This morning the Sunday Express claims that the Benefits & Work website provides a web guide for bogus incapacity benefit claims. In fact they manage to mention it on another article as well on the same day claiming that benefit claims are at an all time high. Yet again another attack on sick and disabled people.
Brain Blogger
It appears that the article in the Sunday Express was removed after Benefits & Work members first picked up on it in there forum here
Sunday, 20 December 2009
Friday, 11 December 2009
The Future is Uncertain
Nothing of any real significance has happened since I last posted on my blog. I just haven't really felt like writing anything. I have been taking the Citalapram for quite a while now. I don't really feel depressed nor do I feel really happy. I sort of feel nothing. I don't feel sick anymore before I go to voluntary work nor do I have the pounding heart or the panic attacks which is a relief.
Since the brain injury I have no real work history other than therapeutic work and voluntary work. I feel like everyone who wanted to take advantage of me under the guise of rehabilitation has taken advantage of me.
After a life changing event like a brain injury there does not seem to be any sort of a plan to get yourself back to work and you just go through the motions, a week passes, a month passes, a year passes, now almost 20 years have passed since I last worked full-time. At least 18 years has been spent on IB and its variants via a couple of appeals. Its not something I am proud of.
I want to get off IB and get a proper part-time job with proper wages and some sort of career but how many of them are there about for disabled people at the moment?.
The problem is with going to a new job or environment with short-term memory problems it might take me a year to learn and to remember what to do properly. How many employers are there who have that sort of patience?. I feel like the future is uncertain. The only stability I have at the moment is IB and voluntary work.
I have been reading other blog's about peoples experience of the new deal and the flexible new deal but it sounds so depressing. I don't want to be depressed again. I have had a lifetime of experience of depression.
I have asked whether the voluntary work could turn into a proper part-time job but the employer said that they can't match what I get on IB and I would be worse off and wait until I get kicked off IB and onto jobseekers.
I phoned up the tax credit helpline and even with working tax credit I would actually be worse off. That's just crazy. Even on news articles I read in the last week or so it said if you earn less than so much you are classed as being in poverty. What's the incentive of going to work when you are going to go into poverty?.
Sometimes I feel like I am already working for my benefit. Sometimes I feel like I am being taken advantage of at the expense of a real employee. People have come and gone and not been replaced but at the end there is always me as backup. What alternatives are there?.
ta ta
brain blogger
Since the brain injury I have no real work history other than therapeutic work and voluntary work. I feel like everyone who wanted to take advantage of me under the guise of rehabilitation has taken advantage of me.
After a life changing event like a brain injury there does not seem to be any sort of a plan to get yourself back to work and you just go through the motions, a week passes, a month passes, a year passes, now almost 20 years have passed since I last worked full-time. At least 18 years has been spent on IB and its variants via a couple of appeals. Its not something I am proud of.
I want to get off IB and get a proper part-time job with proper wages and some sort of career but how many of them are there about for disabled people at the moment?.
The problem is with going to a new job or environment with short-term memory problems it might take me a year to learn and to remember what to do properly. How many employers are there who have that sort of patience?. I feel like the future is uncertain. The only stability I have at the moment is IB and voluntary work.
I have been reading other blog's about peoples experience of the new deal and the flexible new deal but it sounds so depressing. I don't want to be depressed again. I have had a lifetime of experience of depression.
I have asked whether the voluntary work could turn into a proper part-time job but the employer said that they can't match what I get on IB and I would be worse off and wait until I get kicked off IB and onto jobseekers.
I phoned up the tax credit helpline and even with working tax credit I would actually be worse off. That's just crazy. Even on news articles I read in the last week or so it said if you earn less than so much you are classed as being in poverty. What's the incentive of going to work when you are going to go into poverty?.
Sometimes I feel like I am already working for my benefit. Sometimes I feel like I am being taken advantage of at the expense of a real employee. People have come and gone and not been replaced but at the end there is always me as backup. What alternatives are there?.
ta ta
brain blogger
Tuesday, 6 October 2009
DLA and AA Petition Needs Your Help
If you are not already aware of the governments plans to scrap DLA & AA can you sign this petition please:
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/AttendanceA/
CHARITIES ADMIT DEFEAT
We have received a copy of an email which a campaigner says came from the charity ASBAH (Association for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus) in response to his concerns about the care green paper. The email appears to admit defeat in the fight to save DLA and AA:
“. . .ASBAH, in line with many other larger bodies is of the view that these proposals have already gathered too much momentum to be reversed and that major changes are inevitable. . . it is vital within any alternative system that people retain elements within their budgets where they can exercise choice in how they spend that money. Although we have not adopted a position where we are fighting to save DLA and AA we would fight to see this element of choice protected and would resist any attempt to convert all support to 'in kind'.”
We have emailed ASBAH to ask for confirmation that the email is genuine and to ask which other ‘larger bodies’ – presumably disability charities - have also given up the fight to save DLA and AA.
We have yet to receive a response.
MINISTER’ STATEMENT: IS DLA REALLY SAVED?
One week on and there has been absolutely no corroboration of Care Services minister Phil Hope’s off-the-cuff statement that DLA is not being considered for the axe.
As we pointed out last week, Hope’s ‘don’t worry, be happy’ exhortation contradicts previous statements made by the DWP. So, the continued failure by either the DWP or the Department of Health to make any official statement confirming that they have changed their position and that DLA is now safe can only be a cause for deep suspicion and grave concern.
In addition, no reassuring words whatsoever have been offered in relation to AA.
So, at Benefits and Work, our message continues to be ‘It’s not over yet: carry on campaigning’.
NO 10 PETITION STRUGGLING
The petition about DLA and AA seems to be grinding to a halt again, at under 12,000 signatures. As we said last week, if any agency starts a petition it’s vital that they give it maximum publicity or it ends up damaging, rather than promoting, their cause.
Do you have time to check the website of any disability charity that you have a connection with and, if there isn’t an obvious link to the No 10 petition, email them and politely ask them to publish one.
You could point out that the petition was started by the Disability Charities Consortium and that it’s important that disability charities now work together effectively to promote it. If they can’t act together on so simple a thing as getting signatures on a petition, then what exactly can they act together on and how can they claim to be representing their members’ interests?
The petition can be found at:
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/AttendanceA/
GREEN PAPER WEBSITE AMAZED
The Big Care Debate website have answered our queries about missing responses by replying that “we have received an amazing response from the public in regards to the Green Paper, on both the website and via email. We are doing our best to work our way through them, and have them online and ready to view as soon as we can.”
We know that in the past, such consultations have struggled to get responses numbering in the hundreds, let alone the thousands. So, we can certainly believe that the ‘amazing’ response by Benefits and Work campaigners has taken the Department of Health by surprise. But we do wonder how hard it can be to read and publish a few thousand posts over several months. Is the sheer volume of communications really the only problem? Rather than, say, the fact that most responses are overwhelmingly hostile to the green paper?
If you haven’t yet sent a response to the green paper, please do so by visiting this link:
http://careandsupport.direct.gov.uk/greenpaper/execsum/
Or emailing: careandsupport@dh.gsi.gov.uk
We’re concerned that there doesn’t appear to be any complaints procedure for the green paper consultation and we’re looking into this. But at the very least, if they don’t publish your response it will give more grounds for challenging the validity of the whole green paper consultation, which is after all a statutory process.
POST YOUR NEWS
Finally, remember that you can post your news in the Benefits and Work forum, if you’re a member, at:
http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/forum?func=showcat&catid=13
and/or in the free welfare watch forums at:
http://welfarewatch.myfineforum.org/index.php
You can also keep up with news about opposition to the green paper at the Carer Watch campaign blog:
http://carerwatch.com/cuts/
Unfortunately, we’re getting so many emails on this subject that we are unlikely to be able to respond individually. But we do appreciate hearing your news and views and we do encourage you to publish them for others to read on the forums detailed above.
Good luck,
Please feel free to forward or publish this email.
Benefits and Work Publishing Ltd
www.benefitsandwork.co.uk
Company registration No. 5962666
(c) 2009 Steve Donnison. All rights reserved.
