In my little head, there is a huge amount of shame associated with the fact that I am currently living on benefits. I have always worked, I have always paid taxes and now I find myself in the situation where I am dependent upon the Government.
I don’t want this to be my life. I want to be working again, earning my own money and being as independent as I have been for the vast majority of my adult life. I want to buy a small property somewhere as an investment for the future and I can’t do that whilst I’m on benefits.
To be fair to myself, I have paid a shed load of money over the years in Tax and National Insurance, especially when things have gone batshit crazy when I was working and all the overtime I clocked up. So, there’s a bit of me that feels totally justified in claiming benefits at the moment whilst I’m trying to get back on track. There are those that would say that I am the sort of person that the benefits system is about; someone who has worked but just needs help for the moment.
Obviously, there are the stories that make the press of how much money some people are claiming in benefits, be it UK citizens or, what I think to a certain degree is scare mongering, how much in benefits immigrants can claim. One thing you can be sure of though when it comes to claiming benefits is the great British pastime of paperwork and red tape.
The first part of that is to fill in your Capability for Work Questionnaire. My borough is not one who has had the very controversial Universal Credit rolled out completely yet. I am still on the old system of Employment Support Allowance (Income based). This is because when I was receiving my sick pay from work, I was getting the Contributions Based Employment Support Allowance. When I was no longer employed by my previous firm, I was transferred over to Income Based.
You get about a month to complete and return this questionnaire and I need every minute of it. Mine arrives with the added bonus of being delivered in the early part of December with a return deadline usually in the first week of January. Therefore, I have to take into account that I’ll lose a few days whilst I’m with the family over Christmas and I have to take into account the Bank Holidays in terms of Royal Mail. As a result, I would say that I only get an absolute maximum turnaround time of three weeks. That may sound a lot to some of you but, trust me, when you’re trying to fill out these forms when you are genuinely ill, three weeks is not enough to be sure that you’ve fully answered all of the questions.
The questionnaire itself is 21 pages and is split into two sections: physical disabilities and mental health disabilities. Yup, I have to fill in both sections. It goes into specific detail of how you get around physically, what you can do physically and how you cope mentally, along with details of any doctors, specialists, treatments, medication or therapies you are either in receipt of or in consultation with. You get one extra sheet of paper at the back of the booklet for “Additional Information”. This is if you need more space than allocated within the booklet. Yes, again. I end up submitting the 21 page booklet and 12 pages of typed A4 size paper detailing the conditions.
All of this seems to take forever and a day. Where my concentration can be so limited, it’s very frustrating. I want to get the form completed and returned in a timely fashion but I can only manage very small chunks of the questionnaire at a time. I tried to set myself a target of at least one page per day with the best of intentions of achieving that goal. I didn’t think that was too unrealistic a target. It worked; sort of. I had days where I didn’t touch the questionnaire or the associated word document that I was sending. However, there then came a manic episode where I got the whole section on physical disabilities completed in two days. The form for this year had to include all the latest fainting and near fainting episodes and how they increased in frequency and severity during 2019 and the subsequent tests that have been carried out to date. I was completely exhausted afterwards and in a lot of pain, but part 1 was done. I could breathe a sigh of relief.
I didn’t touch the questionnaire again for another couple of days because I knew it was time to tackle part 2. Part 2 is the mental health side and I always find this the most difficult to explain. When completing these forms, and even more so in the face to face assessment (which I will detail in a future post), I feel that I have to justify and/or quantify my mental illness. They’ve got the paperwork alongside the questionnaire that proves I’m not well; it proves what medication I’m on and it proves that I’m not fit to work. For me to then have to justify it on top of medical professionals proving it, scares, dumbfounds and exhausts me.
By this point, I start hoping for another manic episode so that I can attempt to blitz Part 2, especially given that I now have to include the impact on my mental health of losing Grandma last year. I got one and I got Part 2 completed over the course of three days. I now needed to take a step back from the whole questionnaire and then review it for a day before sending it off. The day I started to review it was a very bad day and, in the end, it took me two days to review it. Now, I’m into the New Year and it has to be back by 8 January. I don’t trust the pre-paid envelope to get it back in time so I pay the extra to have it delivered Recorded Delivery, next day, first class so that I can track it and if there are any queries over whether I got it back on time, I can provide the proof that I did.
Now, I have to wait for the dreaded letter to hit the doormat that will request a face to face assessment. Some people don’t have to go through this but I have always had to have a face to face assessment and I absolutely hate them. They are stressful, frustrating and upsetting. It will come soon and, trust me, I will update you accordingly.
Living The BPD Life 