HELP

I am writing this blog because I am angry and upset. I will not lower myself to name names publicly, that is best done in private. In short I have been screwed over.

I went to the CAB for benefits advice, but because of their complete lack of funding I decided to go elsewhere for help. I found somewhere that represents people at appeal and had a proven track record at winning appeals and a website full of useful and relevant information. There was no indication of anything wrong at all. I am sure they are who they say they are, theres nothing wrong with fraud or anything like that. However, there is a dark side to them, a very dark side.

Having sucessfully requested their services they sent me a letter, which included a contract which I had to sign to state that I would give them 200 pounds from the appeal winnings. Unfortunately I didn't keep a copy of this one. They also demanded 30 pounds up front for admin costs. Remember, I haven't had an income since april, thats a lot of money.

The appeal pack came a week or so ago and the date for the appeal shortly afterwards. I immediately informed them as it was four weeks notice of the appeal date. This is the email correspondance that ensued:

 It might look a bit bitty but then I am only screengrabbing the conversation. I can provide further proof of this if anyone needs it.I responded to the email then:

The response i got from this was shocking and just plain horrible:

My response to this was pretty level and appropiate:

So today on facebook I notice that they post a status saying that it was lovely that one of their clients, on winning their appeal had "given" them 200 pounds. I merely pointed out that this was a contractual obligation and this was the response I got ( as it seems I can no longer see their facebook posts I assume I have been blocked and I am still waiting a response from them by email regarding all of this) This is the facebook notification of their post:

and this too:

So here is me, with little over 3 weeks to my appeal now having to try and find someone else to represent me, because even if they still will, I dont trust them anymore and feel sick about this whole thing.

The CAB are going to try and do their best, but they can't promise anything with such short notice. I feel like crying, giving up, but I need to remind myself that I can do this, even if I am forced to on my own. I just hope I don't have to.

Please, if you are going to engage with advice services be very careful because they can be good and bad ones out there. if you are worried feel free to contact me on twitter @allbigideas and I can help you.

dwp logic

what does the dwp do when they don't like what you've written?
photocopy it so it says something else of course.
yup, where I once wrote that I can not safely do a task on the pip 3 form was photocopied onto their system to read that I can safely do it. Other vital words have been missed out too.
so, couple of questions here.
how did the health professional read my form if my form wasn't on the system correctly?
how can I trust a company that cant even photocopy a form correctly?

the end of another month.

I haven't posted about PIP recently, mainly because theres been very little to report and I have been coping by not coping, head down and ignoring it.

It seems apt to get my appeal pack today, the end of another month. It was the 1st April I put my mandatory reconsideration in, and it was the 1st July that the appeals service received my notice of appeal. Its been another month.

I am hopeful for the appeal. THats about all I can say.

Still with no income, still just living day to day. We have been very lucky to live close to a Netto, who recently announced they were closing. The half price sale has left us with enough tins and packets of food to survive for a couple of months more. For example, tins of potatoes that were already only 30p to start with we got for 15p.

multiple identities

Since April 11th I have been waiting, wishing hoping to reclaim my "disabled" identity back from the government who denied me it. Stuck in a parallel world, stuck in the gap of being before, not being currently but hoping to be again. Certainly in the governments eyes, because it means power, status and most importantly an income.

Still living that disabled identity everyday, being consciously aware of the barriers that grow bigger every day as a result of the denial of my identity, status, power and money. Not having the energy to fight them, even though I know if I don't fight now, the fight to reclaim will be harder once I have won. Which I will.

But I have to keep reminding myself of that fact. Looking over my various pieces of medical evidence which prove my disabled identity, but only the medical shadow, the mere footprint of its existence of its occupation of my whole self, not painting the whole picture. Not that the government want the whole picture, they are only interested in the deficit, the can't do, the poor little disabled person identity.

But the whole can't function without the shadow. The darkness and the light need to co-exist together. I need to have the shadow, the footprint to exist, even if just to fight against. To compete against. In order to be a Disabled Person, I must first be considered disabled.

Yesterday, as I simply entered a room I could feel the accelerated thud of my disabled academic identity flooding my body, and the thrill of this feeling invigorated me. I became alive again, or at least another identity reawakened within me and started thinking, making connections and engaging with rich and emotional discourse that touched my very soul and made it dance.

As I stepped out of the room at the end of the day and back on the train with my husband beside me, the energy disappeared from my body, the disabled identity reappearing as I lay shrivelled in my seat for the return home.

Today, as I sat in another room I became once again the disabled student. Discussing my barriers in context to study once again reminded me of the journey I had been on with that identity and how it had moudled and changed my very essence, giving rise to other, powerful identities of Disabled Person and Disabled Activist. I became excited to re visit and work with that identity in the coming months.

Tonight, as my daughter turned towards me, closed her eyes and wriggled her tired body as closely as she could into mine I became reminded of one of the most powerful and emotional identities I have, that of being a Mother.

Theorising normalcy and the mundane book review

I went to a conference yesterday where a book was launched which includes a chapter that I wrote. Its based on my undergraduate research project, and as is typical when I had a mic in front of me I completely forgot what I was going to say and said nothing in particular. So I thought I would try again using my blog, as I hope you'll agree if you read my book, my words are more eloquent written down.

Who is a normal student?

