Thursday 22 November 2012

Paranoia.

Hello, here I am again. Why another blog so soon you may ask?
Well once again I feel the need to explain myself, why do I feel this need? Something as simple as a question in the comments of one of my other blogs has started me back on the road to trying to work out what people actually think when they read my blogs.
Or am I trying to work out what they think of me? And if so why?
Does it matter what people think of me?
Has it always mattered what people think of me?
Or is that yet something else that is connected to being disabled.
I do encourage questions, that's partly why I write blogs, I hope it gives people an opportunity to get to know me, and what life is like, sometimes good, sometimes not so good.
So comments and questions must be good, right?
This particular question asks how with my hands so terrible (I have put pictures on previous blogs) And the pain I am in do I manage to write such lengthy blogs?
The answer is simple, and quite straightforward, I have an iPad (luxury for some but necessity for me) And I dictate my blogs And the iPad writes them for me! Clever stuff eh?
A While ago I would have just read that question, answered it, and then just gone on and forgotten about it. So why not now? What has changed?
The easy answer is I have.
Anybody that has gone through and is currently going through this economic climate where everybody is watching everybody else, what they have, what they say, who they proclaim to be will understand where I'm coming from.
The questions with hidden meanings, the Feeling that someone may be trying to catch you out, to suggest that you are not who you say you are or that you're behaving in a way that is not honest.
I'm not suggesting that this innocent little question was anything other than that, the very fact that it has caused me to think this way is surely my problem.
I admit I read back through several of my previous blogs and realised how much of myself I put in them, I talk quite openly about my condition, about what has changed In my life for both myself and my husband and I suppose my extended family too.
This feeling of having to justify myself was compounded further this morning when the council surveyor knocked on the door whilst I was only half way to getting ready
To start my day, my husband opened the door and said to the surveyor 'I'll just check, my wife is not quite up yet'
Nothing wrong that you might think except it was gone 10 o'clock in the morning and I had wanted my husband to point out that he was in the process of helping me to get up due to me being disabled And that I wasn't simply having a lazy morning.
What on earth did I think this man was going to do? Rush back to the council? Phone the benefits hotline? And tell them that the lady of the house was still in bed at that time in the morning.
And what of my blogs? Do I now assume my readers are going to go running to tell that I indeed go out occasionally, that I can write blogs,
Am I in future going to put an explanation of how I still do the things I currently do?
No of course I'm not, I am who I am, I do what I do and I write what I write.
I am shocked that I have become so paranoid, I have no wish to take on the victims badge, I have no wish to live my life looking over my shoulder, being so very careful of what i say either by voice or by written word.
When did I become so paranoid?
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

3 comments:

Helen K said...

To answer your final line... You became paranoid when the general public became encouraged to make snap medical assessments of people around them without having any medical knowledge themselves :( I'm so sorry you feel this way Penny, I've felt it at times in the past too. I'm so glad that you have your ipad and can dictate on it, as even though I don't always comment, I often do read and enjoy your blogs. x

Jane said...

I firmly believe it's a sign of the times, brought about largely by the current welfare reform being pushed through by the Government. Every disabled person must be scared of what lies ahead, will they be declared fit for work when their IB/ESA comes up for renewal for example? Despite the fact that just getting through the day is hard enough and as much as we would love to be able to work, it's utterly impossible. Instead of supporting people there is an ever increasing stigma that we are work shy, scroungers, people who choose to live off the state rather than 'do the right thing,' namely go out to work.

Do any of us choose to live within the severe constraints of the conditions we suffer? I'm sure I'm not alone in wishing I could return to my productive and fulfilled life before I became disabled? There is no cure, no treatment that gives any quality of life yet still I feel like you. Worried whether they will somehow decide that I'm fit for work, despite all the evidence that says I'm absolutely not nor ever will be.




feline9 said...

I can understand what you are feeling, when I know what so many of my friends have gone through with all the constant need to prove that they have health issues. When there is still such an apparent lack of knowledge and common sense involved when you are being judged.

It is horrible when you feel the need to consider what you have written in case it can be misconstrued.

Don't let it get to you, we want to hear about you, we care about you, and any nasties out there are the small minority xxxxxx