The Mental Debt Struggle...

Keedie

Ahh I see, thanks @LittleMissDetermined. I just had a look at Octopus's website and it says that smart meters get monthly bills on their chosen day each month based on their meter readings, so I guess that answers my question and I could have just searched for it properly 🤦🏾‍♀️😂. So I've registered my interest for a smart meter and I'll deal with it when I get back.

I've been so tired as I can't sleep properly with the hypomania and so I am a bit of a zombie at the moment. I think I'll have a nap today and then hobble around and get my stuff together to start packing, and make sure that my son gets his stuff in order too as he'll be off to my mum's for the week. I'll get him to take everything down the stairs tomorrow night and put our suitcases in the boot of the car, and I'll drop his stuff to my mum's tomorrow night and then on Tuesday, he can go off to college with what he needs for the day and I only have to worry about my rucksack on Tuesday as I go down the stairs to leave the house. His 16 year old muscles come in handy these days 😂.

Thanks @Debsnewbudget, I do use the TFL journey planner to see how to get to places. I don't know where I'd be without it! But then I always have to think in terms of how much energy it will use up to make that journey, how painful it will be and how long it will take based upon my mobility as a 7 minute walk on TFL can be 12-15 minutes for me. Then I have to factor in stairs... Although I live on the third floor and have no lift, I only leave my house when I need to so I'm partially housebound, but once I do go out, my energy starts to drop and my pain starts to go up. Also, I can plan a journey, but then I have to judge what my body feels like when I wake up that day. As I may need to check and change my plans again.

So going down stairs at a tube station is one thing, but needing to go up the stairs at the end of the journey is another thing altogether as by that point, I'm already weak. That's why I no longer commute to work and I drive that one day a week. I've embarrassed myself so many times when I'm there with my walking stick or crutches and I can't move anymore and people are barging past me or having to go around me as I'm clinging onto a railing trying to make myself small. Or I nearly trip over as I suddenly go weak in the knees. And once I just burst into tears like a crazy lady, as I couldn't get up the stairs at Oxford Circus when I was changing between two lines. And also, although I wear my 'please give me a seat' badge, people pretend that they can't see me and so I end up standing and the movement of the tube jerks me around and it's painful.

When I went out a couple of weeks ago, two girls pushed past me to race me and each other for the last seat as I was slower and using my walking stick and they thought it was hilarious that I nearly toppled over and one of them got to sit down 🤬. I did use the tube yesterday to go to my sisters in East London, but that was one line no changes with step free access at both stations. But I still had to lie down on her sofa when I arrived and my hips were hurting because it was cold at the bus stop. I had my 7 year old nephew with me, and I've been disabled his whole life, so he was very patient with my walking pace and got excited to press all of the lift buttons and tap my freedom pass on the oyster card readers and on the bus. So he made it more of an adventure bless him.

AntoMac

That’s interesting to know about E.On Next and monthly billing @LittleMissDetermined
I am due to get a smart meter a week tomorrow so that will be useful. I’m well in credit with them too so will be interesting to see what happens with the excess.
You keep going in spite of all the uphill battles you face Keedie. One of the many reasons so many of us are inspired by you.  Hard to believe that people would race to get a seat before you could get it. Shame on them.
My different cousin’s kids were some different sides of the family Keedie, so wouldn’t know each other if they passed each other in the street. Reminds me of when I got chatting to a friendly new neighbour a couple of years back. I saw him a few days later at a family birthday do and it turned out that his cousins were also my cousins from different sides of the family. It’s a small World in so many ways.
I know it’s much easier said than done but you shouldn’t let the way others speak to you make you feel bad, or that you’re trying to make some kind of fraudulent claim. YOU know the truth, and that is what matters. What a relief, in a bittersweet way of course, to have your disability properly recognised and to be listened to.
We have a guy at my place who is wheelchair bound. He had to go through a DIsability Work Experience Placement here to get his role. He’s as smart as anyone here but for whatever reason had to go through all that rigmarole just to get a place. For all the progress made we still have such a long way to go to make things more equal for those with disabilities. I’m you must feel almost ‘invisible’ at times.  

