Doggy wrote:I share everyone else's frustration with a system which seems to penalise the genuine, hard-working members of society while giving an easy ride to the scroungers among us. I understand your predicament too, Scotty. I can also see the merit and practical difficulty surrounding Highlander's suggestion, but know how hard it can be to make a breakthrough into viable working from home, no matter how good you are at IT, (for example).
Mrs Doggy had a stroke in 2000, at age 42 and hasn't worked since. She learned to walk again, albeit with a stick and eventually recovered the ability to do most things, though much more slowly, with far grerater effort and frequently with considerable discomfort. She can't afford to be far from a loo either....
Because I have a reasonably well-paid job and she isn't 'disabled enough', she gets virtually no benefits, (about £38 a fortnight and a blue badge), but we count ourselves lucky as many others are much worse off.
We have tried many times to find her something she can do, as much for the benefit of meeting and interacting with more people as for earning a crust, but without success. It's hard to describe the damage something like this does to your self esteem - she gets tongue-tied and anxious in unfamliar circumstances, her short term memory can be poor and her literacy and numeracy are badly affected. The irony of it is that she has done a terrific job of bringing up 3 kids and running the household while I was elsewhere trying to pay for it all, yet no-one will trust her with running the till in a charity shop, even on a voluntary basis.
So no, I don't think you're taking advantage of the system. It's there to support people, like you, with genuine need. It galls me that others seem to be able to manipulate it to their own ends, but that doesn't mean people who need support should feel uncomfortable about it.
Don't give up either. There will be something you can do, but I recognise that finding that something can be damned difficult.
That cant be easy mate my cousins mam inlaw is going through something similar herself, albeit she's about 20 years older and from what i can gather she's not coping quite as well as mrs doggy... Life is a git one day we're thankful not to be in some other peoples possitions (say for instance illnesses and all this flooding going on) the next day your back to thinking about your own downfalls like what the fook did i do to deserve all this?
Update on my situation is getting funnier by the day.
Latest is the letter from the tribunal service dated 1st June, it turned up yesterday and i have 14 days to reply from that date
so it needs to go off asap but my doctor who i went to see today says she's waiting for the hospital to give her their report so she can do me a medical report.
A report from the hospital appointment i went to 3 weeks ago, So my doctor is stuttering and my local citizens advice dont have funding to back me up i'm a nervous wreck at the best of times and i have to stand up in court with no backing to fight my case knowing full well they'll only recognise my condition for a year because my wife works so i'll lose my benifits that i didnt want to be on in the first place anyway.
If i had a passport i'd sneak out and lose it then sneak back in like someone else suggested
