Vague and slow

I’m referring to my experience of the social care system, although I’ve also felt a bit vague and slow myself today … such can be spoonie life!

So, yes, I was referred to the social work service in my area in April 2016. A little over a year later (yes, despite the referral being marked ‘urgent’ it really did take that long – we would all lose the will to live if I were to detail all the intervening shenanigans) I met my newly allocated social worker who was to undertake an assessment to determine my eligibility for social care support. This involved taking a detailed life history (not inconsiderable given that I’m in my late forties) and details of the circumstances surrounding my need for support.

The assessment was undertaken in two appointments at my home of around 80 minutes each, 11 and 10 weeks ago respectively. My social worker also explained that she would be my ‘key-worker’, but despite being asked was unclear about the actual remit of her role. Generally it’s a role of co-ordination, in this case it seems that her responsiblility was to make an application for social care to my local authority on my behalf, which includes her assessment report and recommendations. The latter being that she believed I should be granted funds for a support worker/personal assistant/assisted living worker (they seem to have all manner of titles essentially meaning the same thing) for four hours per week, two hours twice weekly. This time would be utilised in two ways, split roughly 50/50 between domestic help – cleaning, cooking, shopping and other household chores – and social/emotional support – eg. company on a regular walks, support to go swimming or do other forms of exercise, help getting out and about where necessary, someone with whom I can talk.

The social worker went away to prepare and submit her report which she said would take around four weeks. In the meantime I was to decide how I would like my support to be provided, assuming funding were to be approved. I had to decide ahead of approval to make the process go more smoothly. This proved difficult as her explanation of the seemingly multitudinous options was less than comprehensive to say the least and I was left baffled. After some research on my part and a further brief meeting with my social worker, I made what I hoped was the right decision based on the information I had, although there were still gaps in my knowledge that I hadn’t been able to fill.

My social worker hasn’t had any other involvement with me and she left work yesterday to begin a period of maternity leave. She’d said she hoped to get everything wrapped up and my support in place before she left, but that wasn’t to be – an email yesterday evening told me that my third choice of provider could support me BUT has a lengthy waiting list. My second choice provider think that they will be able to support but have been unable to give a definite answer so far. At some point I’d already been told that my first choice had a waiting list of months … and months … and months.

If she could get support in place before she left her role, my social worker had said that I I would not then be allocated a replacement social worker – but that there would be a general social work number that I could call should there be any issues with my support that I couldn’t sort out myself. However, if support could not be put in place in time then, she said, my case would be allocated to another social worker.

Her last update came at 6pm on her last date of work. She had emailed in the morning to say that she’d definitely be in touch before the close of play and promised not to leave me in the lurch. She was unable to tell me who would take over my case, she said she didn’t know. I’m envisaging a department of overworked social workers with vast caseloads and a sense of not knowing where to put me. She did give me her manager’s details, ‘in case I wanted to chase it up.’

In my mind, I’d nicknamed my social worker ‘Stepford Wife’, perhaps unfairly, I do not know her well. She’s always appeared to be very smiley on the surface but it’s like there’s nothing behind the smile, she felt very disconnected. She’s young and had been in this particular role for around a year. Whether the stress of the job led to that ‘disconnection’ or that is just her way, I don’t know, but it meant that I never had full confidence in her nor did I ever feel entirely comfortable dealing with her. Still, I had to trust and hope that she would do the best job that she could for me.

I’m well aware that social care has been subject to significant budget cuts, something which I strongly oppose. There’s no doubt in my mind that people in need of services are suffering as a result. But it can be difficult to tell sometimes whether delays, poor communication and other issues are a result of the impact of budget cuts or down to the shortcomings of staff themselves.

I’m going to give it a week and then all being well will email the manager to try to get a further update.

Following the assessment, I have capitalised on the hope that support would ultimately be forthcoming, together with the hope I took from my friend’s unexpected visit seven weeks ago. I’ve used both to keep myself going. More on that in the next post.

Thanks for reading. Comments, shares, tweets all welcome as ever.

Heart x

 

 

 

 

Boarding the Social Care Merry-go-round

Hello again 🙂 !

Please note that I wrote this post several weeks ago following a social care assessment by a social worker that had taken more than a year to come about following an urgent referral. Lots has happened, and changed, since then as more recent posts evidence, but I wanted to post this to update this part of the story and so that I can next post a more brief update on the social care front.

