Update

It has been a while since I updated mainly because a bit too much has been going on and I don't want to air some of it in a public forum.

Firstly I am now retired. There was an offer to take Voluntary Early Retirement at work and, despite it leaving me with little money for just over 3 years until another pension starts paying, we (my wife and I) decided that given my physical and mental health it was the best thing to do. I haven't decided whether to take another job in the interim or what else to do as I need time to get myself back in working order.

Secondly we had a wonderful week in Venice. This was a special holiday to celebrate our being married for 30 years and my wife having a significant birthday the following day at the end of August. This was our third trip to Venice and, finance permitting, I don't think it will be our last; there is just so much to see. The lack of traffic seems to help my chest so I'm going to ask my GP whether the NHS will pay for me to move there!

Thirdly we came back to news of some serious problems at our church. I'm not going to go into details here as I don't think it would be right or helpful but when you find a church that you have attended all your life in danger of tearing itself apart it is very painful.

To finish on a more cheerful note here is a picture that captures a tiny part of the beauty of Venice.

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.

Stress Time

On Friday I was stressed - and I mean STRESSED. The reason was simple, yet another meeting at work to discuss my sick record. Now I know, given the amount I've been ill, they have to have these meetings but the the last couple had turned a bit confrontational due to the attitude of one of the senior managers and there is always the possibility that this may be the start of a process leading to redundancy / medical retirement.

So, from about Wednesday on, I was getting stressed about any number of things that could happen at the meeting. I prayed about it; praying that God would be with me and that He would calm me down. I remained stressed.

So when the day arrived what happened - a small meeting with no senior managers in which I received good support from both my immediate manager and the lady from HR.

Did God answer my prayers? Of course - He was always with me but I remained stressed. Is that a failing on my part? Possibly. I could have trusted God more but I knew he was with me even when I was stressed. Alongside me, not judging, just there with me.

Yesterday I went to Work

Yesterday morning I woke up at 4:45 and didn't get back to sleep properly because I was worried; worried because I was going to work. Normally going to work isn't a big deal but yesterday was my first day back at work since early November when I had some form of mental breakdown. Going back to work was one of the big steps back to normality and I was worried: worried about how my colleagues would react and worried about how I would react.

Of course it went OK; most of the things we worry about never happen anyway. We had moved office while I was off so I spent part of the day unpacking 3 crates and working out how to fit it all into one desk, a lot of time clearing some of the 979 (approx) unread e-mails and a short time talking to my boss. All in all it was a gentle, stress free day and yet I had been worried about it.

Was I right to worry? I don't know. But what I do know is that God was with me and I was supported by a lot of prayer and without them I would have struggled.

When I was first ill I thought work was one of the main causes of my situation but I have now come to see that most of my work stress was self induced. It wasn't the work that was wrong but my reaction to it. A reaction born out of situations that have existed from as long ago as my childhood. An understandable but wrong reaction.

It's still early in my journey back to normality (whatever that is) and I'm only working part time at the moment but the great thing is that I'm on that journey.

When I started this blog one of the subjects I said I was going to cover was living with disability. At the time I defined that as being 'dyslexic with knackered lungs' but I now realise that my biggest disability is living with depression. Of course I'm still living with lung disease and dyslexia but it's the depression that has the biggest effect on me and, more importantly, those around me. I hope that in my future posts I will be able to shed some light on what it is like to be a Christian living with depression.

Is it OK to worry?

I have been thinking about whether it is OK for a christian to worry about something and whether this is compatible with trusting God to look after us.

What triggered this was having yet another review at work about my sick record when I have had a very clear assurance the God is looking after this aspect of my life. And yet I was worried and stressed and thought I shouldn't be. Then I thought about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane when he prayed that, if possible, he wouldn't have to go through the passion. Was he both trusting the Father and fearful at the same time?

Any comments?