PIP Mandatory Reconsideration and Appeal

I finally read the decision makers reasoning for why I should not be awarded PIP and I found it just knocked the stuffing out of me. The deadline for asking for a mandatory reconsideration on my zero points PIP decision is looming. I spoke to the CAB advisor on Tuesday and I said that the decision maker had clearly missed certain points and the CAB officer said that I should phone the DWP and ask for a mandatory reconsideration but part of me thinks that I do not have the energy to go through that shit again and all the anxiety that goes with it. Perhaps thats what the DWP want?. I feel like that I am giving up but I also feel angry. Part of me thinks I just want to say fuck the DWP and jumping through all there fucking hoops. Why do disabled people have to constantly have to prove they have a disabilty when it is written in medical records and reports often for years?. I feel like I want to say that I have a disability that effects me almost every day in one way or another but apparently it doesn't meet their fucking criteria but I don't want your fucking money anymore. I mean how disabled do you have to be these days to get any sort of support?. These people who make these decisions have absolutely no idea what it is like to live with a disability. I wish someone from the DWP had a brain injury for a few years and see how they get on with it and then they might think again.

Taking Risks

Having read on the scrapping of the 104 week linking rules on benefits & work & where's the benefit? means taking a big risk. I started work for the agency in April 2010 so the linking rules would have covered me up until April 2012.

Part of my decision to start work with the agency was based on knowing that I was covered by the linking rule and would be able to fall back on if things go wrong. After 31 Jan myself and probably many others will no longer be covered. Whose idea was it to scrap the linking rules?.

Luckily things haven't gone wrong but in the current climate anything can happen. This must be a worrying time for disabled people wanting to try work or been in work for a little while.. I was talking to a CAB worker today and they said that if I lost my job that I would probably not even get ESA as I have been working and would have to go to JSA. It is at the back of my mind and that's where its staying at the moment. I just go from week to week without making any big plans and then hope I get a text saying I am needed the next week.

see ya

DLA/Brown Envelopes/3 Months On

How do?

Just when I had thought I had escaped from Incapacity Benefit and the medicals I now face a new horror. I receive lower rate care DLA so that means at some point I will have a DLA medical. Can they not just f*****g leave me alone and let me try to get on as best I can?. I did what they wanted and did the right thing and panicked jumped ship from IB and got a job which was a miracle in itself.

I mean its just another way to add more anxiety to the problems people already have. I have been getting low rate DLA for care because of things related to my head injury and also because I am epileptic, it really helps just being reminded to have tablets because I often forget or for someone to be aware that I having a bath and just to check on me.

I would have thought it would cost a small fortune to have everyone on DLA to go through a medical test and no doubt some private healthcare companies the usual suspects are going to make a packet on the way. It looks like it will cost more just to save a measly £75 a month. Judging by what happened with ESA I would imagine there would be a lot of appeals as well so that is going to cost time and money.

I feel like it's not disabled & sick peoples fault that they have to go through these medicals. We are all paying in this thinly disguised attack on DLA in the emergency budget. The government have wanted to cut DLA and here an opportunity has presented itself on a silver platter. It was just convenient about the economy and the bankers came along so the Government could use it as an excuse to add medical tests for DLA claimants in the emergency budget.

Here's my really simple way for DWP to save some money is by not sending me a remittance advice every bloody week telling me I am getting £40 a week Return to Work Credit. How much does that cost every week sending them out to all the people on RTWC?. Why not just send me a letter once a quarter showing all the transactions?. I know I am getting RTWC for a year but I don't need a stupid brown letter every single week reminding me of the fact. I thought I had escaped the brown letters from hell but I get one every week.

I have been working now for the agency for about 3 months and I think the honeymoon period is over and I am facing the reality of being in work. I do like my work but physically I get exhausted and I know its catching up a bit as I have had a couple of 3-4 hour sleeps this week when I have got back from work. The reality of the situation is if I did less work then I don't get paid for it.

I am no longer getting Incapacity benefit, so there's some nice savings there for the DWP and I also pay Tax and NI so I am also contributing. I don't want to sound melodramatic but in my case this is the price of having a disability and going to work but what price am I paying with my health. I think its a case of trying to manage both and manage my spoons

ta ta for now.

Out Of The Frying Pan Into The Fire

How do?

I find it quite bizarre what has happened since I quit my voluntary work. My original plan was to start looking for either different voluntary work, look for work and go to the jobcentre and look at what options they had even if it meant going on the Pathways to Nowhere.

