Hi, I just discovered this site. I’m hoping to make some friends. I’m stuck at home and lonely. So I’ll tell you a bit about myself. I’m cis female, ace. I’ve been having cancer treatment for quite a while and recently had a stroke. I’m going through a disability benefit appeal. All my friends drifted away when I got sick as I was no longer fun. The last time i saw my friends was at my 25th birthday party. I’m turning 41 this year. I’ve had no social life or offline companionship since then. I worked several jobs including fitness instructor and carer for the elderly, then went to university in my 20s to study philosophy. I had to drop out due to the side effects of my cancer meds.
My life now revolves around endless benefit assessments, last one I was awarded zero points and had my money stopped. I’m currently fighting it but now have no money at all and a maxxed out overdraft. Food bank access is awful so I’m starving constantly. I’ve been learning to walk again since the stroke. Previously I was sporty but now it’s painful to even walk. So I wanted to take up art as a hobby, start learning to draw from scratch but I can’t even afford paper and pencils.
So, life is awful. I need a distraction and someone to talk to. I used to talk to the people on a suicide pact forum (I’ve already made on attempt and often feel desperate enough to try again) but I just got banned from there for trying to sell my meds on there. Don’t judge me please - I was only trying to do that out of financial desperation! So now I have literally no-one to talk to online or in real life.
Obviously I’m a leftist. I’m sick of this world where some people are billionaires while millions starve.
And you never get as long an award period as they say before they start harassing you again. I had to go through a nearly year-long appeal last time. Eventually I was awarded for 4 years. Only, the appeal had taken nearly a year, so they knocked that time off. Then they’re allowed to start assessing you again a year before the award ends. So the 4 years, was really, more like 2 before I had to go through all the stress of another assessment again. It’s so stupid. Multiple doctors have written letters of support saying my condition likely won’t improve.
Oh christ, you’ve really been through it with them then. You have my sympathies.
The whole system is pretty much designed to humiliate and punish those in need for seeking the minimum level of support. It’s a hellish bureaucracy overseen and operated by the exact kind of people you’d see working as file clerks in some fascist government.
You’d think that’d be the end of it, but they’ll continue to argue the case sometimes. I haven’t had it that bad in comparison, but prior to my dad finally dying, they continually argued the toss about his deteriorating condition, including questioning if his mobility issues were really that serious/longterm (he’d lost a leg by that point).
They’ve said so many stupid things over the years to deny my claims. About my vision loss, the assessor once suggested that as I walk around I should just constantly rotate my head 360 degrees, that way I’ll have a full range of vision and won’t be partially sighted any more. They denied me at a previous assessment because i wasn’t having physiotherapy for my stroke. Why wasn’t I having physio? because the stroke happened during covid, and the physio department was closed. I’ve provided letters of support from multiple GPs, a physiotherapist, an ophthalmologist, a mental health team (because I have developed depression and anxiety due to this constant stress), the neurologist and the endocrinologist. And a social worker and a carer. Not enough apparently! So now I can starve for months while i fight this.