Fragile

@chibam

I cant remember meeting you at the beginning of this thread, but I so enjoyed your recent discussion with History Lover I thought your input would be worth while, and it was.

For a while I may have been the butt of jokes, maybe some of it was just awkwardness and not real malice, or awkwardness that they had been laughing about our family behind e back, and then seeing me in the flesh triggered it. WHo knows? I do not see those people (extended family) anymore. Anyway I found it very empowering for me to see the funny side of something and share it, and enjoy somebody else's laughter.

There are some negative nasties, who might be unhackable. By using that phrase I am guessing you tried hard from a range of angles to get through ... but some matches do not rock n roll. Or maybe the time was not right ...

Like @Teej I am a Hannah Gadsby fan but I think my story spooked people so I tried to lighten it. Getting the tone right to do justice to all aspects oif things can be one of the things I work on ...

@Eve7The forum has been a life saver thru Covid. Everybody who is honest with themselves has some mental health issues, just as after a enough time on the planet they have physical issues. It is getting a little easier to talk about it.

Cheers

Thanks for helping me thru this difficult day.

@Former-MemberI do not like the word consumers either, though I listened patiently to the explanation that it was supposed to be better than "patient".

Thanks for your opinion. No I do not think she include herself in the nutters category. Good point.

She admits she talks too much about herself and cuts me off, does not have the insight or the restraint or done half the amount of internal work that I do. She does little things that are good and it is still better than the deep isolation I had experienced before NDIS or this forum. Eg she showed up in flannel shirt with sanding block and said she would help me sanding on Wednesday, which made me laugh as I opened door for her.

But I had really had so much serious stuff going on this month that I needed the 3 hours to talk. SHe also tries to relate as opposed to the Psychologist I sacked who could not remember major issues from session to session and barely reached out with any rapport. The spt wkr has a secure life, not had any deaths and only raised one son. She has watched a lot of Homeland which is her main source of info re MI. SHe seems to raise her father in a competitive way, but there is glee in her face.... he almost died from Covid ... I was to tell my son ?? ... she is few years younger than me and not that mature, but a hard worker in her way. I just let the rubbish roll off my wet ducks back and accept the good. However I can do that now, as I am in a relatively good position atm compared to earlier and compared to many others. God only knows the difficulties people endure with the services. She has given me an original piece of music that her father used to sing on the radio, which I siad I would learn and she can record it for him. Gratis. She is also curious to see my certificates. I said she will when we get to sorting out my filing cabinet. A handle snapped off my cabinet this week and so now I cant open the drawer, its too heavy for my neck, so we will have to do something.

She is overly influenced by her husband, but does not like it if I say that. She has said other things that are a bit offensive, but because I am so well trained in overlooking negative stuff, and looking for the positive, I compromise. She is seen as a very good worker. Do the services realised how much we compromise?

It has been very good for me hearing all the different responses. Helps me put it in perspective.

@Appleblossom I think I read your post wrong. I thought you meant that your worker wanted you to call her a nutter as well, like a shared thing. I'm not sure that I'd be ok with it as a one way thing.

Thanks for the feedback. It's good to see you managing these difficult times constructively. I see the positive changes in you in that whilst you've probably always powered on constructively, you seem able to put the bits of you (like how you are feeling, and what you choose to do with those feelings) more now than the stoicism that would have once prevailed. I'm really just telling you this from my outside perspective. I hope you are ok with it too. Please correct me if you have a different opinion. 💜🤗

Hi @Former-Member 👋🏻💜🤗

Thanks @Teej You read a lot of it right, but that bit about "I am the spt wkr" and "you and your son are the nutters" is not good. She did not mean harm, but it was telling that my "friend" with MH issues who like me is 3 times as qualified as the spt wkr, did not like tme making the jokes about myself, I had not told her about the spt wkr. It is partly about self esteem and partly about culture.My issue was internalising all the sling and arrows, but now I have a front door and learning about boundaries.

There is an anti intellectual aspect to her and her family ... as she also puts down "research" and is gadget oriented as petrol heads tend to be. I am not even anti petrol head as I take enquiring about litre size (ex got a new car) as a standard question and know what a 6 cylinder engine block looks like in my bedroom ... lol.

I am all for feedback and interaction, especially from someone like you Teej. You have weathered your storms and we coooee over the sunburnt plains. Personal and emotional growth is not easy to quantify, and its not just how many degrees or how many kids. I know I am a complicated case and she is trying, as I tried at the beginning of the forums to reach out to all and sundry. We dont always get it right.

One of the rules about humour i follow, is that it is alright to make the joke oneself, but not about another. This plays into issues racial, colour, sexual religious minorities, so same with MH etc etc. I have proved to myself that I am not an eternal sad sack, so maybe I can become more nuanced and careful about how and when I crack my jokes, not out of unconscious nervousness, or lack of awareness of social appropriateness.

@Former-Member Cos blood pressure and overworked heart is now an obvious health issue, I am going to consider approach carefully. I cannot accept another fake apology like I had with the psychologist. Not worth any time or energy. That psych is going to become the butt of a story one day. I am about system change.

This support worker gets a lot less money than psychs and has put in more actual VALUE. Its the endless tax dollars that do not help people that concern me. Systemic drain on public resources and no accountability. Fake apologies are not accountability.

I wont cave in to her, and I wont take it personally. She is doing her best, is the bottom of the hierarchy and does not know any better, yet ... Its my party and I can assess too. God knows I have had that as my job description ... in public service.

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@Former-Member wrote:
I still struggle with the system calling us "consumers" 😒

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I can't help but feel sorry for a lot of those people, TBH, because quite often you can see how they are walking on eggshells trying to communicate in the least provocative way. You can see how tentative they are about using the term "consumers", but they are stuck with the predicament that nobody can offer them a term that is more agreeable to the "consumer" community.

Hell, I can relate. I use the term "therapists" as a blanket term for all the various job titles in the system like psychiatrists, psychologists, councillors, life coaches, support workers, p-docs, analysts, and the 700 other job titles they use. But I often get pulled up by people telling me that it's innaccurate to refer to all those people as therapists, as they aren't, technically speaking, all therapists. So how am I supposed to talk about these people?

I used to call them "shrinks", but again, I got pulled up for using this term because it wasn't PC. So I don't know what we're supposed to do.