I went over to see Linda the volunteer organiser at the uni as she had not seen me for a while and I said that I had enough and I was leaving and I wanted to do something else. I went and had a talk to her and explained some things to her and things she did not know. She said that they were not taking on any staff which was the same as what my supervisor had said. Linda then said she would ask at a higher level and make some enquiries about me. She said I was welcome to drop in any time as I was not banned from the campus or anything.

I was not expecting to hear anything different to what I had heard before but then a week or so later I got an email from the Deputy Director asking if I could go in and see him.

I met up with Linda again and we sat in the reception area waiting to meet the Deputy Director. At this point I was shaking with anxiety and I did not know what to expect. Linda was with me and reassured me that there was nothing to worry about and I was not in trouble.

We went in and met the Deputy Director and Linda said it would better if I explained my situation and why I had left. I said I originally came from a work placement via the DEA at the jobcentre & Rehab UK. I then said that when the six weeks placement finished, Rehab UK didn't come up with any other options but I liked it where I was. I asked the line manager at the time if I could carry on as a volunteer so I could build up my confidence and perhaps get some more experience in the workplace.

I originally had this loopy idea that If I could built up as much experience as I could then it would give me some chance of finding a job at some point in the future.

The Deputy Director had not realised that I was a volunteer and just thought I worked there and I was a guy who worked there who came round every day. He was very straight with me and explained that the voluntary work would have had to stop as it had gone on for too long. He said that there were no jobs at this time but one of the things they do is take on agency staff.

What came up which has come up before was the fact that I am on IB and that if I came off it what was there to lose and would I be worse off. He then said he needed some time to have a think and would contact me at the end of the week.

At the end of the week I got an email asking if I could go and see him again with Linda. I went in with Linda and sat down and he said he had spoken to the employment agency and he then gave me a piece of paper showing details of a job which was basically my old voluntary job but working for an employment agency with fixed hours. He said that there was an element of risk working for an employment agency as the work may not be permanent.

He said did I want to have a think about it and compare the figures to what I got on IB. It didn't matter because I had already made my mind up as I had been comparing figures for a while using wage & tax credit calculators. Here was a chance to get off IB, do a job I already know what to do and get paid. I was prepared to take the risk.

The next day I had to go to the employment agency in town and fill in some forms. I was quite embarrassed when I was asked about when I last worked. I said the last time I worked was in 1998 and since that I have been going between doctor and hospital appointments to sort my brain out and my thinking, struggling with periods of depression, going on jobcentre schemes and doing a bit of voluntary work. After getting all the forms done she then phoned the Deputy Director and then she said she had a start date for me, wow!.

Three weeks after leaving my voluntary work I am now back again at the same place doing my old job pretty much doing the same as before with fixed hours and now getting paid for it.

One of the things I found most exciting was to ring up the DWP office and say that I have some exciting news is that I now have a job. Bye Bye Incapacity Benefit!

The DWP said because I am in a Pathways to Work area I should be entitled to a £250 work grant and £40 a week Return to Work Credit for a year. The brown envelopes have been coming thick and fast, first with my P45 and then the application form for RTWC.

I am waiting to find out if I still get DLA next month. I have also applied for Working Tax Credits.

One thing that has come out of all this is that someone originally gave me a chance even though it was as a volunteer and then I have had quite a bit of help along the way.

Perhaps people would feel better if the jobcentre did not just farm people off to schemes to park them on and if there were more people who were willing to just give disabled people a chance.

I can't see how workfare schemes are going to work because people are going to resent it from the start being forced to work and working for less then the minimum wage. I went to voluntary work because I wanted to do it and then I tried to build on it.

If only the people who keep banging on about welfare reform listen especially those who want time limited benefits and stop treating people as benefit scrounging scum. We are not scum but we are real people with real problems, sometimes you just need that little extra boost from somewhere just to help you on your way. Sorry about my rant buts that's how I feel.

On to Day One

Ta Ta

Back To Square One Again

The last thing I wrote on my blog was about managing my brain injury and trying to be able to cope with work. I have been doing voluntary work at a university to try and build myself up in a busy working environment.

Having not been in work for such a long time I don't have a very good medical history and I do not have a lot of experience in the workplace. I do look at jobs in the paper and on the net but with not a lot of work history my chances of getting a job are very slim.

Just recently where I do my voluntary work I felt that I have been taken advantage of and I have been having too much work to do, ie people in where I work have left and not been replaced and I have been doing virtually two peoples jobs and then being asked to take on other things as well.

Last week I asked if I could start work half an hour earlier so I could help get things ready and get started a bit earlier and perhaps finish earlier. I came into work on Monday morning and instead of my co-worker working together with me she did the work she needed to do and left me with everything else. I wasn't expecting that. What happened to working as a team?