This is an intense post … very raw …

*** TRIGGER WARNING – this post contains mention of suicidal ideation and brief description of planned method – but with an optimistic outcome, I promise. It also contains a sweary moment.***

I’m afraid to get too excited. I’m scared to hope until it’s all been verified and approved. And yet somewhere inside me it’s bubbling away, small but unbridled, fizzy excitement.

It’s keeping me on top of a precipice, by keeping hope alive.

Since my collapse in mid February, it’s been quite the job to stay alive … too many times I’ve almost tumbled over the edge.

****

Having experienced significant trauma and having been abused for many years, I’ve experienced suicidal feelings on and off since my late teens – that’s almost three decades – due in part to mental illness caused by the trauma and abuse. They call that being ‘passively suicidal’, which sounds rather like there’s some relaxed, chilled vibes going on. In actual fact, feeling suicidal, regardless of whether you’ve reached the ‘actively suicidal’ stage of making and seeking to execute suicide plans, can be HORRIFIC.

Sometimes suicidal despair is less about mental illness and more a human, albeit extreme, reaction to devastating circumstances. It’s often a desire to end the most terrible pain, and to end life appears the only way to do that.

I’ve been actively suicidal around four times in all those years. I’ve made only one actual attempt to end my life (a survived attempt is known as a parasuicide) and that was a little over a decade ago. At that time I was very mentally unwell and poorly supported as I tried to come to terms with the recent realisation that the family members to whom I was devoted, hadn’t loved me at all and had sought only to harm me. Furthermore, that estrangement from them – what remained of my family – was the only way forward.

Since then I’ve become far less mentally unwell on account of a lot of psychotherapy and a lot of hard work. I’m lucky that’s worked for me, it’s not the same for everyone. Mental illness can be as individual and as complex as those who experience it. I’ve also become extremely well practised at keeping myself safe even in extreme circumstances. I know that if I can’t keep myself safe, that that’s an emergency situation. The difficulty comes when the system does not have the resources to provide appropriate support.

In July last year I set up a noose in my flat, carefully balanced I tested it to ensure that it was fit for purpose. As, during this test, I settled it around my neck, the phone rang suddenly – loud and shrill. I started and almost fell off the object on which I stood, and which ultimately I was planning to kick away … It’s not funny, it’s really not, but still I find myself laughing now. You could not make it up.

I could just have gone with it but instead I fought to right myself and hurried to the phone. My phone rarely rings. I answered to hear the voice of someone who has rarely called and never without being asked to do so. I do not believe in divine intervention but the interruption gave me sufficient pause. The ‘spark’, as I think of it, inside me that’s kept me alive through everything yelled … Do not fucking extinguish me. I am not done yet. It’s pretty difficult to ignore ol’ ‘Sparky’.

That said, in spite of the urge to fight on, I knew that I was under a great deal of pressure in very difficult circumstances. I knew that I was losing the capacity to keep fighting by myself. I knew to ask for help and I did, but it didn’t come. I had my first ever direct experience then of a mental health assessment – carried out in the large and somewhat forbidding psychiatric hospital in the city where I live. I was found to be ‘too well’ for inpatient care (much to my relief, I admit) but also for the support of the community based Intensive Home Treatment Team or ‘crisis team’. I was told that there was nothing else. The assessing doctor did suggest that I try volunteering as a means to ‘occupy myself’. The irony that I’d spent the previous four years volunteering, first for two years in that very hospital, setting up and running a not inconsiderable project by myself supporting ex and current patients, and a further two years working with a mental health charity, was not lost on me. I didn’t need to be occupied, I was more than capable of doing that for myself, sometimes to excess in a bid to keep myself going. I needed some practical and emotional support, for I had none.

***

In recent years, a complex set of circumstances including marriage breakdown and later divorce, two major bereavements, unexpected severe financial difficulty leaving me unable to afford to heat my home and dependent on food bank for three months and in fear of losing the roof over my head, had threatened my mental health again.

Added to that, was the fact that I was driving myself into the ground by working my socks off to get myself through all of this and onto a better future. I drove myself to breaking point. Support did materialise for six months, in the shape of my GP, a housing support officer and a friend. I made huge strides and began to thrive. Then my GP relocated, in the same month my housing support worker was withdraw overnight … the service is limited due to budget constraints.

