Depressed at 3 months in :-(

Convicted Driver Insurance

DonkeyKong

Established Member
Done my 200 hours CS in less than 3 months. 14 hours every weekend, and 45 a week on proper job. That was hard, working every day for 80 days in a row, but now it’s done. Fine was paid in first week. TTC course is booked for December. Done 5 of the RAR days. Still a 14 week Inhibited Driver Priogram to do, but there’s none on at the moment, so not sure when that will be.

Just feeling depressed now. I can’t drive for another 21 months (30 month ban reduced to 23 after TTC). I still wake up some days thinking I’ll drive to the shops today... then I remember I haven’t got a car, or a license... and it will be summer 2020 before I can again :-(
 
Good grief... all those 'views' and not one reply!!!! :mad:

Sorry to hear you are feeling down DonkeyKong.... it sucks doesn't it. Fair play to you for your honest post though AND doing your CS so quickly!

Maybe you could commit to something else until you get your license back - I don't know, maybe a course or something if there is one local? It might help keep your mind focused on something other than not being able to drive. Just an idea....

There are also some posts here along the lines of 'it does get better' - mainly getting a cycle, getting fitter and feeling better for it

Chin up mate :cool:
 
DonkeyKong,

Even though it may seem pretty bad at the moment due to getting that itch to get in your car and go somewhere, it could be a whole lot worse!

Like Drew said, and from my own experiences, try investing in a bike of some sort and get on the fitness train as you'll feel better after the excercise which will motivate you to do more with your day! Also give public transport a chance even though it may be fairly awful - most of the time I've been on a bus, I've actually had no other choice but to look out of the window and you will be surprised at how much more of places you see (some of which you may have lived in for ages).

There is light at the end of the tunnel though so hang in there bud :)
 
Oh guys, I know this could have been much much worse. It’s hard to put into words what I have felt so far.
The embarrassment of being in a cell ... it’s gone now - distant past.
The shame of telling family - they all know now and don’t judge me on it.
The terror of waiting 2 weeks for a court date... then getting through it ... in the past now.
The fear of what CS was going to be... and how on Earth I could ever do 200 hours... all done. I got pretty good at doing what I was doing. They trusted me, and all bar one person was lovely. Every other CS person on my placement was just a person like me, who had made a mistake.
The only real unpleasant people I have encountered were other offenders in the Probation Office. People I’ve had no experience of in my life - violent, stupid, aggressive know-it-all’s. Anyway, just another 9 more visits there.
The weird thing was, when I had x/200 hours of CS to go... I had a goal to meet - get it done.
But, now it’s done... all I have now is to wait. For another 20 months. And just hope that my employee doesn’t find out I’m using a lot of public transport !
But I do bike a lot now. I couldn’t let my wife down by making her do the shopping. Funnily enough, cycling to the Supermarket takes 2 minutes. Driving there used to take me 10!

:)
 
Cycling is awesome for fitness and confidence building# Just out of curiosity with the depression are you drinking regular.
When I stopped became a much better person and the licence did not seem such an issue"
Alcohol is a depressant amazing how well you feel without
 
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For me the anguish was not telling anyone after 4 weeks. Needed to visit doctor for anxiety issues - but in hindsight just talking to friends would have been better. Its been 8 weeks since I was charged and its been the most painful and strangest time of my life by far.

Self employed and trying to keep my business going is proving far too difficult - just cant get my head into it like I used to and customers are noticing. My works car repair was over £2,500 - my insurance premiums have doulbed to just under £200.00 per month AND I’m yet to hear from the other insurance company about the car I backed into causing minimul scratches to their bumper (but hearing horror stories from 3rd party claims - this will inevitably become a nightmare too).

As soon as I get sentenced (Monday) i’m sure it’ll be alot better and clearer and I can just get on with it.

My advice (apart from obvious) is tell your family and close friends as quickly as you can - this time will pass and you WILL feel better for it. The support from someone who matters lifts the burden and you start to feel better in yourself - you may start to sleep and eat better too.

