Pills Depression and Work

Time for an update. Put briefly I am back at work and still taking fluoxetine - but that doesn’t tell the whole story.

These days the Home Office makes us print out our own pay slips but not being in the office I have been finding out how much I was paid by checking my bank account on-line. Now I knew that I had been off sick a lot and was expecting my pay to alter at some point but I was assuming that I would be told first. Imagine my surprise then to find I had hardly been paid anything!

Luckily I had to go into the office the following day (more about that later) and so managed to print out my pay slip only to find that I had been put on Nil Rate pay – retrospectively! So not only was I only being paid statutory sick pay but I also owed them money! As I had other money in bank account I haven’t gone overdrawn but I have paid out money that I wouldn’t have spent if I had known about this in advance.

The surprising thing is that through all this I have remained calm and have not rushed back into a pit (or box) of despair. The reason is that the fluoxetine seems to be working without making me over tired and I have made a lot of progress in my counselling sessions.

In my post about Drifting With the Tide I talked about how I was waiting for something to happen so I could move forward and my pay situation was the second of them. Needing some money to live on I went back to the GP to discuss going back to work and it was agreed that I should do so starting last Monday. It did feel strange and not all the issues that have impacted on my mental health have been resolved but at least it was a step in the right direction.

The first thing that got me moving again was a ‘phone call from my line manager about a redundancy scheme currently being offered. It was that which meant I had to go into the office to discuss it with my line manager and that showed me that I was able to get back into the building – something I had doubted I would manage. I have applied for Voluntary Early Retirement but there is: a) no guarantee that I will get it and b) I may not be able to afford it but it might be the direction I should be going.

All in all I am a lot better and can distinctly feel the hand of God pushing me forward; but to where I have no idea.