poppy811

Don’t know whether this will help but EON email every month for a mete reading.  They deduct a small DD a few days later and then the government payment shows a few days later.   Credit is increasing at the moment, thank goodness

beanielou

Always hard to see things in black & white written down.
At least you have something to look forward too.

cinnamon123

Keedie - hope you are doing well

Four_Seasons

Hope you are keeping ok x

Humdinger1

@Keedie sorry that you cried; was it partly relief that you had finally been heard? Years of pushing water uphill can be exhausting; the moment when you can finally put down the load even briefly can be an emotional one.  You do know how wonderful you are, don't you? Love Humdinger xx 

beanielou

Hope you are enjoying your weekend away 

Keedie

Hi @AntoMac, @poppy811, @beanielou, @cinnamon123, @Four_Seasons and @Humdinger1, thank you very much for checking in on me, I'm okay. I enjoyed my time away, but I got ill on the way home and it was my dad's birthday yesterday, so after going to the cemetery with my siblings and the kids, it was a bit of a long and emotionally unsettling day.

I had a great time in Brighton by myself, and I went to the cinema twice and watched Prey for The Devil and Barbarian. Both good horror movies, but Barbarian was better and more of a psychological horror. Lots of jump scares and I was glad that I used my Perks at Work discount for the tickets as I managed to go to the cinema twice for less than £14! I also used the PAW to buy Harvester vouchers and so I earned points whilst I paid for my meal and was under budget for my break. So I've put the excess money towards my son's exam fees, as I didn't fancy clothes shopping in the end.

I had a lot of time to think whilst I was away. I need to spend more time doing things for myself and by myself. When you're from a large family it can get a bit loud, and so I'm glad that I was able to have some time to recharge. I slept more than I thought I would, but that wasn't a bad thing. I've barely slept in the last few months as I've been so on edge. Knowing that I could parent from afar as my son was in good hands at my mum's, made all the difference. I was able to let go and actually relax. It was nice to have a break from my son and he enjoyed his time away from me too. He'll be going to stay at my mum's every Monday and Tuesday evening from now on, and I will collect him on Wednesday evenings after I go to a new weekly mental health group that I've found on Rethink (Mental Illness). I'm nervous about trying out a new group, but the monthly bipolar one isn't really enough. And I've promised myself that I will go away more often on my solo UK trips to recharge and I need to have one evening a week for myself and to focus on my mental health. So I will put a little bit of my PIP money aside each month so that I can go away again around Easter hopefully.

My coach was cancelled on the way home, but I didn't realise that was the case and I checked out at 11:35 to give myself enough time to walk to the coach station and catch the coach at 12:05. But around 12:16 I started to panic and so I checked the National Express website as the app wouldn't allow me to track the coach, and I saw that it was cancelled, so I checked my texts and emails to see if they'd said anything and they'd emailed me just after 8 to let me know, but I didn't see it. So I sat in the cold near the seafront waiting for the 13:05 coach along with some other people. I was too tired to move and go and find somewhere warm to hang out whilst dragging my suitcase and rucksack and limping with my walking stick, so I just sat at the bus stop as my back was slowly starting to ache more and more. I stupidly wasn't wearing my TENS machine as sometimes the gel on the pads aggravates my skin and so I didn't think to put in on before leaving the hotel and there was nowhere private to hook up the pads under my clothes in public. Lesson learnt.