Sunday, 4 October 2009
Nothing New Then, Move Along
Hi,
I have been reading all this week that David Cameron's first priority as a Tory Prime Minister [if he wins of course] is to reduce the amount of people on Incapacity benefit. I would have thought his first priority would be to encourage companies in this country to start creating real, well paid jobs, what's the point of getting people to be work ready when there is no real work to go to. The only people who will be getting anything out of this is is companies like A4e, Working Links. I can imagine Emma Harrison rubbing her hands together already.
You have seen it on Benefit Busters already where people are placed in temporary work or in low paid employment. Imagine the career prospects and the stimulation for my brain working at the 99p shop?. I have experienced this already by going on a six week placement and there was no real job at the end of it only to go full circle and be back where I started again.
Its just the same old tosh to try and win voters before an election by saying that he will be attacking the people on benefits. Nothing new then, move along!.
ta ta
Brain Blogger
Friday, 4 September 2009
Benefit Busters Ep3
How do?
Well what can I say about benefits busters that hasn't been said already. Shaw Trust were doing just the same as A4E were doing in the previous programme in trying to meet targets and to get the £300 monthly bonus. It would not be so bad as if they could treat people with some empathy not just objects to meet targets. It did not show anything that Shaw Trust actually did for the clients than the initial interviews, what did they do in the time spent while at Shaw Trust?. Were they making models in cardboard in team building exercises?.
Sherrie was asking if anyone was interested in being canvassers or car salesman, to me it all seemed a bit unrealistic, for example, here we have 2 applicants for a job as a car sales, one a car salesman who has say 5 years recent experience and a person who has been on IB for 5-10 years has little or no experience. The IB claimants application would go straight in the shredder.
It was also disgraceful the way Sherrie was saying about the guy who did the painting and decorating and saying she would support him but you could see that she was probably thinking that he did not really have a cat in hells chance of getting a job at 57. I thought she was being ageist and she had virtually made her mind up before she ahd even started. The thing is she should of realised that older people have knowledge and life experience, he also had a history of running his own business and this could be transferred into something else instead of just giving him false hope.
I felt the better advisor was the one helping Mandy who had PTSD/alchohol/depression problems. She seemed to be more on the ball. I think Mandy had the right idea in that she wanted to do something but most employers probably wouldn't touch her with a barge pole so doing some voluntary work is probably the best route to start off with building up her self-esteem. The advisor was also right saying that she needed some counselling and to sort herself out which might take a year.
To get people back into the workplace after a long time out isn't like selling a car, people have lots of problems that need addressing before they are even ready to try and get back in the workplace. It is not as simple as shoving them on a course and doing job search and trying to get your £300 bonus at the same time. The thing is in this country these things are not in place as yet.
I can't say I have a lot of sympathy for Kieron as he had no problems walking and he could walk so he was mobile, he could pick up a bucket full of water and mop the floor. How did the bucket get in the sink to start off with? Picking up the bucket with a bad back is difficult. If he is worried about ending up in a wheelchair I wouldn't have thought picking up a bucket of water was a good idea. I also thought at one point when he dropped the piece of paper he was going to pick it up again and I thought he was reaching forward for the ball in the garden. Kieron has done nothing to change the minds of any watching daily mail readers.
I thought the job Sherrie asked him to apply for as an office administrator was totally unrealistic as he was not experienced and then the other guy was talking him out of it and suggesting going to college to do basic maths and literacy. Oh I forgot Sherrie wants her £300 bonus. I think Kerion could do something but you have got to start somewhere.
Looking at the medical he went to I thought from the questions being asked that he was going to fail and he did. Was the examiner who asked him to bend over at the assessment actually qualified to make a judgement because apparently these disability analysts are not doctors and have only been on a three week course?.
I didn't think much of Sherries use of the phrase having to spoon-fed her clients who she felt were too lazy. I think if she knew about people who are sick/disabled then she should have said that they were not motivated and would have used her skills to address this. If a person wants to buy a car they already have the motivation to do it, that's the difference between selling cars and people with illnesses and disabilities, they are more complicated.
I think the governments plans to kick people off IB onto JSA isn't going to do much for motivating people and it would send people into depression.
From what I have read in the last year the sick and disabled feel that the government are punishing them for being sick and disabled. I just think the government have just gone the wrong way about it and all they are worried is saving there money. When they thought up these reforms did they actually think of asking sick and disabled people who have got back into work what motivated them and then asking current IB claimants what would motivate them.
If I can see all these things in this programme the question is why haven't I got a job for Shaw Trust/A4e earning £2000 a month?. I would definitely make a better job of it than Sherrie. I didn't think much to Hayley Taylor's approach but you can guess by now I am definitely not a fan of Sherrie Jepson. This to me just shows all the things that are bad about pathways to work.
This programme did very little to show the actual problems that lot's of sick and disabled people have trying to find work. Neither did it show anything about employers discrimination against the sick and disabled. I felt it seemed to spend a lot of its time focusing on Kieron and his negative attitude.
If you are a person on IB and after watching a programme like this would you want to go on one of these programmes offered by A4e/Shaw Trust/Working Links when you know there are people like Sherrie who are out there who are target & bonus driven working in the pathways to work system?.
Are they thinking about your best interests and your aspirations or about meeting the target and the £300 bonus?.
Ta ta for now
Friday, 28 August 2009
Mark Pilkington, I Feel Your Pain [Benefit Busters Episode 2]
Having watched Benefits Busters last night I really felt for Mark Pilkington who got the job with the landscape contractors. Did they give him the job because the cameras were there?. It was so disheartening when he got the letter saying that his hours were being reduced. I really felt his pain. He wanted to work, you could see when he had been in the job a short while what a difference it was making to his life and the relationship with his Wife, he made the effort and now he his back to square one again.
The programme said A4e were paid for Mark being referred by the jobcentre and then I would imagine a4e would probably be paid again when he got the job at the contractors. Now Mark is back to square one again will he get referred back to a4e again? easy money if you ask me, no wonder Emma has that smug grin when she was being interviewed for benefit busters and i would have that smug grin after getting a multi-million contract from the DWP. I mean Emma's alright, arsehole to everyone else, show me the money! Does Emma care about someone like Mark?
Even when she was being interviewed she didn't even let the interviewer finish his question and kept saying, yes, yes, yes, yes and grinning.
Can someone tell me what was all the making of models with cardboard and sellotape got to do with looking for a job?. How demoralising. I mean my kids come back from school with models like that and this company is being paid to do this.
Lets see what happens next week with the sick and disabled.
ta ta
Brain blogger
Thursday, 27 August 2009
How Can You Prove That You Have Epilepsy?
I went away on a holiday this week but I forgot to take my medication with me, shit like this happens I forget things. I sat on the train going to London and I suddenly realised I had forgot my medication. I phoned my GP surgery as soon as I could and they said that I should temporarily register with another surgery which is the normal procedure. So I walked into the nearest surgery and I could not believe it when the receptionist said to me "I don't think we can help you very much unless you can prove you have epilepsy".
I mean how can you do that then? If I don't have any tablets for a while I could give you a ringside ticket when I do have a fit. I mean should I wear a t-shirt saying "I have epilepsy and I have been on the medication for almost 18 years". I did see a doctor eventually after waiting for over an hour and told him my predicament, gave him the number of my GP of which he phoned and he then gave me a prescription.
I have been thinking about having a t-shirt printed soon because my head injury is invisible and it affects me every day but it doesn't mean though that I am lazy or don't want to work. Any ideas?
Saturday, 15 August 2009
Its Not My Fault Theres Not Enough Tanks In Afghanistan
I love this comment I got in my comments box the other day, its just typical of the mindset that people think that blaming the long term unemployed and people on IB for the governments incompetence and the bankers greed:
kbo1964 said: jesus wept! i pay a fortune in stopages to support thieving scumbags!
James, I sympathise with you for paying a fortune in stoppages and the MOD not having enough vehicles and the absent fathers. I think you need to be knocking on Gordon Brown's door about this and asking the bankers these questions.