That was my starting point. I used a process of discourse analysis (which I like to describe as using text as a passive research participant) to discover how the universities use the language of their prospectuses to define their "perfect" or "normal" student. I found some amazing things about prospectuses which you can read more of in the chapter, but my favourite one was how all the institutions used the word you.

You is such a tiny word but yet was ascribed so much power in constructing the normal student. It was used as past, present and future and as plural and singular. You was used when it might have been better to say you all. It was used to homogenise groups and exclude others. You was the device that the institutions used to communicate directly and provocatively with their target audience.

I contextualise my findings with wider discourse that feeds into the higher education system such as the marketisation agenda and concepts such as a gatekeeper and create my own idea around spheres of normal.

I have used pictures to help illustrate my findings, because I found it helpful to see them and not just read about them, so I hope it helps clarify things.

I had hoped when i did my research originally that it would act as a springboard and a catalyst for others to research, mainly becuase its quite a small scale research project. Its really exciting because through this book I can envisage this happening even more so.

So, this is my chapter of this awesome book. Feel free to contact me on twitter @allbigideas for any questions you have and you can buy the book and the rest of the chapters from here: http://storefront.chester.ac.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=12_14&products_id=626

the wheels on the bus

There is a case going to the supreme court this week about whether wheelchair users should have absolute priority over other passengers on buses.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/09/wheelchair-pram-bus-space

I have to be clear, I hate travelling on the bus with my pram, I prefer the tram. On the rare (now impossible) days that I used to take my daughter out alone on the bus there were plenty of times I had to wait for the 3rd or sometimes 4th bus to get on. This was usually for something important like a doctors appointment for her (I rarely travelled on the bus on my own with her unless essential). I left plenty of time and made sure to accomodate the wait time into my trip.

Anyway, that aside that is not the main problem I have with this case. It places "disabled people" at odds with "parents and children". I am both a disabled person and a parent. The fact that the bus can get my pram on actually enables me to travel, just in the same way as a wheelchair user experiences. I do not, when I am on my own with my daughter have the capacity to fold down the pushchair. It is not a simple case of inconvience for me, it is a case of being impossible when I am on my own.

There are other areas where there is an unfortunate clash of needs, namely in the toilet areas, where disabled peoples needs are usually met in the same space as parent and childrens needs are. There is no particular priority given to either group, it is simply a shared space and we take it in turns to use its shared facilities. its not ideal, but it works. I personally think its the same with all areas. We share our spaces with others in all aspects of life. Why is it so hard to share the bus space with others who may need it equally?

Yes, a wheelchair user can only use one space on the bus, so can the disabled mother with the pram. I am concerned that in the future I could get on a bus at one end of town and be asked to leave by the other end of town, forcing me to have to go back to the first stop, because it is the only stop I can get on to ensure I can get on with the pram, just because a wheelchair user gets on after me. I too may have had to wait 3 or 4 buses to get on too. I also have places to go of importance. It isn't easy for any of us with wheels, we should work together.

I want to leave you with a story from last week. Our daughter was ill, and needed to be taken to the out of hours doctors which involves two buses and about a 45 minute journey. It was 10 o clock at night when we set off. We have no car, and therefore no car seat. A taxi wasn't an option for us as its against the law (and common sense) to travel without one. We managed to get on all the buses we needed with our sleeping and ill daughter in the pram. If we had been forced to get off the bus for a wheelchair user we would have been literally stranded in an unfamilar area late at night with no way to get home or to our next destination, with the buses being every half an hour, it would have also meant we had lost the doctors appointment, starting the process all over again.

Not only that we were so lucky to get the last bus from the doctors into town with 2 minutes to spare. Again, with a sleepy and ill child in the pram. If a wheelchair user had got on, would it be right that we would have been forced off into the night, because they have "more priority".

Im not suggesting that it would be right to leave the disabled person there either, and thankfully where we live there is space for both. What I am saying is that sometimes it might involve some negotiation of the limited space available. we could move the pram around, etc.

There are no easy answers to this

The decision letter from the DWP

I am moving between laughter and anger at the moment at the letter from the DWP about my mandatory reconsideration.

They haven't read it. I repeat, they haven't even read my mandatory reconsideration statement. The one I spent days writing with a lot of help, that contained an evidence based log of how i was entitled to all the different points. They didn't even bother with it.

Ten weeks of waiting and they couldn't even be bothered to read it. I know this because the reasoning they used to come to the same decision is using the same flawed arguements in the first place that I countered with the mandatory reconsideration. The main one being that I was well dressed at the ATOS appointment, despite the fact I wrote that yes, of course, that is because my husband prompts me to dress in the morning. He was doing his job. They still stated this in the new decision letter.

They accept that knifes are triggering for me and that its not safe for me to use them, but as this isn't for "the majority of time" they think its ok. I'm not a professional knife thrower, so I don't tend to use knives for the majority of the day, only once or twice.

they seem very insistant that as I don't take any anti aniety medication I cant be anxious. Does anyone want to point out the problems with this idea?

I like the idea that they don't see that I am recieving any input from a specialist, but list in the evidence the letter from my specialist psychotherapist. Yes, they really did. I have a joint bank account with my husband so have no problem with managing finances, that is the biggest leap I have ever seen there, one I responded to the first time, and they ignored.

I am angry that I have to even take this to appeal, because the level of stupid this has reached is unbelievable. but hey ho, its off to appeal i go.