ok, just to recap...we're fucked
Greetings
neglect has started to creep into this blog once more, and I will try my best to stop this...but there is a reason. My motivation is shot at the moment, and i'm distracted with many things.
I'll explain...
As I previously mentioned, the company I worked for went into administration on Christmas eve, which was great timing obviously 'merry fucking Christmas to you too' but anyway, nothing else happened until 8th January. Now, we hadn't gotten any stock in since before Christmas and we were running pretty low, everything was out and the store looked good, we'd worked hard to make sure it did. But then, on my day off I got a call from my manager saying we'd shut and all the stock was to be sent off to a larger store. I went in, to help and to find out the details, a bit dazed really. We were to be made redundant at close of trade the following day. We were to send the stock off, and that was it, we were redundant, less than 48hrs notice. It turned out to be a great last couple of days. As sad as it was, and it was very sad, for me certainly, we made the best of it, and could relax, with no real pressure anymore. The guy that was sent down from head office really hated that he had to shut us down, and so he bought us 2 crates of beer to have while we were sending off the stock, so it turned into a sort of party, a send off. But the fact remained, we were out of a job, redundant.
At this point, i'll point out how my financial situation is. I have 2 loans, one for £200 and one for £65 a month. The £200 a month one has loan protection, so, having had a form sent through to claim for that and filled it out, only to find out that the job centre has to fill a part of it out, but that they can't until your claim with them has gone through I may still have that to worry about come the end of the month, as it still isn't sorted out. I also have about £100 of other outgoings a month, most of them are within the period of the contract where I can't cancel them, so nothing I can reduce there. I worked 8 days in january and from that I was paid £400, and I had a cheque I was owed for £183 that i've paid in, but I was over my overdraft limit, and so, with, adding on bank charges, about £500 to come out of my account at the end of the month, or a few days after my account has about £100, and I have a £250 overdraft limit. I get paid £45 a week jobseekers allowance, so that'll go in on monday, but that still means i'll be over my overdraft limit for a couple of weeks by about £100, resulting in more charges, and then my jobseekers will clear that just in time for about another £170 to come out, providing I don't get any charges and I sort out my loan protection. So i'll get more charges, while my jobseekers may vaguely keep me afloat for a while. But I have no money for anything else, my mum, who I live with is, and will have to buy the food as I won't have any extra money, and hope that the extra she'll get for housing benefit because i'm not working will cover the rent.
Keep up with all that? Sound fun? I know a lot of people are in a similar situation, but that doesn't really help me to feel any better, my motivation is lacking a lot of the time, sometimes I feel happy and ready to do stuff, other times...I don't. I have been jobsearching and have applied for getting on for 50 jobs now i'd imagine, most of them shitty jobs, or ones i'll likely not get, but i've been to some interviews, not gotten the jobs...it's not great fun, and I wasn't in the best state of mind before all of this to be honest.
But what about redundancy pay you ask? that must help. Well, as the company were in administration I can't claim it from then, so I only get statuatory redundancy from the government, which is less than company redundancy. I get 2 weeks pay, plus I can claim back notice they should have given me, which is 4 weeks, and holiday pay i'm owed, which is 8 days. So not too bad. But I have to CLAIM it, which I was advised by a lady at the job centre can take up to 6 months, even if they only say a couple of weeks. Helpful, really helpful.
Anyway, that takes us up 'till now. I am still jobsearching, and still with a topsy turvy state of mind. If i'm honest i'm pretty sure now that I have a form of depression, most likely, I would say, bi-polar. I can be great, really happy, and then because of one small thing, barely anything at all, i'll switch to really angry or depressed, complete opposite. I can't control it, and it was getting hard to control over christmas, several times I snapped, and only just held myself together enough to not tell all the customers to go fuck themselves, although I certainly wasn't my usual polite self. In addition to this my health isn't great, I have an enlarged tendon, or so my doctor tells me, on my left wrist, which I have a gel to put on, but it means gripping, or exessive movement can be, on occasion, very painful. I also have some other problems I won't detail here, but that make me uncomfortable in a variety of ways, physically and mentally.
I'll also admit that my relationship with my mum, who I live with, is variable. We argue a lot, she has a go at me for small things, that don't really matter, and she is especially snappy with me at the moment, for no reason at all, thanks to a problem with a stray cat that we can't have in the house all the time, but which won't leave our garden, is always at our window, wanting to come in. My mum feeds it, and lets it in supervised, and spends a lot of time worrying about it, so gets snappy with me, when I really don't need it.
Then of course I have all the same old problems of confidence and what effects that has on me, not being able to make friends properly, get a girlfriend, feel like I fit in, belong in a conversation with most people.