I would love to get a job but with a hidden disabilty and no work history for 10 years it doesn't really make me attractive to future employers. I do voluntary work to build up a work history and a track record and I have a good record of voluntary work and I am still trying to build myself up. Lots of people do voluntary work trying to build up there history and to try and get fit enough to get back to work but they are not recognized. As far as the government are concerned all they are doing is just sitting at home watching Jeremy Kyle and drinking lager in the morning.
All the government and the Tories according to this article in the Times want to do is kick as many people off IB and onto JSA so they can save money. Will the jobcentre be able to cope?. Kick the 2.7m off IB onto JSA and you get 5m unemployed and then you will still be paying for me probably in higher taxes to pay for JSA.
kbo1964 said: jesus wept! i pay a fortune in stopages to support thieving scumbags!
why isn't the csa chaseing absent fathers
is this why the mod can't send vehicles to afganistan
is this why the mod can't send vehicles to afganistan
james smith
James, I sympathise with you for paying a fortune in stoppages and the MOD not having enough vehicles and the absent fathers. I think you need to be knocking on Gordon Brown's door about this and asking the bankers these questions.
I would love to get a job but with a hidden disabilty and no work history for 10 years it doesn't really make me attractive to future employers. I do voluntary work to build up a work history and a track record and I have a good record of voluntary work and I am still trying to build myself up. Lots of people do voluntary work trying to build up there history and to try and get fit enough to get back to work but they are not recognized. As far as the government are concerned all they are doing is just sitting at home watching Jeremy Kyle and drinking lager in the morning.
I want a job as much as anyone else, it would do wonders for my mental wellbeing and I would stop worrying about the nasty brown envelopes. I go to the jobcentre hoping that I can get somewhere but I afterwards I feel more depressed than before I went. I am so disillusioned. All they want me to do is apply for low paid jobs that are unrealistic and have no real prospects.
All the government and the Tories according to this article in the Times want to do is kick as many people off IB and onto JSA so they can save money. Will the jobcentre be able to cope?. Kick the 2.7m off IB onto JSA and you get 5m unemployed and then you will still be paying for me probably in higher taxes to pay for JSA.
see ya
Friday, 7 August 2009
DLA & Benefit Busters
The possible threat of the withdrawal of DLA is worrying as I am a recipient of DLA myself. it looks like it is just another way of this damn governments no more benefits campaign and make sick and disabled peoples lives more difficult and back to the 1800's Poor Law.
It just seems to me just lately to be an all out attack on the vulnerable/the unemployed and people who don't have a voice to support them. I have already added my name to the Benefits and Work DLA & AA campaign which can be found here
I must say I really can't wait to watch on Channel 4 Benefit Busters , no doubt another program aimed to put benefit claimants in a bad light. No doubt the sick and disabled will feature in the series somewhere. We shall wait and see. I am appalled that such programs are put on our screens for so-called entertainment. I saw that it features A4e which you can read about on the newdealscandal blog
ta ta
brain blogger
Tuesday, 14 July 2009
Can I Believe in Miracles?
Its official!!!!!!!!. I can now announce on my blog that all disabilties and sickness has been cured. The Express, The Mail and The Sun have been falling over themselves due to figures recently released about the new stricter tests of the ESA. Apparently 90% of claims are actually bogus and claimants are fit for work and the newspapers are now drooling at the prospect of it being applied to all the benefit scrounging scum currently on IB. I do like the article in the mail especially because it says that people will find it better "coming off the sick" and then it has got a picture of people queuing up at the jobcentre. I am crossing off the days on my calender now.
However The London Evening Standard has gone one further and says that all 2.6m on IB are actually fit for work. I don't know where I must have been when this miracle happened because it obviously missed me.
All we want now is another 2.6 million jobs [and sympathetic employers who don't mind taking on a few disabled workers, people with mental health problems, you get the picture] to add to the existing unemployed figures, has anyone got about 6 million jobs?. That's the next miracle!.
We all now this is all bullshit and all IB claimants haven't been magically cured and there aren't jobs a plenty for all these people to take up and what people will actually be facing is Jobseekers Allowance, £60 a week, workfare, more crap schemes to go on that do nothing to help and actually make you feel more depressed and slamming the glass door at where you go to sign on, I can't wait to have my own turn.
Roll on Arbeit Macht Frei
However The London Evening Standard has gone one further and says that all 2.6m on IB are actually fit for work. I don't know where I must have been when this miracle happened because it obviously missed me.
All we want now is another 2.6 million jobs [and sympathetic employers who don't mind taking on a few disabled workers, people with mental health problems, you get the picture] to add to the existing unemployed figures, has anyone got about 6 million jobs?. That's the next miracle!.
We all now this is all bullshit and all IB claimants haven't been magically cured and there aren't jobs a plenty for all these people to take up and what people will actually be facing is Jobseekers Allowance, £60 a week, workfare, more crap schemes to go on that do nothing to help and actually make you feel more depressed and slamming the glass door at where you go to sign on, I can't wait to have my own turn.
Roll on Arbeit Macht Frei
Saturday, 11 July 2009
No Panic Saturday
I went to a meeting today called No Panic Saturday as I am taking the first steps to deal with the problems I have with panic and anxiety. At the meeting I also found out about a organisation called No Panic.org.uk which I had never heard of before and it also has freephone number for a confidential national help-line.
Thursday, 11 June 2009
Its Not Good Enough!
I read this article titled "Employers back return to work" which says in a survey over a quarter (27%) of employers say they would still give people on incapacity benefit, and older people, the opportunity to return to the workplace, despite the economic recession.
Its not very impressive is it though?. In the article it makes it sound as if it is something really good but its not good enough, why should it not be 80-90%?. If claimants want to go back to work it makes it difficult if 73% will not even give you a chance in the first place.
Its not very impressive is it though?. In the article it makes it sound as if it is something really good but its not good enough, why should it not be 80-90%?. If claimants want to go back to work it makes it difficult if 73% will not even give you a chance in the first place.
Instead of the government attacking claimants shouldn't they be attacking the employers for not giving claimants a chance. Its a form of discrimination. All employers want though is someone who can start now and do the job so they are profitable to the business.
With the welfare reforms making life hell for genuine claimants. As a IB claimant myself I often feel like I am trapped. It feel like its either work or nothing or the being trapped in between.
brain blogger
With the welfare reforms making life hell for genuine claimants. As a IB claimant myself I often feel like I am trapped. It feel like its either work or nothing or the being trapped in between.
brain blogger
Tuesday, 9 June 2009
He Will Be Back
I read last week people rejoicing [i think thats the wrong word actually but it will do for the time being] the resignation of James Purnell, what I think though is at least when he resigned as Secretary of state for Work & Pensions he still has a job as an MP to fall back on and he still has a form of income unlike us lesser mortals.
I can't see James going down to the JobcentrePlus and signing up for some crap scheme and having to live off £60.50 a week. No doubt he has been the worst person to make benefit claimants lives hell but he will be back in some shape or form.
ta ta
brain blogger
I can't see James going down to the JobcentrePlus and signing up for some crap scheme and having to live off £60.50 a week. No doubt he has been the worst person to make benefit claimants lives hell but he will be back in some shape or form.
ta ta
brain blogger
Feeling A Bit Spaced Out
I have been taking the citalopram for nearly two weeks now and I have made some observations already, it has certainly taken the edge off of my anxiety but the problem is after I have been taking them in the morning is I feel spaced out and it lasts for a couple of hours. It is not as bad though as when I used to take amitriptyline when I used to feel like I was literally floating around. I also have tegretol for epilepsy and to balance my mood but it hasn't been working very well recently but this combination with the citalopram seems to work quite well. I did a google search and I found that people suggest taking it at night so I have been doing that instead.