By this time, a little over a year ago, I’d begun experiencing flashbacks to abuse of which I’d previously had no memory. I experienced intense anxiety that I hadn’t felt in years, and I also began to realise that dissociation had likely long been some part of my experience. The friend who been supportive, began to back off at this point, seemingly unwillingly to believe in flashbacks and dissociation, because they were outwith her own experience.

It seems as though having finally got out of my marriage, which wasn’t healthy, having some support in place and space to be myself, something unlocked in my mind. I already knew there were some things that I still needed to process in therapy, but I came to realise that there was more than I knew. In addition to the flashbacks and anxiety, it was as though I could suddenly feel the impact of all of the loss that I have experienced, and the attendant grief. That’s everything from the loss of my whole family, through losing my career, close friends and my marriage – all as a result of abuse/trauma, through the loss of the opportunity to have children, and right down to the permanent loss of a significant amount of my hair due to alopecia.

The pain was off the scale and unable to obtain any support despite, even if I do say so myself, valiant efforts, my mental and physical health deteriorated rapidly, until one day in February this year I could do no more and was left with the barest of function.

***

When I moved into my second floor flat a little over two years ago, I could run from the street below up the numerous stairs to my front door, in a one-er. I was EC-STAT-TIC the first time I managed it. I might as well have run the London Marathon … in record time … such was the size of this achievement.

I’ve never been what you’d call ‘sporty’ and, although I love to walk, I couldn’t ever imagine having any desire to run. It took among other things a broken back; the loss of my family, close friends, my career and my hair; a suicide attempt that left me in cardiac arrest, and finally a broken marriage to send me in search of my very own running machine.

My health is a bit wonky these days. I say these days. The wonkiness set in before I was 30 and I’m now approaching 50.

Aside from the umbrella of ‘Complex Trauma’ – which for me includes Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Depression, an eating disorder and compulsive skin picking known as Dermatillomania; I have several physical conditions for which there is currently no cure. The former is a direct result of my experiences of abuse and trauma.

Lots of bits hurt; bits squirt, leak and splutter. Bits fall out and bits malfunction in such a way as to leave me feeling as though I’ve gone 10 rounds in a centrifuge. Among other things, I can be incontinent, my mobility can be impaired, I experience memory loss, pain disrupts normal function and, when this lot really means business, I cease to function.

I’m great at faking wellness and pretty bad at showing sickness. It kills me to tell you – unless you’re in the same ‘club’ – how bad I’m really feeling. I’ll really try but I’ll skirt, feint and increasingly hesitate. It’ll be like pulling teeth and you’ll probably end up none the wiser.

Right now, I haven’t been able to leave my flat for almost four months and an attempt to run up those stairs would foolhardy to say the least. The treadmill is gathering dust but I still yearn to run.

I’m always going to be limited in some ways by health issues, but careful self management – to be fair, a rigorous regime of physiotherapy, graded exercise, medication, diet, meditation and more – has in the past meant I could make more of my ‘spoons‘. That’s what got me in a position to be able to run a mile several days per week. I don’t mind putting the work in, far from it, but support is necessary to sustain it.

The responsibility of care/support falls first to families, no matter their age, then friends … neighbours … the world and his dog. Social care is not readily provided by the state. Hoops must be conjured, immolated and resurrected before then being jumped through so accurately as to achieve a perfect score.

At the time of writing – popping between this and Twitter as all good writers do (!) – two tweets appeared on my timeline both, although carrying dispiriting messages, suitably illustrate this post. Cue a further frisson of excitement, stirring music, and … and … the … the …THE STARS ARE ALIGNING!

I have to shake myself back to reality. After suicidal depths and isolation, so perpetual as to rival purgatory without the promise of heaven, real hope can send one a tad giddy …

This tweet pictured below is from a psychiatrist working in an NHS Accident and Emergency Department. Whether a real or an ironic example, the message is the same. Resources are very limited, ever more strict criteria is applied to determine who may receive them. People in need can and do slip through the widening cracks in the system. The second tweet contained a link to this article in the Guardian.

This is not a great time to be vulnerable or disabled. 

After completing the lengthy assessment – in two visits of around 80 minutes each – my newly allocated social worker tells me that she thinks her request for support for me – four hours per week delivered in two hourly sessions – will be approved.

To have real possibility of a support worker or personal assistant (PA) – appropriate, flexible support — dangled, like a diamond encrusted carrot, right before my very eyes, feels like the winning the lotto, the big money, life-changing bucks. But forget that, who needs it?!