At about 9.00am she came out with "well if you had come in at 9.00 like before everything would have been ready and you could have started", with the tone of her voice saying I told you so.

Not deterred by this I went off and did some of the jobs I normally do and then a bit later I saw my supervisor and explained what had happened. I said that I was doing too much work and it needed to be cut down. I said that I felt that I was just an unpaid skivvie and I must be a mug for doing this. I can't recall everything she said but she did day something like "We try to support you but one week you are alright, one week you are not, one week you are bored and you need another challenge".

I had done some of my work and went back to where the co-worker was and I was trying to explain that I was having to do more work and having less time to do it in. My co-worker said " Well I have been doing that and I have been working for 30 years. I have done all these things to help you in the past to make it easy for you, now that you had taken on so much [even though I had been asked to do these jobs by the supervisor] and now you are complaining about it. I found this quite patronising and despite the fact that I had been helping her and all for nothing, what did she want me to do give her a medal or something?.

I had enquired with my supervisor previously whether it would be possible if the work I do considering the amount of work I was doing could do turned into a proper job and I could get off benefits. I have said many times that I am sick of being on IB and want to get some sort of proper job. I have been reading some info from benefits & work recently about voluntary work and I think I have not been doing voluntary work but actually unpaid work.

I had also been told that the employer wanted to look after me so to protect my benefits and they didn't want me to be worse off, ie the employer could not match what I get on IB. It was explained to me that there was nothing in the current years budget and I would have to wait until they find out the next budget for the department. I had compared what I get on IB and what figure they were talking about what I could possibly earned but it wasn't that far away to be impossible.

Quite a lot of the time I have also been rather worried about being transferred to either ESA or JSA so in this eventuality they said that there was something in place in case this happened. So I carried on doing my work for nothing while taking on more work in the process. However this was beginning to have a negative effect on my health ie not having time to have a sufficient break or even lunch [I don't recall having many proper breaks] and I was then coming back from work exhausted and having to sleep 2-3 hours to recover.

Then just to add the icing on the cake I found out later in the day that the thing that was in place in the eventuality of being kicked off IB was no longer in place as they could not afford it and had not been in place for a while. its just nobody thought of telling me and this was all while I still working for nothing. I might have well of just had the word mug tattooed on my forehead.

I made my mind up very quickly that this wasn't for me any more and a change of scenery would be required.

There are some volunteers who do a fantastic job and are very much appreciated but there are some who are just used in the place of actual paid employees.

At least I can be positive and say I have now have some work history in a busy working environment. Does voluntary work and the then therapeutic work count for anything on a CV these days? I am no nearer to a job now as I was when I first got the placement from Rehab UK via the DEA. Sad but true. Back to square one again and the isolated world of Incapacity Benefit. What's next?

What's the Point?

Having read recently about David Cameron wanting to get the sick and disabled off IB and into the world of work if the Conservatives get into power. I notice that the politicians seem to forget that sick/disabled people have to manage there condition/disability and then have to manage to be able to work.

I keep trying to push myself to the point where I feel like I could do a job. One of the biggest problems I have with a brain injury even after 20 years is fatigue. I get home from voluntary work and I am constantly have to fight to stop myself going to sleep as I am physically exhausted.

I have had this problem since day one of the head injury and it's made worse when I try to get back into a work situation. Yesterday I got home, got washed, had a drink, sat down and then the fight begins to not go to sleep. I usually like to have a sit down and then check my email but by this time my brain is already trying to shut me down and make me sleep. It's not like the sort of late in the evening time to go to bed tired, its difficult to describe but its not pleasant.

I often think that having a can of red bull or something like that will help keep me awake but in fact this is actually quite futile. I can have a coffee or a red bull and half hour later I am asleep for anything for 2-4 hours which is quite bizarre. This often happens so it makes the time in the afternoon/early evening a write off.

This also makes a mess of sleep as it is like instead of having a long 7 hour sleep at night I often have 2 sleeps and then I can be awake at 2 am in the morning. Somebody said to me last week that I should try going to the sleep clinic.

What is happening is in my attempt to be well enough to work is the fatigue is then crossing over into my family life. What's the point to all this?. Is this what the politicians want all in the name of getting people to work and saving there precious money?. I am only 1 person who has to manage there condition, what about all the other people who have to manage there condition everyday and then in the future going to be punished for having a disability or condition and then being forced to find work?.

see ya

Benefits & Work Website Under Attack

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

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

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

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!

why isn't the csa chaseing absent fathers
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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

We Play Trains, Mum Goes To Work, Boo Hoo!