I have also noticed I am sleeping a lot more during the daytime, came back from voluntary work, went shopping to Lidl, my Wife and my children dislike going to Lidl so they prefer going on a secret mission to Asda at the weekend. Unfortunately going round the five rows at Lidl is all I can manage as going to a large supermarket like Tesco I find exhausting, so Lidl it is. So got back from shopping and I thought I would have a lay down, woke up 5 hours later at midnight, Wife asleep next to me, next morning my Wife was not too impressed as I had left on her own all evening. I knew she was alright because she would always find one of the forensics programmes to watch. It bothers me sometimes that she likes watching all these programmes especially her personal favourite "Snapped, Women who Kill". I do wonder what the gritty bits in my cup of tea are sometimes, only kidding. The problem with head injury is if you feel tired it don't matter you can still be asleep 20 minutes later after having a coffee or a stimulant drink. Also with sleeping in the daytime it affects your sleep patterns so when every else is asleep you are wide awake again.
ta ta
brain blogger
I have also noticed I am sleeping a lot more during the daytime, came back from voluntary work, went shopping to Lidl, my Wife and my children dislike going to Lidl so they prefer going on a secret mission to Asda at the weekend. Unfortunately going round the five rows at Lidl is all I can manage as going to a large supermarket like Tesco I find exhausting, so Lidl it is. So got back from shopping and I thought I would have a lay down, woke up 5 hours later at midnight, Wife asleep next to me, next morning my Wife was not too impressed as I had left on her own all evening. I knew she was alright because she would always find one of the forensics programmes to watch. It bothers me sometimes that she likes watching all these programmes especially her personal favourite "Snapped, Women who Kill". I do wonder what the gritty bits in my cup of tea are sometimes, only kidding. The problem with head injury is if you feel tired it don't matter you can still be asleep 20 minutes later after having a coffee or a stimulant drink. Also with sleeping in the daytime it affects your sleep patterns so when every else is asleep you are wide awake again.
ta ta
brain blogger
Monday, 8 June 2009
DWP New Deal Scandal
I have just found this interesting new blog here about the 'New Deal' obviously written by someone with experience of the perils of being on it.
Thursday, 28 May 2009
Anxiety?, Hello Citalopram
Since my last couple of posts the anxiety and feeling depressed which I was feeling all started to get a bit too much, coping mechanisms went out of the window, not that I had any to start off with, allegedly I am supposed to have all these coping mechanisms to deal with these things but I can't remember what they are.
I took time off voluntary work as I felt drained and I felt like I was being overloaded with everything going on in my life. I underestimate the severity of my injury I have and I often think I can do more than I am capable of. I try to think that I am going to get back to some sort of level of where I used to be before my injury but I now have resided myself to the fact that its never going to happen which is frustrating.
I took time off voluntary work as I felt drained and I felt like I was being overloaded with everything going on in my life. I underestimate the severity of my injury I have and I often think I can do more than I am capable of. I try to think that I am going to get back to some sort of level of where I used to be before my injury but I now have resided myself to the fact that its never going to happen which is frustrating.
I actually felt like on a few days why do I bother with voluntary work and I didn't want to go back but at least while I am doing that I am building up some sort of work history which might count for something one day and it gets me out of the house.
The problem is I do not know who is impartial that you can talk to about benefits/work. Half the time I don't know whether I am coming or going or who I can trust to advise me in my best interests. I don't trust jobcentreplus or the DEA after my previous experiences with him and I certainly don't want to go on the inflexible new deal or the pathways to nowhere. I just keep going back to my voluntary work. I suppose it will all come to a crunch when I get another IB50 and see what happens then.
The problem is I do not know who is impartial that you can talk to about benefits/work. Half the time I don't know whether I am coming or going or who I can trust to advise me in my best interests. I don't trust jobcentreplus or the DEA after my previous experiences with him and I certainly don't want to go on the inflexible new deal or the pathways to nowhere. I just keep going back to my voluntary work. I suppose it will all come to a crunch when I get another IB50 and see what happens then.
Getting back to the plot I went to my new GP the other day which was fantastic, at the old doctors surgery you had to ring them between 8.00am and 8.30am, by the time you have got through after keeping you finger on the redial button, get through the multiple choice options and got through to speak to someone to find out all the appointments had gone for today so you have try again tomorrow. BT must making a small fortune here with all the people trying to phone at the same time. If you do get through and speak to someone on the phone you were subjected to a gestapo style interrogation. Is it an emergency and do you need to see the doctor today?, if it was an emergency I wouldn't be phoning here would I?. I would be phoning for an ambulance.
All I wanted to do was make an appointment to see the GP about my anxiety and some head injury related problems like not enough seratonin being pumped round my brain. Not really an emergency but necessary so it doesn't really fit into either category. Making the phone call to attempt to make an appointment was becoming so difficult I just kept putting it off all the time. If you walked into the surgery and asked at the reception they could not make you an appointment as they tell you to phone up in the morning.
There was the option of pre-booked appointments of course if you are on first name terms with the receptionist and you are not one of these difficult people who do not do what they are told. Hold it folks I thought this was a doctors surgery where you made appointments to see the GP not turn people away to phone up again every morning, got better chance of winning the lottery than getting an appointment.
So I wrote a complaint to the surgery and they generally fobbed me off, wrote a complaint to the primary care trust who were quite helpful but could not really do anything to improve the situation at the surgery. So decided to register somewhere else, the surgery couldn't give me the forms to register elsewhere quick enough after I told them I wanted to go somewhere where I could get a better standard of service. I am entitled to vote with my feet and go somewhere else.
I am now registered at new surgery and they are really helpful, saw the nurse who went over all my history and got an appointment within 4 days to see a new GP, now taking a drug called Citalopram to help the anxiety/depression and got an appointment to see the counciler in a month to help with my negative thinking, probably CBT or probably something similar I have done before.
Ta Ta
Brain-blogger
All I wanted to do was make an appointment to see the GP about my anxiety and some head injury related problems like not enough seratonin being pumped round my brain. Not really an emergency but necessary so it doesn't really fit into either category. Making the phone call to attempt to make an appointment was becoming so difficult I just kept putting it off all the time. If you walked into the surgery and asked at the reception they could not make you an appointment as they tell you to phone up in the morning.
There was the option of pre-booked appointments of course if you are on first name terms with the receptionist and you are not one of these difficult people who do not do what they are told. Hold it folks I thought this was a doctors surgery where you made appointments to see the GP not turn people away to phone up again every morning, got better chance of winning the lottery than getting an appointment.
So I wrote a complaint to the surgery and they generally fobbed me off, wrote a complaint to the primary care trust who were quite helpful but could not really do anything to improve the situation at the surgery. So decided to register somewhere else, the surgery couldn't give me the forms to register elsewhere quick enough after I told them I wanted to go somewhere where I could get a better standard of service. I am entitled to vote with my feet and go somewhere else.
I am now registered at new surgery and they are really helpful, saw the nurse who went over all my history and got an appointment within 4 days to see a new GP, now taking a drug called Citalopram to help the anxiety/depression and got an appointment to see the counciler in a month to help with my negative thinking, probably CBT or probably something similar I have done before.
Ta Ta
Brain-blogger
Monday, 18 May 2009
Strategy proving to be the right pathway to JSA
Hello,
Have a quick read through this link
Shouldn't the first line of the article read:
Officials at the Department of the Work and Pensions can celebrate initial success in their attempt to get youngsters off incapacity benefits and onto Jobseekers Allowance with very little chance of progressing into employment.
I wouldn't really call getting people off IB and onto JSA and not actually into any employment a need for a celebration, would you?. Where's the party then?. It would have been better to back it up with actual figures of people who have get into employment.
It seems to me that the DWP want to get as many people off IB and onto JSA regardless of what effect it has on the claimants lives and what little chance claimants have of getting into employment.
Brainblogger
Have a quick read through this link
Shouldn't the first line of the article read:
Officials at the Department of the Work and Pensions can celebrate initial success in their attempt to get youngsters off incapacity benefits and onto Jobseekers Allowance with very little chance of progressing into employment.
I wouldn't really call getting people off IB and onto JSA and not actually into any employment a need for a celebration, would you?. Where's the party then?. It would have been better to back it up with actual figures of people who have get into employment.
It seems to me that the DWP want to get as many people off IB and onto JSA regardless of what effect it has on the claimants lives and what little chance claimants have of getting into employment.
Brainblogger
Saturday, 16 May 2009
Domino's Dilemma
Back again
I am one of these type of people that if I think something is wrong then I speak my mind or until I am proved otherwise.
