I have just been looking at my various projects, blogs and websites, and I am embarrassed to realise that I have hardly written anything in the last year.
In my defense though, it has been an extraordinarily hard and painful year. A year of sheer torture would not be an exaggeration.
I applied for PIP, Personal Independence Payment, the welfare benefit for the disabled and chronically ill in the UK, in October of 2021, but at every stage of the process, I have been assaulted be official lies, inveigling, obfuscation and denial, despite a mountain of evidence, and so now finally I have a date for a Tribunal, more than a full year after my application.
‘Fight or Flight’ feels like a very apt title. It has been a battle, but I am so far beyond exhausted I can hardly describe how the process has added to my health struggle, both mental and physical. I am at the point where I just want it to be over and done with, for the torture to end. I almost don’t care at this juncture whether or not I win, I just need it to stop.
Summary of the Episode
The crew of the Enterprise NX-01 are starting out on their journey of exploration, and discover an abandoned alien spaceship containing corpses which had apparently been used by another alien species for some kind of experiment. It is all rather macarbre, and Lt. Hoshi Sato – the communications officer – is particularly freaked out by it and is embarrassed afterwards by her reaction.
If I recall correctly, a little space battle ensures because they have a bit of a failure to communicate with the aliens who come to investigate what has happened to their people, and they wrongly assume that Enterprise were the ones responsible for the carnage.
On the Bridge
When is it right to stand your ground and fight, and when is it safer to flee? Back here in the real world, I really don’t feel as though I have any choice but to fight on. If I were to withdraw my claim now, the last year of torture would have been in vain. It is just another week or two, and whatever the result, it will be over. I will be free. I will be able, finally, to relax.
LLAP
Star Trek Therapy 
I hear you. I don’t understand the specifics but it sounds very similar to how things have been going for me here in rural “murika”. I recently learned of 2 other “f’s” that go with that- “freeze” and “fawn”. Those 2 really resonate with me because they’re probably the 2 i do most, then when they don’t work ill try fighting or “flight-ing”. Anyway, thanks for this- i love it
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