Saturday 27 April 2013
The new benefits system and mental healh treatment
There are many things in this blog post that I am not happy to be sharing but I feel strongly that people need to tell their stories about what the benefits system is really doing to people. So I have decided to ignore everything in me that is telling me not to post this, and post it anyway. I believe that keeping quiet is only giving this government more power and I no longer wish to allow this government to continuously tell lies about what they are setting out to do with the benefits system-so here is my story-please do not judge me too harshly lol
This has resulted in me claiming ESA and DLA. I finished a degree in Psychology and counselling in May last year and gave myself a year to recover from the mental health issues I have had for ten years now. I wanted to get better, get a job and save to do my masters, so that I could eventually become a counsellor and help people in my situation.
The problem I have found with this is two fold. First is actually getting treatment to suit me. The only treatment that seems to be available on the NHS is CBT-which I have previously had to no avail and medication, which the side affects of are always too much for me to get through. I have found that I am now blamed for my illness and viewed as someone that "doen't want help" which is incorrect. I do want help and I do want treatment, I just want a treatment that suits me. Any mental health professional knows that no one form of therapy suits every single person. Yet this is no longer coming across. CBT is cheap and fast and therefore the only form of therapy that I seem to be able to get. While the figures for the success rate of CBT may look impressive at first glance-at around 49%-this still leaves 51% of people that make no improvement throughout CBT treatment. So I fail to understand how this can possibly be seen as a treatment that helps all.
Further to this on follow up studies a year after treatment the success rate fell to 39% and two years are this fell to 18% of people successfully helped through CBT-it also found that during this period some paitients had received further treatment. Also the majority of the 18% were the ones that scored at the bottom end for meeting the criteria for an anxiety condition. Which suggests that for people with a more severe case of anxiety-such as myself-CBT is of absolutely no use. Yet this seems to be the treatment continuously pushed upon people. I myself have often felt hopeless as a result of CBT not working as so many professionals will tell you the only time it doesn't work is when you don't put the effort in-not really a good thing to say to people with mental health issues-especially when the failure rate is so high.
The second wall I find I face in my recovery is the constant badgering I get through the benefits system, to go for medicals, fill out medical forms to prove my illness. I am constantly found to be in the medium term and work can be considered in 6 months. This means that while 6 months sounds like a long time in reality this drops to 4 months before the whole process starts again.
I will receive a medical form 2 months before the date that my review needs to be done. I filled it out, sent it back (filling out the form on its own is extremely stressful because you have to admit to yourself all the ways in which your illness affects your life-I have found this has made me a lot more depressed than normal).
I sent it back and had a very worrying two month wait until I heard anything. This sent my anxiety through the roof and I became extremely irrational. I lost friends during this period as I became paranoid and starting attacking people-verbally-that I care about. In the end I ended up at the hospital as my friend was worried that I would do something stupid. I had become suicidal at the time and the thought of taking my own life became very rational to me. After months of not self harming I began to self harm again.
I eventually received a letter to say I am in the work related activity group, which means the DWP consider me to be someone who is ready to work on returning to the work place. However they do not wish to give me any mental health support to get there. They make no allowances for my illness, I get an appointment for my meetings with my advisor at Cheshire training and I have no choice but to attend-despite the fact that I can have days when I am so anxious I find it impossible to get out of bed, let a lone out of the house! I cannot guarantee which days these will be and therefore I may be unable to attend on the day of my appointment, yet if this happens I get sanctioned.
I did a degree while ill and not only did I find it a lot less stressful and worrying but I found they were more accommodating to my illness. They made allowances because of my illness, I was under a lot less pressure there than I am now. To me this makes no sense. How can it be an academic setting is more supportive of an illness than the benefit system that s set up to support me during my time of illness?
The only way to describe what they are doing is it feels like they are poking you constantly saying "are you ready for work now?" "you need to get out to work" "you need tough love" "you should be at work by now" while at the same time giving me no suitable treatment for me, to get me there!
The way they are treating people like me is not likely to get anyone out to work, it is not tough love, there is no love involved in any of this. The compassion has gone out of this government and again the poor are being made to pay. I am one month off of my year deadline and I am a lot worse not better. This new system is not only, not helping me back into work, it is also guaranteeing that I will be unlikely to be well enough to return to work for a very very long time!
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Your story could have been written by my daughter. She also has suffered long-term with mental health problems, and like you she has found CBT of no use whatsoever. In fact it took years for her to be able to actually feel strong enough to go into counselling, only to feel let down when it didn't help.
ReplyDeleteShe is also constantly being sanctioned for not being able to attend WRAG meetings...Nobody seems to understand how much this illness rules your life, and no understanding is shown at all.
I can only wish you, and others in a similar position (and there are many I'm sure) all the luck in the world.
I'm fighting the Benefit system too, although my problem is physical (having said that it is beginning to affect me mentally as well). I really don't know what we can do about the whole thing...But I'm not about to throw the towel in yet!
I'm sorry to hear your daughter and you are both having to fight the system. I hope something changes soon so that people like you and your daughter o not have to constantly fret over whether they will be secure in your finances.
DeleteI know how hard it must have been for your daughter to accept therapy, I was the same.
From 1990 ' to 2007 ,i never went out of the house once ,recurrence of agorophobia I had for a brief time while younger ,in 2007 ,through other medical maladys ,i went from the house for treatment,this cured helped with the agoraphobia but the last year of the stress ,through the atos atrocities ,i am once again ,suffering from severe panic attacks and once again drugging myself up with tranquillisers ,which I stopped taking 5 years ago ,vicious circle and rock and a hard place come to mind.
