Anxiety?, Hello Citalopram

Since my last couple of posts the anxiety and feeling depressed which I was feeling all started to get a bit too much, coping mechanisms went out of the window, not that I had any to start off with, allegedly I am supposed to have all these coping mechanisms to deal with these things but I can't remember what they are.

I took time off voluntary work as I felt drained and I felt like I was being overloaded with everything going on in my life. I underestimate the severity of my injury I have and I often think I can do more than I am capable of. I try to think that I am going to get back to some sort of level of where I used to be before my injury but I now have resided myself to the fact that its never going to happen which is frustrating.

I actually felt like on a few days why do I bother with voluntary work and I didn't want to go back but at least while I am doing that I am building up some sort of work history which might count for something one day and it gets me out of the house.

The problem is I do not know who is impartial that you can talk to about benefits/work. Half the time I don't know whether I am coming or going or who I can trust to advise me in my best interests. I don't trust jobcentreplus or the DEA after my previous experiences with him and I certainly don't want to go on the inflexible new deal or the pathways to nowhere. I just keep going back to my voluntary work. I suppose it will all come to a crunch when I get another IB50 and see what happens then.

Getting back to the plot I went to my new GP the other day which was fantastic, at the old doctors surgery you had to ring them between 8.00am and 8.30am, by the time you have got through after keeping you finger on the redial button, get through the multiple choice options and got through to speak to someone to find out all the appointments had gone for today so you have try again tomorrow. BT must making a small fortune here with all the people trying to phone at the same time. If you do get through and speak to someone on the phone you were subjected to a gestapo style interrogation. Is it an emergency and do you need to see the doctor today?, if it was an emergency I wouldn't be phoning here would I?. I would be phoning for an ambulance.

All I wanted to do was make an appointment to see the GP about my anxiety and some head injury related problems like not enough seratonin being pumped round my brain. Not really an emergency but necessary so it doesn't really fit into either category. Making the phone call to attempt to make an appointment was becoming so difficult I just kept putting it off all the time. If you walked into the surgery and asked at the reception they could not make you an appointment as they tell you to phone up in the morning.

There was the option of pre-booked appointments of course if you are on first name terms with the receptionist and you are not one of these difficult people who do not do what they are told. Hold it folks I thought this was a doctors surgery where you made appointments to see the GP not turn people away to phone up again every morning, got better chance of winning the lottery than getting an appointment.

So I wrote a complaint to the surgery and they generally fobbed me off, wrote a complaint to the primary care trust who were quite helpful but could not really do anything to improve the situation at the surgery. So decided to register somewhere else, the surgery couldn't give me the forms to register elsewhere quick enough after I told them I wanted to go somewhere where I could get a better standard of service. I am entitled to vote with my feet and go somewhere else.

I am now registered at new surgery and they are really helpful, saw the nurse who went over all my history and got an appointment within 4 days to see a new GP, now taking a drug called Citalopram to help the anxiety/depression and got an appointment to see the counciler in a month to help with my negative thinking, probably CBT or probably something similar I have done before.

Ta Ta

Brain-blogger

Strategy proving to be the right pathway to JSA

Hello,

Have a quick read through this link

Shouldn't the first line of the article read:

Officials at the Department of the Work and Pensions can celebrate initial success in their attempt to get youngsters off incapacity benefits and onto Jobseekers Allowance with very little chance of progressing into employment.

I wouldn't really call getting people off IB and onto JSA and not actually into any employment a need for a celebration, would you?. Where's the party then?. It would have been better to back it up with actual figures of people who have get into employment.

It seems to me that the DWP want to get as many people off IB and onto JSA regardless of what effect it has on the claimants lives and what little chance claimants have of getting into employment.

Brainblogger

Domino's Dilemma

Back again

I am one of these type of people that if I think something is wrong then I speak my mind or until I am proved otherwise.

