the letter from the tribunal arrived Friday, it’s officially OVER. I can relax now, I have paperwork to close that goddamn mess out my head. so about £112o should be incoming soon, and so should the raising of benefit back to full Income Support levels. Appeal rate is less than jobseekers allowance rate, so it’s insane…

Anyway. It’s done.

In other news a game was purchased. It’ s Naughty bear. Looks a tad samey, but there’s a lot of fun replayablity in it, and lets face it, beating twisted evil teddies to death with axes is never gunna lose it’s fun.

Hopefully I get to watch my treat from town – a copy of evangelion rebuild 1.11 you are (not) alone. fingers crossed it’s any good… the original eva was pretty cool as a TV show, but the films were evil scary, so here’s hopping Anno took his meds this time ^^;

Want the feeling of uselessness and depression to go away now…

The day of the Tribunal

Wake up at 7:30 in the evening. Have spent lots of time trying to arrange life back to standard 9-5, stress precludeth. decide a shower before going out may be an idea, spend a bit of time sat down quietly internally chasing my tail as it were before finally getting a shower towards midnight. Midnight till dawn is mostly taken up in a fit of staring around blankly and waiting for the laundry to I put on yesterday to dry.

8AM, last coffee, make thermos, put teddy bear and supporting evidence into a bag, add painkillers and can of coke. Walk out front door. Walk back in, lock back door, walk out front door lock same. Walk to bus stop. Arrive in town about 9:15. Have coffee, wander round slowly in circles feeling lost a while (it’s not I was lost it’s just… it won’t feel like I know my way around till I’ve had a proper good wander around the new town centre) Rain starts. Get drenched by about 10. Get food at 10:20. Go sit outside in rain to eat. Be soaked through to the bone by 10:30, then stand outside court buildin ggetting REALLY wet till 11 (no, thats true, I’m too thick to stand inside in the dry.)

Chris from Mind Cymry who’s my advocate arrives, go through the security scanner, which is kinda sad, I keep setting it off through stupidity and not being any good, but the guard is nice and doesn’t upset me, so god knows how terrified I must have looked. We sitin an office for a few seconds, whilst I think how much I need the loo before the tribunal starts… and a clerk walks in.

“We tried to phone you to let y0u know that you didn’t need to come, the panel already approved your appeal”

Bwah?

We troop in to see the judge, at the front of the room, the bit we sit at looks like an old school science lab – long wooden bench covered in graffiti with a few mics and a lectern on there somewhere. All the chairs are upholstered in green, to match the carpet. We sit down and look up at the nice judge who apologises they can’t review these things till the day and she says that the tribunal reviewed the paperwork and decided  the appeal panel should not have turned down my appeal, so all is done and I’ll get a letter popped in the post that evening to to go the dss and me, and once thats done they’ll sort backpayment and all will be okay.

I try to stay in control and thank the judge as much as I’m able, carefully put all the green upholstered cahirs back under the desk, and walk out the court.

Chris is flabbergasted, as far as he’s aware, that just does not happen. He’s never seen that before,but says his farewells, and leaves, Beth and I troop back in to the rain, and go to Starbucks to try and get over this astonishingly large revelation. After a coffee, we decide it’s all just too much, and go home, it’s too wet to tromp around town anyway.

So all that stress, all that upset and it’s done. I was so sure I was going to loose towards the end I was making myself ill, and then to walk in and find that well… I’m so grateful it’s sorted, but I’m also very upset it took this long and caused so much upset. Right now, I just want to be able to sleep full nights and eat without my guts souring. We’ll see what happens when the ruling comes in the post.

Very very relieved but very very confused about how I’m feeling right now.

just under a day

And then the tribunal. not been eating or sleeping well… had two meals since thursday really and one of those left me writing in gut pain for several hours… Very very very stressed, and tired all the time, since time zones have gotten shifted from the stress, and now it needs sorting or I’ll miss the appt. (which is at 11am tuesday) so currently sleep is… odd.

