IT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH

I have been away a long time, a lot of personal things have changed in my life again and I have fought for all my entitlements, money for care, to live, adequate housing and assistance to live also. We will be moving for the second time in two years to yet more adapted accommodation. The house we were given first time around wasn't adequate for my needs. This time however I'm having difficulty finding help to move, as the community care grant has been abolished. I have family who can help me move my things, goodness knows how those without people to help are managing. We could have been left with a choice between staying put in inadequate housing and leaving most of our worldly goods with no way to replace them. We are also now subject to bedroom tax, this won't change when we move as my needs haven't changed and we are having to pay money towards our council tax as well. This is just really a clandestine way to cut benefits without the headlines. People fall so easily for a line about how they pay x y and z so should claimants. It's the politics of envy and makes a mockery of the "this is the minimum the government says you need to live on" that is at the bottom of almost every income related benefits letter you get. Can you imagine the outcry if a 'because we fancy it' tax of 10% was placed onto the 'squeezed middle' or pensioners? I'd be among the first trying to help campaign about the unfairness, I remember the abolition of the 10p tax band. We went from subsistence to a spiral of debt and difficulty all of a sudden. This time we are managing but that money we are now paying on rent and council tax, under previous governments was allocated for care and mobility. The outcome is we go fewer places and can afford less of the things that make being disabled easier. I am awaiting my reassessment, I filled out the paper work in February this year and have yet to hear anything. We have a new member in the family and I feel ready to start blogging again. I'll be posting soon the conversation that reignited my anger at the current climate of hate against the disabled and especially those in need of financial assistance. Most of us are the survivors of casual discrimination, and I think probably all of us, carers and people with disabilities, visible, invisible, chronic and progressive have heard "Oh but I don't mean YOU" I'm here to say IT'S STILL NOT GOOD ENOUGH!

A lot has happened

I'm not ashamed to admit I was wrong, I have been migrated without any fuss, or even a trip to ATOS. I'm in the support group and I am to be left alone for a short while. If everyones story was as positive as mine we wouldn't be looking at increases in illness, poverty and stress for many disabled people unable to work.
I am still worried about when I come up for review, but I hope that I may possibly have a similar experience in future.

All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing

So I've been away quite a while, a lot has been happening my my life, and it's not the kind of things I started this to blog about. However I'm sure things are going to get rather interesting from here on in - and I mean interesting in that my life is about to become a never ending cycle of stress, assessments, appeals and legal home work.
I'm being migrated from incapacity benefit to ESA. It might not seem like a lot to those who don't know, but just read the blog, read my journey and you will see how ill thought out government policy can have a devastating impact on the ground. The people it is effecting are essentially hidden, they are ill and they are poor and they don't have many resources available to them, or options to register their distress. They are a part of our society but are one step removed from it by barriers most people wouldn't even consider. Some are financial, some physical, some are health related and some are down to the vast majority of the general public acting like a troupe of the three monkeys.
Remember the Asylums, remember care in the community, remember the children sent to Australia stolen from their parents, now we have ESA and it's already leading to horrible personal tragedies. I won't be one of those, I'm not dying and I don't have current mental health problems, this process is unlikely to be fatal to me, or to make my death anything but peaceful. That is why I am in a position to tell you about it, to make you aware of what is hidden where you don't see, you don't hear and we can't ordinarily speak.

Here are some personal accounts of how the state is terrorising sick and dying people in Britain today.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jun/03/unfairness-of-the-capability-test

All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing

I'd like to add to Tolstoy in that it also requires good people to not ignore what is happening below their usual radar, underneath them at the bottom, in the underclass.

Armchair Army! Virtual March for the Alternative

This was the email I wrote as part of a group of people taking part in the anti cuts demo online. It was sent to to the press and anyone else who might be interested. The group is full of people who can't attend a real march for many reasons, lack of money, opportunity, child or caring responsibilities and disability. This was my contribution.

I am a member of the Armchair army, I'm not in London because I am too disabled to get to the protest and to sit in a wheelchair around London. I'm writing because I am terrified by what this government is proposing to do and is doing to disabled people, families and those on a low income including pensioners. These cuts are not needed and it is a lie to say they are inevitable, talk to Caroline Lucas, she and the Green Party have outlined all the courses of action that could be taken if there was the political will to invest and tax wisely. There is no money for a sustainable green economy and disabled people are 'unsustainable' yet there is more money for conflict in the middle east whenever 'needed'.



