Bullied

I have created a new blog.

Bullied: A Recollection

After a year, my counselling sessions have finally concluded. By the end, I was starting to gain some insight into the causes of my depression, and I fear that I may have only scratched the surface in my sessions. A blog seems like the next best thing.

Leo is still on the waiting list to begin therapy. He was assessed as "severe" in August, but since then there has been no word. He has peaks and troughs, and his medication has been changed more times than I can remember in just this year alone. Right now, he seems to be glad that I am spending this Christmas with him.

I too am taking new antidepressants. The side effects are unpleasant, and the medication I take to counteract these is not always effective. I am expecting my latest appeal against ATOS to go to tribunal in either February or March. Thankfully, Leo was successful in his appeal in October. However, the equal and opposite reaction to this was that the council cut his housing benefit, despite his entitlement to it remaining unchanged. Our landlord is kind, and I am grateful. Many others are not so lucky.

I am now estranged from most of my family. However, my brother currently lives with Leo and I. He is an immense help to us both, although I am not sure if he realises this.

Healing continues to be anything but straightforward.

Life goes on.

Appeal

Last month I had my own medical assessment with ATOS. Despite clearly showing my fear and discomfort around people, I was found to be fit for work, and placed in the Work Activity group. I appealed in writing, of course. My counsellor provided me with several copies of a letter to support the appeal - she's good that way. However, I was dismayed to discover that my GP had left the practice I attend, and that I had to discuss my appeal with another doctor.

He was thoroughly unpleasant. There was no bedside manner of which to speak, and he barely made eye contact with me. However, he presented Leo with a near-twenty-minute tirade about governmental policy, ATOS and the DWP, which went straight over my head, both figuratively and literally. He declined to lend his support to my appeal, telling Leo - not I - that my counsellor's letter would be quite enough, and that the decision makers never read the supporting material anyway. When he was quite finished, I asked him about an unrelated blood test. He mumbled something about referring me to haematology at the hospital, and sent us both on our way.

Outside, Leo called him a meat puppet. I called him a sexist meat puppet.

Aside from his poor attitude, I was disturbed by his eagerness to being politics so directly into our - well, his and Leo's - discussion. Whilst it's true that more and more doctors are dealing with patients' appeals against ATOS decisions, is it really prudent for general practitioners to launch into such diatribes in the surgery? We're there for health reasons, not political opinions. A simple "no, you have enough supporting evidence already" would have been perfectly acceptable as a response. Instead, I was left feeling very uncomfortable and considering whether I should move to another surgery to avoid this awful man.

The appeal is still ongoing. The DWP have written to me to say that they have received the appeal and that a decision is imminent. Meanwhile, Leo and I are struggling financially again. Worse, for reasons related to the state of our local mental health service, I have been unable to meet with my counsellor for three weeks. I feel suspended, helpless. Once again, my biggest problems are those beyond my control. Only time will tell.

Assessment

On July 30th, two separate yet very revealing documentaries were shown on television regarding ESA, the Work Capability Assessment, and the company which carries them out: Atos. If you don't know much about the current incapacity system or the real impact it has on our lives, I can highly recommend that you watch them both.

Dispatches: Britain on the Sick

Panorama: Disabled or Faking It?

Unfortunately, these issues became all too relevant to Leo and I just a few days later. Leo had attended a WCA at the end of June, and received the results over the telephone. He had not been scored high enough on his WCA, and his ESA benefits were being withdrawn. The person he spoke to said that Leo had the right to appeal, and that if he managed to appeal within the next few days his benefits might be reinstated without a noticeable break in payments. As of writing, Leo is still waiting for the appeal paperwork to be delivered to our door.

Now, Leo and I deal with similar conditions. He doesn't have the agoraphobia that stops me from leaving the house on my own; my physical ailments are nowhere near as chronic as his. Yet the way our cases have been treated have been like chalk and cheese. I was never asked to attend a WCA. On my paperwork alone, the DWP assigned me to the support group. Leo, however, has had to provide countless sicknotes whilst his original paperwork was assessed, has had a very unpleasant person from the DWP come into our flat to make sure that we weren't living as a couple (we aren't), and has had to attend the WCA on top.

I was handed ESA straightaway, no further questions asked. Leo has been through the wringer trying to obtain his, only to be denied. Tell me the system isn't flawed, I dare you.

Leo is now more angry and depressed than ever. He and I both told the DWP that there was no way I could provide him with financial support should he be denied ESA, but how can I not? I have no legal obligation to support him, but I certainly have a moral obligation to him. He is my closest friend, and he has saved me from the brink more than once. What sort of monster would I be if I sat and watched him starve? I am putting myself at risk to help him, so instantly this decision affects not just Leo, but myself too. One person's ESA should not be stretched to two people, yet this is the outcome that Atos has forced us into, with their terrifyingly flawed system of scoring patients, meeting targets (or "statistical norms", as Benefit Scrounging Scum pointed out), and supposedly trying to save the government millions by weeding out fraudulent claims. There is just no way that Leo and I could manage long-term in this state. If he were to go back to the Jobcentre, what right-minded employer would hire him in the state he's in? Yet if he is unsuccessful in his appeal against Atos' decision, what choice does he have?

Atos care only for financial costs, not for human costs. The extent to which they ruin lives seems to suggest that they do their poisonous job with gleeful abandon. I can only conclude that the WCA guidelines were written by a group of people who have never been physically or mentally ill in their lives. There were clearly no healthcare professionals involved, just statisticians and bankers.

Shame on them all.