Oh look it is September, I blinked and winter never existed. Not that it was a cold winter anyway, still very much above the long term average, but apparently a bit cooler than the last couple of years.
The weather is not why I am here though. Of course I am here to complain and whinge, thats what these blogs are right? A recount of my suffering while I pursue a career in academia as an autistic, depressed, anxious, low income, barely any family person, and carer to the only 2 members of my family I have left. Is that a good start to this whinge session?
The main reason I am here today is because I should be in the Northern Territory with my Herpetology group for a book launch and herping trip right now, but alas I made the decision to pull out because I feel terribly behind on my PhD because I had to pretty much take the past month off.
This trip was going to be a birthday treat for myself too. I've aways wanted to go to the NT, and with my herp group would have been a fantastic opportunity to actually see wild animals and be able to identify them! The book launch lead by the group that I am a committee member for, and it would have been a great time to network more with experts in the field.
So why did I give up on this amazing opportunity for myself that was perfectly timed with my birthday?
Because I had to spend the past month fighting for my family to stay in our house.
Basically, we got a new tenancy manager, who gave us written notice saying we had 3 breaches of our tenancy all of a sudden. Please note that these three things they listed have been the like this for between 7 and 27 years, approved by previous managers, and one of them is a fix to our house because they couldn't be bothered repairing it for over a decade and it was a health, safety, and hygiene concern for my family. So instead of writing up one of my chapters for my PhD and sending drafts out to my supervisors, I constructed a formal letter disputing the issues. But who do I send it to? The new tenancy manager never gave their details even though the letter stated to contact them any time. We ended up having to contact our previous tenancy manager (still works in the same company, but new position) and asking them to forward it on to the Tenancy manager and their team leader.
A week goes by, still no response. By now its been 2 weeks since we got the notice, and myself any my family has been super stressed thinking we would have to move, and realising that there is no where in Sydney that we could afford to even rent. So we contact our previous tenancy manager again with - just wondering if anything has progressed, is the inspection still occurring tomorrow?
No the inspection was cancelled (thanks for letting us know, it's not like we have anything else in life that we cancelled to make time for this).
We end up setting up a meeting the next week, which should have had our previous tenancy manager, our current tenancy manager and their team leader.
We go to the meeting with a support worker as a third party to take notes, especially since the company that manages our home almost never puts anything in writing. Our current tenancy manger is apparently sick so doesn't turn up, which in a way made the meeting more pleasant. The two people their start of by apologising for what the tenancy manager wrote and they they are new and still need some training. This was a pleasant surprise, I just wish it hadn't taken almost 3 weeks to find this out. They revoked everything that was in the letter verbally, so that was a huge relief.
Eventually, this week, my birthday week, we get a written email from the tenancy manager revoking everything they wrote. Only now could we actually relax because we had it in writing.
"All's well that ends well?" - Well NO!
My family spent almost an entire month freaking out about having to move from a house we've been in for 27 years, with the stress further amplified by the fact there is no way we could afford to rent anywhere in Sydney (which my family needs for medical specialists).
This emotional distress lead to the following:
- the inability to work on my PhD, on campus or at home;
- increased frequency and severity of migraine symptoms;
- increased tension with the support workers that come to help out at home;
- a weakened immune system which lead to me getting sick twice within 3 weeks (I rarely ever get sick), which caused further distress which lead to:
- not being able to see my partner;
- increased inability to work on PhD (I could at least read a paper or join an online meeting every so often when I was healthy);
- inability to sleep properly;
- increased migraine symptoms even more;
After a horrible month, I decided it was best to try and get back into doing my PhD, rather than going on this wonderful trip that was planned, (also since I'm still not fully recovered from the infections I had).
I believe I made the right call in the long run, as taking even more time off would just increase my PhD stress even more. However, I also believe I still have the right to be upset and angry at how the circumstances in my life have once again denied me from actually enjoying my life.
Oh did I mention I've had heaps of pimples and its Spring so hay fever symptoms are also becoming more frequent and severe....
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