Our children had been playing up and my wife looked too exhausted to start cooking dinner so I thought I will give her the day off so I ordered a couple of domino's pizzas to be delivered. I used there website which I have done previously, ordered the pizzas, went through to the checkout, paid using a visa debit card and using my verification number, got through to the verified by visa system and entered the letters from my password [which is in my head]. Everything went through ok and sat down expecting a knock on the door very soon.
A knock on the door 30 minutes later, Dominos delivery man arrives and he says I have 2 pizza's for you, can you sign this slip of paper? he then says "can I see the card you placed the order with please?" ok so I go upstairs to the pc, get my wallet go back downstairs and show him my card, at which point he tries to take the card out of my hand and tries to turn it over to look at my signature and also where my 3 number verification number is. At this juncture I felt quite suspicious as I have paid for the pizzas using 2 systems and why should I show the back of my card to someone I don't know. I said to the driver there's the card I ordered it with but I am not showing you the reverse of my card as that info is for me to look at. Delivery man disappears.
I sat down eating my pizza which I was sort of not really enjoying as I was bothered about what had just happened at the front door. I thought I will ring up the local domino's where I ordered it from and ask why is the guy was asking to look at the back of my card.
I spoke to the manager and asked why is your driver asking to look at back of my card as I have paid using a system put in place to replace the chip and pin machine and used verified by visa. I said I objected to this as my bank tells me to keep my card details to myself. The first thing he said was well you are the first person to raise this [woo! do I get a prize or something?].
The manager said due to there being about 6 fraudulent transactions a month where people cancel the transaction or cancel the card that it is now dominos policy to ask to compare the signature you signed the slip of paper with the signature on the back of the card. its funny because there's nowhere on the dominos website that says this. I said to the manager that I have used the verified by visa system and it went through ok, neither was my card reported stolen.
So sorting of going round in circles getting nowhere the manager then said they get the driver to check the cards because if there is a fraudulent transaction then the cost of the pizzas delivered comes out of the delivery drivers wages and how would I like it, nothing like giving me a guilt trip.
The manager then said he was having a busy day and he did not want to discuss it any more so that was the end of that conversation.
Why has the cost of the fraudulent transaction got to be deducted from drivers wages? Its not his fault, he's just the guy who's employed to deliver it. Is this type of practise fair?. If dominos want to offer an online delivery service then they have to take the risks that go with it. Why are they shifting the responsibilty to the delivery driver to check the customers card when 2 systems are already in place? Should they be doing this?
I emailed the head office to complain about this but they have not replied or even acknowledged it.
I have also queried it with my bank as to whether I am at liberty to show my card to a delivery driver [who I don't know if he has a photographic memory] when I have ordered something online, not that I have had a reply from them either. I order all sorts of things online and nobody else when they have delivered it have asked to look at my card. Is this going to be the future?
Would you like to show your bank card and its reverse to someone you don't know?.
seeya
brainblogger
I am one of these type of people that if I think something is wrong then I speak my mind or until I am proved otherwise.
Our children had been playing up and my wife looked too exhausted to start cooking dinner so I thought I will give her the day off so I ordered a couple of domino's pizzas to be delivered. I used there website which I have done previously, ordered the pizzas, went through to the checkout, paid using a visa debit card and using my verification number, got through to the verified by visa system and entered the letters from my password [which is in my head]. Everything went through ok and sat down expecting a knock on the door very soon.
A knock on the door 30 minutes later, Dominos delivery man arrives and he says I have 2 pizza's for you, can you sign this slip of paper? he then says "can I see the card you placed the order with please?" ok so I go upstairs to the pc, get my wallet go back downstairs and show him my card, at which point he tries to take the card out of my hand and tries to turn it over to look at my signature and also where my 3 number verification number is. At this juncture I felt quite suspicious as I have paid for the pizzas using 2 systems and why should I show the back of my card to someone I don't know. I said to the driver there's the card I ordered it with but I am not showing you the reverse of my card as that info is for me to look at. Delivery man disappears.
I sat down eating my pizza which I was sort of not really enjoying as I was bothered about what had just happened at the front door. I thought I will ring up the local domino's where I ordered it from and ask why is the guy was asking to look at the back of my card.
I spoke to the manager and asked why is your driver asking to look at back of my card as I have paid using a system put in place to replace the chip and pin machine and used verified by visa. I said I objected to this as my bank tells me to keep my card details to myself. The first thing he said was well you are the first person to raise this [woo! do I get a prize or something?].
The manager said due to there being about 6 fraudulent transactions a month where people cancel the transaction or cancel the card that it is now dominos policy to ask to compare the signature you signed the slip of paper with the signature on the back of the card. its funny because there's nowhere on the dominos website that says this. I said to the manager that I have used the verified by visa system and it went through ok, neither was my card reported stolen.
So sorting of going round in circles getting nowhere the manager then said they get the driver to check the cards because if there is a fraudulent transaction then the cost of the pizzas delivered comes out of the delivery drivers wages and how would I like it, nothing like giving me a guilt trip.
The manager then said he was having a busy day and he did not want to discuss it any more so that was the end of that conversation.
Why has the cost of the fraudulent transaction got to be deducted from drivers wages? Its not his fault, he's just the guy who's employed to deliver it. Is this type of practise fair?. If dominos want to offer an online delivery service then they have to take the risks that go with it. Why are they shifting the responsibilty to the delivery driver to check the customers card when 2 systems are already in place? Should they be doing this?
I emailed the head office to complain about this but they have not replied or even acknowledged it.
I have also queried it with my bank as to whether I am at liberty to show my card to a delivery driver [who I don't know if he has a photographic memory] when I have ordered something online, not that I have had a reply from them either. I order all sorts of things online and nobody else when they have delivered it have asked to look at my card. Is this going to be the future?
Would you like to show your bank card and its reverse to someone you don't know?.
seeya
brainblogger
Wednesday, 13 May 2009
State of the Nation
How do?
Two brown envelopes in a week I can't take it anymore!. I did not realise IB was paying so much these days [I was saying that with a large hint of sarcasm].
How I wish I could to put the food and the other half of the rent on the expenses. As for the horse manure, us lesser mortals just have to go to B&Q and pay for it out of our own pocket not that I have a garden big enough to need horse manure. HTF is horse manure got to do with expenses related to your job?. They must think us lesser mortals are a bit wet behind the ears or something.
Can they claim all this money back that has been overpaid like they do with tax credits or council tax benefit and send them a unpaid reminder always sent after the deadline quickly followed by a summons?. Here's a good site about Tax Credit casualties
After reading this on this website, the reality of it is it is difficult for anyone to get a job let alone people with disabilities trying to get a job as well.
If James Purnell wants all these people on IB to stop scrounging, get off there backsides from in front of the tv watching Homes Under the Hammer and The Jeremy Kyle Show [I haven't mentioned that for a while, I think that idea's running a bit thin now, perhaps it will have to be Cash In The Attic in future] and get a job here's what James Purnell's idea for our futures may be for all the jobs that may need to be created to keep us all work-focused.
I also read yesterday that James wants all IB claimants means-tested to make sure there are getting the correct benefit. Is that correct benefit JSA do you mean James?.
Currently IB is not means-tested. Is that going to be changed to try and get more people off IB and be forced onto JSA?. I have already experienced before being on JSA and only getting a NI credit and having to live off my savings. I don't think my savings at 0.5% interest is going to go very far. More worrying times ahead. As if I don't feel bad enough as it is!.
see ya
Brainblogger
Two brown envelopes in a week I can't take it anymore!. I did not realise IB was paying so much these days [I was saying that with a large hint of sarcasm].
How I wish I could to put the food and the other half of the rent on the expenses. As for the horse manure, us lesser mortals just have to go to B&Q and pay for it out of our own pocket not that I have a garden big enough to need horse manure. HTF is horse manure got to do with expenses related to your job?. They must think us lesser mortals are a bit wet behind the ears or something.
Can they claim all this money back that has been overpaid like they do with tax credits or council tax benefit and send them a unpaid reminder always sent after the deadline quickly followed by a summons?. Here's a good site about Tax Credit casualties
After reading this on this website, the reality of it is it is difficult for anyone to get a job let alone people with disabilities trying to get a job as well.