ReplyDeleteI can completely understand this. I used to be comleteu agoraphobic, I decided to push myself when I decided to go to college and I started to go out of the house a lot more, I now feel like that was all pointless as I am back in the same boat now, due to the lack of treatment and the stress of the benefits system. I hope you start to feel better soon.
Deletethis could have been written by me. im going through exactly the same. and its only making more and more stressed, anxious and depressed. ive been depressed since the age of 9 but wasn't diagnosed until I had a breakdown when i was 24.I am yet to find a medication that helps me and im now 36. the more the government do this the more I think about trains and bridges!! and I know how that sounds but im hanging on by my fingertips and have got my next assessment on 7th may. and this time there will be the reconsideration period where they so obviously expect people to just give up because they need money. the problem with that is ... last year when I went through the ATOS nightmare I wasn't allowed to claim JSA because my GP had signed me off as unfit for work. So WHAT do I claim? or do I just jump infront of that train and hope my daughter gets looked after by rich people with good hearts? not sure if there is such a thing anymore
ReplyDeleteThere are hardship payments we can apply for if we have no other income but this is low, £54 to be exact. I honestly hope at your next assessment you get found unfit for work and given the support you need.
DeleteSo sorry for all of you - I am going through the same thing with panic attack at ATOS medical I was so scared.Now put in WRAG group - feel they are asking me to play Manchester utd when I cannot even take on the local boy's league.From a few months ago I feel more depressed, anxious and hopeless than ever.
Deletemy hubby sufers with it as well as split personality they have no idea how much it afects the person there selfs and there familys they need to get proper people in to do the tests not an IT company who know nothing about mental health as its not a seen illness so it can be worse then a leg missing sorry but had to say it as iv cared for my hubby since i met him 13 years ago let just hope they sort it soon xx
ReplyDeleteI completely agree, they need to have people that know about the condition they are assessing for the assessments to be fair and they also need to stop separating it all. I hope your husband finds the support he needs and they stop hounding him too.
DeletePlease try the Charles Linden method - it can work where CBT fails.
ReplyDeleteThank you for being strong and brave enough to post this Charlie, I can empahise with just about all you have written.
ReplyDeleteI have been unable to work for many years now, due to a whole host of mental health problems stemming from a severe breakdown I had while at work due to stress and pressure my Directors put upon me to achieve sales targets, while also being expected to work about 70-80 hours per week.
Even though I have just turned 60, I do still want to recover, if I can, to a position where I can face going back to some sort of work. After waiting for nearly 18 months to get some one to one help from a counsellor on the NHS, I finally received my allotted 6 sessions. Some progress was made, mainly on the social anxiety front, but my Counsellor said that my problems were so numerous and deeply-seated that I would require extensive on-going counselling. Unfortunately, due to government cutbacks, this was not going to be available to me on the NHS. She recommended a Counsellor from MIND who would give me discounted sessions at £20 per session.
Because I really do want to get better, I have been paying for these sessions out of my benefits. Unfortunately, the transfer to the new Counsellor coincided with assessment by ATOS for transferring form Incapacity Benefit to ESA. This really threw a spanner into the works as far as further progress was concerned because all my sessions consisted of dealing with my fears about the upcoming ATOS assessment and my paranoia about being forced back into a working environment before I was ready.
The ATOS nurse at the assessment obviously didn't take on board the seriousness of my agoraphobia because in the copy of the medical report she said I had acrophobia (fear of heights) and awarded me no points for not being able to go to places alone. I was placed in the Work Related Activity Group and I came very close to suicide during the nights and days after I received that verdict.
I am appealing against that decision, but the appeal is likely to take up to a year and in the meantime if I do not attend Work focussed meetings at the job centre, I am liable to be sanctioned. It feels a bit like the way they tried witches in the Dark Ages, throw them ion the river, if they sink they are innocent, if they float then they are guilty. If I attend these meetings, then when my appeal eventually comes up they will say that I managed to attend the meetings and so it was right to put me into the WRAG. If I do not attend then my money is likely to be stopped. So I lose either way.
To make matters worse, I am now having to stop my counselling sessions because I am having to find around £60 per month bedroom tax. So, even though I wanted to get back to a state where I might be fit to attempt work and was prepared to pay for my treatment out of my benefits, the government have prevented me from doing so.
There is not even a light at the end of the tunnel. I am due to have another reassessment early next year because the ATOS nurse suggested I might be recovered enough to work by then. So if I win my appeal, I will have but a few months before the whole process starts all over again.
I know it is an over-reaction, but I am paranoid about being put back into a work environment when work caused me so much damage last time. I worked very hard for nearly 40 years, in fact I worked too hard and it led to my life being shattered. I would seriously prefer to take the easy way out and commit suicide rather than be forced into a work situation that I know I will not be able to cope with.
I have three letters written out, one to my family, one to my ex and one that I am asking to be sent out to newspapers and social media, explaining how this heartless system has driven me to the point of despair. I hope they will never be read, but I fear that it will only take a missed WRAG appointment leading to sanctions, a failed appeal or another endless round of ATOS assessments and appeals, to push me over that edge.
Samm
ReplyDeleteThe reason a university will give you lots of support boils down, quite simply, to money. A university will not receive its funding for a student until the student has completed the whole course, so it is in the universities best interests to give support and guidance to it's students in order for them to pass the course so that the uni then gets it's fees. The government on the other hand, save money by getting people off the dole and save even more by not giving them any support whatsoever. It is this government who perpetrate the myth that all people on benefits are scroungers and this is simply not true. They doctor the figures to make it look as if they are getting people off the dole when quite clearly they are not. My neighbour works for the job centre, even she cannot justify the stance and says that the people claiming benefits where they are not entitled to them are in the minority. Sadly until the people who don't bother to vote get off their bums and vote the devisive tories out, people will have to suffer this continual harrassment.