I started writing this at 5am, feeling sick with anxiety and wondering how I was going to deal with everything ahead of me. Since then, I've self-certified from work, spoken to my social worker about what happens to almost 36 hours of my support, and discovered that legal representation for the next stage of my appeal could cost me between £3,000 and £4,000. And I'm still waiting for the NHS's full written explanation of why its decision was made.

I started writing this at 5am, feeling sick with anxiety and wondering how I was going to deal with everything ahead of me. Since then, I've self-certified from work, spoken to my social worker about what happens to almost 36 hours of my support, and discovered that legal representation for the next stage of my appeal could cost me between £3,000 and £4,000. And I'm still waiting for the NHS's full written explanation of why its decision was made.

We often imagine confidence as something that naturally follows competence. Learn more, gain experience, achieve something and become more confident. Sometimes that happens, but human psychology isn't always quite so straightforward. You can become very skilled at what you do while simultaneously becoming very skilled at explaining away the evidence that you are good at it.