If James Purnell wants all these people on IB to stop scrounging, get off there backsides from in front of the tv watching Homes Under the Hammer and The Jeremy Kyle Show [I haven't mentioned that for a while, I think that idea's running a bit thin now, perhaps it will have to be Cash In The Attic in future] and get a job here's what James Purnell's idea for our futures may be for all the jobs that may need to be created to keep us all work-focused.
I also read yesterday that James wants all IB claimants means-tested to make sure there are getting the correct benefit. Is that correct benefit JSA do you mean James?.
Currently IB is not means-tested. Is that going to be changed to try and get more people off IB and be forced onto JSA?. I have already experienced before being on JSA and only getting a NI credit and having to live off my savings. I don't think my savings at 0.5% interest is going to go very far. More worrying times ahead. As if I don't feel bad enough as it is!.
see ya
Brainblogger
Tuesday, 12 May 2009
16 Hours
How do?
Thank you Mary for your very understanding comments on one of my earlier posts.
In the past I have wanted to try the 'Permitted Work' scheme, this is the replacement of the therapeutic work scheme where you could try and go to see how you got on in the workplace and you could earn about £80 or something like that. When I was doing that it was fine and I actually built myself up quite well and the MD of the firm wanted me to work part-time which I did for 18 months until the office manager put paid to that by taking my jobs away.
Permitted work came along and was restricted to 16 hours a week but then you could only do it for a year. How are you supposed to gauge whether you can work in only a year or in 16 hours a week?. In the life of a head injured person a year goes quickly as in my case.
Also why 16 hours that's about 3 hours a day and a bit more in a working week. That's about enough time to get there do a few bits and go home again. If you came in at 9.00am you had to go at 12.00 and it did not give you the chance to test yourself and try and break into the afternoon.
Does it mean if you can do more than 16 hours you are magically fit for work, I don't think so. In the case of head injuries you have to build up resistance to fatigue and let my brain get used to being active. Why not 20 hours as that would be more sensible?.
After a year you do the permitted work the employer is supposed to take you on, but if it doesn't work out after a year, you can't do it again until a year later or as I was led to believe. What's the point of that?. Would it not be sensible if you could go somewhere else and try and do something different?
After something as traumatic as a head injury which can often take years to get to a reasonable stage of recovery how does the permitted work help me, well it doesn't. Due to this it lead down the road of voluntary work.
So here you go another jobcentre scheme that is supposed to help you get back to work but doesn't actually help because it is so restrictive. As I have said before with the jobcentre and there schemes it always seems to be all or nothing!.
see ya
Brainblogger
Thank you Mary for your very understanding comments on one of my earlier posts.
In the past I have wanted to try the 'Permitted Work' scheme, this is the replacement of the therapeutic work scheme where you could try and go to see how you got on in the workplace and you could earn about £80 or something like that. When I was doing that it was fine and I actually built myself up quite well and the MD of the firm wanted me to work part-time which I did for 18 months until the office manager put paid to that by taking my jobs away.
Permitted work came along and was restricted to 16 hours a week but then you could only do it for a year. How are you supposed to gauge whether you can work in only a year or in 16 hours a week?. In the life of a head injured person a year goes quickly as in my case.
Also why 16 hours that's about 3 hours a day and a bit more in a working week. That's about enough time to get there do a few bits and go home again. If you came in at 9.00am you had to go at 12.00 and it did not give you the chance to test yourself and try and break into the afternoon.
Does it mean if you can do more than 16 hours you are magically fit for work, I don't think so. In the case of head injuries you have to build up resistance to fatigue and let my brain get used to being active. Why not 20 hours as that would be more sensible?.
After a year you do the permitted work the employer is supposed to take you on, but if it doesn't work out after a year, you can't do it again until a year later or as I was led to believe. What's the point of that?. Would it not be sensible if you could go somewhere else and try and do something different?
After something as traumatic as a head injury which can often take years to get to a reasonable stage of recovery how does the permitted work help me, well it doesn't. Due to this it lead down the road of voluntary work.
So here you go another jobcentre scheme that is supposed to help you get back to work but doesn't actually help because it is so restrictive. As I have said before with the jobcentre and there schemes it always seems to be all or nothing!.
see ya
Brainblogger
Monday, 11 May 2009
Fr..fr...fr...frustration!
How do again?
I wrote my last entry on my blog because of the way I feel. Having a head injury is so frustrating, In the High Hopes video it reflects how I feel about before my accident and after, its how before how I had a nice job, money, friends etc, it is reflected in these lines:
The grass was greener
The light was brighter
With friends surrounded
The night of wonder
Then my life was turned upside down. "Running before time took our dreams away"
I have always wanted to be somebody but it always seems to be beyond my reach and I never seemed to be in control.
Looking beyond the embers of bridges glowing behind us
To a glimpse of how green it was on the other side
Steps taken forwards but sleepwalking back again
Dragged by the force of some inner tide
So now after my accident I been through all the supposed rehabilitation what the case manager wanted, did the therapeutic work, tried to work part time while wrapped up in cotton wool, did voluntary work to do something towards the community, did what the DEA wanted and went to the work rehabilitation centre for 8 months, then throw in negative thinking, depression, anxiety, my Father dying, IB50's, medicals, welfare reform.
So as I nearer 40 and I think to myself what do I have to show for all the effort I have put in and been on these schemes that are supposed to help me get a job? Is it no wonder why I do not trust the DEA or pathways to work or anything the government say?. I often feel like that I was exploited by the jobcentre.
I read somewhere that at a work focused interview you have to tell them your aspirations for work/career, you having a laugh ain't you?. I thought that I had been telling the DEA and all these other people that I wanted to get back into work. I just feel like every ounce of energy has just been drained out of me and so often I just want to give up. Too many times I have tried to go forwards just to go twice as far backwards again. Welfare reform its just like moving the goalposts a bit further away and forcing you down another path.
Has anybody ever thought that looking after your health takes priority?. Why has everything got to revolve round work? Am I supposed to think that getting a job is suddenly going to make everything better again?.
This is a very good youtube video from the US about living with a brain injury.
seeya
Brainblogger
I wrote my last entry on my blog because of the way I feel. Having a head injury is so frustrating, In the High Hopes video it reflects how I feel about before my accident and after, its how before how I had a nice job, money, friends etc, it is reflected in these lines:
The grass was greener
The light was brighter
With friends surrounded
The night of wonder
Then my life was turned upside down. "Running before time took our dreams away"
I have always wanted to be somebody but it always seems to be beyond my reach and I never seemed to be in control.
Looking beyond the embers of bridges glowing behind us
To a glimpse of how green it was on the other side
Steps taken forwards but sleepwalking back again
Dragged by the force of some inner tide
So now after my accident I been through all the supposed rehabilitation what the case manager wanted, did the therapeutic work, tried to work part time while wrapped up in cotton wool, did voluntary work to do something towards the community, did what the DEA wanted and went to the work rehabilitation centre for 8 months, then throw in negative thinking, depression, anxiety, my Father dying, IB50's, medicals, welfare reform.
So as I nearer 40 and I think to myself what do I have to show for all the effort I have put in and been on these schemes that are supposed to help me get a job? Is it no wonder why I do not trust the DEA or pathways to work or anything the government say?. I often feel like that I was exploited by the jobcentre.
I read somewhere that at a work focused interview you have to tell them your aspirations for work/career, you having a laugh ain't you?. I thought that I had been telling the DEA and all these other people that I wanted to get back into work. I just feel like every ounce of energy has just been drained out of me and so often I just want to give up. Too many times I have tried to go forwards just to go twice as far backwards again. Welfare reform its just like moving the goalposts a bit further away and forcing you down another path.
Has anybody ever thought that looking after your health takes priority?. Why has everything got to revolve round work? Am I supposed to think that getting a job is suddenly going to make everything better again?.
This is a very good youtube video from the US about living with a brain injury.
seeya
Brainblogger
Thursday, 16 April 2009
High Hopes
How do?