Just lots tired, and feeling very nauseous all the time right now.

On the other hand, Beth has learnt the cake is a lie, so she’s having a lot of fun. Having sworn and cursed her way through all the assorted silly bastard puzzles…. she’s having another go because she enjoyed it so much. Go figure ^_^ (I only installed it on her lappy so I could borrow it… lol)

just want to sleep and not stress this much, as I really don’t feel too good.

random dailyness

What else can I say? Well, to start, I’m back on a laptop after being on a netbook for a few days, courtesy of bethy who instantly loaned me it to keep me online, because lets face it, an iPhone is nice, but hardly a day to day full internet experience, after all…. lolcats ^^;

Anyway, I have this lovely new system, inherited from Beth as she now has a fairly whizzy Compaq cq71, quite a lot faster than this little cq60 (with its habit of running at 55 degrees centigrade even in its most idling format…) and its marginally incomprehensible quirks (like randomly locking up in firefox and making me wonder if something is wrong then just as randomly, doing what I told it too. Either a FF issue, or as Beth mentioned to me a lot and I missed – a wireless glitch. That has I confess gone away since I got this thing over the course of a few hours.

Anyway, with a big beefy cq71, pentium t4400 4gig 500gig lappy arriving, and it is lovely, beth ran a game through it to see what happens, and erm… it runs command and conquer 3 at medium graphics at highest res… and doesn’t slow down in the least – it’s like a whole new game watching over her shoulder, the pretty is so intense, and   thing is sat there begging for someone to actually make it work . That is a SCARY wonderful powerful laptop, and you’d think that would be the thing I’m most thinking about today. It’s not. Today the most interesting thing that is probably going to stick with me is a) I hate system restoring, and b) I love carbonara.

The local co-op has a lovely carbonara sauce in. So, a medium onion, 5 small button mush, 3 rashers of smoked bacon, and half a bag of fresh tagliatelli… did it work? did the sauce stretch, did this meal I last had when I was 17 or something else daft hit the same comfort spot?

Yes.

got a few more of them in and may buy one or two more while they’re cheap, or again, may not. we’ll see.

****

The hearing thingy is in a few days on the tenth. That’s one short week till this is all done one way or the other and it’s really really frigging scary. Like too big to think about without freaking scary. I want it over, but equally I’d be just as happy if I never had to go, it’s all very… much bigger than I am. Too large to hold in my head – one way, there is more money, and a large lump payment, the other there isn’t and I have to reapply for benefit which is likely to be freaky scary all by itself.  (and probably end up on more money than currently.)

I want to be well, I want to not to collapse inwards and clam up when stress happens, I want to be able to hear a phone ring, or a raised voice and not want to go to the toilet for a brief fight or flight. I really want to have stability in my own head, and not feel like I’m constantly fighting to stay half a step ahead of the screaming gibbering that is always threatening to burst out, or to feel like I don’t need to apologise for my whole damn existence.

That would be nice. but when I want right now is to get through the next week without loosing it. or the tribunal. Because I’m screwed if I do.

Hell the red lumpy bumpies have gone on tour and are bringing flaming scarlet to whole new areas of skin over the whole affair… [mournfully]

perfect goddamn end to a tressful druddamn week

My laptop blew up.

Y0u cannpt imagine how horrifying this statement is till you’re sat there, merrily typing along, and then your screen goes blank, reboots don’t even POST (power on self test). After a few minutes of horrifying blank staring at thye screen we admitted it was dead, and beth started a search for a new one.

I managed to pull the HD without even thinking and switched for beths old 120gig, nothing, dropped mine into a  caddy and it was live instantly, so the hd wasnt the issue. anyway, I backed up the important data I’d stupidly not kept current, and sat back, my external HD replete with the contents of a dead lappy.