Anyone who got a letter this morning for the generous increases in child benefit will no doubt have had this leaflet fall out with the picture of children playing which is titled " We Play Trains, Mum Goes To Work, Whoo Whoo!".

Is this the part of the labours plan to get Mothers to abandon their children with childcare, start going to college to make preparations to go back to work, or if you are lucky enough to find a job, then to come back exhausted and then start looking after the children.

Labour should recognise that bringing up a child is more than a full-time job in itself. A child needs to bond with its parents. I feel strongly about this.

A child when it is growing up needs its parents rather than being dumped at child care to be looked after by an barely qualified childcare assistant. I could not imagine my Wife taking our 2 year old son and taking him to childcare, you would have to literally peel him off her leg.

I feel because of Labours plans to get as many people into work as possible there is going to be a whole new generation of latch-key kids. I often wonder why do people have children then dump them at childcare and go back to work after three months?. I often think that the child is going to spend more time with the childcare assistant that it is with its own Mother

I have seen when I have been up to the school to collect my Daughter the children who finish school then go straight to the Before & Afterschool club to wait for a parent/relative to pick them up at 5-6 pm. The whole process starts again in the morning all in the process of going to work to earn enough money to pay for the childcare and have enough to live on.

When my Brother & I got home from school, my Dad was usually at work, my Mother was there or you could usually find her round the corner talking to one of the pensioners who lived in the block of houses next door. The point I am making is that I never had to go to any after school club [they had not even been thought of in the seventies] and wait for my parents to pick me up at 6pm. The only time I got picked up after school was either after playing football or for 1 after school detention.

Its the same old thing I said about before with the incapacity benefit, why does everything revolve round having to go to work?. People should be able to make there own choices, what happens if you want to be a homemaker?.

On the Incapacity benefit front I have not been looking what's going on with IB of late, cancelled all the google alerts as I have only going to drive myself la-la or into an early grave worrying about it. There's virtually no point looking for a job in a recession, not that there would be many jobs to suit me anyway or that can pay enough, no point going to any of the pathways to work people as I have said before because they are only in it to make a profit unless I can be convinced otherwise.

I have decided in the meantime to wait for the next brown envelope from hell and not worry until it actually comes. Thinking back to when I went to the psychiatrist when they said that there is no point worrying about things that you can not change, well I am taking that view at the moment.

I will try to enjoy Christmas and be positive for next year

have a fantastic one and a fantastic new year folks

brainblogger

Employment & Support Allowance

So Employment & Support Allowance is here to stay to replace Incapacity Benefit. Having got through an IB50 allegedly I will not be checked again until 2013. That means nothing to me. It could be tomorrow as far as I am concerned.

Whatever happens there is nothing I can do to stop being swept up into it. well what do I do now? Do I sit and do nothing and wait for it to happen?. People say to me that I shouldn't worry myself about it and just wait till it happens. I am sorry to disappoint you folks but I am worrying about it now.

The DWP virtually say in there explanation of ESA that as long as you can breath you are fit for some type of work. I have already read a lot about the ESA and there are many things written in to it to make your illnesses or disabilities not be as severe as they are for you the actual sufferer.

To me the ESA is nothing more than glorified jobseekers allowance.

So that leaves few choices: work or suffer on the pittance the government think you need to live on while not forgetting to go to your work-focused interviews or you will get sanctioned.

If you want to try and find a job [not that you haven't already been trying] don't forgot there's a recession looming on so there aren't that many jobs about really as everyone seems to think there are. You will have to compete with the people who have just lost there jobs and the employers who don't employ disabled people which I have said about in a previous post.

ESA is just a trap so the government can save money to pay for bailing out banks, wars and making the rich even richer. The sick and the disabled and the unemployed are just treated as some sort of under-class.

I don't believe all this garbage the DWP are coming out with how going to work will help your self-esteem and make you feel better. Robert wrote in my last post about him only being offered jobs at Asda handing out baskets. Sorry but handing out baskets at probably the minimum wage would not do Robert's or anyone's self esteem any good however wonderful it may be made up to sound.

The ESA has also been designed so people will worry and end up on the pathways to work so they can also make a profit out of your misery.

I also hold responsible the Jobcentre for failing in all there promises they made to me of helping me get back to work.

How the DEA raved on about how how wonderful it would be to go to rehab in Birmingham for eight months and how they would help me get a job. I went to Birmingham virtually every day for eight months and all they did was get me a voluntary work placement and effectively dumped me there. After all that they closed my case. Where is all the support? I am no nearer to a job as I was then.

