False dawn

To put things into perspective from a year between 2010 and 2011 I managed to walk over 5 miles in a week only once. 5.5 miles covered in one week and the rest below the 5 mile mark. The 5.5 miles being termed by myself a very good effort. So I don't know why I thought it would be fine to do more than that in one day but on Wednesday I walked just over 6 miles in total. I felt horrendous and there was no going back.

For me there is a certain inevitability when I feel I have reached the peak of this mountain as I posted about last time. And that is that I will over reach myself and fall all the way down the other side. It has been all positive change of late and even strong hope of a road out of this. My high spirits though have been very quickly been brought crashing all around me and I feel I am back where I started all those years ago- constant high anxiety, weak with fatigue and panic attacks coming in cycles.

I have overdone it and as usual right on schedule with the worst time possible. Since that mountain of walks (by my standards) I have had a constant banging headache and can hardly keep my eyes open. All wrong. I pushed and pushed but not in the right way and this is the upshot.

It has coincided with trying to work out my problems with DWP and ATOS. As I said previously the GP refused to give me a letter and redirected me to a government department. After some problems I finally spoke to a woman this morning and spent the whole time in panic. She was a strange one. Very curt one minute and yet compassionate the next. She said she would reluctantly help but its not policy to help without a face to face. All the time I could hardly concentrate between this bloody headache and the panic. I could see the phone visibly shaking in my hand and I had to keep rubbing my eyes for the pain and all this was making me more and more tense and the head sorer.

I feel washed out now and feel all the good work has been ripped up and thrown in the bin. So I need to read to try to cope with this. I remember well Claire Weekes talking of setbacks being inevitable and not to fear them but learn to deal with them. The CBT guy says it too and said no progress will ever be truly lost. At the moment it doesn't feel like that. A walk afterwards with the boy was a struggle and then for the first time in a while a panic attack on the walk brought on by one of those abstract deja vu moments. It has left me feeling shattered and low. Jittery in a body filled with adrenaline and full now of self doubt.

Anyway. At the end of the call I was left little further forward. The lady said that there is no route to appeal based on not being able to stay out long enough- basically not route for the agoraphobic then. But I could appeal on the grounds of social preclusion. And there is always an irony. This may though need to be done after a medical which if I could do I would be able to go to interviews and not need to appeal. She also said my GP is talking bollocks and is holding out to get payment for a letter and that there is no onus on the DWP to contact him. So I have apparently to call him again but there is no way he will do it so I am not. And where that leaves the appeal I do not know but only know its adding more stress and anxiety.

So that is my happy post of the day and thought I might as well get it out my system and out the way. I need to get my head together and tap into that inner strength again. I hate feeling so feable. I don't want this any more than having to rely and be held to ransom on benefits which I need to maintain my family in this small shitty flat. Life could be better. Time to regroup. Sometimes I really do wonder whether its all worth it. What kind of existence is this?