All of this adds up to this being a very difficult time, where I struggle to hold myself together physically, mentally and financially...and it's hard, and it's getting to me. Pretty much I just needed to write that down, get it out, a release of some sort, and this is the best release I have.
Not really sure I expect anyone to have read all this, but thank you to anyone that has.
I still blog here to get things out there, because it's my biggest release, and because I enjoy it...but also because of the wonderful people i've met on here, who I consider great friends,and hope to meet in person one day. It means a lot for people to accept and comment on my ramblings, I thank you all, I hope you are well, much love
Dan
xxxx
neglect has started to creep into this blog once more, and I will try my best to stop this...but there is a reason. My motivation is shot at the moment, and i'm distracted with many things.
I'll explain...
As I previously mentioned, the company I worked for went into administration on Christmas eve, which was great timing obviously 'merry fucking Christmas to you too' but anyway, nothing else happened until 8th January. Now, we hadn't gotten any stock in since before Christmas and we were running pretty low, everything was out and the store looked good, we'd worked hard to make sure it did. But then, on my day off I got a call from my manager saying we'd shut and all the stock was to be sent off to a larger store. I went in, to help and to find out the details, a bit dazed really. We were to be made redundant at close of trade the following day. We were to send the stock off, and that was it, we were redundant, less than 48hrs notice. It turned out to be a great last couple of days. As sad as it was, and it was very sad, for me certainly, we made the best of it, and could relax, with no real pressure anymore. The guy that was sent down from head office really hated that he had to shut us down, and so he bought us 2 crates of beer to have while we were sending off the stock, so it turned into a sort of party, a send off. But the fact remained, we were out of a job, redundant.
At this point, i'll point out how my financial situation is. I have 2 loans, one for £200 and one for £65 a month. The £200 a month one has loan protection, so, having had a form sent through to claim for that and filled it out, only to find out that the job centre has to fill a part of it out, but that they can't until your claim with them has gone through I may still have that to worry about come the end of the month, as it still isn't sorted out. I also have about £100 of other outgoings a month, most of them are within the period of the contract where I can't cancel them, so nothing I can reduce there. I worked 8 days in january and from that I was paid £400, and I had a cheque I was owed for £183 that i've paid in, but I was over my overdraft limit, and so, with, adding on bank charges, about £500 to come out of my account at the end of the month, or a few days after my account has about £100, and I have a £250 overdraft limit. I get paid £45 a week jobseekers allowance, so that'll go in on monday, but that still means i'll be over my overdraft limit for a couple of weeks by about £100, resulting in more charges, and then my jobseekers will clear that just in time for about another £170 to come out, providing I don't get any charges and I sort out my loan protection. So i'll get more charges, while my jobseekers may vaguely keep me afloat for a while. But I have no money for anything else, my mum, who I live with is, and will have to buy the food as I won't have any extra money, and hope that the extra she'll get for housing benefit because i'm not working will cover the rent.
Keep up with all that? Sound fun? I know a lot of people are in a similar situation, but that doesn't really help me to feel any better, my motivation is lacking a lot of the time, sometimes I feel happy and ready to do stuff, other times...I don't. I have been jobsearching and have applied for getting on for 50 jobs now i'd imagine, most of them shitty jobs, or ones i'll likely not get, but i've been to some interviews, not gotten the jobs...it's not great fun, and I wasn't in the best state of mind before all of this to be honest.
But what about redundancy pay you ask? that must help. Well, as the company were in administration I can't claim it from then, so I only get statuatory redundancy from the government, which is less than company redundancy. I get 2 weeks pay, plus I can claim back notice they should have given me, which is 4 weeks, and holiday pay i'm owed, which is 8 days. So not too bad. But I have to CLAIM it, which I was advised by a lady at the job centre can take up to 6 months, even if they only say a couple of weeks. Helpful, really helpful.
Anyway, that takes us up 'till now. I am still jobsearching, and still with a topsy turvy state of mind. If i'm honest i'm pretty sure now that I have a form of depression, most likely, I would say, bi-polar. I can be great, really happy, and then because of one small thing, barely anything at all, i'll switch to really angry or depressed, complete opposite. I can't control it, and it was getting hard to control over christmas, several times I snapped, and only just held myself together enough to not tell all the customers to go fuck themselves, although I certainly wasn't my usual polite self. In addition to this my health isn't great, I have an enlarged tendon, or so my doctor tells me, on my left wrist, which I have a gel to put on, but it means gripping, or exessive movement can be, on occasion, very painful. I also have some other problems I won't detail here, but that make me uncomfortable in a variety of ways, physically and mentally.
