Tuesday 23 February 2016

Avoiding Awkward Questions.

I'm listening to Pinchas Zukerman and Marc Neikrug playing Beethoven's Violin Sonatas after another very long day. These recordings are new to me as I'm trying out the box set dad gave me for Christmas. I still love the Perlman Ashkenazy recordings as some of the finest ever but this is good.

It may be only Tuesday but it seems like one of the longest weeks in some time. Yesterday there were heart breaking tales and huge risk. Today was following on from that. Referrals are coming at the rate of 4-6 a day. Yet the bulk of my day was preparing for and enduring a long meeting.

The meeting was about a validation review of the School of Postgraduate Medicine on whose programme I studied. I was very anxious. True they wheeled me out only because I hit the tick boxes of practitioner, student, teacher and service user and that made me hot commodity. My fear was about being asked directly a difficult question about my experience. And those who look back on my posts from the autumn of 2013 until February of 2015 will recall at times my experience was a lonely, frustrating and anxious one.

Instead we were bombarded by minutiae questions on content and diversity. At times I wanted to speak but was on a strict leash. When finally those magic words service user came I launched forth and answered pretty much every question in but a few seconds. I think it went down well and brought huge relief to those on our side of the table.

Not really sure how I feel about it now. Tired is very much to the fore. But I'm doing well. I'm coping, I'm not overwhelmed and I'm in control. A long time has passed by since that happened. Am I back to where I was before? Not really as that was a bad place to go back to.

The rest of the week is full. More challenging conversations will be to come. But I have a sense of value that has been absent for a long time.

On that note I leave you and return to Beethoven. Until next time.

I Heard a Voice.

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