I sent the following message to the Job Centre by way of a journal entry. I can’t remember the exact wording but my messages do tend to be quite wordy.
Hi, Could you forward this letter to Dianne please. It’s to ask for an earlier appointment. Thank you. xx
3 o’clock in the middle of the night, Thursday 19th Jan 2023
Another sleepless night. I can’t switch my mind off. I ended up in Hospital the last time the DWP regime put me through this and ended up on two lots of meds with a sick note from a real doctor telling me I am not fit for work. The Hospital told me my condition was triggered by the enormous pressure being exerted by the Job Centre which caused so much stress and anxiety that I was physically affected.
When I rang NHS 101 for advice that Sunday night they sent a paramedic ahead of an ambulance. After being hooked up to monitors he told me I had to go to Hospital, there was so much electrical activity that my heart rate was 190 beats per minute and very irregular causing me to feel weak, dizzy and about to pass out.
The look on my sons face made me feel I was letting him down, I knew I had worried myself into that state. I didn’t think I would be seeing him again. I am pretty sure the pills are working although here I am now, not able to sleep and with an uneven heart rate again. It feels like it keeps stopping every 3 or 4 beats for ages at a time. I feel scared, weak and dizzy.
I had already told the Job Centre I couldn’t go back and wanted nothing more to do with them It just wasn’t worth it for £65 a week.
Before that Sunday I had been having panic attacks as my ‘Work Coach’ told me how useless I was. My brain shut down and I couldn’t speak, I’m probably on the autistic spectrum but managed to cope somehow in the past by just avoiding any form of confrontation and never arguing. Well I can’t argue anyway, I lose the ability to speak! I have always felt compelled to do exactly what I am told by anyone in authority and when that conflicts with my own sense of what’s right and wrong I think it causes anxiety. It’s like trying to serve two masters. Unfortunately out of work workers can’t avoid the Job Centre regime of dehumanisation, belittling and mental torture that ‘work coaches’ must be specially trained to deliver. Once my Work Coach found the trigger She picked up each interview where she had left off then started extending the 10 minutes to 20 minutes because she wasn’t satisfied with my lack of ‘cooperation’.
I get £65 a week help from the state by way of Universal Credit but luckily I also get a Forces Pension of just over £100 a week, they can’t touch that. They have ruined my health for the sake of £65 a week. I am supposed to report to an assessment centre in Sunderland in a few weeks so they can prove I’m fit for work and the doctor/Hospital consultant are incompetent liars. I don’t know how I will cope, it’s not worth risking being put in Hospital again.
The appointment is on 2nd February. I didn’t ask for an assessment and have never said I can’t work, just that I am not prepared to spend 35 hours a week looking for work I have no chance of finding nor was I going to lie about it. I don’t have any experience in anything other than the things I have done in the past and at my age, 64, I can’t imagine any employer taking the risk of hiring me for anything even if training is not involved. I know what I am capable of by now and I know what will put me into an early grave.
I do have some talent as a writer and researcher though and as you know I am working on a voluntary basis and have been booked in for a Pod Casting course run by the BBC and I will be contributing to community radio broadcasts. I have also accepted the role of Equalities Officer for the North East region (The Breakthrough Party). I am also writing books and articles which will eventually set me free from the oppressive and dehumanising regime of the Job Centre.
Could you bring our next appointment forward please Dianne, perhaps next Tuesday, so you can advise me. I’m worried sick. As you know my son helps out and says he wants to do more and that I should just stop taking the regimes money. He worries about what the regime does to unemployed and disabled people. We both thought I would die that last time and the pills don’t help under certain circumstances.
Well fancy that.
it’s Monday 23rd Jan 2023 and I’ve been to the Sunderland assessment centre with a friend who asked me to go with her for support where I found the Nurse Practitioner was a real properly trained Nurse. He was really nice and seemed genuine. He said his job was to just gather a little information about the medical condition and not to assess anyone, The Job Centre regime does that.
My friend has been suffering from low mood, stress and anxiety and has a sick note but has also been harassed by the Job Centre who said she had to fulfil all of her commitments sick note or not or there would be ‘consequences’. The JC told her the sick note meant nothing!
The Nurse Practitioner was disgusted and said they shouldn’t be doing that. The problem is they do do that and it’s deliberate. I wonder how many people are too scared to go for their assessment. My friend wouldn’t have gone if I hadn’t talked her into it and actually went with her. She almost chickened out and it took a good ten minutes to calm her down and get her through the door when we got there.
90% of people who are sent for an assessment are sick with their nerves the Nurse Practitioner told me. Pills are not a magic bullet and can take a couple of months to start working. When a doctor says someone is not fit for work they are not guessing, there is science and training involved. The only reason anyone is sent for assessment is to create fear and worry in their victims. The Job Centre regime of constant harassment and oppression is itself making people ill. It’s an attack on Human Rights which is designed to act as a warning to others not to risk becoming unemployed. In other words ‘Your job might involve long hours, low pay and humiliation and ill treatment by your employer but your crappy job is better than being on the Dole. This is the true meaning of the fascist slogan ‘WE WILL MAKE WORK PAY’
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