Snuff Box

Another Comedy show I have grown fond of has emerged, and I have as usual found the forum and joined it it's here . The show went out on BBC Three recently and starred Rich Fulcher (In the Picture to the left) And Matt Berry Of Mighty boosh fame, Matt was also Dr Sanchez in "Garth Marenghi's Darkplace" I wrote about below. Matt also wrote the music for the series and sang and played all the instruments.

It's set in a gentleman's club somewhere in upper class England, and Matt is the hangman, Rich plays his assistant. It's quite dark and very surreal in places. There's a BBC Three Site for it here where you can download the songs and I believe still watch some clips.

The Forum needs a little help at the moment it's most online at one time record is 8, there's 0nly 41 members, so please sign up if you're a fan of the show. You can even download a rare Matt Berry album called "opium" there, that is associated with Garth Marenghi's Dark Place under the thread "Matt berry's album Opium"

Update-You can't download the album at the forum anymore as it's changed slightly since they heard there might not be another series of Snuff Box, it has more members now too. You can usually buy the album on Ebay, Matt's agent sells them.

Hello by the way I've been away for a while while they connected my broadband at my new house. I'm back now however so normal posting will be starting again soon.

Update-Matt now has a myspace profile where you can also order the CD of "Opium" here

Rich also has a profile here and has less friends than Matt when I type this so be sure to add him if you are a fan.

Matt Berry
opium
Snuffbox

To Anyone Who Thinks People On Benefits Are Living The Life Of Riley.

Recent bashing of everyone forced to claim benefits by the media and the government has pissed me off constantly in recent months, and reading the comments on newspapers websites seems to suggest the public are lapping it up and genuinely believe we are all living in Luxury and laughing at the tax payer. The suggestion about capping benefits at £26000 a year makes me laugh, me and my partner get nowhere near that, the only people who do will be families with lots of children, and they need the money to provide for them.

Me and my partner get about £65 a week each (paid fortnightly) to live on, out of that we pay for electricity, food, bills, and the top up rent (housing benefit doesn't cover all of it and never has). After that there's nothing left at all, we can't afford to go to the cinema or eat out or go to pubs or gigs or anything like that. The only time I ever get to go out is when my dad takes me and pays for me.

I live in a terrible run down flat in an old building which is the only place I can afford to live, there wasn't even a fire alarm system until the council intervened and made the landlord install one. My flat still doesn't have a fire door despite the landlady being told to install one, and the roof leaks in two places, she's been told to fix it but nothing has happened. None of the windows open since they were repainted and there's mould growing everywhere as a result as the place is damp, here are some pictures of what I found earlier when I moved a piece of furniture:

 I cleaned it off after taking the picture, but as you can see the situation is pretty bad black and white mould are carcinogenic so god knows what living in these conditions is doing to our health.We can't afford to move and even complaining to the council gets very little response and slow results, all the man from the council can do is keep writing to her and telling her to move faster, which she doesn't.

We're freezing and damp in the winter and only received one cold weather payment (to pay for more electricity) this year. It came too late as well as the criteria for how many days it has be below 0 to get one changed, and the really cold weather was just ending when it did, people on JSA don't even get those, they just had to freeze when their electricity ran out I imagine.

So to anyone out there lucky enough to have a job in this tough economic climate who thinks we are all living in luxury on benefits, want to swap with me for a week and live like I do?

Looking Into Prosecuting ATOS For Harassment

I promised to update my blog with my experiences of the ATOS assessment process as I go through it, as a woman who has been on income support for nearly 10 years due to suffering from Anxiety Based Depression, Chronic Insomnia, and Social Anxiety Disorder. I am one of the thousands being transferred from Income support to ESA as the former benefit will no longer exist and all new claimants are being put onto ESA (or being turned down for it no matter how disabled they are apparently.)

The whole process is causing me great distress, my medication has doubled since the welfare reform bill went through, I have to take sleeping medication again (which I've currently run out of 4 days until I can get more). I have also starting to have nightmares again, something that hasn't happened to me in a long time, but is a symptom of Anxiety Based Depression.

The first thing they did was send me a rather strange letter informing me I was going to be moved over to ESA from income support and they need to assess me for ESA (no surprises there I was expecting this ok so far). Then it gets weird, instead of including a form with this letter it says they are going to ring me, but if I haven't heard from them within  2 weeks of the date of the letter I have to ring them. Just to clarify for people who don't understand, people with social anxiety/anxiety based depression don't like unexpected phone calls, or having to phone strangers. I have an answer phone to deal with these things and prefer it if people write to me, I often don't answer my phone when it rings even if I'm sat right next to it. People watching me do this find my behaviour odd, and even I can't explain it totally, it's just a symptom of the illness I suffer from, I feel dread when the phone starts ringing, and don't want to pick it up unless I'm sure who it is, caller ID helps, but unknown or withheld numbers don't get answered. So if ATOS rang me I didn't answer it or receive an answer phone message, and I never called them. But a couple of weeks later a pink form arrived anyway which I dutifully filled in and sent back, but on the form it still said they are going to ring me, there was no option to request no phone contact, and no indication of when or who will ring me.

So now I'm left wondering what will happen, will they just send me the details of my medical, or is my not talking them on the phone going to effect this? They said it was going to the first time with the form, but sent it anyway.