I'll also admit that my relationship with my mum, who I live with, is variable. We argue a lot, she has a go at me for small things, that don't really matter, and she is especially snappy with me at the moment, for no reason at all, thanks to a problem with a stray cat that we can't have in the house all the time, but which won't leave our garden, is always at our window, wanting to come in. My mum feeds it, and lets it in supervised, and spends a lot of time worrying about it, so gets snappy with me, when I really don't need it.
Then of course I have all the same old problems of confidence and what effects that has on me, not being able to make friends properly, get a girlfriend, feel like I fit in, belong in a conversation with most people.
All of this adds up to this being a very difficult time, where I struggle to hold myself together physically, mentally and financially...and it's hard, and it's getting to me. Pretty much I just needed to write that down, get it out, a release of some sort, and this is the best release I have.
Not really sure I expect anyone to have read all this, but thank you to anyone that has.
I still blog here to get things out there, because it's my biggest release, and because I enjoy it...but also because of the wonderful people i've met on here, who I consider great friends,and hope to meet in person one day. It means a lot for people to accept and comment on my ramblings, I thank you all, I hope you are well, much love
Dan
xxxx
Uttered by Motormouth at approximately 5:08 pm
6 Comments:
Hard to publically post a comment here than can adequately say everything I want to say to you but...
Don't give up. Everything is truely shitty from what you write, and I can understand the see-sawing feelings. I understand why you're maybe feeling that you have kind of underlying illness such as bi-polarism, but much of what you have described sounds like classic depression (this is from one who's lived with it in other for thirty years, and skirted about the edges of it themself). First, I would suggest you go talk to your doctor if they are remotely sympathetic. You'd be suprised what just telling someone impartial can do. I think this blog post is a way of doing this. You can also request support such as counselling through your doctor (though steer clear of any happy pills he may offer you unless you continue to feel like this for a long time). You may have to wait for free counselling, but just having that non judgemental hour once a week has been my lifeline on several occasions.
Second, you've done a pretty thorough job on looking over your finances and identifying your problems. I would suggest that you think about asking a charity such as Citizen's Advice to intercede with your creditors on you behalf to negotiate some breathing space in light of your problems in securing your benefit entitlements and redundancy. In particular, speak to the bank about the charges to see if they'll give you some leeway (I cried buckets down the phone when charges happened to me and they dropped 60% of the charges. Mind, I do appreciate that you can't really do that being male!)
Third, get out of the house. I don't care what you do but use the time you have to do something you enjoy. Go to the library and use the internet or read the magazines (mine even stocks Kerrang!). It's free. It advertises local events and quite often jobs in loal government. If this doesn't appeal thing of something close to your heart (music?!), look at your talents and offer them for free for a few hours aweek. Do some youth theatre, bang drums, do creative writing tied up to musical expression - anything that floats your boat. But don't stay in - if you think you can't afford the travel expenses you'll find that most charities have a budget for volunteer expenses.
This isn't exhaustive and it certainly isn't a cure for everything that you're going through. I haven't mentioned your mum situation because I have no idea how that can be solved. You can do all of the above or non of it - but do something. I know from personal experience that unemployment sucks (I was the same age as you, unemployed for seven months and because I did voluntary work making tea and coffee in my local magistrates court I got a job).
But most of all, take care of yourself. E-mail me anytime you want to, or tell me I'm talking crap even! You'll be suprised how many friends can be generous in times of need.
Sending you a big hug, Jane xx
Sorry it took so long to reply, I was going to yesterday, but just after I sat down to type, my bed broke! Typical...
Anyway, first of all thank you for reading and especially for commenting, I truely appreciate it.
Concerning depression, I have been of the opinion for quite a while now that I have some form of depression, and recently someone described to me what each type of depression means, and bi-polar makes sense. I'm not an expert, so I can't say for sure, but it best descibes how it feels like it happens, but I may be wrong. I don't get on that well with my doctor, but after i've sorted out some of the more immediate medical problems I have, I'll get round to seeing what is going on with that.
Regarding money, the only way to reduce my outgoings would be to re-negociate the loans, and I really don't want to do that, because i've done it before, and I don't want to be paying them forever. All the other things are small things that I couldn't put off, things like sky and phone bills and such, nothing I can do about them, especially since they are still in contract, so I can't even just get rid of them, not that I could really do that anyway, as I kinda need phone and internet, so i'm stuck there. When it comes to the bank, i've already been charged this month, so if I may get charged again at the end of the month then i'll have to look at that, but thats a while off and hopefully i'll have a job by then.
Getting out of the house is something i've not been doing all the time, but things keep cropping up that drag me out of the house, so it's not too bad, and i'm filming a music video next sunday, so that should be fun, at least being unemployed means I can do more with my production company, if we can get work. Hopefully the pretend band I started with some friends is going to turn into a real band, which may require some work, as I have no musical talent, not yet at least. But yeah, doing things and looking forward to doing things helps, and I would do some voulantary work or something like that if I could afford to be out of work for a long time, it would be a good way to recharge and de-stress, but until I git rid of my loans(sepember 2012) I have to work, work work!
