Been There and Done It...so where's me t shirt?

I think I might have a t shirt obsession. Another one to add to the collection!!!

In spite of virus, and almost going freak out in the taxi on the way, I got to the radio station....an hour early.

Dr Jekyll, kindly, accompanied me. I was impressed by his efforts as he suffers severe paranoia and going to places he doesn't know aggrevates paranoid states in him. So fair play to Dr J, I say!

Got a nice mug of tea from the receptionist whilst the pair of us sat and read the magazines (which varied from Trainspotting to Disability Rights).

I was ushered through to the recording room around 11.20. Dr J declined to go with me and headed off for a ciggie. It wasn't at all what I expected. I thought I was actually going to be interviewed by a person in the same room as me. Whilst I waited to be connected through to other people (those interviewing and Seanean being interviewed, somewhere else)I looked around the room. Was a bit bizarre, there were boxes and mikes and some kind of telephone system on the desk in front of me and to the side of me some sort of storage system and a kid's trike. That struck me as novel and I told the receptionist that if I got bored, waiting to go on air, I could always whizz round the room on that.

I haven't got a clue whether I said anything that anyone else might find relevant. I was asked, at one point, to move back from the mike. I haven't got the daintiest of voices and was most probably bellowing out (apologies to those involved for any perforated ear drums).

I hadn't prepared (wasn't even sure what to prepare for) so winged it...as in responded to questions with whatever came to mind at the time. That most probably suited me better. I had kinda put the interview to the back of my mind...and more so because wasn't even sure I would be up to it on the day. With mental illness there aren't always obvious triggers for not being able to handle things on a particular day and my physical state hasn't been condusive to proactive involvement in things outside my comfort zone. I consider it an achievement to have got there and without having severe panic attacks before, during or after.

The experience was quite interesting to me. Having a kind of 3 way convo...although I would have much preferred to have someone in the room asking me the questions. I did feel like I could have been talking to people from a space base on Mars (most likely came across that way too...good luck to whoever is doing the editing) but wasn't really that spooked by it. I actually found it a bit comical.

For those interested in listening to my warblings the Radio 4 Programme will go out on Tuesday, December 2nd at 21.00 hours, repeated on Wednesday, December 3rd at 16.30The podcast will be available on the link below:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/allinthemind.shtml

So now, home and back to my reality, which consists of a rather abrupt letter from the local council, informing me they have stopped my housing benefit until they get a letter from me explaining when I stopped getting tax credits and child benefit. Even though the tax office informed them of those dates, already...and the formal request for a letter from Em's uni confirming she is a student there. I could get worried about this but I am not. The way I see it, these systems are incompetent and run by people who appear incompetent and if push comes to shove I will ask them why they have to pressure people with illness over piss poor communications between government departments. Obviously, I will do that in a manner befitting formal communications (will swap 'piss poor' for inadequate).

And it is time for a cuppa, a cig and a slob out to some tunes. Thanks, again, to Dr J, I now know how to download songs on to my MP3 Player. My favourite is Michael Jackson's 'Stranger in Moscow' (which bares some relevance to how I felt in that studio room today) but is not allowed to be embedded from You tube so have gone for this. Which is Pink doing it for us girls who go, for reasons that may well be our own destruction, for relevant others who don't come with fancy cars and talk to match!!!