Dear Nicola Sturgeon, DWP & anyone else who can maybe help
I am writing this because today I am having a bad day. And the main reason I am having a bad day is
because I feel hopeless. You see, I am
currently recovering from a very difficult period of anxiety, depression and
panic. (I also live with various other long term health conditions – but they
were not taken into account during my recent assessment with yourselves)
When I say very difficult, let me explain that that actually
means life threatening. Yes – I know
those are normally words that you hear attached to illnesses such as cancer or
heart disease, but let me tell you – mental illness is like cancer of the brain
and the heart all rolled into one.
Mental illness made me believe that my two young children
aged 8 and 11 would be better off without me in their life.
Mental illness made me believe that I am useless and
worthless and that I have no skills worth sharing with the world.
Mental illness made me believe that my close friends and
family were ashamed of me because of my illness – for being so weak and
useless.
So yes my mental illness was life threatening.
I am trying to recover, and have been for the last 10 months
from the day that I feel like I fell off the planet. For 7 of those months I have been awarded
Personal Independence Payment which I have never claimed before regardless of
living with many long term health conditions. And for the last 4 months I have
been receiving Employment Support Allowance.
Contrary to popular belief and what the media likes to portray – I do
not want to be on benefits for the rest of my life. I want to get back to work and I want to get
back to being able to effectively self-manage my health.
I want to get back to being the passionate, driven and
innovative person than many people know me to be and that I know is hiding
within me underneath all this self-hatred and self-doubt. I’m not going to give you my full CV here but
let’s just say I have done some damn good work in this country in the field of
mental health, which has been recognised at both national and international
level. And I want to get back to it –
but I’m stuck – you have me stuck right here being unwell – afraid to move
forward!!
And the reason I am having such a bad day is because I feel
completely stuck and in limbo. You see –
if I start to recover then the likelihood is that you will remove my
benefits. And if you remove my benefits
too soon whilst I am undertaking this absolutely vital recovery process then I
know that I have a high chance of ending back up in the desperate dark place
that I have fought so hard for the last 10 months to crawl out of. You see – just like recovery from cancer,
recovery from mental illness takes time.
For me it also means taking risks – facing my fears,
challenging my false beliefs.
Challenging the voices in my head that tell me that I’m a useless piece
of crap. Challenging the voices that
tell me that my family would be better off without me. And let me tell you - this is like running a
mental marathon every single day inside my own head.
Thankfully – like any recovery process things get easier as
time goes on, but that does not mean I am recovered. It means that I am recovering – and if you
pull the rug from under my feet then I assure you I am most likely to
fall.
So what do I do??? Do
I push myself to take risks which I know is the only way that I will move
forward – but risk losing my benefits or do I stay stuck where I am; wanting to
be well and effectively self-manage my health & well-being but unable to
for the fear of losing the benefits that can help me to get there.
Any advice would be gratefully received. I don't even know why I'm doing this.... putting my head above the parapit, but I guess in some small way I hope that my experiences will help change things in the future........
Yours sincerely
A distressed and frustrated benefits claimant
And even when you have recovered the DWP will punish you for any failure to get a job, even though it might be due to discrimination by an employer. They will press you to conform to requirements that will endanger your mental wellbeing while at the same time make it more difficult for you to get a job.
ReplyDeletehttps://samedifference1.com/2017/02/24/new-pip-descriptors-for-planning-and-following-journeys-from-16-march-will-exclude-mh-claimants/ how they can get away with rushing this in going cause lot more pain .
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