Shall I jump now or I wait until I am pushed?

What a lovely morning I have just had.

As I said yesterday I would go to Working Links and see what wonderful things they have to offer outcasts like me.

I explained my circumstances, ie on IB but under IB50 review. They said as I am on Incapacity Benefit they can help. I said from previous experience that there is the possibility as I may have to go to a medical soon and I may well end up on JSA. We all like to know the Atos doctors like to reach their targets and get there commission.

In true James Purnell style the receptionist said "we look at what you can do not what you can't". they said they could help me while I am on IB but if I end up on JSA then I am no longer classed as disabled but fit for work, they said that Working Links would not be able to help me but I would have to go to the office upstairs.

This office upstairs is the one that someone has just come through the door slamming it very hardly making me jump and turning me into a nervous wreck, not though that I wasn't a nervous wreck to start off with. How the glass stayed in the door I do not know? I have experienced this effect before at the jobcentre, its no wonder I contact the DEA by email.

It is true what I said before that if the DWP deem you fit for work even if you have a disability then if you end up on JSA your disability doesn't exist anymore.

Working Links said that they could help me for 6 weeks regardless if I sign up now and do I really want to go back to work? I said I would think about it.

I said yes I would love to go to work but I have things which restrict me, you know effects of brain injury. The receptionist said that a consultant/whatever they are called can look at my work history [that's going to be fun] and what type of work I am interested in and even some people have turned hobbies or interests into work. I thought I am not a f***ing imbecile you know.

Just at that moment some council worker walked in off the street and stood virtually next to the receptionist which I found quite intimidating. I gave him my annoyed look and I wanted to ask him if he wanted to listen to every word in my conversation with the receptionist or tell him to p**s off but I left it as I did not feel like my normal jolly self at this juncture.

I was right when I thought it was all a trap. It turns out it is a even bigger trap now than what I first thought.

So where is all this government help to get you back to work? I did not know that it had conditions attached like you have to be on IB.

If you are not on IB but the DWP think you are fit for work even though you are disabled, it looks like you are on your own then.

Shall I jump now or shall I wait until I am pushed?

Working Links

Pre-empting getting a medical and being passed as fit for work I contacted the DEA via email [the wonders of the internet] to find out what options there could be for me

This is the help I can look forward to:

Hello Brainblogger

There is a new programme which started on 28/04/08 called pathways, the sole provider of this programme which has effectively replaced new deal for disabled people are Working Links.

Hopefully this 3 year contract will be more radical in its attempts to help individuals who wish to move off incapacity benefits and back into paid employment.

I think it is unlikely that you will end up on Jobseeker’s Allowance or in some low paid employment, the aim is to make you better off in work financially, not worse off, as this is counter-productive.

Your health condition is still treated as a disability under the DDA.

Thanks

DEA



To me it basically looks like the jobcentre ain't bothered and would rather just farm me off to Working Links. I have not read good things about working links. It does not fill me with confidence.

Shall I go to working links in town and see what they have to say making sure I do not sign my life away and report back on my blog?. What do you think fellow bloggers?

How reassuring it is to know that my health condition is covered by the DDA,

My Philosophy is that the government don't give a monkeys what I want in terms of a career and as long as they get me off the Incapacity Benefit books and start collecting the savings.

Since my head injury I have not had a full-time job and my cv only has periods where I did therapeutic work [now permitted work], does therapeutic work count, part-time work filing catalogues and then the rest is voluntary work and then littered with gaps where I have been in hospital and done rehabilitation etc. I am sure my CV will be appealing to any future employer even though I did get help to do a groovy new CV.

When I left hospital all I did was go back to the Neuropsychologist every few weeks and then months and then three months etc, with numerous visits to the GP to get super headache tablets. you can see where this going.

I did try and go to back to my job again at the carpet distributor [this was one of my 3 jobs before the accident], critics of people on IB please note: I wanted to go back to work even though I only been out of hospital a few weeks and it was blatantly obvious to everyone except me that I wasn't well enough to go to work

I think at work the people in the office were all very nice to my face but I think they saw the mess I was in and it was all going to end in tears and trying to work wasn't going to last much longer. This was due to the fact I could not remember things , one side of my face was paralysed, [try eating roast dinner when one side of your face is paralysed] speaking was also a problem as I could not think of the words and I would get really frustrated. This is all typical effects of a brain injury. If I was an animal they would have put me down.