I am nearly 40 years old, had a life threatening brain injury and I have got to start at the bottom again. ain't it about time somebody gave me a break for a change. It isn't all my fault I am in this situation. I can not be held responsible for everything that has happened.

The people who I trusted to help me get back into work have failed me and all they have done is make a profit out of me.

Politicians

Having recovered from the brown envelope from hell and the next door neighbour trying to run me over I thought its about time I did something on my blog.

The DWP letter said I will not be assessed for another 5 years [allegedly] I am still afraid. I worry about what going to happen next. I just try to go from one day to the other and see what happens next.

Just lately I have been doing quite a bit of writing. I am helping a lecturer in social work at a university who contacted me, all voluntary of course. I have been writing about my experience of having a brain injury, the correct description is actually I have very severe cranio-cerebral injury with clear evidence of damage to the frontal and temporal regions of my brain.

I am writing what it is like waking up after being in a coma, how I felt and how I feel now, peoples attitudes to a hidden disability like when I go out and about and the "Does he take sugar?" effect when you try to conduct your daily business, you know like how difficult it can be when you try to do something simple like order a couple of meals in a pub, you know when your brain knows what you want to say but you can't get it all out how you want and the person taking the order thinks you are a bit of a simpleton, then there are people tutting behind you because you are a bit slow and then trying to deal with all the multiple noises around as well, it can be very difficult.

Would it have made a difference to my recovery if I could of gone to a rehab centre sooner, rather than have to wait five years, the inadequacies of case management that charge £35-£40 an hour and then later withdraw there support because they are not making a profit from you and how when you went to the appointment they kept looking at the clock to make sure you stayed the full hour, how you can't get to see a social worker face to face now like I used to who helped me, going on schemes setup by the jobcentre that don't help, the brown envelopes from hell, medicals, ideally it is to help the students understand what it is really like for someone being in this position.

I have a date for next year when it is to be presented which at the way things are going it will soon be here. I am looking forward to it but it sounds daunting so I am going to build myself up to it. When I contact the lecturer and show what I have written I keep getting more ideas so I have to write them in. I have also dug up a lot of old paperwork and I keep finding things that I now want to write in as well.

Just lately the government and the opposition are both been ranting on about getting the scroungers, no I mean the disabled/sick people and unemployed back into work, but with the banking crisis and possible recession jobs are scarce let alone jobs for disabled people as well. James Purnell could not have picked a worse time to bring in the ESA. Where are all the jobs for disabled going to come from and who's going to pay for all this support?

They are also going on about giving disabled people all this support, what support?, in my experience so far the support stopped as soon as they got me the voluntary work placement. Where will the support end? Will it end as soon as they have got you into a job and off the ESA? Will they provide support for you once you in your job?.

The conservatives have been going on about including the 3 strikes and you are out for people on IB as well as the unemployed if you refuse a reasonable job offer. I have applied for jobs but I haven't had 3 reasonable job offers yet. Its a miracle even to got a reply to say that you haven't even get an interview. Getting a job offer would be a miracle in itself.

I have read a letter from 1994 from an employment & rehabilitation consultant to my solicitor which said because of the level of my injury I would not have been even considered for sheltered employment [places like Remploy, a Remploy manager has to run his factory at a cost effective basis, therefore when a vacancy does arise the Remploy manager is likely to chose the most profiecent worker and not the slowest] and that there would have been many more suitable candidates. Whether this has changed now I do not know.

It was considered that I had no current earnings prospects and would not be placeable in the open labour market.

Also in the same letter it said relating to the DEA and disability services of the DWP that it was now common practice for the disability services to take no action whilst a person is in continuing receipt of Invalidity Benefit [which is now IB].

If this was happening in 1994 and that I was just considered a lost cause then what if it this applies to all the other people that were on IB then it is no wonder there is 2.6 million people on IB. It seems that what the government and future governments are trying to do now is shut the stable door after the horse has bolted. They are not going to find it so easy as they make out.

When I was talking to the lecturer I said was is it just me but when I see disabled people at work they are doing the things I have mentioned before in my blog like the sweeping litter in shopping centres or push trolleys in DIY store and she agreed with me. It is not just me who thinks that.

People also fail to realise that disabled people actually want to make a future for themselves as well and have prospects and will not just take any job. There are things to consider like having enough money to pay the bills, have enough food to eat. have enough money to survive on from day to day. We are all allowed our own dreams for what sort of future we want and not just do what the ministers think we should do.