Something happened last week that took me back to a time when I had no control over my life.

I was injured on the 31^st May 1994, I exited the workers compensation system on the 30^th May 1999.

For the first 3 years of my workers compensation claim, I learned to live in fear, I became addicted to prescription medication, I learned what loss really is; not just loss of income, but loss of future loss of hope, loss of identity, loss of freedom. In those years which to be brutally honest I actually have very little actual memory I lost my place of employment, I lost friends and I lost family, but mostly I lost myself and the framework of all that was solid in my world.

The last 2 years of my workers compensation life was one that started by going cold turkey from medication as my doctor could not/would not send me to a detox clinic.  I had to learn to live within a body that was never going to be pain free and would from time to time fail me. I had to find myself before I could find where I fitted in this world. I had to let go of all the fears that ruled my day sometimes my hours or minutes. 

It was never going to be easy, so I had to work ways of making seconds of easy count. The smell of freshly washed bed linen, the taste of coffee, the beauty of a rainbow or my favourite the smile from a total stranger returning my smile that for the most part was forced so that others would never see how lost and broken I was feeling on the inside.

I cried a lot, I reverted to the one thing that I knew would always be there, I reverted to reading. I have always been a reader, but the first years of my workers compensation life was book free as I simply could not focus long enough to understand what had been written, nor could I concentrate even on my oldest and most favourite of books,

Once more I could take refuge into the world of imagination and started to pull back into place the shreds of a life that had been misplaced. 

Even then there were still the totally irrational fears that would wake in the middle of the night in a drenching cold sweat. Oft times I was so sure that I was having a heart attack just from the tightness in my chest and my inability to take a breath. 

Nausea would wash over me as the fear that I would never be free, totally illogical whilst at the same time exceedingly real.
I don’t really remember making a clear choice to extradite myself from all of it, but I knew that if there was to be a future it would be up to me to make some better decisions and to decide just what that future would be. 

I also had to accept that the nightmares would return and blindside me as is the way of nightmares.

I accepted that my future would never be what had been planned pre-injury, taking charge of the new future was almost as terrifying as holding onto the life that my workers compensation world had created around me.

Slowly the nightmares left, though there were still the nights when fear of sleep would keep me awake even though exhaustion was in place, exhaustion was preferable.

Then my other refuge returned, study and research- looking for what I was not sure could ever be found or was even possible.
The library beckoned me to once more seek solace within its walls and I disappeared only to find the new me within the pages of books. 

The reason I am telling you this is connected to the above image.

This is my workers compensation number, a harsh reminder of a time best left to the annals of time.

However as I said at the start something happened last week that dropped me to my knees and had me once more questioning my self-worth. It matters not what happened, it only matters what my reaction was.  

I was plunged headfirst back into a time when I had no control, no value, no worth -I had to dig deep inside myself to hold onto the stability of who I am now and push the demons back into the darkness. There were tears and the nausea returned, and even for a while the self-loathing for being in a situation that I had no control over. 

Even though it has been 19 years since I exited the workers compensation process and I can stand in my work and know that countless others have freedoms because of my work all of it, all the nightmares, the drenching cold sweat, the heart palpitations, all of it is still lurking in the shadows.

No one every truly leaves the workers compensation system, it seeps in and stays dormant just waiting for an unguarded moment to lash out with the irrational fears.

I am alright again now, I know logically what happened was not intended to harm and was no way intentional – my reason for writing this is simple, I am hopeful that those who read my words understand that the injured worker population need your compassion your empathy and your support because the monsters really do live in the shadow world and when they are set free the injured worker population is powerless to defend ourselves. 

Yours in service
Rosemary

www.craigstable.net.au

rosemary@craigstable.net.au

SKYPE Rosemary2412 

1^st July 2018