One morning I received a letter through the post & a P45 from the M.D after being on sick pay for a while basically giving me the boot suggesting I should get an alternative source of income from the government. No we wish you get well soon or anything, the heartless bastards [excuse my language]. I am not embarrassed to say but I literally cried my eyes out for hours.

I suddenly found I had a lot of time on my hands. I remember going to a special needs centre in town but there was no Jeremy Kyle then it was Kilroy

This is when I first met Incapacity Benefit but it wasn't called IB then I think it was called Sickness Benefit or something like that.

Where did it all go wrong?. If there had been proper support to start off with I would not have ended up in this situation.

Radical attempts to get people back to work, we have heard all about the radical attempts to get people back to work.

Did there not used to be a green card system many moons ago and employers had to have a quota of green card workers? I don't know where that came from but that's been in my brain swimming around.

How am I going to be better off in work financially when I do not have the capacity to work full-time?. This is where people like me feel anxious about finding work and plunging into the labour market.

I still feel trapped and I still have a IB50 to fill in. 23 days still to go

Light Bulbs

Are the 4 free energy efficient light bulbs I received today from British Gas somehow supposed to help me save some money and make me feel better about the environment ?.

I don't think so, it is really more like the give with one hand and take with the other hand effect while they rob you blind with the rip off prices of the gas and electricity. I have been buying energy saving light bulbs for years now and I can't say it makes much difference to my bills because they keep going up anyway so why not just have cheap and cheerful light bulbs.

What am I going to do when I can't afford the electricity to put the TV on to watch Jeremy Kyle?, oh now, I have managed to slip Jeremy in again. I really need some therapy.

Will I have time to watch Jeremy Kyle when I will be out collecting litter, cleaning graffiti or helping change old folks incontinence pads?. I have nothing against old folks because they are lovely people but changing incontinence pads doesn't really appeal to me as a future career.

Money saving ideas here exclusively on How can you take it easy when you are already taking it easy.

I changed my mind since what I wrote earlier. I never used to be this cynical. Was it the bang on the head or is it putting up with years of government inflicted torture that's done it?.

For the vast majority, ESA “will be a temporary benefit, not a permanent snare”.

James Purnell said "For the vast majority, ESA “will be a temporary benefit, not a permanent snare”.

Right so where does that apply to me then?. That's of course if I can survive the IB50 and possible medical which I am sure I will have to go to.

Allegedly the Employment and Support Allowance is supposed to be a temporary benefit between getting a job, however this is unworkable for lots of disabled people. ie, with a traumatic brain injury the effects that you are left with get better to a point [its called a plateau] but you are left with the damage for the rest of your life and you just have to cope. There isn't a magic fix. A lot of disabled people feel under threat.

I do voluntary work in the idea that I will build myself up so I am well enough to work full-time, this is my dream. However I am never going to get to the levels I was at before my head injury however hard I try.

Voluntary work is good for you if you get in the right place with the right support. It can help you build up your confidence and self-esteem.

I feel sorry for the people who after two years on JSA who will be doing community work to get their benefits. Collecting litter and cleaning graffiti will not be good for their self-esteem as people feel low enough already with being tarred as scroungers and cheats.

Will unemployed/disabled people have to wear orange suits or something else the government sees fit to humiliate them?.

Why can't disabled people get better jobs?. What sort of career can one look forward to?. What sort of earning potential do I have?. It makes me feel depressed looking through the jobs never seeing anything that looks stimulating and the jobs that say that they pay more than minimum wage [That's the £5.52 I was talking about in my first post]

In the town where I live it makes me angry when I see disabled people at work, two in particular, I see this poor girl who doesn't look very happy working in a well known burger chain [the one that does hardly anything for vegetarians, don't get me started] cleaning tables and mopping the floor and cleaning the toilets and all the shit jobs. I have never seen her working behind the counter serving the customers

I want to ask her does she enjoy her job?. What does she feel? Are there any career prospects in cleaning tables and refilling the tomato sauce pots?.

