Like most people, I prefer to think of myself as competent. As able to manage my affairs. As having some degree of mental acuity.

When I look at my past work history, I see that I continually sought out jobs of increased complexity and challenge. The best of these was my position with Bow Valley Offshore. But the oil industry collapse of the late 1980’s created huge difficulties for everyone in offshore E&P. Including me. And all of my friends and former colleagues. We searched for occupational lifeboats. But all the lifeboats had already been broken or submerged.

When I went to work with Gargantua, the firm represented a very challenging environment, one that embraced constant change and continual learning. I thrived there. There was a constant sense of accomplishment derived from handling difficult events and delivering positive results.

Tonight, I am really down. The reason is one of total embarrassment. I am struggling with my various submissions. This evening, I discovered that I was still mailing in submissions at a time when the review committee had already issued its opinion. Either I did not understand the process, or they did not care to wait.

When I sift back through my documentation, I find a great many errors. My first submission was April 28th 2015. My last submission was July 15th 2015. Their letter of review arrived on July 15th. So their review was performed on an incomplete file.

I feel very stupid. Very out of it. Very conscious of struggling to achieve an adequate level of performance, and failing. It is as if my own incompetence is being shoved in my face, like a cream pie filled with a multitude of errors, the mistakes splattering everywhere, completely beyond my control.

I do not know how to untangle the mess. I am faced with an organization that wants to deny the validity of my claim. I must also confront the fact that medical science is unsettled and incomplete in respect of my form of injury. And then there is the problem that mine is an invisible injury, one that affects a great many people but which is little understood by the public. The sufferers are forced to confront a multitude of issues while society abandons them to neglect. No lifeboats here! Go tread water or drown.

That may be a harsh assessment. But it is difficult to come to any other conclusion. I am attempting to learn about an injury which impedes my ability to learn. I am attempting to assert the validity of my insurance claim when my injury impedes my ability to present the issues. I attempt to correct grievous wrongs and find myself lost within a mountain of documentation that I struggle to understand.

Update

On posting this entry, I recognize that my return to the blog is in part due to the fact that it gives me some sense of reassurance. I can dabble with images and bang out a post and from this activity I gain a sense of reassurance, a measure of restored confidence. The sense that I do retain some functional abilities. The blog is a cognitive lifeboat.

Update 2

In paragraph five, I describe how I was still making submissions to the review committee on July 15th which is the date I received their decision. Not mentioned is the fact that the final element of evidence did not fall into place and become known to me until July 25th, ten days later.