I received an email around an hour ago from my work coach provided by NHS service. The email was about what could cause a discharge (things like missing appointments or not looking for work). I was a bit surprised as I somehow thought the support is unconditional. It never was explained to me that it’s not and, as people with mental health problems can have various issues, I thought this is going to be taken into consideration.

What, for example, if I had another psychotic episode and it took me months to recover? So I asked for clarification.

Around the same time I was offered a shift in a care home for Saturday. I was initially given choice of two shifts: 8am to 8pm or 11am to 7pm and I said I’d take the shorter one but in the meantime the shorter shift got covered so I agreed to take the longer one. That obviously made me think already I need to make myself better by then.

But what happened on top of that was that agency sent me a confirmation for a shorter shift instead so again, I asked for clarification and they said they’ll send the confirmation for 8am-8pm shift tomorrow morning. But it was only 3pm, so not like they can’t do it today. It probably doesn’t take more than 2 minutes.

It then made me think that they’re in touch with my work coach and will send me the confirmation after she confirms I’m in a sensible state. I stated here that I believe I’m being monitored, didn’t I? And my psychiatric nurse doesn’t want to put me on medication because of that, so that suggests I really may be.

I’m not exactly sure I like this type of support, although I guess it may make some kind of sense. It’s probably to make me realise that people talk about me (as well as everyone else of course) behind my back and this is so that I didn’t do any strange things.

Of course no one wants to admit I’m on it, which may again be a reflection of social rules: when you help someone you don’t tell them that you help them.

Still, I’m not terribly convinced it is a good thing. Life was somehow easier when I was in my 20s. I’d like to go back to that time, when I wasn’t tired of people. Now I am. And not even any particular person, but collectively. Why, if they are monitoring me, they won’t tell everyone to behave differently towards me, so that I wasn’t triggered?

Possibly it is so that I learned to act differently? I guess if I wasn’t expected to discuss my financial situation at work I’d feel less tired of people. But then, why not just explain to them to avoid this subject with me? Unless, maybe they won’t listen? I don’t know how that really works. To what extend social interaction can be controlled by giving guidance to one person upfront? Maybe, if you tell people that they shouldn’t be discussing a particular subject with someone, they want to discuss it even more because they suddenly become curious about what’s behind that? I don’t know.

Anyway, as I said before, I now need to bring myself back to a sensible state by tomorrow morning. Or, what would be best, immediately, so that I don’t need to worry later on that I won’t manage it.