There's this guy who works in a large DIY store who constantly goes round the car park collecting trolleys. I think what sort of career prospects is there in collecting trolleys or does he have to feel grateful that he has a job?

Is this all the jobs that disabled people are worth doing? Perhaps I have just had a sheltered life and don't meet up with all the disabled people working in all the high flying jobs

The place where I worked at for a short time where I ended up filing magazines, the people said to me how you should be grateful that you have a job here, and when I went off for a couple of weeks for some rehabilitation that they would hold my job for me. How reassuring.

Have things changed since 1998?.

From my own experience if given the opportunity, disabled people can be hard working, motivated individuals.

People need to feel valued and not just being pushed into low paid crap jobs just so it makes government figures look good, then it makes you wonder why people like me rely on IB when the jobs out there aren't very attractive and the pay is less than IB.

However James Purnell will soon put that to an end with the introduction of ESA and we can all look forward to harsher medicals [even though they are harsh enough already] and visits to the Jobcentre to sign on for for JSA.

If in the meantime if Labour are voted out, the Conservatives aren't much better either. Our government want you to be poorer even though you haven't got the capacity to be able to work full-time

I am trying to remain positive but its difficult when you feel under threat every day.

Brainblogger

Brown Envelope Day

As I predicted I have received my brown envelope yesterday with a IB50 old style questionnaire. Perhaps somebody has been reading my blog. I have been preparing myself for this moment for months. Now I have got over the shock, here's how it looks to me.

This is the form from previous experience that asks next to nothing about things involved with a brain injury, The questions relate more physical things, ie: walking, lifting, sitting down, toilet needs etc. Anything relating to a brain injury has to fitted in at the end next to the mental section. From previous experience pretty much whatever I fill in will end up with me going for a medical.

This is when I end up going to the place where they do the medicals which I dislike intensely and which makes me very anxious and my blood pressure goes into orbit. Then at the same time I have to be able to remember all the things I want to tell the doctor while I am feeling very anxious which is not an easy thing to do.

Here are some possible scenarios how I see it:

scenario 1:

fill in form, get no medical. Carry on voluntary work trying to get myself magically fit again, get away from Jeremy Kyle. See what Jobcentre can do to help, you are having a laugh aren't you?. Jobcentre pack me off onto pathways or whatever it is called to practice writing my c.v again [not that anybody takes any notice of your qualifications on your cv when you are damaged goods] and look for non-existent jobs on computer at college. Jobcentre makes unemployment figures look good because you are officialy not on IB. Then get another medical after 2010 and end up on ESA or JSA anyway.

scenario 2:

Fill in IB50, get medical, try and convince doctor if doctor actually listens that you are actually ill and these things it says in GP notes and hospital notes did actually happen and you are not making it up as you go along. Even though you know all along the doctor has to meet his targets and doctor is already thinking in his mind that you look a surefire bet to add to his magically fit for work list.

Scenario 3

Fill in IB50, get medical, pass medical as fit for work, apply for JSA and appeal against medical decision [6 months min] JSA is means tested, get no JSA due to other circumstances except stamp [live off savings] I have done this before when I appealed last time and it is not very pleasant.

The nice people at the Jobcentre tell you not to bother to come in and sign on when you are appealing, thy did the last time anyway. And I thought Jobcentre might help me to find a job paying £20000 a year while I was appealing and forget all this incapacity benefit malarky.

Scenario 4:

Fill in IB50, get medical, pass medical as fit for work, don't bother appealing, get JSA as above, look for a job

Scenario 5:

Don't bother returning form, This is what our caring government wants us all to do, Get a job/part-time job packing soap, filling shelves and claim tax credits. But then make yourself ill in the process because you were only kidding yourself when you thought you were well enough to go back to work again. Go to doctors do not pass go with out collecting prescription for Seroxat.

Scenario 6:

Find a magic cure for brain injury, take magic cure, I thought there would have been a cure coming through with all my spam I get, stop moaning, go back to work and live happily ever after as if you have been living in some dream world for last 18 years.