I am looking at being sent to a French IT company for a tick box computer test that will determine whether I am too disabled to work or not, this company ATOS has been given a blank cheque to assess people as often as they want to, they have a high failure rate for getting these tests wrong, which isn't surprising as they base the results on a 1 hour meeting with no other evidence and the DWP just rubber stamps their reports. My income is dependant on this, it's not a minor inconvenience and I am lucky my condition is not effected by stress, as I am fully aware I may be appealing with only £65 a week to live from for up to six months and then once won sent back to be assessed again. I do not mind an independent test, but it needs to be a fair test, one that takes into account a persons condition from the point of knowledge and not ignorance. How can you assess MS and whether it is effecting someone without knowing what MS is, surely that makes it easier for people to commit fraud if they only have to put on an act for 1 hour and other tests are not taken into account? How low does the fraud have to be before the cost in both money and human misery becomes too much. There must be a balance, tax fraud does not receive this close level of scrutiny, yet is essentially theft from the same pot of money. I agree we should tackle fraud, but it needs to be proportionate and not decimate vulnerable people's lives, people with Severe Mental Health conditions, ME, cancer and MS.



DLA is under fire too, it has one of the the lowest rates of fraud in all benefits at 0.5% and when re branded as PIP will be cut by 20%, I'm not good at maths but even to me those figures do not add up. DLA pays for many people to get out and about to do normal things, like shopping, visiting friends and family, going to work. Mine pays for an electric wheelchair, because I can wobble about 10 meters once in a while inside my house I'm not entitled to one via the NHS, David Cameron and IDS think I should be a prisoner in my own home, that if I'm not eligible for one from the NHS that I shouldn't be able to get DLA to provide me with one of the very few essential things that makes my life better and liveable. I want to go back to work and the only thing that will stop me is loosing that chair, loosing my ability to get around without someone carrying me or pushing me. Under PIP people will be assessed as to whether they can mobilise 30 meters on a level surface, this is all well and good, but how many people live in a world where there are no curbs, or hills or uneven surfaces? If you remove someone's ability to get around in the real world with an unreal test you ruin their very real life, their ability to care for themselves, their ability to work, their very independence. An adapted car is very expensive, one that you can get into and out of with a wheelchair and you are dependant on it, you can't just choose to get a bus or walk to the shops instead - it is a lifeline, that is why mobility exists to make what is necessary both reliable and affordable for all disabled people regardless of income. It is one of the very few things that brings equality to those who are mobility impaired and makes life genuinely less difficult.



You cannot add bars to a prison cell and still tell a person to squeeze through them. Disabled people are being told they must work but that all the things that make this possible are being cut out from underneath them including Access to Work, the grant for equipment so you can work. I have concentrated on the disabled as this is the area I know most about, others will be able to tell you the stories and huge struggles of families and pensioners among others. If we are 'all in this together' you need to understand what these cuts truly, truly mean to real people, not statistics. To me it means the possibility of never leaving my house on my own again, never being able to pay for the swimming that is making me stronger, never getting stronger means never working again and to me that means the death of all my hopes and dreams for the future, it means the end of me. I'm only 28, I can't let that happen without raising a shout, without at least writing an email, and I hope you read it and do not dismiss me, because I am real and I need you to hear me

Thank God for the Guardian

Whatever your political persuasion right now - Thank God for the Guardian - here is an article they have published of personal accounts of the disabled, their carers and their 'help' from the state.


It's not the Daily Mail but if you read the comments there is no talk of scroungers, the underclass, fraud or 3km flat screen telly's. There (so far) isn't even one mention of the word BRAVE! We need more of this in the mainstream media - personal accounts will help peel back the propaganda that's currently being used to beat us with.

I have seen more of the disability blogs referred to recently as well - we have to make a dint eventually. I can't bear to think about what will happen if we don't. It's like everyone is being downgraded in terms of how affected they are by their disability - unfortunately changing the language or the goal posts doesn't actually change the barriers faced or the level of pain (physical or mental) a person feels.

I was going to post sooner - but my elbow decided to refuse to stay in the socket and so I've been unable to type very much for the last couple of days. It's not back in yet - but it's better than it was enough to write this. Hope to be back at this again soon.

Who Am I

There is quite a bit in the main body about who I am - but I can tell you a little more about who I think I am:

I am someone who very much wants to work, who is creative and loving. I am someone who has dreams and ambitions and wishes - most are quite moderate though some are a bit pie in the sky - but who doesn't have those. I'm someone who enjoys swimming and music and singing and I love the rain, especially in summer. I love a good cup of coffee and cooking fresh food using fresh ingredients - though someone else has to be my hands in the kitchen these days. I want a family, but I want to support that family as much as possible - or at least have enough support that my husband can.

I am also someone who is increasingly worried about the misinformation about people with disabilities, who they are, their benefit entitlement or lack of, their ability to work and not and the general idea that anyone who cannot support themselves even for a short time is undeserving of anything.

I want a lot of things and I think a lot of people would say I want too much, but I feel I want just enough. Just enough to live and love and learn and earn, isn't that what anyone wants?