I will feel like a millionaire for having won the social care lottery because it will afford me the luxury of being able to do more than survive … and instead to thrive.

 

Entering the ogre’s lair …

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not calling my GP an ogre, he’s surely a nice enough chap, but after the events of last year, going to see him again was about as scary as standing before a ravenous ogre with a particular taste for ‘Hearts’ about my size and shape.

The only available appointment was at 10am. Any appointment before 11 always presents additional challenges because my morning routine is lengthy due to the requirements of my Bile Acid Malabsorption and also issues around sedation, pain and mobility that are particularly problematic when I wake. I made it past those, and past anxiety around getting out for the first time in four months – too complex to detail.

‘Debriefing’ afterwards, my advocacy worker, who accompanied me, commented that there was marked difference in my GP’s response to my discussion of my mental health and of my physical health. He said nothing in response to the former. She said his expression could’ve said … well, what do you want me to do about it? By contrast, presented with physical symptoms he leapt into action, examined my abdomen, listened to my chest and took my blood pressure … twice. He ordered tests, including an E.C.G. and prescribed several medications, and appeared thorough.

Discussing a gastric issue, I described my symptoms and said that I’m aware that my weight gain may have caused them or at least be a contributing factor. He agreed, said that I was right and that it would help if I could do something about that. I didn’t pick him up on it, and perhaps I should have done. I did feel disappointed, if not a little angry, given that I have an eating disorder and that I asked for help – clearly and directly – so many times last year and yet I received none. I understand that he cannot ‘magic resources out of thin air’ where services have been reduced or cut, but I really would appreciate an acknowledgement both of much I am trying to help myself, and that I haven’t been offered any help or support. My weight and related issues will be being discussed when we next meet and I hope then to have the confidence to say that.

I’ve blogged and tweeted recently about my ‘flaring’ skin. A first episode occurred around five or six weeks ago when I woke to find my eyes puffy and my skin reddened and itchy. I suspected eczema but noted that the usual emollients gave me a burning sensation. It was annoying and didn’t look great but it wasn’t horrendous and it cleared up after a few days. A couple of weeks later I had another episode but this time the skin around my eyes was more swollen than puffy and I suspected an allergic reaction, but I couldn’t pinpoint what might have caused one. On Wednesday last week I woke again to a red face and swollen skin around my eyes. Like me, my GP suspected eczema or an allergy and he prescribed hydrocortisone cream.

In the hours after my appointment, my face became increasingly red and a little more swollen, by the evening it was burning which felt very unpleasant and was difficult to manage. The following day I awoke and gasped in shock when I looked in the mirror and saw that my whole face was swollen. I could barely open my right eye and the left was also affected. The areas where I’d felt the intense burning sensation – mostly around my mouth and under my eyes – now felt very tight and had become extremely dry. I was able to speak to my GP on the phone later that morning and he opted to additionally prescribe an anti-histamine and a specialist moisturising lotion. All of the new medications were delivered on Friday evening by the delightful ‘Pharmacy Bob’, who was concerned about me, with my bright red, ballooned visage. The swelling slowly reduced over the weekend and the redness decreased somewhat, then my face began to peel, everywhere but for the top half of my forehead and the sides of my face, and continues to do so. I have been liberally applying moisturiser and, thankfully, today when I had to go out to an appointment with one of the practice nurses, it looks better than it did.

I have some concerns about the cause of this skin issue related to my other diagnoses, but I’ll blog about that once I have the results of the tests that the GP has ordered.

I asked my GP if I might return to using my treadmill as I want to do, promising that I would not try to run before I could walk. I am MUCH heavier than I was when I took up running in 2014. I have no idea what I will be able to achieve this time around. Building up to being able to do a brisk walk will at least help me to lose weight, it may be that I will not be able to run until I’ve done so. I wondered if I might be advisable to wait until the tests have been carried out, but the GP said that he’s happy for me to start before that, so long as I’m careful.

 

Once upon a time … a tale of doctors, dastardly doings and mountains scaled.

This story begins at a little after 3am this morning. I’m going to use my tweets to tell the first part of it, covering the period up until around 7:50am.

It took a few minutes and several callbacks to get through and then I spent a little more time in a queue, with nervousness building. The surgery receptionists are generally fierce on the phone, less so in person, but I was delighted to be answered by one who is pleasant on the phone. I’d been advised to call today at 8 to try to obtain an ‘on the day appointment’ with my GP.