Our children had been playing up and my wife looked too exhausted to start cooking dinner so I thought I will give her the day off so I ordered a couple of domino's pizzas to be delivered. I used there website which I have done previously, ordered the pizzas, went through to the checkout, paid using a visa debit card and using my verification number, got through to the verified by visa system and entered the letters from my password [which is in my head]. Everything went through ok and sat down expecting a knock on the door very soon.

A knock on the door 30 minutes later, Dominos delivery man arrives and he says I have 2 pizza's for you, can you sign this slip of paper? he then says "can I see the card you placed the order with please?" ok so I go upstairs to the pc, get my wallet go back downstairs and show him my card, at which point he tries to take the card out of my hand and tries to turn it over to look at my signature and also where my 3 number verification number is. At this juncture I felt quite suspicious as I have paid for the pizzas using 2 systems and why should I show the back of my card to someone I don't know. I said to the driver there's the card I ordered it with but I am not showing you the reverse of my card as that info is for me to look at. Delivery man disappears.

I sat down eating my pizza which I was sort of not really enjoying as I was bothered about what had just happened at the front door. I thought I will ring up the local domino's where I ordered it from and ask why is the guy was asking to look at the back of my card.

I spoke to the manager and asked why is your driver asking to look at back of my card as I have paid using a system put in place to replace the chip and pin machine and used verified by visa. I said I objected to this as my bank tells me to keep my card details to myself. The first thing he said was well you are the first person to raise this [woo! do I get a prize or something?].

The manager said due to there being about 6 fraudulent transactions a month where people cancel the transaction or cancel the card that it is now dominos policy to ask to compare the signature you signed the slip of paper with the signature on the back of the card. its funny because there's nowhere on the dominos website that says this. I said to the manager that I have used the verified by visa system and it went through ok, neither was my card reported stolen.

So sorting of going round in circles getting nowhere the manager then said they get the driver to check the cards because if there is a fraudulent transaction then the cost of the pizzas delivered comes out of the delivery drivers wages and how would I like it, nothing like giving me a guilt trip.

The manager then said he was having a busy day and he did not want to discuss it any more so that was the end of that conversation.

Why has the cost of the fraudulent transaction got to be deducted from drivers wages? Its not his fault, he's just the guy who's employed to deliver it. Is this type of practise fair?. If dominos want to offer an online delivery service then they have to take the risks that go with it. Why are they shifting the responsibilty to the delivery driver to check the customers card when 2 systems are already in place? Should they be doing this?

I emailed the head office to complain about this but they have not replied or even acknowledged it.

I have also queried it with my bank as to whether I am at liberty to show my card to a delivery driver [who I don't know if he has a photographic memory] when I have ordered something online, not that I have had a reply from them either. I order all sorts of things online and nobody else when they have delivered it have asked to look at my card. Is this going to be the future?

Would you like to show your bank card and its reverse to someone you don't know?.

seeya

brainblogger

State of the Nation

How do?

Two brown envelopes in a week I can't take it anymore!. I did not realise IB was paying so much these days [I was saying that with a large hint of sarcasm].

How I wish I could to put the food and the other half of the rent on the expenses. As for the horse manure, us lesser mortals just have to go to B&Q and pay for it out of our own pocket not that I have a garden big enough to need horse manure. HTF is horse manure got to do with expenses related to your job?. They must think us lesser mortals are a bit wet behind the ears or something.

Can they claim all this money back that has been overpaid like they do with tax credits or council tax benefit and send them a unpaid reminder always sent after the deadline quickly followed by a summons?. Here's a good site about Tax Credit casualties

After reading this on this website, the reality of it is it is difficult for anyone to get a job let alone people with disabilities trying to get a job as well.

If James Purnell wants all these people on IB to stop scrounging, get off there backsides from in front of the tv watching Homes Under the Hammer and The Jeremy Kyle Show [I haven't mentioned that for a while, I think that idea's running a bit thin now, perhaps it will have to be Cash In The Attic in future] and get a job here's what James Purnell's idea for our futures may be for all the jobs that may need to be created to keep us all work-focused.