That's my thoughts for today, now I have got to build myself up to try and fill this damn form in. now do I have any problem controlling my bowels or my bladder?.

Trapped by Labours Arbeit Macht Frei

This is my first attempt at a blog so It might be a bit rough round the edges.

I got the name how can you take it easy when you are already taking it easy from an unhelpful ex-stepmother/drama queen/control freak who regularly accused me of being a scrounger and how there was nothing wrong with me and how her Daughter was always more ill than me.

One week I said I was having some time off from voluntary work and she said "How can you take it easy when you are already taking it easy?"

I had a brain injury in a road accident 18 years ago, prior to that I was quite happy with my 3 jobs working 55 hours+. I liked my jobs, I liked working hard. I have been on and off incapacity benefit for easily 16/17 years. I am not proud of it but it has helped me survive. One has to survive on something. As I have been reading today some people think that you should get food vouchers instead of Incapacity Benefit. How are you going to be able to pay your council tax with food vouchers and think about how embarrassing it will be going to pay for your shopping in Aldi with food vouchers?.

One day I woke up in hospital after being on a life support machine I am told with the mother of all headaches [imagine eating ice-cream too fast and getting brain freeze but 50 times worse] wondering how the hell did I get here and what's happened to my motorbike and what happened to my chicken curry I was going to eat when I got home. apparently a car pulled in front of me and I hit it and I flew over the top, not that I can actually remember it. I remember leaving work and going to get a take-away curry on the way home and that's about it.

After the head injury I was told I would never work again. I always kept saying to myself when I am well enough to go to work again I will hope to get back to where I was but you will find with brain injuries don't work like that.

18 years on after going through various hospitals, therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, occupational therapy, you get the picture by now. I have been to these so called therapeutic schemes not that were very therapeutic. I can not forget the last place I actually worked therapeutically and then part-time for a very short time. From day to day I felt like I was being kept wrapped up in cotton wool all the time, now are you sure you can manage that as if I was an imbecile. I was moved around from one office to the other because they did not know how to manage someone like me on a day to day basis. Some days I would have good days and some days I had dreadful days. I ending up working in a drawing office entering data onto a computer from drawings which I quite enjoyed and was quite straightforward.

A new computer system arrived but I was not given the training despite asking on numerous occasions and my job went to the tart down the corridor. My new role was to cut up drawings or making cups of tea or just sit at my desk doing nothing hoping somebody could think up something for me to do. The office manager who had no idea of managing people regularly patted me on the back like I was a child at school. One day I had sorted out all these magazines and files in the cabinet by the office that no-one give a shit about and I was made to feel as if I was doing something really important when in fact it wasn't. My self-esteem dropped to zero and I felt truly depressed. Shortly after this I left. I think what this is called now is constructive dismissal. After visiting the doctors I made a new friend called Seroxat who was my friend for nearly ten years.

I can remember going to the job centre and the DEA asking me if I wanted to go to a place to pack soap for £20 a week. How stimulating for the brain I thought? Its now called permitted work now and it still doesn't work especially when it is limited to just a year. I didn't go packing soap but I started volunteering at an old folks home instead until they started messing me about.

After surviving all that now in 2005 the DEA said I should go to this place to help me get back to work and how it had helped other people with head injuries to get back to work, this I did for 8 months going backwards and forwards on the train to a place in Birmingham, the travelling was exhausting in itself on the worlds slowest train to Birmingham following the train that stopped at every station between Coventry and Birmingham . The disability employment advisor from the jobcentre was invited twice to meet up in Birmingham and see how I was doing but he never came, got the usual lame excuse, stuck in a meeting, perhaps he didn't care or perhaps he was just too busy playing golf.