This GP is new to me, I have seen him just twice to date – in December ’16 and January this year. My previous GP, also male, replaced my great GP of a couple of years in April 2016 when she moved to another city. He is, as she was, the only one of this large practice’s many GPs to work full time, readily accessible pretty much at the drop of a hat. Appointments with the rest are like gold dust, as I’m sure is the case elsewhere.

I was really keen to remain with my great GP’s replacement primarily because of the accessibility issue but it wasn’t to be. Great GP was renown for her lovely manner, efficiency and proactive approach, which very much suited me, myself Mrs Proactive. Her replacement is probably in his early thirties. He’s mild mannered and has a lovely soothing voice with an Irish lilt and was always willing to make himself available to me – with the exception of a home visit in an emergency last year. However, he is far from proactive, is reactive only after a fashion, and is prone to moaning about the hardships of his lot as a GP. Don’t get me wrong, I utterly sympathise. I know that the NHS is terribly s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d and I’m certain that the majority of GPs are greatly stressed and more than earn their salaries. I hope that many are wholly patient-centred. With appointments scarce and often limited to eight or 10 minutes, I think that time is for the patient not the doctor’s own grumbles.

A good relationship with a GP is vital if you’re ill, of course. This goes double when you’re chronically ill – when your illness is enduring and you often have complex needs. Health impacts beyond the mind and body, lives can be disrupted even devastated by health problems. In the UK, GPs are the gateway to all other services within the NHS and are also generally necessary to the process of obtaining things such as welfare payments and social care – both of which have also been subject to budget cuts and as a result are increasingly difficult to obtain. There are no guarantees of need being met. A good GP in your corner is a wondrous thing.

I’ll write in another post about how I’ve been unable in the last year or so, to obtain NHS support and treatment in the form of physiotherapy, trauma therapy, treatment for an eating disorder and support to deal with the onset and acute impact of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). I’ll keep this post to the difficulties I’ve experienced in accessing a GP.

In September 2016, I was referred, for the first time in my life, to what is known as an Intensive Home Treatment Team (IHTT), they used to be known as ‘crisis teams’. Essentially, it’s the community version of in patient psychiatric care, designed to keep you out of hospital.  The reasons for that referral, the process leading up to it and my general experience of the IHTT warrants a separate post. I’ll confine myself here to detailing my final experience of the team because of the profound impact it had on me, my health and my ability to access my GP and other services.

I was due to be discharged in early November. The service is a short term one, designed to deal with the most severe crises, those which put someone at risk. However, discharge is known to sometimes be unduly hastened due to the paucity of available resources as a result of under-funding. This particular team came in for criticism recently when a young patient died by suicide immediately after being discharged without further support in place. I already struggle with concerns about being a burden but further felt pressured to be OK when I really was not. The day before my planned discharge I considered. I knew that I was still at risk because further appropriate support had not been put in place. I was fighting to keep myself safe. I felt that it would better to speak up ahead of discharge, rather than afterwards when I would then likely have to go through the whole referral and assessment process again – no doubt generating bundles of paperwork – if I were to access the team again.

A Community Psychiatric Nurse (CPN) visited me on the day of discharge. She had visited once before and unlike with the rest of the team I’d found myself feeling wary of her. I pushed myself to plough on. I calmly explained, although not without cost, how I was feeling and the difficulties I was experiencing then. I revealed great detail about the horrible depths of my eating disorder, she is still the only person to whom I’ve revealed those details. She seemed quite nice about it, promised much action to get further support in place and said that my discharge was now on hold. She told me she’d call me the following morning with updates. It was early evening the next day before I heard anything when I received a curt call from the team secretary telling me that two team members were on their way to see me. They arrived moments later. I knew as soon as I opened the door to them that something was very wrong. There were no pleasantries and the pair, the same CPN together with a male support worker I’d seen a few times, were openly hostile. The support worker was openly aggressive. I was utterly bewildered. It transpired that they didn’t believe what I had told the CPN the previous day. They called me a fraud and implied that I was a liar and the support worker told lies about previous statements that he had made to me, about something the team psychiatrist had said to me about a referral to the eating disorders service, and about further support. I was appalled and visibly very distressed, almost unheard of for a woman with a compulsive ‘brave front’ who finds crying difficult, something that they knew.