Lastly, I want to thank you again, for reading, for caring for writing...for everything, it means a lot, and helps so much.
xxxx
Glad if it helps, but if I ever sound preachy tell me to bog off!
Good stuff about the video and band, sounds like fun. And don't fret about the time it took to reply, I'm not exactly the most prolific of posters these days, what with bloody eels in the garden in need of salvation and dog maintenance!
Take care xx
Sometimes customers DESERVE to be told to fuck off. I'm really sorry to hear about your job, though. It's an awful thing to handle but to have it happen so quickly is even worse. You have the emotional shock and, as you mentioned, the financial shock. Yes, millions are in the same boat but that really doesn't help you feel better. It's a very personal thing actually and knowing that alot of others are in the same situation not only doesn't help but can down right piss you off. You are worried about you, not them. As your entire system is different from ours there is little I can accurately comment on there but I do hope you find something suitable that makes you happy. It is a matter of time but I wish for you that it is sooner rather than later. The tension between you and your mum is normal. This won't help but I live that daily as I stay with my gram to help her out. There are two adults with their own ideas living in one space. Anger flares, arguments arise, it can be maddening. One thing I can say with accuracy is that it will get better when the weather warms up and you aren't stuck inside so much. Kind of a little known bit, depression can cause anger, etc. Most people think that depression is walking around all mopey like Eeyore in Winnie the Pooh. Sure, that is part of it, but there is a flip side to depression that includes anger, restlessness, etc. You have so much going on now that it may have triggered depression or, you could be bipolar as you mentioned. If so, welcome to the club. ;) As for not fitting in or being able to blend with a conversation, well, some day it won't matter to you. Today it does but it really won't always be that way. I gave up on trying to blend a long time ago. Sometimes I still try, but then I give up aimply because I'm alright with being different. I disagree when others agree. My mouth shoots off the first thing that comes to mind before it goes through my internal filters. I hate humans, repeat myself endlessly, talk too much or refuse to speak, cuss like a sailor with Tourettes on meth, cry, argue, don't wait my turn and cut you off mid sentence to blurt out something before I forget. With all that, I'm really not rude, but I'm not the kind of person that easily gets accepted into 'soccer mom' convos because when they ask me if I say little Billy in his new uniform, I tend to blurt out, 'yeah, it's ugly as fuck'. Damn that faulty filter. But for some reason, people tend to accept me because even though I don't follow the rules, there is something underneath that they like about that. Simply because I am different. A very close friend that I met at work tells me that she adores me because she doesn't know anyone else like me. Of course there are those that will shy away from you because they don't know what to make of you, not because of you personally. That can be hard but these are the people that want everyone to say little Billy looks great in his pink and yellow uniform with orange trim. You don't strike me as the type to give a shit one way or another what Billy wears. There is no one group in life that accepts us as we are. It comes down to individuals along the way. For me, I can count you and GD up there as people that don't judge and take me for what I am - albeit a zillion miles away. Dan, there will come a day that someone thanks you for being like you are. Again, I know it doesn't help you now, but you will find a girlfriend (plus, you are completely adorable!) and friends, but until then, work on you. You have to be cool with yourself first. I could go on and on (as if I haven't already) but if you ever want to talk about anything, you can email me. So with that, I'll shut up now. ;)
LW spoke: "But for some reason, people tend to accept me because even though I don't follow the rules, there is something underneath that they like about that. Simply because I am different. A very close friend that I met at work tells me that she adores me because she doesn't know anyone else like me."
LOL! she's completely right, and she's just described me as well...remember the Chicken Fcatory days, Dan? I was a very square peg in a round hole. Now I'm the eccentric sister sat in the corner talking about albino accountants who work in an abbatoir (don't ask...).
And LW is right about another thing, you are cute! So get your butt out there.
GD xx (I'm off to Whitby for a few days now so won't be back til next week. take care now).
LW-thank you for the post, a lot of truth there, the one problem I have with fitting in is confidence, as I've always been shy, and I find it difficult to be myself around others as I'm not great with rejection, but i'm getting better at socialising, and i'm meeting lots of fun new people. Unfortunately I never seem to meet any fun new single girls that would go out with me, but i've kinda gotten used to that-i'll probably die of shock if it happens! (and thank you both for the compliments *blushes*)
I'm great at accepting people as they are, the more eccentric the better, and my little blogger community is as real and as dear to me in life as the friends I see locally, perhaps more so...and you can go on as much as you like(as I do, often) I enjoy long posts!(and indeed your friend is right, there is no-one else like you! in a goodway) :)
xxxx
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