1
Tribulations
Posted by
Obsidian_Eclipse
,
19 July 2010
·
99 views
Getting involved in the specials has become an increasingly important thing in my life. On the days that I am able to focus on what I'm doing I often consider the dismay of my suffering wife when I open my mouth to talk about the police - yet again. In many ways in could be considered an obsession of mine and is the sum of all my most powerful experiences, things which have challenged me and developed character as well as made me address life in all its extremes and diversity. However I must wonder whether or not is it entirely justified to have such an obsession and maybe if it wasnt the fact that I have ME that it wouldnt be as important as it seems. It is you see, the very thing that I leave the house for.
One of my first attempts to get on with my life, whilst I was still employed and still coming to terms with ME was to try doing a shift with the police, a 'real' shift instead of my 'recruitment and retention' duties. Rather than jump on response and go overboard I decided to go out with a PCSO on patrol, a few hours around the estates followed by a few more in the station contacting victims of crime and updating them on the progress we were making. I will admit that I did suffer physically later on and the extent of the aches and pains kept me awake for a couple of days afterwards but it was an experiment in managing my illness. Around this time I was called into the office of my paid workplace to speak to HR, apparently they had recieved an annonymous letter (on headed police paper) saying that I was performing regular shifts with the police and so clearly was not ill. WHAT!? This is the moment when everything I had held in such statuesque glory with the police had revealed its feat of clay. I was upset and very angry that someone had being telling tales, in my defence I had been entirely transparent with both the police and my workplace in what I was attempting to do and had recieve their full support. The annonymous letter didnt harm my credibility at all, my workplace were more conserned that another police officer/staff would be so backstabbing and try to cause ruptions. Its a shame that the identity of the mystery mail poster was not officialy uncovered.
After that event I felt troubled and as my illness worsened found it harder to keep up and so I decided to admit defeat, reduce my workload and do the bare minimum to get through. Questions had been raised, ones which I would have to address before I could feel confident again about doing any sort of uniformed duty, the letter had stated (in different words I admit) that I was a liability and a hindrence, that it was dangerous for a Special who was ill to perform duties as it may well jeapodise the safety of those he works with. Yes. That is correct in many ways and I would expect that if someone was suffering as I do on my worst days (and majority of days) that I would be a risk to the safety of other officers, how could they know if I wasnt going to collapse on duty or be unable to restrain someone with a knife?
The answer is, I live with this illness, I know it inside out and back to front. It is no excuse however to be putting myself or anyone else in danger, particulary members of the public, and so for the next couple of years I kept myself on restricted duties until I could be certain that no risk could be posed. This was not something imposed upon me by anyone else but something I did myself and I suppose I am in retrospect grateful that the annonymous letter writer had raised this issue, but I would have prefered them to say it to my face.
I've resigned myself to the fact that I will never be able to do everything I used to do, but I am confident in the things that I can do. Its been two years now since I had imposed the sanction of restricted duties and supervision. Something that I do feel I have needed to do in order to ensure that whatever I do I have thought about with utmost seriousness and diligence. If ever I am to perform a uniformed duty then at those days I must be at my peak and at the slightest sign of difficulty then I must stop - no deluding myself that I'm ok and can manage, no pushing and no peer pressure.
One of my first attempts to get on with my life, whilst I was still employed and still coming to terms with ME was to try doing a shift with the police, a 'real' shift instead of my 'recruitment and retention' duties. Rather than jump on response and go overboard I decided to go out with a PCSO on patrol, a few hours around the estates followed by a few more in the station contacting victims of crime and updating them on the progress we were making. I will admit that I did suffer physically later on and the extent of the aches and pains kept me awake for a couple of days afterwards but it was an experiment in managing my illness. Around this time I was called into the office of my paid workplace to speak to HR, apparently they had recieved an annonymous letter (on headed police paper) saying that I was performing regular shifts with the police and so clearly was not ill. WHAT!? This is the moment when everything I had held in such statuesque glory with the police had revealed its feat of clay. I was upset and very angry that someone had being telling tales, in my defence I had been entirely transparent with both the police and my workplace in what I was attempting to do and had recieve their full support. The annonymous letter didnt harm my credibility at all, my workplace were more conserned that another police officer/staff would be so backstabbing and try to cause ruptions. Its a shame that the identity of the mystery mail poster was not officialy uncovered.
After that event I felt troubled and as my illness worsened found it harder to keep up and so I decided to admit defeat, reduce my workload and do the bare minimum to get through. Questions had been raised, ones which I would have to address before I could feel confident again about doing any sort of uniformed duty, the letter had stated (in different words I admit) that I was a liability and a hindrence, that it was dangerous for a Special who was ill to perform duties as it may well jeapodise the safety of those he works with. Yes. That is correct in many ways and I would expect that if someone was suffering as I do on my worst days (and majority of days) that I would be a risk to the safety of other officers, how could they know if I wasnt going to collapse on duty or be unable to restrain someone with a knife?
The answer is, I live with this illness, I know it inside out and back to front. It is no excuse however to be putting myself or anyone else in danger, particulary members of the public, and so for the next couple of years I kept myself on restricted duties until I could be certain that no risk could be posed. This was not something imposed upon me by anyone else but something I did myself and I suppose I am in retrospect grateful that the annonymous letter writer had raised this issue, but I would have prefered them to say it to my face.
I've resigned myself to the fact that I will never be able to do everything I used to do, but I am confident in the things that I can do. Its been two years now since I had imposed the sanction of restricted duties and supervision. Something that I do feel I have needed to do in order to ensure that whatever I do I have thought about with utmost seriousness and diligence. If ever I am to perform a uniformed duty then at those days I must be at my peak and at the slightest sign of difficulty then I must stop - no deluding myself that I'm ok and can manage, no pushing and no peer pressure.