When I was finally in the right frame of mind the people from Birmingham got me a work placement to get me back into a work environment. I was supposed to be there for 2 weeks which was extended to 6 weeks. After the 6 weeks I said could I stay as a volunteer to try and build up my mental stamina which was agreed. it was nice to get out of the house and meet people and get away from Jeremy Kyle, you know as all us incapacity benefit scroungers do. I wish I never heard of Jeremy Kyle but his name crops up a lot in my day to day life. The people who got me the placement saw me twice more and never followed up or tracked my progress and effectively dumped me there. I phoned up about my case and they said my case was closed and all I got was a certificate not worth the paper its written on, how I haven't put it in the shredder yet I do not know. I suppose it will have some use in the future, my children could have it for drawing on perhaps. Thank you guys but what was the point of that and how much was the cheque from the jobcentre by the way?

I feel let down because I am no nearer to getting a job as I was then although I have over 3 years experience as a volunteer now, nobody tracks my progress other than the supervisor/people I work with. The Jobcentre says the place where I am doing my voluntary work are taking advantage of me and should give me a job, not the fact I am in a working environment trying to build myself up.


How many times did the DEA say he was going to see me or he was going to send leaflets about permitted work to my supervisor or go up and explain about this scheme or that. I am still waiting. Not that you can see a DEA now because you have to pre-book. If the jobcentre are so keen to get sick people back to work I would of thought the jobcentre would be inviting you there and greeting you with glasses of champagne not making you pre-book.
I avoid the jobcentre because they are so negative towards me and what I am doing.

Why is it when you go to the jobcentre you have to get past the SS guards at the reception, you can not actually just go in and see someone. Did the people working at reception give up the day job working as wardresses at Auschwitz or something?.

Here I am 3 and a half years later still working as a volunteer. I love it and the people are all very nice and the support is fantastic. A couple of weeks ago I won an award for my commitment as a volunteer which I am thrilled to bits about.

I have asked if there are any vacancies that would be suitable for me for what I am doing. However we agree that as I would only be able to work part-time [as I am not well enough to work full-time, no magic cure for brain injury yet] it would be pointless. I now live in dread every day of the brown envelope with an IB50 coming or whatever it is called these days or a phone call for a medical. It's like government inflicted torture. I haven't had a medical in 3 years, last time I had a medical the clueless doctor said in his report that as I could watch tv [too much watching Jeremy Kyle as all us scroungers/criminals/fraudsters do] and as I can read the paper and fill the dishwasher as if by magic I am fit for work when I still have restrictions, can't remember how many months it took but I appealed and had IB reinstated with points to spare.

Fast forward to July 2008 Mr Purnell with his own version of Arbeit Macht Frei. work will make you free, no I mean work will make you feel better, not when you are worse off it won't make you feel better. With the withdrawal of age additions and money for dependants our caring government will make you worse off, that's of course if I am disabled enough to get on employment support allowance and not end up on jobseekers allowance where my disability won't exist anymore. That's a nightmare I am already contemplating.

I am sure the collecting litter and cleaning graffiti from walls will do wonders for ones self-esteem as if it isn't low enough already. Are there any career prospects in collecting litter?. a promotion to chief litter picker from £5.50 a week to £5.52 a week, it is disguised by saying that the rate of pay exceeds minimal wage when it might only 2p more than minimum wage.

Back to the plot where am I going to find a part-time job that will pay me full-time wages?.

I don't qualify for disability working tax credits either so I am penalised that way as well because of other circumstances. If I do get a part-time job I will be working for a pittance. If I could work full-time I would but I am restricted by my brain telling me its time to pack up and have a sleep usually by getting the headache is the first indicator.

In the current state of the UK employment where are all the jobs for the disabled going to come from?. Who is going to convince the employers to give disabled people jobs?. They don't do it now despite the DDA so they are not going to change there mind overnight. I have applied for jobs and I felt that I was one of the best candidates but I get turned down after an interview with lame excuses, that's of course if you get an interview to start off with. Just mention you have epilepsy or that you have an brain injury I suddenly have a mental illness and they would rather not take the risk, bye bye any chance of an interview.

Whoever thought this reform through didn't think it through properly, the red-top readers will be happy but it will actually penalise sick people more than the scroungers. Today I read this: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/money/article910854.ece

Apparently we are all cheats now and basically being tarred with the same brush, how convenient for the government.

I am trying so so hard to overcome my disability but feel like I am trapped.