The wretched torment of Work Capability Assessments and ESA Tribunals and the fall out has finally reached a peak. I am more than miserable and hopeless.
Everything and everybody either makes me more miserable, more resentful or feel an even greater sense of loss of control.
Everywhere I turn I seem to be smacked in the face by the fact that I no longer really exist.
I am 'fit for work', so I must be well and therefore not eligible for any Benefits.
If I must be well then I must be able to work...but I'm not well enough to work (my doctor says so) so at least I can do some voluntary work.
I apply for some voluntary work but so far nobody seems to want what I have to offer (and to be honest I don't have much faith in what I have to offer anyway --- transference ?).
I look at Adult Ed. classes. They are far beyond my means (since I no longer have any Benefits or money of my own) but might be affordable if I was claiming ESA or JSA or DLA. I'm not eligible for any of those so I cannot afford to join a class.
In all honesty, there aren't any classes I want to join.
I am useful at home for looking after other people. There are always other people to look after at home....or other people's dogs. I can't have a dog of my own anymore because I can't afford to have a dog.
I am stuck
I am hopeless
I am lost
I am weary
Like many people I have had my share of difficulties and rough times. Usually I have been able to pick myself up, dust myself off and carry on...not 'letting the bastards grind me down'. This time I don't seem able to do that...or not for now.
Congratulations Ian Duncan-Smith and all your grand plans.
Congratulations Coalition government on all your media spin about Strivers and Skivers: an easy way to set one person against another, to make a very complex and difficult situation into a seemingly 'black and white' issue.
I used to be a Striver....then I was a Skiver...now I'm neither (heh !...a rhyme...maybe I'm a poet ??).
I can't skive and I can't strive...so what am I ?
....a little rudderless boat floating round and round and round in circles going nowhere with no name on the hull
(You might think the choice of song and singer is rather 'quaint'... Lena Zavaroni !!!
Wasn't she that girl with Hughie Green who sang rather over dramatically when she was 9 years old ?
She was. She was also anorexic and she was the friend of a friend of mine who died from anorexia. Lena died too. She was neither one thing or another --- a child star who had grown up and grown up the 'wrong shape' (i.e. 'fat' ...which was NOT what you wanted at Stage School in the 70s) so she tried to control her food, her environment, her relationships so that she would 'fit' and find some role that felt right. It didn't work and she lost the battle.
So, despite the schmaltz and ickiness of the song and delivery...it's all rather apt because, although I'm not anorexic and I have no intention of doing away with myself, I do feel like I am going nowhere and this song and the singer have direct connections to my own life)