This morning I randomly unpacked the thing, and tinkered with the ram chips – a two gig and a one gig DIMM, and still nothing. Starting to look like a graphics failure or a dead CPU really. Still blame myself for that, it was starting to run REALLY hot when it did anything so it must be me overloading it  right?

Also I keep forgetting to mention this but my left big toe is wrong, it doens’t bend right, it’s uncomfortable, and it justdoesnb’t look right, I was woried it was arthritic, but now I ponder is it broken somehow?

Anyway, beth bought a rwaly powerful compaq cq71 to replace it, and I shall again inherit the old lappy and be sorted on wednesdsay. Got to love store credit, I just now more than ever cannot afford to lose the appeal.

I think I’m going to have a nervous breakdown now.

iphone and MIND

it is being a week here. Monday was full of going to town to go see the Mind people,who still seem to think that the appeal should go through smoothly, all I know is my mind still goes bank and leaves me stressed out in those situations… All I know is I’m still mind-numbingly scared of the approaching tribunal thingy on the 10th.

Tuesday, ahhh… phone upgrade day. I’ve been on my diddy thing for a long time, so we upgraded it to an iPhone. Guess that left a spare iPhone 3g floating around. I have it now. The phone was delivered first thing, nice and prompt, it has wonderful signal, it’s got a beautiful screen, and it’s just lovely. My 3g isn’t bad but I’m looking at it a lot, wondering do I need this phone that scares me rigid I might hurt, with al this wonderfulness… while I sit and look at the screen and wonder what I’m going to do with it. Still, it’s mine now. Switching the phone was relatively painless, took about 5 hours to authenticate which wasn’t bad at all…

wednesday. Waited in for the electrician to install some mains powered smoke alarms (blame the council, it’s a thing…) He didn’t show. pizza place we found when we got around to watching “going postal”. well.. it’s gone walkies. had huge kebab instead (was too depressed to cook)

today? enjoying that lovely sensation of having electrical units in hand after a slow start to the month, it’s back under the 8 a day we pay for, without touching the 66 unit buffer we’ve built up.Yes I am this anal sometimes.

Also very very empty feeling. not sure what I want to do

tribunal date

Okay.

Deep breaths. The letter came. There is now a date. It’s next month on the 10th. I thought I’d fee better once there was a date, but frankly I feel even worse, more scared and panicky and stressed out.

Beth made me call Mind, and there will be a pre tribunal appointment on monday at 2pm. I should not go to pieces on the phone and frwak over such a silly thing. But I did.

WAHHH!

I’m really staggering mindblowingly paralysed and scared over this. Everyone seems to think its fine, but – what if it’s not, I’m just so stressed over this, what if it goes wrong, what if they force me to go to work, and it’ be worse than ever – too stressed to hold down even a burger job, and if I win then I’ve got to admit again I’ve failed at life. Plus there’s all the stuff the government is saying to get scared over, then the mental health provision, will that be worse, better? will the welsh nhs get all the psychs that England doesn’t want anymore? will someone put a mental health unit back into someplace achievable in under and hour and a bus change? (like the convenient place it used to be right till I needed it…)

mind currently running around in little circles.

managed to come in 20 units under quota last month. good.

welsh language schools….

I am a very bad person. I am feeling decidedly rude towards a specific culture, and it’s embarrassing to admit it’s technically my own. I am stupidly amazingly angry towards the fact that they are turning my old secondary school (pupils about 1300 these days…) into a welsh language school, where they will use welsh as a primary language.

I don’t actually know why this is making me incandescent with rage.

