RE-BLOGGED: Diary of a Benefit Scrounger: Welfare Warnings Become Reality

Diary of a Benefit Scrounger: Welfare Warnings Become Reality: Some have been asking why everyone is so sad, so irritable. Well, we spent two years or so warning what the Welfare Reform Bill 2010-11 wo...

An article courtesy of @barnaclebum from twitter

I recently came across this written by a very special lady and a friend of mine on Twitter and wanted to share it with you dear readers:

Every day I click onto Twitter-it's my only contact with the ‘real world’ that I have apart from my dear caring partner and my son when he comes home from Uni. Before I ‘found’ Twitter, the world outside had been lost to me for 5 years. My life had become a very lonely, isolated bleak existence. The last time I had spoken to another person was during a weeks stay in hospital, before that-i can't remember, it had been so long. I found myself asking ‘how did my life come to this’? I used to have a life-a career with great potential-a fantastic social life and lots of people I called my friends. Where had all this gone? How did my life fall away piece by piece like this to leave me alone and scared of what kind of future I might have? 

18 years ago I was diagnosed with having M.E. I also have very severe chronic asthma and have spent my life in and out of hospital. It had never stopped me from living a full active life as much as physically possible. I was never going to climb Everest but I could live with that disappointment! I was content to have a family, a career, and a great social life. In my spare time I worked in the art dept for our local AmDram club which my son belonged to. I loved doing this, it was something I was very proud to be part of. Once I became ill with M.E. all this started to change. I no longer had the energy to keep doing all these things and I got worse and worse until I had to give in and stop doing everything I loved-everything that made me-me. The only help and advice I got from my G.P. at that time was ‘I know nothing about M.E., I suggest you go to the library to look for some books for help and advice’. Wow! I thought-this is fun! So, I went and got 3 books-back then there wasn't much information on M.E. around-it was still being called ‘Yuppy Flu’ for Petes sake! Once I started reading, finally it didn't feel like I was going mad anymore. I was finally able to see that there was this strange illness, it was real after all, not all in my head and I had been unlucky to be affected by it. 

Pacing seemed to be the main message, learn your limitations and live within them. “How am I supposed to do that?” I asked myself. I had a child that needed caring for, a full time job and a home to run, let alone things to do, places to go, people to see! So I kept trying to keep it all going, “I'll rest at the weekend” I told myself, but of course I didn't, and slowly but surely it all drifted away! First to go were the extracurricular activities, no more going out, I loved live music and was part of my local scene for years but that had to stop, id be lucky to stay till the end of the night and then it dropped to being lucky if I could move after tea time. Friends who used to visit stopped coming around, eventually completely. The housework started to slip, it became a choice between help my son with homework and put him to bed or do the hoovering, I saw to my son. My partner had to do his share plus mine. We have always been partners working equally to keep our little ship afloat but eventually I found myself falling through the door from work and collapsing exhausted and in pain. In the end I was signed off sick. I just couldn't do it anymore. As soon as i thought things might be picking up I was knocked back down with yet another virus or chest infection, each time getting a little weaker and another piece of my life would slip by. 

I had now become so ill and weak I was only getting out of bed once or twice a week. I’d cram as much in to those day as i could before collapsing back into bed. I had lost my job, it wasn't fair to expect them to keep the vacancy open for me, they needed someone who could be relied upon to turn up every day and not have to be rushed home during the day from being so weak and exhausted I couldn't move, I wasn't reliable, I had become a liability, it was a waste of a good job and a good wage. At first I was so ill I really didn't care that I couldn't work. I decided it wouldn't be so bad being a housewife. I thought once I'd had enough time to recover properly I'd get well and all would be fine again. To cut a long story short that didn't happen, I tried everything I could find to aid my recovery, from acupuncture to yoga, antidepressants and counselling, exercise programs and even reflexology. You name it i tried it, I was desperate to find anything to help me recover but all i got was worse and worse, until in the end I had to admit defeat and except my life was never going to be what it once was. It took me a long time to come to terms with my life being as it is now, it has taken me five years of being totally bedridden apart from struggling to the loo and back to accept that this might be how my life is, maybe for the rest of my life. It's a bleak hard bitter pill to swallow but i had to make myself accept it or I would become lost forever in a black pit of howling depression. 

Now on top of all this we have the government cutting our benefits we so desperately need. My partner has had to stop work to become my full time carer but has since developed his own health issues. He has just had to fill in his second ESA50 in twelve months, no doubt his WCA appointment will arrive through the letter box any day now, it's hard to explain the fear of a brown envelope but anyone who has experience of this will know exactly what I mean! We have the added worry of him being fairly assessed or will it be the cycle of appeals again. My ESA50 could arrive anytime also. Last year I was put straight into the support group but live in fear of not being so lucky this time. ‘lucky’ to be in the support group! To be assessed as so sick and disabled I'm in the lowest % group of people on benefits who are so sick and disabled, I'm not expected to have to find work. But for how long will i be classed as too sick to work? Especially when people with terminal cancer are being treated as fit and expected to work for their benefits. Maybe next time I'll miss out a piece of important evidence on my form or just get one of those assessors who find everyone fit. How will I cope then? I've only been able to leave the house once voluntarily in the last 5 years, how will I be able to manage if I have to appeal any decisions? We will already be affected by the new bedroom tax now my son has gone to University plus we have to pay £300 council tax from our benefits. They haven't come for my DLA yet, i get the lowest care component so I will be in the Governments target group for re-testing as soon as PIP is introduced. Chances are, it will be taken away rather than increased (im just not that lucky) 

We get no help from Social Services or any other support groups. I get no support from my GP, he gave up trying to help a long time ago, it's just the two of us struggling to get by. Our savings are long gone. We don't have sky TV or a big flat screen TV or even full internet access. We no longer run a car, or buy new clothes or even have cupboards full of food. We barely scrape by yet the government want to take more away to incentivise us back in to work and not be left on the scrapheap as Mr Grayling likes to say. They could stick me with an electric cattle prod but it won't change the fact I am just too sick and weak to work. But I am on the scrap heap, I am unemployable, (if there were any jobs available) so now it seems in the eyes of the government not only am I unemployable but a scrounging scumbag, I have no job so I am a nothing, a nobody, without a job you are not a person, you have no identity, no worth, no value, just a leach on society, taking from that valuable pot even though I contributed to it for many years. It feels I'm one step away from being classed as a criminal for being so ill I cant work. IDS, Grayling, Miller, Cameron and Miliband all talk of getting people off benefits and supported in to work, giving people hope and a future. All great sentiments but where does that leave people like me? 

I'd love to have my life back, I'd love to be able to go to work again, but that is just not a realistic option for me. What about my future? Do I not deserve one? It may not be any worth to a politician but I have a son and a partner who value me, whose lives I am an important part of. Can you Mr Cameron, Mr Miliband understand how humiliating it is to have to beg for every penny I can just to make ends meet? To hear you repeatedly say I have no value, how am I expected to keep fighting when you want to make it even harder for me? For those who wish to criticise I challenge them to live a month in my shoes.

If anyone else would like to send me their story to post on my blog I'm more than happy to do so.

Gentle Hugs to us all.

xxxx

Leigh