I am sorry my blog is a bit gloomy but it is how I feel at the moment. I don't know whether it is me or whether other people on IB are feeling the same way but I seem to have this impending feeling of doom more than I have had before. I am not due to to have another IB50 until 2010, it could be next week for all I care because it is going to happen.
Every day I dread the post coming and I say to my Wife was there anything sinister in the post today?. I did get a brown envelope the other day which had me shaking but it was only a letter for an increase in DLA, whoopee!. If they get there way the DWP will take that off me as well. I am sure they will need the money to pay towards some bank bailout.
The government go on about how much they have to save on benefits as if we haven't heard it all before. The money used for benefits is nothing but small change compared to the money paid to bail out the banks!.
Is being on benefits actually supposed to make you feel worse? Is this supposed to be the desired effect?. What it is doing to my mental health at the moment I do not know, some days before I go to voluntary work I often feel sick. I dread it if a car sits outside for more than 15 minutes with them sitting there rabbiting away on the phone and I won't go out. I even walk in the opposite direction when I go to voluntary work so I don't go past that car. I feel like I am going to be the next person featured on "On The Fiddle". Its not a nice feeling, paranoid or what?.
I have been reading the forum of www.benefitsandwork.co.uk and what people are going through and its a nightmare, people who have already failed to qualify for ESA and they have worse conditions than I have. People with ME getting 0 points and expecting to find work. What is happening is people who are have failed medicals are appealing virtually straight away so making more work for the DWP and showing what the new system is doing and the over-zealous doctors at the medicals are doing. People with disabilities have enough problems managing already without a system that punishes them and causes more stress and anxiety.
I just feel like the next brown envelope I get will be the passport to jobseekers allowance. I feel like I am going to go full circle and be back where I started back at the jobcentre. I can't wait to go to a work focused interview just so I can write about the experience on my blog.
Before I had this head injury and all the frustration that goes with it I had high hopes of being a brain surgeon or being the chairman of ICI. Looking back at it now and as I am getting nearer to 40 I often feel like I haven't really achieved anything of any significance as far as work is concerned. This sums it up perfectly how I feel.
All I seem to have to have done is led down blind alleys, got my hopes up and then ended up further back than when I started. Who cares?.
I also feel like the government just want to get as many people off IB and on to JSA and leave it to the Tories to sort out the mess, then at prime ministers question time when David Cameron is PM, labour will be saying well look at how many unemployed people there are and what are you doing about it and all the opposition bench will be jumping round like Stadler & Waldorf.
I voted labour at the last election but now I am so sick [that's ironic] of Gordon Brown and labour even David Cameron sounds appealing. I don't suppose the Tories will make it any easier for disabled people though, labour have implemented Tory ideas with there blessing of course.
I went to my favourite pathways to nowhere provider workinglinks again to do some finding out and get some information, they said though that I would have to be referred to them by the jobcentre. I then picked up forms showing how they can help me fill in application forms and write a cv or even send me on a course. I already know how to fill in an application form or write a CV. I found the experience so disheartening and depressing.
Up to that point I was doing quite well and I was being positive. I did manage to have a conversation with the receptionist, she even remembered me but then some guy came in and the world had to stop for him. He was ranting on about how someone had not returned his call and why someone couldn't speak to him now, why someone could not speak to him even while they were having there lunch and how his mate had driven him 200 miles to get him there, oh yeh mate you're having a giraffe. Those sort of people get on my nerves how they have no consideration for anyone else except themselves.
I could only put up with him ranting and raving for so long and I waited patiently but then my anxiety kicked in and I had to choose between fight or flight and I took up the flight option. Why do I bother?.
No doubt I will get the usual comments on my blog from people who have no experience of actually having a disabilty and how I should just go out and get any job but you can not just get any job. Having a head injury and the results of it can be very complex, nobody knows what's going on in my head and I try to show a glimpse of it on this blog This write-up on this excellent blog is a very good reflection of the ins and out of looking for work
Trying to get a job was difficult enough for disabled people before the recession but it even more difficult now.
If you haven't slashed you wrists by now I have more in the pipeline soon.
see ya
Brainblogger
I am sorry my blog is a bit gloomy but it is how I feel at the moment. I don't know whether it is me or whether other people on IB are feeling the same way but I seem to have this impending feeling of doom more than I have had before. I am not due to to have another IB50 until 2010, it could be next week for all I care because it is going to happen.
Every day I dread the post coming and I say to my Wife was there anything sinister in the post today?. I did get a brown envelope the other day which had me shaking but it was only a letter for an increase in DLA, whoopee!. If they get there way the DWP will take that off me as well. I am sure they will need the money to pay towards some bank bailout.
The government go on about how much they have to save on benefits as if we haven't heard it all before. The money used for benefits is nothing but small change compared to the money paid to bail out the banks!.
Is being on benefits actually supposed to make you feel worse? Is this supposed to be the desired effect?. What it is doing to my mental health at the moment I do not know, some days before I go to voluntary work I often feel sick. I dread it if a car sits outside for more than 15 minutes with them sitting there rabbiting away on the phone and I won't go out. I even walk in the opposite direction when I go to voluntary work so I don't go past that car. I feel like I am going to be the next person featured on "On The Fiddle". Its not a nice feeling, paranoid or what?.
I have been reading the forum of www.benefitsandwork.co.uk and what people are going through and its a nightmare, people who have already failed to qualify for ESA and they have worse conditions than I have. People with ME getting 0 points and expecting to find work. What is happening is people who are have failed medicals are appealing virtually straight away so making more work for the DWP and showing what the new system is doing and the over-zealous doctors at the medicals are doing. People with disabilities have enough problems managing already without a system that punishes them and causes more stress and anxiety.
I just feel like the next brown envelope I get will be the passport to jobseekers allowance. I feel like I am going to go full circle and be back where I started back at the jobcentre. I can't wait to go to a work focused interview just so I can write about the experience on my blog.
Before I had this head injury and all the frustration that goes with it I had high hopes of being a brain surgeon or being the chairman of ICI. Looking back at it now and as I am getting nearer to 40 I often feel like I haven't really achieved anything of any significance as far as work is concerned. This sums it up perfectly how I feel.
All I seem to have to have done is led down blind alleys, got my hopes up and then ended up further back than when I started. Who cares?.
I also feel like the government just want to get as many people off IB and on to JSA and leave it to the Tories to sort out the mess, then at prime ministers question time when David Cameron is PM, labour will be saying well look at how many unemployed people there are and what are you doing about it and all the opposition bench will be jumping round like Stadler & Waldorf.
I voted labour at the last election but now I am so sick [that's ironic] of Gordon Brown and labour even David Cameron sounds appealing. I don't suppose the Tories will make it any easier for disabled people though, labour have implemented Tory ideas with there blessing of course.
I went to my favourite pathways to nowhere provider workinglinks again to do some finding out and get some information, they said though that I would have to be referred to them by the jobcentre. I then picked up forms showing how they can help me fill in application forms and write a cv or even send me on a course. I already know how to fill in an application form or write a CV. I found the experience so disheartening and depressing.
Up to that point I was doing quite well and I was being positive. I did manage to have a conversation with the receptionist, she even remembered me but then some guy came in and the world had to stop for him. He was ranting on about how someone had not returned his call and why someone couldn't speak to him now, why someone could not speak to him even while they were having there lunch and how his mate had driven him 200 miles to get him there, oh yeh mate you're having a giraffe. Those sort of people get on my nerves how they have no consideration for anyone else except themselves.
I could only put up with him ranting and raving for so long and I waited patiently but then my anxiety kicked in and I had to choose between fight or flight and I took up the flight option. Why do I bother?.
No doubt I will get the usual comments on my blog from people who have no experience of actually having a disabilty and how I should just go out and get any job but you can not just get any job. Having a head injury and the results of it can be very complex, nobody knows what's going on in my head and I try to show a glimpse of it on this blog This write-up on this excellent blog is a very good reflection of the ins and out of looking for work
Trying to get a job was difficult enough for disabled people before the recession but it even more difficult now.
