Anxiety!!

 Walking the dogs this morning my mind was it’s usual washing machine churning self! But this hour is my time to sort out my thoughts and prep myself for the day ahead, I’m convinced that without this time I would have missed so much more work time!! Anyway the prevailing thought was how anxiety has taken the place of depression at the moment, personally I prefer depression over anxiety as I seem to have all my coping strategies in place to be able to continue to function whilst depressed! Sure I struggle with motivation whilst depressed and often miss things because of it BUT my day to day life like work etc remains relatively un affected.

Anxiety is a whole different ball game for me, I’d been pretty much anxiety free for quite sometime now but recent events at work have just pushed that button!! I’ve suffered with chronic glaucoma in both eyes for over 20 years now and whilst I don’t find it easy living with the constant threat to my sight the treatment has been bloody good! The DVLA are aware of this and along with the NHS monitoring my condition my employers have been more than happy. Last year I get a new boss, now every so often we have to fill in a form about our health etc for driving for the company and I always declare my glaucoma. Well this time my new boss decides that this isn’t good enough and asks for an occupational health review! Now he tells me this has been triggered by my declaration of glaucoma, so I ask why its suddenly flagged up after 20yrs and he can’t answer! Turns out that when I had my interview the lady told me it wasn’t triggered by the company but by a question HE had asked about whether I was fit to do my job!! and in her honest opinion she was wasting my time as the DVLA would revoke my license way before it became an issue!! And she should know as she also does the interviews on behalf of the DVLA!

To say I’m not happy is a massive understatement and all this was happening at the time I was being diagnosed with prostrate cancer but we still didn’t know how far advanced it was and I’d also just lost or was close to losing Harvey my hound!! I was already struggling mentally and suddenly I had the fear I could be taken off driving and even lose my job, if he had hit me with a baseball bat it couldn’t have done anymore damage!! And to top it all off I’ve since found out I did not need to declare my glaucoma as its a long standing condition!! I feel my integrity has been questioned, I’ve been lied to and a whole unnecessary level of stress has been sent my way for absolutely no good reason other than his desire to fuck with folks lives!! And I’m not the only one!!

Anyway I felt I needed to write this down and get it out of my head as its starting to go sour in there and I’m hoping that by laying it out it will start the healing process!!