I’m sorry, I forgot. People that are sick or disabled are supposed to stay miserable as a punishment for being ill. They aren’t allowed any books, games, music, TV, trips or holidays because that might cost the taxpayer money. They must lie in bed staring at the ceiling for the rest of their lives.
Or not.
Someone found my blog today by searching for “should i feel guilty by going to the shops while i am receiving dla”. Someone that I went to school with made a snide comment on Facebook this morning about people who go on holiday while unfit to work.
What is wrong with people? Should illness or disability mean enforced misery as payment for being kept by the state? Is it forbidden for a sick person to stagger to a nearby restaurant or pub if they are having a good day? If they find a bit of extra energy are they not allowed to do the shopping themselves instead of dumping yet another task on their spouse as usually happens?
This attitude, pushed by the tabloids and now by conservative government ministers, is outrageous. Becoming ill cannot mean a complete loss of quality of life, or you might as well just shoot us all now. The welfare system is for everyone whether they have paid tax in the past or not. And most of us have paid tax in the past. Those that haven’t have family that have. What right have the government or society got to renage on the deal? The deal is, we all pay into the system, and when someone has need, the system looks after them. Including leisure pursuits.
Our society disgusts me. People are vilified for simply being sick or disabled. People shout abuse in the street at those using walking sticks or wheelchairs. Those with disabilities don’t dare to push themselves at all, even if their condition varies. Many people are capable of riding a motorbike or mowing the lawn one day but cannot move the next, but if they dare to try anything then they live in fear of a neighbour telling the DWP. (Who don’t understand variable conditions at all.)
All this for a measly 0.5% that are actually faking it. Are you part of the problem? Are you making sick people stressed and setting back their recovery? Are you hurting 99.5% of the sick and disabled because of you unfair prejudice and your sense of entitlement?
Oh, and by the way, DLA is paid to anyone that needs the help, working or not. Of course you shouldn’t feel guilty about going to the shops.
*jazz hands*
Anger is good.
I don’t understand why people would have you sit at home in bed miserable! Anyway don’t some people go on holiday specifically to recouperate!
Anger’s not a bad thing you know, and you appear to have the ability to channel your’s rather well!
Well said.
My husband has MS and has ‘relapses’ which tend to go away again after a while. He can wear himself out walking up the stairs sometimes. He doesn’t look ‘ill’, he’s not in wheelchair, refuses to use a stick. No-one, apart from his family, knows what he’s going through (even his doctor).
I have a similar situation. I have M.E which is even less recognised than M.S. Had it for 7 years since I was 19 and it tore apart my life. Because I don’t look ill to other people when I finally get out of the house, people get ‘funny’ with me. I too have trouble with the Doctor.
But I am young and I still want to live life and when I have a few good days or even rarer a few good weeks I do as much as I can possibly do, yet people get bitter and make hurtful remarks.
yep.I don’t understand how some papers on one hand ‘espose’ somone who’#s disabled going on holiday and on the next page try to raise funds for some poor cancer child to go to meet micky mouse.
“a measly 0.5% … are actually faking it”.
I don’t believe that for one second. Are you seriously suggesting that the authorities just happen to have a 100% record in detecting fraud?
On what basis? Are you really claiming that this is one thing that our government gets 100% right?!
What percentage of their meagre resources are spent on catching fraudsters?
You know those anecdotes that you like to dismiss as Daily Mail propaganda? Everybody I know has them. _I_ have them about people who have lived on the same street as me, and people in my extended family.
In all three cases (here-say, neighbours, family) I know people who are genuinely in need and don’t get the help they deserve (their lives are made a misery as they try to battle the system), AND people who claim benefits they are not legally entitled to, and quite plainly set out, and succeed, in illegally living off the state.
My straw poll / own anecdotal experience would be that it’s something like 50-50.
It would be interesting to do a randomised test - but of course the kind of spying that would be needed to prove things either way wouldn’t be allowed.
Cheers,
David.
Are you aware how difficult it is to claim these benefits, I think your 50/50 straw poll is an insult. And I suggest that you investigate further!
I also suggest you think about the fact that most of these anecdotal examples are based on guess work. We don’t know the ins and outs of peoples lives and what specifics they need.
and don’t you think its wrong so many genuinely sick people have to battle the system? and don’t you think that increasing its difficulty, and decreasing the actual payouts is totally the wrong approach in making sure only people who need the benefits get them?
I think theres far more people who dont claim/cant claim because the system works against them than there are people cheating it. And that means we’re doing something horribly wrong.
AND, they do spy. people have had their benefits removed, told they were seen doing gardening and housework, when in fact it was their carer.
Its a life lived in constant worry of being accused of being well - because everyone thinks they know ‘someone’ who might be cheating the system.
I say we’re a bunch of nosey bastards and weed to check our own assumptions a bit more.
hi im on dla and im pissed off being made to feel i have nothing wrong with me,noisey bastards next door both on dla also. im not suppose to live. been grassed in before for going to a shop on my own but the grasses where the once who got prosecuted they didnt like it.
its the dla money that you get people are jelous and dont like you spending money. for me i have degenerative spine disease and have had 2 spine operations in the last 3yrs. both went wrong so im permanently left with chronic pain,and also have protrutions all along my discs. i will never get better but may be in a wheelchair . can i not get out and cut my grass while i can with pain i have to take my time.
ive ben told that gardening would be good for me as i suffer depression,and gardening cheers me up.
hi, theres alot of nosey bastards all on dla, let them spy on me but id mention a few other people who are doing there gardens. i was told aff an old woman who i didnt know who the fuck she was telling me:dont you be doing your grass or youll get your money cut: so id say that was a threat she didnt even know who i was. people know your on dla because you use the bus pass then thats everyone knowing.
my doctors have told me get out and do your garden if you want to but its not that easy just to say that.
You have given a perfect example of how judgemental people are. You have NO idea how any given persons illness affects them. You don’t know if what you see them do is the limit of their capabilities or not. You don’t see what it costs them afterwards. And how many anecdotes does one scrounger generate? If lots of people know of them, the rumours can be disproportionate. If the government really thought that the figures were so much worse than reported, don’t you think they would say?
People are suffering because of nosy, idiotic, judgemental arseholes. Don’t be one of them.
My own mother accuses me of being able to “run around everywhere” (not so, painfully stagger and not that far and certainly not more than a couple of times a month), which must mean there is nothing wrong with me, if I go out anywhere other than to a doctor, hospital or some other treatment. So I don’t any more.