I have a ranking system, you know, a league table for how much bureaucracies and official bodies wind me up. How much genuine anxiety I feel when I have to deal with them.
Bottom of the table (and this does amaze me, but it’s true) is His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. Yes, the dreaded tax man. I can count on my fingers the number of times that I’ve actually been able to save enough money and pay my twice yearly tax bill on time, yet they always seem to be accommodating and with little fuss. I’ve even cried down the phone at them (a trick I’ve only managed to pull off once. That’s lack of emotional regulation for you folks) but I’ve always been able to come to some sort of an amicable arrangement to pay the debt.
Next are local councils. I am full of rage and anger at how things don’t work, but council workers seem genuinely on your side. They never give you what you want, or indeed need, but at least they do it with a very supportive manner. At least that was what I thought until recently. I’ve just been offered a really nice council flat. So they (in this case Flintshire Council) have jumped out of the league table all together. They are very much in my good books.
We can almost discount grant funding bodies as my reaction to them varies. If they are funding me I’m fine. I will sing their praises from on high til the cows come home. If they are rejecting my bids and knocking me back they are the spawn of satin in my eyes. My rage against them knows no bounds, and it’s quite a challenge to engage with them at all. I want to take away their first born child, and force them to watch endless repeats of unfunded creative work like Disney Plus so they can ‘take a good look at themselves’. My rage against this particular machine got so bad recently that I made the monumental decision to never ask for public funding again in my life… and was promptly rewarded with a successful application. I guess with funding bodies it’s less of a case of anxiety provoked by a dehumanising experience, and more of a case of having my minute reserves of patience being tested to the limit.
We then have a catch all category of various quangos and private companies, the worst of which are insurance companies, which I have a very consistent view that they are indeed (without any sense of irony) the spawn of satin. I once had a go at a poor call centre handler from the company that provided our pet insurance. I was trying to find out why our premium had gone up by two hundred percent each year for the last two years and I was not getting any answers. I lost my temper big time and accused that person of ‘holding the life of my pet dog to ransom’. I then had to back track, crawl and profusely apologise as the call was almost terminated. Only someone with ADHD could make such a strong demand, then immediately apologise for making that demand. My very introvert and gentle partner at the time had to witness this outburst and she was quite rightly shocked and upset by my behaviour. Deep down so was I. I was in the right, but where did that get me? It’s ironic, but the more morally right I am, the more morally indignant I feel, and the more helpless I also feel, which only magnifies the anger and anxiety. They say, ‘don’t get mad, get even’, but my dopamine deprived, impatient brain just always seems to prefer the former. And I’ve got previous form here as well.
Perhaps one of the most shameful moments of my life came about ten years ago in the mid 2010s. I had been successfully busking for a number of summers on London’s South Bank, one of my favourite parts of our capital. Doing shows all day and then hanging out by The Thames outside the National Film Theatre yet again felt like those halcyon days of touring in the mid nineties. I worked one particular spot really well, and due to public works I was about to have that spot taken away from me. I don’t take this type of change well, and far from motivating me to develop and move on, the whole business was killing me, as well as causing immense stress. Matters came to a head one Saturday, when I turned up and was unable to work anywhere. All my anxiety and frustration at the situation (as I saw it) was then expressed to the person, paid by the South Bank Centre, to manage the area for street performers. The poor man got a very strong and rich piece of my mind. I thought I was being, forthright, direct and reasonable. I was raging inside, but to my mind I was controlling my pent up frustration and anger. Apparently this was not the case. My ‘tetchy’ outburst ceased, however, in an instant as I looked up at him and saw that he was crying. Shit! I had actually made him cry. “You’re banned from working here for two weeks”, was his only response. I got various responses from my street performing friends. Some praised me for standing up and expressing the frustration that many felt about the situation. One of my friends however just said, “Wow, that was ugly”. He (said friend) expressed his shock at seeing me so angry. After the two weeks we met, and I apologised to said manager. I took the punishment, felt the shame, but yet again I felt shocked and confused about my reactions and what had happened. There had been no winners and one definite looser, and that looser was me. How had I failed to control my anger? Was I a danger to myself and others? Was I a Jeckle and Hyde? Who was I? Needless to say that when emotional dis-regulation comes into play it’s even more challenging to engage with bureaucrats and call centre handlers. These days I always do box breathing exercises before dialling any 0300 number. We now come to my number one pick. The top of the list of bureaucratic wind ups, but that’s for another day.
To be continued…