The trials of life with disability

Every single person I know on disability are on it for genuine reason.

Everyone of them deal with challenges daily that others would not cope with.

Everyone of them is living under constant fear and threat of SANCTION by corrupt legislation and cruel practices implemented by the DWP, Job Centre Plus and private companies such as ATOS (now called Independent Assessment Service) and Capita – both who profiteer on lies, dishonesty, fraud and doctored reports.

The people who work for these departments and companies are morally akin to concentration camp guards, they are paid to cause as much fear and misery as possible. There is no excuse for it.

Folk with disabilities are dying each day through their practices, some through the stress effecting their conditions, some through services being withdrawn and so many including folk I know through suicide due to either the loss of benefits or the pressure and (yes using the word again) fear installed by these vile organisations. I myself am all too often so close to that path.

Being disabled or ill is not a crime. People to not choose to live upon benefits, before I became ill I had a career where I had self worth, and pride, I loved my job, it was how I identified myself and in many ways an accomplishment so many believed impossible for me.

I helped people and changed lives, I was not great with money but had a good wage and so that was not an issue.

I worked all over the UK often commuting a 150 miles or more on top of my working day.
My role was everything to me.

Then illness struck. Multiple chronic conditions, some I had lived and coped with for years but then new ones too, it overwhelmed and stole my ability to work.
I lost people I saw as friends, a relationship, a home, and more than anything else myself.

I was still a parent but could not expect my kids to respect me. Even now I hide so many effects of my illnesses from them.
These thoughts are not rational in some ways, i would never judge anyone else due to their disability, but we are far harder upon ourselves.

Even now it feels impossible for me to have any respect or understanding of myself, yet would happily and truthfully inform someone else in the same circumstances that they have worth.

I write about my experiences because I can do so with authority, without fiction or supposition. Not for pity or self indulgence.
I want folk to understand how illness strips us, then society shuns us, and the state tries to destroy us.

Why do we feel unworthy of life? Because we are taught exactly that. We are treated as fraudsters, made to feel like we are not allowed to live, that on our good days – days where we are not pain free but can pretend to be – we enjoy life. Where if we are ill we cannot go out, we cannot undertake any hobbies, sports, pastimes for fear of being called fakers.

People diagnose us not with medical expertise or knowledge, but by gossip, hearsay and their preconceived ideas of what disability should look like.

My illness means I cannot plan ahead, do not know how I will physically, emotionally or mentally until the day. I have to cancel meeting friends and attending appointments with little or no notice. Can wake feeling ok but then spiral without warning. Because of this I have been struck off from my dentist, mid treatment and now will lose teeth. I have been taken off treatment lists at hospital and even though am on consultant led medication have no consultant monitoring me. I have lost friendships because folk cannot see me ok one day and then understand how I can be so ill the next.

I even have no relationship with close family members anymore because they cannot understand or come to terms with the nature of my conditions.

Being disabled with any condition is hard beyond words. There are fare braver folk out there than me dealing with far worse. I still do have days where I can pretend, and live a little rather than just exist. Dreaming is more the case than planning now
Being ill is frustrating, depressing, it causes anger, self loathing, depression and anxiety. But add the cruel way the state and society treats those with disability and it becomes a true living hell. Paranoia sweeps into the mix because not only does the cruel state judge us, but many of you do too.

You happily snigger and pass judgement, entertain yourselves with Jeremy Kyle, Benefits Britain, Beat the Bailiffs and all that trash TV that is designed to dehumanise the vulnerable, but then make yourselves feel righteous by giving some homeless person the fries out of your Maccie D’s that you were gonna chuck anyway.

I hope when I say ‘you’ I am being general and that you reading this do not fall into that loathsome category.

I truly hope some of the ‘You’s’ reading this will open your eyes and see people with disabilities and chronic illness as humans, as equals and as people to stand by and not pity or loath.

I hope you open your eyes to the evil that is the current regime.
And I truly hope ‘You’ personally never have to experience the lives so many of us currently lead.

Jonesy