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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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 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.

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