Today though there was a ray of light, it's been drawn to my attention that phone call's which will cause undue alarm and distress are illegal under the "Protection From Harassment Act 1997". So in theory if I write to them informing them these suggestions that I might or might not get a phone call at an unspecified time in the near future are causing me alarm and distress and I'd prefer it if they only contacted me in writing, they have to stop. I'm not unreasonable, I know I need an assessment and will go for it, why does it have to be so stressful finding out when it's going to be?! That's all I want to know.

I'm currently looking into what legal actions I can take against ATOS  to stop this, will update when I have discovered what I need to say to them in a letter to make them leave me alone unless it is really necessary to contact me, and why they can't just do it in writing. Will update as soon as I have more info, and here is a link that helps to define what is harassment, I'm sure this must qualify:

http://www.yourrights.org.uk/yourrights/privacy/harassment-unwanted-letters-and-telephone-calls/protection-from-harassment-act-1997.shtml

How Can We Get A Job When Society Is More Disablist Than Ever?

A number of things have wound me up today prompting me to make this post, but the biggest one thing was when I read this article "I Never Qualified For Disability Benefits, Yet I'm Still called A Faker". I recommend you read it if you haven't already. Basically it's written by a lady who despite having a painful medical condition and being housebound for 6 months didn't qualify for ESA so never claimed it, she works despite her pain and is obviously a very brave and inspirational woman.

But despite the fact she has never claimed disability she gets abuse in the street because she walks with a stick but appears healthy, so people think she's faking, the article details some very harrowing accounts of things that have happened to her. It also mentions a man with cerebral palsy who doesn't look very disabled to the naked eye, but gets abuse when he's seen using his blue badge for parking, and people have even asked to see it to check it's his.

It's clear that the governments obsession with promoting the idea that people are on disability falsely, despite the actual fraud rate being only 0.5% that is causing societies attitude to change in this way.

I suffer from an invisible disability, anxiety based depression, I've had it since childhood. All my life I've dealt with people who don't understand the condition saying stupid things to me about it, I'd like to list a few of these daft questions and statements people make, and the responses I have to give every time I hear them:

"What are you depressed about?"

Depression is not an emotional state that I get into then get out of, it's a permanent medical condition that has destroyed my life. Some people have less severe forms of the same condition and do have good times and bad times, not me it's one long round of being afraid to go out alone most days, often uncontrollable crying, and often suicidal thoughts. Yes that's right I contemplate suicide every day, have done since my first suicide attempt when I was 11 years old, I have to take a pill every morning to help me cope with this. In recent years the medication has improved and has fewer side effects, but in the past this medication has caused me to have blackouts, visibly shake uncontrollably, and given me the desire to cut myself. Yes that's right, the medication they give to people prone to self harm anyway, can actually increase your desire to do it at first. I don't cut myself normally, but when I first went on a new medication a couple of years ago, had sudden thoughts of cutting my arm with a pen, not even a blade, a pen, imagine the scars that would have left.

"Why don't you just cheer up/ pull your socks up/ get over it?"

I would love to believe me, see above for more info.

"People didn't get that when I was young/it doesn't exist" 

Utter bollocks, depression has been recorded for hundreds of years, in Victorian times they called it "melancholia" before that I'm not not sure what it was called but it definitely existed. If you never met anyone suffering from it when you were young, it is probably because they were too ashamed to admit it because of the ignorance society shows about the condition. Or maybe if you are quite old, all the people with it were still routinely locked in institutions out of the public eye when you were young. So to summarize depression has always existed, people just didn't talk about it in the past.

"I Just Saw You Laughing/Smiling, You Aren't Depressed" 

My condition doesn't leave me unable to laugh or smile, I enjoy comedy and a good joke, in fact laughter helps to elevate my mood as it causes a release of endorphines in my brain as it does in every other human being. But just because you see me laugh or smile it does not mean I am cured or faking my condition, in fact I often laugh and joke to cover up how anxious I am inside.

So this brings me to my point raised in the title of this post, how the hell am I supposed to "get a job" when society is still so ignorant about the condition I suffer from I can't even get an interview? And even if I do by some miracle get one, the person interviewing me is bound to ask one of the stupid questions above?

Citeria for cold weather payment has changed.

I woke up this morning in my freezing cold flat and worried about the electricity which is going to run out before I next get a giro. Decided to look online to see if we are getting a cold weather payment next week. Last year we got 3 around Christmas when it was very cold. Back then the criteria were that it had to be "an average of zero degree's celsius or below for 3 days in a row". I logged onto the DWP site this morning here to find that has changed to "average of zero degrees Celsius or below over seven consecutive days in a row" in times when the cost of electricity and gas have doubled. I also found the page that tells you if one has been triggered where you live here, ours has not, so no cold weather payments for us.

I always thought it was crazy that it had to below freezing for 3 days in a row, as just because it's not freezing it doesn't mean you can have the heating switched off and not be cold enough for it to make you ill. True we might not get hypothermia and die instantly but cold damp housing causes respiratory problems, so it could potentially cause widespread health problems amongst the poor like we haven't seen since the 60's. But now I find the criteria have changed to 7 days in a row at freezing or below before we get any help which is even worse.

So now I'm sat here worrying about how I'm going to buy enough electricity to last us until our next benefit payment, as there's already nothing left of the last one.

Meanwhile MP's have the gall to claim there is no poverty in this country on television, and I see comments from the public on my other disabled friends blogs saying they think everyone on disability benefits is "riding the gravy train" and we are "self pitying". When in reality we are more anxious and distressed over what is happening to us than ever before, and struggling to survive just like everyone else in the country who isn't rich during these tough economic times.