Slow progress, Sabian and Splod

Well, It's beginning to feel like the storm may be ending. I'm feeling a bit more like myself and I have a new dose of herbal tinctures on their way to promote robust health, vim and vigour (ha, bloody ha).

The scabby chicken is growing back her feathers and the dog, who nearly popped his clogs earlier in the week, is sitting up and taking notice of a lightly boiled egg thanks to medical intervention and over £300 of veterinary fees. The Credit Card company are still bastards and I'm still very muddly but shall never make the petrol/diesel mistake again (hopefully) now that I have taped a huge yellow sticker inside the fuel cap which says (DIESEL NUMPTY !) in big black letters. The insurance company are also still bastards and trying and trying to get me to see some other trick-cyclist but I am not being persuaded to don any trick-cycling-clips for the time being so they can go and rot until I have prepared another diversionary tactic.

NOW, dear Reader, despite the upties and downties of the past few weeks your very own Cusp hath not been idle for I have been busy with needle and thread and sock and crafting more Sockee Monkee. One of them was before Xmas and commissioned by a glamorous young woman in the most select environs of the Scottish capital.

This Sockee monkee is an alien monkee who has beamed down from another sphere. His name is Splod and he comes in peace and is in need of succour and shelter until he can return whence he came.

As he has found a home with two delightful children near Scotland he shall no doubt be introducing his fellow aliens to haggis and a wee dram in the future (it'll be a long, long, long time in Earth years since one Splod year equals one Earth century so the dear children will have him to stay for as long as they want....or longer if Splod likes them: you do all know that Sockee Monkee never know when to leave or shut up, don't you? Honestly, you could put on your 'jamas, switch off all the lights and be half way up the stairs to bed before some Sockee Monkee would even notice you were gone, as they natterchattered away)

More recently another child who lives mid way between here and there was heard to cry

'...and what about me.....Where's my Sockee Monkee ?'

and so, after the Festivities, out I went straightway, hotfoot back into the shed to create another little Sockee chum to join the throng.

His name is Sabian and he's a Skater Dude

--'grind those rails, bro....'

In truth he's a little wayward but basically he's a good kid and needs someone to show him the right way. I knew just the fellow and his Mum. They are very, very nice people and know how to make very nice jam so I feel quite sure that Sabian's new housemates will provide the sort of stability and conserves that he needs and that they'll all complement each other wonderfully.

If you meet these good people, please don't tell them about Sabian's midnight forays into the fruit bowl, will you? When he was here we came down one morning to find banana skins all over the kitchen floor and wheelie marks on the lino. I had to make him promsie he'd never do that again before I sent him off to his new home.

(If there are any spelling misatkes here please forgive me. My brain is still Numpty and Bloggers spellchecker will not work ~~~ that's my excuse anyway ;-))

David, Goliath, the bastards and the saviours

Dear NMJ has alerted her readers to a very interesting post by Caroline at INSEARCHOFADAM about bullying.

In all honesty, life at the moment is a real curate's egg --- good in parts. On the one hand I have the children who are all excited about Christmas and the joy of buying their presents and anticipating their faces in a few days time when they open them. I have the luck that two people have ordered sock monkeys which I enjoy making when I have the energy and I feel blessed and rather honoured to think that people who have seen my strange creations on this blog should want to own one for themselves. It's busy as ever at Christmas but it's all good.

On the other hand there is a lot going on in my head about 'the illness' --- the bloody illness from which you can never escape.

Now, at the moment, the way I feel generally is not terrible...it's just my usual state with the odd bit of nausea, headache, tiredness etc. thrown in: the gay abandon and pick 'n mix, selection box symptoms in the day of a life of PWME....but..... what's really getting to me is this bloody insurance business and the constant nagging pressure of being coerced into seeing a psychiatrist when I don't want to, don't agree with all the nonsense that the Insurance people spew out about my need to see him and all the phone calls, emails and letters that go into fighting Goliath. It's there all the time and it's beginning to drain me.

Reading Caroline's post last night signalled to me what this nagging feeling is all about and why it drains me so much: I feel I'm being bullied. I am being bullied. And though it's something I rarely talk about

because I'm 51,

because I have responsibilities,

because I have better things to do,

better things to think and talk about,

because it's in the past,

because I should be OVER IT BY NOW

is that I spent the whole of my secondary education being bullied and the feeling has never really gone away.

I can identify with everything Caroline says about the echoes of the past always ringing in your ears somewhere. There is always a part of me that is on the alert, waiting to be ambushed, waiting to be abused, denigrated, humiliated. I never really think what I've done is good enough, never really believe the good things will last. I do now feel I deserve the good things when they come ---- and it took me years to come round to that, but I still don't trust them just as I have taken years to trust people in RL.

Caroline is pleased she has achieved the goals she reached out for so as to prove her bullies wrong. NMJ, who was not bullied but who witnessed her kid brother being bullied, would like to form a Society for Kicking in the Heads of Bullies.

Me, I'm past wanting to kick in their heads. It's all too long ago. Part of me has given up the fight and just wishes it had all never happened, wish I could still talk to the other person who was bullied with me....the only person who really knew what it was all about. But that's too late too: that person was dead of a heart attack at 39, three weeks before our 40th birthdays --we were born one day apart.