When the coach eventually came, the driver was clearly very stressed and very rude, as he didn't want to speak to anyone from the cancelled coach and would only deal with the customers booked for the 13:05 coach and told us that he doesn't care what our emails say, if there's space he'll think about letting us on. So I had to stand in a queue of rejected passengers until he did all of his checks on the coach and scrutinised each person's ticket. I could have saved him all that hassle and self-importance if he'd just listened to us. There was about 8 people booked on that 13:05 coach and the other 16/17 of us were leftovers from the cancelled coach, and the coach had twice as many seats. He was angry that he didn't know the other coach was cancelled and that he had to deal with us, but we were all tired and cold after being in the cold for over an hour and he seemed to take pleasure in punishing us for daring to ask if we could just get on the coach. One elderly couple looked like they wanted to commit GBH as they'd been sitting there since 11:30! The driver waited until near enough when the coach needed to leave before he let us all on, then he got very cross when people didn't have their seatbelts on. I was so over it at that point, as I knew that cold delay would just make me sick, and I've been very stiff and had trouble walking, managing stairs and getting out of bed ever since. 

I hate being disabled and I do often feel invisible and frustrated AntoMac. I'm sorry that your colleague had to go through so much extra stages to be employed, it really does suck. When I first started in December 2018 with my current employer, my manager at the time wasn't very happy that I'd been put in her team when she realised that I was disabled (after which I didn't feel comfortable even mentioning my mental health) and she sent me to OH as she had doubts that I could competently do my role. Which is just stupid, but I was hired by someone I used to work with at the local council we both worked in previously and she told me about the job and I went for it, and my manager seemed to think I was a hiring mistake or a pity hire and she turned on me. She was nice as pie when I first started, but when I told her that it had been agreed that I could work 8 to 4 instead of 9 to 5 as the commute was tiring and I couldn't get a seat at rush hour, she just wasn't happy about being stuck with me and she was very vocal about it too. And considering that we work in HR I was disgusted by her behaviour, and found her to be hypocritical as she liked me before she found out I was a bit defective.

On the surface I don't look disabled unless I've got a walking aid or I'm having trouble walking, bending over etc. So I sometimes get really strange/hostile looks when I park in a disabled bay and use my badge as people think I'm taking liberties or I don't need it. But sometimes, I'm just so exhausted, even if I'm walking without my stick, I feel like I could keel over and it really comes in handy. Somehow the blue 'please offer me a seat' badge that I always have on my coat has dropped off, and I've ordered another one, but I am sometimes conscious that I look like a fraudster, even though I know that I am not. And yes, I did cry Humdinger because I felt seen and relieved after constantly being dismissed, and it felt like a burden has been lifted. I don't think my family intend to overlook me, or dismiss what I am going through, but they can often be so reliant on me, that I think that they don't really consider the toll that everything has on me, until they see having a flare up and seem to still sometimes be a bit startled by it all 🤷🏾‍♀️.

Keedie

On financial matters, I've done a new spreadsheet to track my committed spending for bills, debts, sinking funds and spending money so that I can see what I need to put in each Monzo pot or Chase sub-account each month to cover everything. I've also built formulas so that I can see what the values would be for a 4 week or 5 week month and it shows predicted outgoings vs actual outgoings (in case a bill is higher for example). Knowing exactly what is due to come out as a total figure and across different categories/pots is such a relief. As I know what I need to earn to meet that expectation, or adjust my outgoings if needed. It really is a game changer. 

So there's also a tab for my income, where I can record all predicted vs actual income throughout the month as I get paid at different times from different things. I'm setting aside whatever comes in this month, and put it in a Monzo holding pot, and once I have everything paid to me across the month, I can then do my final December 2022 budget on 30 November 2022 and put the money from the pending pot into the relevant pot for the payments to come out from 1 December 2022. At the moment, I have been using the current month's income to pay for the following month's budget, but I've not really set the money aside or properly looked at what is happening the following month and adjusted the budget accordingly. But I realised that I can't afford my sinking funds in December 2022, so I've changed the standing order for them to all come out on 2 January 2023. Normally I would get flustered by not having the money and getting confused and anxious about fixing it all. 

I also created an overview page, so that I can see what is actually coming in and what is going out and if there is any surplus I'll put 20% towards my emergency fund and 80% towards debts. I'll test out this new way do doing things until 31 December 2022, and then I can adapt the spreadsheet for the whole of 2023, with a tab for each month.

I managed to put some change in the sealed pot (£4.17) so I'll declare that as a PAD.