If you haven't slashed you wrists by now I have more in the pipeline soon.
see ya
Brainblogger
Tuesday, 17 March 2009
Positive Feedback/Back to the Workhouse
How do?
The lecturer from the uni emailed me today with positive feedback no less after she had discussed the session I helped with 2 weeks ago. She wants to talk to me about it again next week and has also mentioned about the possibility of me doing it again in the future. I am glad that I did it now and that I have been able to do something positive from my experience.
One of the things I have managed to do in the last few years is research my family tree. I was rather shocked to find in the 1841 census that some of my descendants spent time in the Hardingstone Union Workhouse
If James Purnell gets his way with what is being implemented in the third reading of the welfare reform bill I may well not be the last person of my family and many other unfortunate souls in this country to experience the workhouse.
Let's not forget James Purnell is trying to implement this in a recession, he had obviously not planned for a recession and the virtual meltdown of the worlds banking system but just carries on regardless despite the effect it may well have on peoples lives.
read about it on the excellent happymarx website
see ya
The lecturer from the uni emailed me today with positive feedback no less after she had discussed the session I helped with 2 weeks ago. She wants to talk to me about it again next week and has also mentioned about the possibility of me doing it again in the future. I am glad that I did it now and that I have been able to do something positive from my experience.
One of the things I have managed to do in the last few years is research my family tree. I was rather shocked to find in the 1841 census that some of my descendants spent time in the Hardingstone Union Workhouse
If James Purnell gets his way with what is being implemented in the third reading of the welfare reform bill I may well not be the last person of my family and many other unfortunate souls in this country to experience the workhouse.
Let's not forget James Purnell is trying to implement this in a recession, he had obviously not planned for a recession and the virtual meltdown of the worlds banking system but just carries on regardless despite the effect it may well have on peoples lives.
read about it on the excellent happymarx website
see ya
Friday, 6 March 2009
Have A Go At IB Claimants Week , Haven't We Been Through All This Before?
How do?
As it seems to be bash the IB claimants week this week in the newspapers I thought I might like to add a few points. It may well be alright having a go at IB claimants claiming they are lazy, fat, worthless pieces of shit who deserve all there benefits stopped and having it all claimed back, having them sent to the workhouse, starved, put in jail, do community work [I didn't know community work was paying so much these days] and the like but are there any better opportunities for people on IB in the recession?. I think not unless you fancy work focused interviews or the pathways to nowhere, thank the politicians and the banking fat cats with there £650000 year pensions for that, no doubt it will get a lot worse before it gets better so lets all get together and blame the usual easy targets on IB for it.
It will no doubt get worse for IB claimants. it always get worse for IB claimants unless of course you can magically recover or manage your condition and be able to find a rewarding job that pays more than the minimum wage so its actually worth doing.
All these people who write this crap in the comments sections about getting all the IB claimants off IB [even though they have not done anything wrong except be ill, being ill isn't a crime yet is it?] probably have no experience of having a disability/long term sickness at all. It also seems to these readers of these papers that if you are on benefits that you can not have some sort of social life or existence as well.
I have been writing for the last few months about my experience of brain injury, access to services, trying to get a job and experience of being on IB. It all came together 2 weeks ago with a session with a social work lecturer and a group of second year students at a university in the Midlands.
I was nervous before I went to the university and I had the same feeling you get when you go to the dentist and you are sitting in the waiting area and you can hear the drill in the background.
The lecturer explained to the students what the session was about and then what I was doing there and that I have a good few years experience of disability and the benefits system. The session was titled "Life inside the brown envelope from hell" I thought that bit up, clever eh?.
It was the first time I had done this type of thing and I did not realise beforehand that I was going to be doing most of the talking, it actually got very difficult trying to think what was in my head and then to actually say what I wanted to say. I think I surprised the students with some of my thoughts, the students asked me some very good questions as well. One of the students said that people should be able to manage there condition first without all the added pressure of trying to find work as all the extra pressure doesn't help your condition. just read some of the difficulties people have on the benefitsandwork forum to show what effects it has on peoples conditions.
If you are ill you know yourself when you are ready to try to go to work. When you do try to go to work then you find the other obstacles and blind alleys, getting your hopes up and then coming down again with bump.
It also makes me angry that every 18 months or so I have to go through the same old shit filling in the forms and having to prove that I am not well and my brain isn't going to get any better and I have had to adapt to it. Even though there is a track record from day one of my accident from hospitals/consultants/GPs I have to go through this process over and over again and it is draining.
I would love one of these hard working taxpayers or so they claim who write all there crap in the sun and the mail to take my place for a week. For one f***ing day just to be me again, they would soon change there mind.
I do love the recent benefits cheats adverts that were on tv recently, its typical how the people shown are the typical stereotyped type of people like the guy getting his cash in hand and looking unkempt. Also how do you expect them to be taken seriously when the guy who does the voiceover also does adverts for birds eye frozen products for a £1?.
Even though I don't think the No.10 petition site actually achieves anything I think this petition is well worth signing after what I wrote in my blog last time which is along the same subject:
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/MumsAtHome/
Till next time
Brainblogger
As it seems to be bash the IB claimants week this week in the newspapers I thought I might like to add a few points. It may well be alright having a go at IB claimants claiming they are lazy, fat, worthless pieces of shit who deserve all there benefits stopped and having it all claimed back, having them sent to the workhouse, starved, put in jail, do community work [I didn't know community work was paying so much these days] and the like but are there any better opportunities for people on IB in the recession?. I think not unless you fancy work focused interviews or the pathways to nowhere, thank the politicians and the banking fat cats with there £650000 year pensions for that, no doubt it will get a lot worse before it gets better so lets all get together and blame the usual easy targets on IB for it.
It will no doubt get worse for IB claimants. it always get worse for IB claimants unless of course you can magically recover or manage your condition and be able to find a rewarding job that pays more than the minimum wage so its actually worth doing.
All these people who write this crap in the comments sections about getting all the IB claimants off IB [even though they have not done anything wrong except be ill, being ill isn't a crime yet is it?] probably have no experience of having a disability/long term sickness at all. It also seems to these readers of these papers that if you are on benefits that you can not have some sort of social life or existence as well.
I have been writing for the last few months about my experience of brain injury, access to services, trying to get a job and experience of being on IB. It all came together 2 weeks ago with a session with a social work lecturer and a group of second year students at a university in the Midlands.
I was nervous before I went to the university and I had the same feeling you get when you go to the dentist and you are sitting in the waiting area and you can hear the drill in the background.
The lecturer explained to the students what the session was about and then what I was doing there and that I have a good few years experience of disability and the benefits system. The session was titled "Life inside the brown envelope from hell" I thought that bit up, clever eh?.
It was the first time I had done this type of thing and I did not realise beforehand that I was going to be doing most of the talking, it actually got very difficult trying to think what was in my head and then to actually say what I wanted to say. I think I surprised the students with some of my thoughts, the students asked me some very good questions as well. One of the students said that people should be able to manage there condition first without all the added pressure of trying to find work as all the extra pressure doesn't help your condition. just read some of the difficulties people have on the benefitsandwork forum to show what effects it has on peoples conditions.
If you are ill you know yourself when you are ready to try to go to work. When you do try to go to work then you find the other obstacles and blind alleys, getting your hopes up and then coming down again with bump.
It also makes me angry that every 18 months or so I have to go through the same old shit filling in the forms and having to prove that I am not well and my brain isn't going to get any better and I have had to adapt to it. Even though there is a track record from day one of my accident from hospitals/consultants/GPs I have to go through this process over and over again and it is draining.
I would love one of these hard working taxpayers or so they claim who write all there crap in the sun and the mail to take my place for a week. For one f***ing day just to be me again, they would soon change there mind.
I do love the recent benefits cheats adverts that were on tv recently, its typical how the people shown are the typical stereotyped type of people like the guy getting his cash in hand and looking unkempt. Also how do you expect them to be taken seriously when the guy who does the voiceover also does adverts for birds eye frozen products for a £1?.
Even though I don't think the No.10 petition site actually achieves anything I think this petition is well worth signing after what I wrote in my blog last time which is along the same subject:
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/MumsAtHome/
Till next time
Brainblogger
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