I need to see my GP as soon as possible for a number of reasons, not least because my physical health has very much deteriorated because of the other issues I’ve been facing. The experience with the crisis team left me terrified that GPs, none of which now really know me, would also disbelieve and dismiss me. I became terrified at the thought of further mistreatment when I was already on my knees and fighting for my life. I know that those of my ‘mental health friends’ who’ve had similar experiences will relate to that last sentence. I’m never entirely comfortable saying that I’m ‘fighting for my life’. That’s not because I don’t believe the statement to be true but I know that while society accepts cancer, as an example, as a life threatening illness, very many are unwilling to accept that mental illness is often life threatening. Many still see suicide as a choice. I am pretty ‘gung-ho’ but no matter what I could not push through this fear. I didn’t give up and it’s taken a lot of work, various actions, to get to this point. Of course, had I not been handed hope this weekend I couldn’t have achieved this today regardless.

That whole experience with the IHTT was somehow surreal, in that I could not believe that health professionals, particularly ones working with people at risk, could behave so unprofessionally and without regard to their duty of care. This is the first time I’ve written about this experience, it was six weeks after it happened before I could speak about it. It’s only now that I am beginning to be able to discuss what happened in any detail. I won’t discuss here how I felt in reaction to it, except to say that I felt dirty among other things and I hadn’t felt that way since being abused as a young person. I told only my ex-husband who I rang after asking the IHTT workers to leave. I was very polite but firm, they were doing a lot of damage and were clearly unable to either recognise that or care about it. I was distraught and I knew I needed to do that to protect myself.

I rang my ex in utter despair, not knowing where else to turn, speaking to him helped a little, and at least I began to manage to step back from immediate thoughts of suicide and start to continue on.

When my call to the GP surgery was answered this morning all appointments with my GP today had been booked. The next bookable appointment was on Monday 26th. I also had the option to phone again tomorrow at 8am and try for an on the day appointment. Until two days ago, I hadn’t been able to leave my flat for four months due to a combination of PTSD and Complex Trauma symptoms and issues including pain and fatigue affecting my mobility. Ideally, at this time, I need someone to accompany me to the surgery and back home again to ensure I’m safe from falls and such. This is not impossible to arrange but is proving very difficult. A friend has generously agreed to help but, through no fault on her part, has limited availability.

With notes to read otherwise my nerves would have made me incoherent, I rang the surgery again in ‘speaking time’ later this morning – a daily slot when patients can call in and speak to their own GP, if available, or to the duty doctor of the day. Mercifully, I was able to be put straight through to my GP. He received a letter in early May expressing acute concern about my mental health from my newly allocated social worker. He wrote me a letter a week later telling me to make an appointment with him if I needed one. I started by saying that the social worker had been right to be concerned and that my health has been generally poor since February. I explained that I’ve had difficulty in getting to see him for a number of reasons, most recently because of the scarcity of appointments (I did say I wasn’t complaining about that) and because of the issue of needing to be accompanied. I asked politely, clearly and directly if it would be possible to make time for a 10 minute catch up over the phone. He didn’t answer, or offer a home visit as I know Great GP would have done, but said that he’d book me an appointment on Thursday at 10, that I could tell my friend and that he’d hope to see me then, that was it.

My friend is not able to accompany me on Thursday as she will be at a conference out of the area. I’ve decided that it would be a good idea to ask my advocacy worker to sit in on the appointment with me. She is not able to do the escorting to and from bit, but I’m wondering if I can get myself to the surgery in a taxi, which I was planning to do anyway as a one off, whether if I was to become too unwell afterwards she’d be allowed to make an exception and see me home. If not, my friend has offered to ask a friend of hers to accompany me if possible. So, a couple of options there, we’ll see what transpires.

With regards to the rest of the day, I need to do a laundry load – I  have an underwear crisis, I need to run the dishwasher, place an online grocery order and compose a couple of vital emails including a reply to my social worker’s message of Friday. I would like to take some time to reacquaint myself with my art journal. ‘Spoons’, as ever, will dictate for the most part. I know, especially given my disrupted night, that I’ve already scaled mountains today and I’m very pleased about that.

Thanks for reading. See you anon.

Heart x

N.B. I have taken steps to begin the process of making a complaint about the actions of the IHTT. That’s what lead me to an advocacy worker.