If this isn’t your sort of thing please feel free to skip by! There’s some fun coming soon!
So I had a social worker or ‘independent living advisor’ from the council come round to me today. She left me in tears. Tends to be how every visit from the council goes to be totally honest. They’re beyond crap. I was in a really good mood this morning, I had a little bit of a Halloween blog post left to do and then had planned to get lots of uni work done in a cafe with my housemate. Instead I spent the day completely out of spoons, feeling completely emotionally and physically exhausted.
My first thoughts when dealing with adult social care is always… have these people ever actually met a disabled person ever before? Have these people not got any life experience? Do these people not educate themselves? Do these people not have any personal or family experience ? WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS JOB AND MAKING SUCH RIDICULOUS SUGGESTIONS- do you really think I wouldn’t have tried that SUSAN (psa sorry if your name is Susan) xox
Most days I strive to advocate for disabled peoples rights, honestly if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry, (point proven today) do your best to stand up for what’s right. Most days I probably smiled and nodded like a good little disabled girl but when it’s loads and loads of little things and they all pile up some days I just lose it. These days almost always happen to be related to visits with the council, the government/ benefits, general disability lifestyle and care etc.
As a 21 year old female I spend much of my life battling with patronising male doctors telling me my conditions are caused by anxiety, therefore, it’s so particularly frustrating for me when situations which provoke anxiety arise as I feel so powerless. Disabled people are treated as babies, we aren’t allowed to manage our own money properly, we can’t live ‘independently’ it’s f***** up I’m sorry.
My health causes anxiety and is not caused by anxiety. I would say I am no longer an anxious person at all yet these ’professionals always have presassumptions of young women- when convenient for them.’ However never seem to be able offer any suffient mental health support in a crisis for those who seriously need it. (Anyway just a thought that’s beyond the point!!)
Today was just so exhausting. I, like so many other disabled people- sadly am not in the position whereby I can work, I therefore have to rely on government benefits (WHICH INCIDENTALLY MRS SOCIAL WORKER IS NOT ALOT OF MONEY AND IS NOT ENOUGH TO BE BUYING WEIGHING SCALES FOR YOU LOL) I afford to live without my benefits, direct payments, care support, PIP etc and therefore am not in a position where I am comfortable to speak out about all the injustices in the system due to a fear of risk of losing my benefits and that sucks. (You’d be naive to still be thinking that disabled people don’t regularly have their benefits taken away from them!!)
And then like when I do explain to people just a tiny snippet of what happened in a scenario they’re like OMG that’s awful no way complain & it’s always- oky sure I’ll use all my spoons to complain but then who am I complaining to? About who? Because the problem is with the system. The problem
Honestly like…. Aghhhh when I want to explain to able- bodied people or people who haven’t been through adult social care or PIP what it’s like it’s just exhausting. Honestly, where do we start? How do we show them? It’s not about MP’s and celebrities being in wheelchairs for a day- it’s not! It’s about understanding just how unfair and broken our systems are, seeing how poor our accessibility is as a ‘first world‘ country. It’s knowing how hard it is to access a diagnosis, be heard, be listened to, have a doctor not tell you you’re fat, you’re anxious, you’re fine, you’re this, you’re that only to come back months later severely unwell. It’s the having to repeat yourself hundreds of times because no one will listen to you. It’s the being spoke about or over but never to. Where do we actually start!!
My hat does just go off to people who have been fighting this battle alone for years. Cause I have such a little fab support network and right now I am TIREDDD. My little poorly Facebook pals keep me going!
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