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.