? Or once I got there would I actually cope okay and it's just the fear of it provoking the panic? But we must also remember that I'm only two weeks in to anti-depressant pills and they make take longer to have a positive affect mightn't they?


So when I woke up this morning I decided I needed to know the figures. Exactly what was the difference from where I'm at now to where I'd be on half pay?


Because the half pay would get topped up with a federation group insurance payment plus I'd be able to claim ESA from the DWP apparently. So I've asked for the figures to be worked out if at all possible because just scaremongering and telling me I'd be worse off isn't helpful. Plus I've asked if I can suspend my pension contributions temporarily or whether that's a one off decision. In or out so to speak. Once I can see this amount versus the other amount I'm hoping I'll know better whether it's a necessary evil just to survive.


So as of now I await those figures. Then I'll go and see my GP .... and then I have a pretty vast decision to make.....


make or break literally!


I'll let you know x

Nature or nurture?

As I was lying in bed this morning hoping the world would stay asleep all day so that I could too, my brain started ambling around certain notions....
Depression? Is it something you're born with or is it something that is nurtured along depending on what comes your way? Or is it a little of both?
Depression is an illness, and some illnesses are genetic and therefore passed from generation to generation aren't they? But then that said I know personally that I have ups and downs dependant on life and what it's throwing at me so it must be a bit of both surely? My mind then set itself to pondering when I 'caught' my depression?!
I ambled casually through my memories trying to recall a time when I was content and well... not suffering from anxiety. Now that was tough! I've always been a miserable cow! A glass half empty type of character.
I think the period of time when I first joined the police back in 1989 was probably one of the best in my life. I was achieving something, I felt worthwhile and I had friends. Well friends...my squad became my family. I was posted to a rural backwater and onto a squad of men. Mostly older men. I was 20 years old, a slim and very young girl. Utterly naïve.. but I seemed to have the confidence to find my way through training college and my probation. When I reflect back now I wonder how I managed it? I don't think I could do it now. There were women who were the age I am now who joined with me, who left children at home whilst they were at training college and I look at my life now and I just wouldn't have the drive, the motivation or even the psychological or physical strength to even contemplate it.
I'm not saying it wasn't difficult even at 20 years old. I met my first male chauvinist pigs and I started to cultivate a life long chip on my shoulder about being a female in a male dominated world. Now I need to qualify that comment. It's an odd thing to try and explain. The squad banter, being called a 'strumpet whore' ...the commandant at training college who always called me 'missy' ...in fact I remember on one parade during an inspection he said to me 'missy, will you ever be a real police woman or are you always going to be the course mascot'  All these derogatory comments weren't necessarily an issue. Male or female officers were hounded with insulting banter. It was a sign you were popular and accepted. I didn't mind the banter. I think the chip is more about how hard I had to work just to be accepted as opposed to male colleagues, how I considered and perceived my own lack of physical strength let me down and caused the older male officers to look upon me as a weak link. That wasn't fair in my mind because I couldn't change it. My squad sergeant who touched me up and the fact I did not feel able to say a word about it or against it as he was partly responsible for assessing my probationary period. I also know I'd be shunned if I had spoken out. Things were different back then....but were they? If I'd said anything back then I would have been openly treated with contempt by my squad and other officers. I think you are now encouraged to blow the whistle on wrong doing, however the contempt has just been driven underground. It's still there. The old boys network, protect our backs at all costs mentality still exists without a shadow of a doubt.


But I digress, I was happy and accepted and I was achieving and doing well. I think then perhaps the first time I had my first experience of anxiety and depression was 1993 when I was posted out of the blue from my lovely rural backwater to a major conurbation. I had been lucky enough as a single officer to have a police house to live in and had two dogs by then. I had taken immense pleasure from walking hour upon hour around the beautiful countryside with my pooches. Even then though I never had a social life.  The move meant I was to lose my home and lifestyle. I would have to find myself somewhere to live in a new built up area. Back in those days any property you wanted to live in had to be approved by your supervision and the local command team. I found the wrench from rural to urban horrific to contemplate, I found the task of finding an acceptable property in the sprawling metropolis quite daunting and I found the prospect of 'losing' my squad quite appalling. This was where I first felt the angst. I also had a relationship end very painfully at the same time and all in all this transitional period was quite a low time for me.


What actually happened in the end was that a lovely Chief Superintendent who has sadly since passed away called me to his office and asked me about the impending move. He took pity upon my plight, probably seeing how stressed I was. He arranged there and then for a further police house to be allocated to me. Which was a major coup d'état as on the dark 'urban' side of the county they were only supposed to be allocated to married couples!! I often wonder what would have happened had he not eased my way with such kindness. If you didn't serve back then it may sound odd for me to be so grateful for such a relatively small act of kindness. Trust me back then for a Chief Super to have even spoken one on one with me was like getting an audience with the pope! For a Chief Super to put himself out to do something unnecessary and yet so kind for a lowly WPC was nothing short of astounding. Put it this way 25 years later and I'm still grateful and amazed he did it. What a guy. RIP x


Actually I think I'll leave writing about my next 'job' phase ...the urban jungle... to the next time I post x Adieu x