The insurance fiasco is just another reminder of my past; the past I am always trying to escape but never will. I wonder if those bullies have any idea or any memory now of what they did. Do they realise how much their taunts still linger? When I see one of them on TV telling me about whether it will rain tomorrow or the sun will shine does he imagine me watching him and feeling a glimmer of hatred as the old film projects it's frames onto the back of my retina and I feel the fear and anger all over again. Bet not.

*******************************************

And then, on the other hand, there is light in this darkness ----- for who should come forth with a candle, bidding it to shine with a pure clear light but my blogging chum Kahless who awards me with a Best Blogging Buddies Award.

Couldn't have come at a better time, my dear. Thank you once again. Gives me real faith that there is still kindness in the world and strength to carry on fighting

David & Goliath

Not many posts of late. Too much going on. On the one hand I'm still being hassled by the Insurance company about my claim. They still insist I see a psychiatrist ---as is usually the case when they want to try and prove that someone with M.E. has mental health problems such as depression so that they can then say the condition is treatable and so it is possible to eventually return to work. I know I'm not depressed (though there's no shame in being so) and my Consultant has said I'm not. Even so the insurance company want to play this game of Cat & Mouse their way in order to win. Ill or not I'm a fighter and even though it's really beginning to get me down I'll not give in without a fight.

On a more positive note, I have had 3 orders to Sockeemunkee for Xmas presents (one is from that eminent 'Vedette Blogeuse' and renowned author NMJ) so at least I have something positive and jolly to bolster me up in the dark winter days and the pressure of being a little David in the face of Goliath.

Apologies

O.K. so now you all think I'm nuts because I keep posting up these YouTube videos of the most bizarre acts I can find from the 1960s. I can't help it. I love that sort of thing and always have....maybe I shouldn't impose my strange tastes on other people ?

Changing the subject I am perplexed by a dilemna.

How does someone with a chronic health condition attempt to move on when progress is impeded by bureaucracy and the need for profit over welfare ? (There, told you it was a change of subject)

The matter in hand: last week I saw a job advertisement for a vacancy as a display assistant in a local High School. Having nearly fallen off my bed to think the County now pays people solely to put up displays, I thought....

'I could do that'
'It's only 6 hours a week'
'I might be able to manage that'
'I should at least try'
'I might begin to be perceived as a real person out on the world'
'There could be face to face contact with adults other than my partner and a few Mums at the school gates.'

I sent off for the application form and job description. Upon receiving it I nearly faltered at the first hurdle: one of the listed requirements for the job was

'Must be able to maintain and use staple gun'. (I kid you not)

After 5 years at Art School I wasn't sure about this but I screwed up my courage and thought 'No, I may be just a chronically fatigued numpty to some people but I know inside me there's a real professional staple gunner just dying to get out.'

So dear reader, I applied myself to the application in hand. This was a daunting task for a job of only 6 hours a week for, being a County Council post, I was required to set down my entire personal, education and employment history with two references and a police check if I was successful.

After over an hour of form filling I was 'done in' --as is the common parlance hereabouts.
I thought, do I really want all this hassle? But, I decided to climb that mountain and forge that stream.

Having completed said form I began to worry, as is my way, and I thought I'd better just double check this job will not affect my benefits.
No. It was OK.
Then I thought ' ..but what about the nice people at the Insurance and Pension companies who have agreed to waive my premiums because I am/have been/ can be so poorly and who regularly hassle me with long forms asking me, my GP and the hospital consultant the same questions about whether I'm better and whether I can/when I shall return to work ---and pay my own bloody premiums?'

There is the rub, dear reader. I thought I cannot ask the companies themselves about a maybe, possible toe-in-the water attempt at being a 'real person' again for 6 hours a week, for they will be suspicious. They have been known to employ covert beady-eyedness.
No, I shall ask my financial/insurance-y chum who knowsaboutthesethings.

He said he did know .....and any sign that I was perhaps and maybe able to do any voluntary work or limited paid work would be seen as the perfect excuse to make me pay my own bloody premiums (at this point nearly £100 per month) so I was best to screw up the job application and forget the whole thing unless I wanted to put our family budget in jeopardy.

So beware my PWME (or other chronic health conditiony) chums. In the eyes of insurance companies etc. you are apparently ill or well, black or white, working or not working and there are no areas of grey

I shall go back to being a numpty who feeds chickens, makes sock monkeys and seeks out obscure 1969s German girl groups who look like Dick Emery in drag. To be honest I wa snever sur ein the first place. Despite judicious pacing, Reiki, herbs, vitamins, prayers to all the Saints and a few daily blasphemies, my energy is still not 'tip top' or 'band box' and all activities must be approached with great care, cunning and forward planning, BUT I was prepared to try and give it a go.

N.B. For years I did pay own premiums because my ex-employer was too stingy to provide a pension. I also forked out for critical illness cover so it's not like I feel I'm sponging off said companies --- just getting what's due, ---- but I would like the opportunity to try to be in the world again without the risk of messing everything up --- health and budget