May 11, 20203 minYour life or my luxury?It is, when I get down to it, fear. Fear because the people who need to care don’t care. Fear because I can’t get them to care. I can’t g...
Feb 1, 20202 minSometimes science is frighteningly wrong: the history of autoimmune diseaseHistorically, women suffering from multiple sclerosis were told that it was all in their heads. Then researchers discovered that people w...
Dec 11, 20194 minPIP: locking chronically ill people out of disabled benefitsPIP isn’t supposed to be about diagnoses. But even with my diagnoses, I have major difficulties getting benefits assessors from a range o...
Dec 11, 20195 minLearning to live with chronic illness without independenceRecently I failed a PIP appeal. I get standard rate mobility - which at one point the Tribunal were minded to take away - but was appeali...
Dec 11, 20194 minPIP: maintaining poverty, removing choiceThe point of extra-costs disability benefits is to meet some of the costs experienced by people with disability, in order to raise them f...
Mar 18, 20195 minWhere does all the money go?I haven’t blogged in a while, though I’ve been meaning to. I’ve been meaning to write about the unexpected expenditures that make a big p...
Nov 22, 20182 minUC budgeting nightmaresI logged in to my UC journal today to see where DWP-UC is up to with paying me the right amount of money. They’ve made one correction – t...
Nov 12, 20186 minPIP appeal – overprepared fraud?I had a PIP appeal today. I’ve been waiting for it for ten months. I don’t think it went well. There are some points in my favour: the pa...
Oct 23, 20183 minMissed telephone appointment – might I be sanctioned?Some moments of sick apprehension today. I remembered, some time after the appointment time, that today was the day for my monthly UC pho...
Oct 18, 20182 minSome good news – I thinkI’ve received some good news. My UC journal today had an letter added to it saying that they have decided that I have limited capability ...
Oct 15, 20183 minThe Tories have messed up my council taxNaturally, when I’ve just got in from visiting my church’s office to ask for help because I can’t manage without paying someone to do hou...
Sep 27, 20182 minMoney mattersDWP-UC has apparently now told DWP-ESA to stop paying me. I have received, in three separate envelopes that arrived on the same day, a le...
Aug 31, 20183 minWhy am I the mediator for ESA and UC?Having phoned ESA a couple of days ago, today I phoned UC to tell them that ESA had told me that they needed to send a form to ESA to say...
Aug 28, 20183 minESA and UC aren’t talkingPhoning ESA again. It has a long spiel followed by ‘please press 1 to continue’. Why not just carry on without having to press 1? After m...
Aug 27, 20183 minUniversal Credit and ESA transferI started my claim for UC on 16th July. I told ESA on the same day, or possibly a day or two before, that I had moved house, no longer ha...
Aug 20, 20183 minUniversal Credit standard shenanigansAfter getting a letter from ESA last week, this week I logged on to my UC journal and found that I had – at last – got an award breakdown...
Aug 15, 20182 minWhat they don’t tell you about council taxApplying for council tax support is nearly as much hassle as Universal Credit. They too want my most recent bank statements, and they wan...
Jul 26, 20185 minWhat they don’t tell you about the JobCentreYesterday I had three (!) JobCentre meetings. • One to show my housing details – the one that in my last blog I’d had to ask my housing ...
Jul 24, 20184 minWhat they don’t tell you about (applying for) Universal CreditI didn’t know when I applied for Universal Credit that they would require three meetings to be arranged within that week, let alone why. ...
Mar 16, 20183 minYes, you are my keeperThe role of friends in disabled people’s social isolation When Cain asked God if he, Cain, was his brother’s keeper, he meant it rhetoric...