Haven’t drank for 7 weeks, not feeling benefit yet but I’m sure I will when I start to exercise again.

Basically its a mess and everythings on hold!

Everything for a reason and all, but it deff sucks!

Feel that i’ve been punished enough already without court, but its a formality that we all need to go through and accept.

Even if you think you’ve got your life in order, always have a plan B! It only takes seconds / minutes for everything to change - as 95% of people on this forum have found.

Just one question though - what do you normally do for community service? Is it the same for the durarion - or does it vary day by day?

Thanks for listening.
 
If you get a community order, a probation officer will speak with you and then they go through an assessment on what your availability is around your work and what skills you have that may fit in with the community order. If you do not work weekends there is often community work on a Saturday 10-5 or thereabouts.
if you work weekends then other work can be in the week, but generally they arrange a schedule after the discussion and expect you to stick to it. You do not ge the option of turning up when it suits you, but if you have a genuine reason for not being available, especially if you tell them up front, they will often reschedule the hours. They quickly work out who really wants to complete the hours and who is looking to dodge work.

A man on my drink drive course today told us that his community service was working in a charity shop. He found it enjoyable and says he was not judged by other staff and in fact he has now stayed on as a volunteer.
 
How are you doing DonkeyKong?

Must admit you hit it the nail on the head when you said cycling was quicker than car - it very often can be
 
I shouldn’t have said “depressed”. I should have said “feeling depressed. I know the difference, given I have quite severe anxiety disorder, and this is not the same as “feeling anxious” I don’t have depression.

Anyway, I suppose it’s mostly just the regret and having absolutely nothing I can do about it. All my family knew from day one, and all still support me 100%. The only people I am hiding anything from is friends (who simply don’t need to know) and my job, who contractually don’t need to know either.

Baldy - see what Price said about what you do on probabtion. But note this, if you are a person (like me) who has never done anything wrong but the drink drive offence and no previous, there are more probabtion options open to you than if you have form for violence or drugs.

i would advise, on your probation induction, that you talk to them and request what you would prefer to do, and they will help you if they can. It really depends on what local companies have vacancies. They were going to put me at the recycling center (the dump) which would have meant humping rubbish all day in protective clothing (despite the hot weather) with a vest saying “Community Payback”. This would have meant hundreds of people a day seeing me. I stated I was trying to keep my job, and didn’t want the public feeding back to the employer what I was doing on weekends. So I did get the charity shop. The charity shop is not a soft option, if you are used to using your brain. For many weeks, it was just taking dirty clothes out of a bag, labelling it, and putting it on a hanger. For 8 hours solid. Not physically hard, but mentally it turns your brain to mush. As my 200 hours went on, I ended up doing pricing, steaming, shop work, computer stuff... and was simply trusted to get on with it by the last few weeks. You don’t wear the “Naughty Boy” vest in the back of a charity shop.

The bottom end of the CS, where you are not allocated an actual specific place, is showing up at the Probation Office at 0845 and hoping to get on the bus. The bus has a finite number of places, and will take you to destinations unknown... to paint walls, remove graffiti, cut grass, repair community centres, build fences, etc. (Again with the “Naughty Boy” flourescent jacked on) If the bus is full, you don’t get on, and you go back home with just 1 hour os CS credit. This bus will have the proper nutters on it. I have met some severely unpleasant people at the Probation Office... but all the staff and the other placements like me in the charity shop were absolutely lovely (apart from one, but I simply ignored her)

The other thing to bare in mind is to ask for a place that wants as many hours as you are prepared to give. My charity shop were desperate for help, so, even though I only *had* to do 8 hours a week (Saturday) I also did Sunday, and I also took a week off work as holiday, but worked charity during that time. That one week alone gave me 68 hours towards my 200. (That was, though, a physically and mentally 9 days from Saturday to following Sunday).

During my time on CS I have met a bunch of people who made excuses. People who were breached. People with 30 hours who took as long as me when I was doing 200. Your choice is to do the minimum, and have it take over your life for months, or to just bang it out and get it out of the way.
 
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