I just take the attitude in the town I live in where we have a primarily english speaking culture, and to be frank the only way you’ll hear welsh is if you turn on the national joke (sianel pedwarec cymry, s4c) that has been steadily becoming more and more irrelevant since they pulled all the english language channel four programmes off it…

Or of course if you’re actualy IN a school where the staff will happily have a nice gossip in front of you whilst they’re supposed to be doing their jobs instead of wattering on incomprehensibly in front of 30 kids with a cup of tea each. I just find it absolutely appalling that while they say they have to shut schools because there isn’t any need for that number of school places, they have to move one, buid it a new location, and then change the old site to a welsh language school because some wanker in the senedd (the welsh parliament) managed to sneak through some stupidity about welsh language places when to be honest, unless you live up the damn vallies, or darkest west wales, you don’t speak the damn language – and certainly not as your primary (which in this day and age in britain ought to be a criminal act of abuse against your kids…)

it’s stupid, all the people who real give a damn about welsh are loons from the vallies and the west, and as for north wales – did you know they don’t even speak the same frigging language? it’s welsh yes, but has slightly different grammer and different words for the same things ANYWAY!

SO WHY CHANGE THIS SCHOOL TO WELSH ONLY?!

[rant puff wheeze gasp]

I’d rather they changed the welsh to esperanto or something else USEFUL y’know, common european language, likely to be a growth industry over the next few years, all that crap…. hell I’d prefer kiingon, but welsh? please… it went away in the 19th centuary effectively, and while it’s nice as a secondary languiage to keep bits of the cuture around, and the heritage, frankly, I really resent all the peope who think it’s a vibrant going forwards way to be, you dont’ see this utter BULLSHIT from  the gaelic speakers do you? “oh it was the national language once, so lets try and put it back…”

LATIN was the common language at one point, and you don’t see latin professers demanding we go back to it, I just really really resent this utter total and compete backwards refusal to engage with even the last centuary.. and I object to the way they’re doing it. it you like it so much, piss off to west wales where you can buy a hoiday home and speak we,sh and run a tourst business, don’t live in “little england” as the swansea/cardiff/newport is, and try to jam a compromise for the hicks down an urban areas throat.

Incidentally, if you ever see graffitti on the side of the place in esperanto saying “this is a modern living language, where’s my go” it’s not me BTW ^_^

how the hell can you do literary appreciation of Shakespeare in welsh for gods sake?

yes I am a bad racist person for being this pissed off about it. No I don’t know why if makes me this pissy. No I don’t think you’re going to talk me out the tree’s over it.

check your statements!

What a disaster… been worried about the money a while, (a while being a very bewildered week of “erm, bwah?” but hey…) somehow it turns out that money hasn’t been blown, it’s in fact nearly £400 of benefit hasn’t been paid in. Don’t know why, it happens sometimes, but good grief is it scary. Bethy called the dss who said they’d fix it same day, so I went to get painkillers, and accidentally paid the rent. Got home, dss said they couldn’t for various reasons, therefore it would be thursday. Can we say my name was grass, I’d been supposed to hang off til the money was in, but brain fail… this happens, I go to the shops, brain fail and I spend too much at the wrong time, on the wrong things… like trying to buy loo roll when we have lots. I get so mad at myself… I shouldn’t make these effups.

Anyway, the ‘leccy money had shielded the balls up, so yes, it’s nice to be able to survive this kinda screw up, but still, it’s extra entirely unneeded stress, when all I want is to be past the scary tribune appeal thingy, and able to move on whatever happens. Please let me win, cos I’m coming apart over that… too much stress.

stress freaked

at which point does curling up in a ball in the corner and crying in meek terror about a world thats to damn scary to deal with on a daily basis become an acceptable option?

Bethy has iPhone 4 ordered. She’s happy.

Money is out. skinted again, terrified, scared of appointment, all scary, looked at ESA stuffs, terrifying, and the Govt. is making benefit harder. I can’ reliably go to the shops without screwing up and I’m so freaked they’re going to say “you have the odd good day, so go to work, and ignore the panic attacks and the random noises you make, and the terror, the paranoia, terror and inability to concentrate longterm. Scrounger”

I don’t want to be ill, it’s not fun, everyone hates you when you’re ill…

world too big, go way now, scary appointment still looming, no letter to know when, CRY!