I also read yesterday that James wants all IB claimants means-tested to make sure there are getting the correct benefit. Is that correct benefit JSA do you mean James?.

Currently IB is not means-tested. Is that going to be changed to try and get more people off IB and be forced onto JSA?. I have already experienced before being on JSA and only getting a NI credit and having to live off my savings. I don't think my savings at 0.5% interest is going to go very far. More worrying times ahead. As if I don't feel bad enough as it is!.

see ya

Brainblogger

16 Hours

How do?

Thank you Mary for your very understanding comments on one of my earlier posts.

In the past I have wanted to try the 'Permitted Work' scheme, this is the replacement of the therapeutic work scheme where you could try and go to see how you got on in the workplace and you could earn about £80 or something like that. When I was doing that it was fine and I actually built myself up quite well and the MD of the firm wanted me to work part-time which I did for 18 months until the office manager put paid to that by taking my jobs away.

Permitted work came along and was restricted to 16 hours a week but then you could only do it for a year. How are you supposed to gauge whether you can work in only a year or in 16 hours a week?. In the life of a head injured person a year goes quickly as in my case.

Also why 16 hours that's about 3 hours a day and a bit more in a working week. That's about enough time to get there do a few bits and go home again. If you came in at 9.00am you had to go at 12.00 and it did not give you the chance to test yourself and try and break into the afternoon.

Does it mean if you can do more than 16 hours you are magically fit for work, I don't think so. In the case of head injuries you have to build up resistance to fatigue and let my brain get used to being active. Why not 20 hours as that would be more sensible?.

After a year you do the permitted work the employer is supposed to take you on, but if it doesn't work out after a year, you can't do it again until a year later or as I was led to believe. What's the point of that?. Would it not be sensible if you could go somewhere else and try and do something different?

After something as traumatic as a head injury which can often take years to get to a reasonable stage of recovery how does the permitted work help me, well it doesn't. Due to this it lead down the road of voluntary work.

So here you go another jobcentre scheme that is supposed to help you get back to work but doesn't actually help because it is so restrictive. As I have said before with the jobcentre and there schemes it always seems to be all or nothing!.

see ya

Brainblogger

Fr..fr...fr...frustration!

How do again?

I wrote my last entry on my blog because of the way I feel. Having a head injury is so frustrating, In the High Hopes video it reflects how I feel about before my accident and after, its how before how I had a nice job, money, friends etc, it is reflected in these lines:

The grass was greener
The light was brighter
With friends surrounded
The night of wonder

Then my life was turned upside down. "Running before time took our dreams away"

I have always wanted to be somebody but it always seems to be beyond my reach and I never seemed to be in control.

Looking beyond the embers of bridges glowing behind us
To a glimpse of how green it was on the other side
Steps taken forwards but sleepwalking back again
Dragged by the force of some inner tide

So now after my accident I been through all the supposed rehabilitation what the case manager wanted, did the therapeutic work, tried to work part time while wrapped up in cotton wool, did voluntary work to do something towards the community, did what the DEA wanted and went to the work rehabilitation centre for 8 months, then throw in negative thinking, depression, anxiety, my Father dying, IB50's, medicals, welfare reform.

So as I nearer 40 and I think to myself what do I have to show for all the effort I have put in and been on these schemes that are supposed to help me get a job? Is it no wonder why I do not trust the DEA or pathways to work or anything the government say?. I often feel like that I was exploited by the jobcentre.

I read somewhere that at a work focused interview you have to tell them your aspirations for work/career, you having a laugh ain't you?. I thought that I had been telling the DEA and all these other people that I wanted to get back into work. I just feel like every ounce of energy has just been drained out of me and so often I just want to give up. Too many times I have tried to go forwards just to go twice as far backwards again. Welfare reform its just like moving the goalposts a bit further away and forcing you down another path.

Has anybody ever thought that looking after your health takes priority?. Why has everything got to revolve round work? Am I supposed to think that getting a job is suddenly going to make everything better again?.

This is a very good youtube video from the US about living with a brain injury.

seeya

Brainblogger