How Does it Feel?

I got my ATOS form the other day (which has approx 0  relevant questions on how my mental health impacts my functioning and ability to work, I also spotted a grammar mistake, which niggling as it may be all adds up to not very much confidence in the whole thing). All the media bullshit about benefit ‘scroungers’ and the governments own press releases and comments about getting people into work and ‘shirkers’, it dries me mad(er). you know how it makes me feel? Guilty, worthless, a faker, pathetic, a waste of space, wondering if society would actually prefer it if I was dead as then they’d not have to fork out ‘their’ tax payers money (last time I checked I still paid VAT , granted it’s not income tax but I do pay taxes so ‘eff off and moreover I ever was in a position to be in the high tax rate rich folk bracket I’d happily fork out to know that the vulnerable in society are cared for) on some lazy fool like me.

Ever since the coalition of wankery started these cuts I’ve seen these horrid attitudes everywhere. It makes me question my life, I worry that everything I do is monitored for signs of ‘well if you can do that you can work’ etc. It makes me wonder if I am all the horrible things they say people like me are. Even if it’s a ‘well I don’t mean you personally’ (is this the new ‘I’m not racist but…’?) the general hatred and scorn for people on benefits, it reflects on me because to a casual observer who doesn’t know me I am just like one of those people who someone once saw walk 5 minutes down a street so therefore they MUST be fine 24/7 and able to work.

I am sick of being judged, made to prove I am genuinely ill by jumping through endless, often degrading hoops, to have every aspect of my capability judged (yes I can make a cup of tea and turn on a tap, but I don’t see how that impacts on my suitability to work). To feel like every moment I do feel ‘O.K’ I am in danger as I will be judged ‘fine’. Also if I splurge some of my money on a superfluous purchase I feel guilty “well if she can afford an overpriced face cream once in a blue moon she doesn’t need our money” (I can’t but that doesn’t stop me…I should really chop up my VISA). All the hatred, all the venom, all the scrutiny of what outsiders judge me able to do (which is very, very different from what I can actually do on a sustained basis), it’s really starting to get to me, which doesn’t help my health overall and thus leads me to be even more of a ‘drain on the economy’ as I get iller and need more treatment (which is also getting cut, and I barely get any support as it is and have had to wait aeons for an appt with a psychotherapist etc etc etc).

I feel even worse as I am one of those who have, shock horror, never worked. The ultimate in scrounging scum. The fact I’ve been ill with varying degrees of severity since I was 11 and spent a great deal of my early 20s catching up on education I missed is something so easily glossed over isn’t it?  I’ve tried to work, part time as I can manage but there aren’t any jobs going and I even got turned down for a volunteer role due to ‘too many people applying’. If one of those ranty fuckwits would like to give a job to Ms mentally unstable I’ll take it, but they aren’t. We’d cost them ‘productivity’ or something, they don’t want to hire a ‘mental’ or anyone who may need to take time off due to ill health (time which contrary to popular belief is not spent on a benefits funded yacht in the cote d’azure sipping cristal, it’s time spent feeling utterly shitty and sometimes so shitty you’d prefer to be dead )

Yes this probably makes me a bit paranoid, but then if the mentally ill can’t be paranoid about their persecution at the hands of a selfish government c*nts and daily mail readers (who I fear suffer far more mental distress and impairments than I do anyway, after all they are under the illusion it’s a NEWS paper that reports things like facts as opposed to a knee jerk right wing rage a thon where facts seldom come into it).

I know this stuff isn’t personal, but as someone who is a benefit claimant who doesn’t work I do take it personally, this is an ideological attack on a group of people (a loose conglomeration we may be but we are all lumped together in the end), one of the most vulnerable groups of people in society and it fucking stinks. I’m sorry but it is hatred, it is discrimination and it does show you up to be a selfish bastard with little concern for humanity, or worse as someone who sees those of us with disabilities, long term health conditions etc as somehow ‘other’ and less than human. It’s O.K to treat us like shit because we are not seen as equal. That’s why it hurts and that’s why I can’t help but take it personally when I hear a causal remarks about ‘benefit scrounging scum’.

 

 

Campaign against disability benefit cuts

If you are in the UK please take a look here:

http://thehardesthit.wordpress.com/

London 11th may, I hope to be there health permitting to unleash some of my emotional unstability on ATOS origins.

I think this campaign is especially vital for mental illness and ‘inivisible’ diasbilites; the public perception of disability is so narrow and ATOS and their check list of stupid questions supposedly assessing work suitability that’s about as usefull and accurate as declaring all those who have turned up wearing green as fit for work, have those same attitudes. I don’t look ill or disabled I can phsyically touch my toes and turn a tap on and walk up stairs yet that does not mean I am ‘fit for work’. If I lost my benefits I would either risk a high chance of a relapse due to taking up work (and thus having to ‘go on the sick’ and start the whole kaboodble again) or more than likely I’d be found unfit to look for work 40 hours a week and not able to claim job seekers yet not able to actually get a job and get stuck in some sort of Kafka esque* horror that won’t exactly do wonders for my depression.

These tests do not adequately reflect fluctuating conditions, such as depression, or the emotional and mental symptoms which make it near impossible to work and/or hold down a job without substantial support from very understanding employers and a lot of sick days (which are found in cloud cuckoo land). A mental illness can be just a disabling as a physical one and for our government to sanction this sort of test is sickening (but then are callous fucks quite frankly, almost everything they do sickens me but in true movie trailer style “this time it’s personal”).

* I’m pretty sure he didn’t write ‘The Trial’ as a manual on how to run the welfare state, though a lot of his nightmarish visions of the depths to which humankind will sink (or ‘ideas on how to reform things and save money’) seem to have taken off in whitehall.

Yes I look fine

I often act it too. To many this would have me in the realms of a malingerer in extremis who could really run a marathon every day but I’m just too lazy so  instead I sponge.

I do do stuff, I am currently very active with my local women’s group and am acting in a play, I am also doing a French class. Yet these activities amount to nowhere near a full days work and I often miss them as I don’t feel well.

I am so utterly sick of society’s attitude to that to be ‘properly ill’ you have to look awful and limp along, or be in a wheelchair or have some other handy visible sign that you’re ‘ill’. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that a lot of people have serious health issues and look absolutely fine (well almost, some of us still need a wee bit of make up to help). People can also be ‘fine’ for a bit but not for long enough for it to give any degree of stability in life (I’m up and down every few weeks atm).

Yes there may be people in my life who don’t know I’m ill, it’s not something you tend to bring up in casual conversation ‘hey guys, guess what? I’m severly depressed, how’s that for small talk? now you must tell me about that new pot plant you bought!’. Plus there is still sitgma about, it’s not the easiest thing to talk about, I’ve had more than enough situations amongst peers involving ‘emos cut themselves lol lets laugh at it! attention seekers lulz!’ jokes to make me feel really uncomfortable, and not only due to the implied insult on my musical tastes.

When I feel good I feel good, I go out, I see my friends, I’m pretty ‘normal’ but I also swing pretty damn quick to feeling awful; I will hardly speak, I will just lie around all day, I will be in constant mental turmoil, I contemplate suicide, I cry for hours, I don’t eat or look after myself. A lot of people see me when I’m fine, hardly anyone sees me when I’m not .