We Are Not Lazy Because We Are On Benefits

My life has not been easy.

I struggled at school with bullying and school work with very little support available to me, and that continued into adulthood, where it interfered with my mental health, and my ability to find work.

The situation caused a variety of very serious problems for me as a parent, past girlfriend, wife, and as a person.

I spent half of my childhood struggling to grow up, and my self-esteem was cut short by the bullying, which also occurred at home in the streets on a regular basis.

I spent half of my adult life escaping bullying and abuse, whilst trying to build a future for myself and my children.

I was an individual with dreams and ambitions of settling into a job or career that I really wanted to do. I dreamed of writing books and magazines, singing, working in media, nursing, and working with children.

My dreams were smashed by the circumstances that seriously affected me, and at the end of it I was left with mental illness, living in several hostels and on the streets, and a repeat cycle of admissions to psychiatric hospitals.

All of these problems came at a cost. I lost my children to the system, family relationships, friends, my ability to access college or university, and my ability to get a job, and at one point I almost lost my life because I was severely traumatized.

Don't judge before you go through it. That trauma still affects me today, even though I cope a bit better now. If it weren't for the DBT I had done whilst living in Bournemouth where I moved to, with a goal of starting a new life and my husband, I wouldn't be coping today at all.

When I first moved to Bournemouth 19 years ago, I moved with the intention of starting a new life. I was supposed to be dusting off the cobwebs, begin my journey towards a career, and looking after my family.

It didn't pan out that way straight away.

I relapsed several times.

I had a lot of fears to deal with, which caused great anxiety for me. I was afraid to make friends because I feared being attacked again, my head kept going back to past traumas, I was afraid to go anywhere by myself, and I found it really difficult to manage my trauma around my family.

Even now, after therapy, I still deal with trauma, and I have a fear of getting on buses by myself.

In 2020, my husband became unwell with Covid-19.

During this time, I was just starting to get on my feet, and taking steps to rebuild my life.

My husband was admitted to the hospital because he was in triple amounts of pain, dehydrated fast, unable to stay awake, and wasn't eating or drinking properly.

He was in that hospital for three weeks because the nasty virus worsened every disability he had. Some of those disabilities were due to cancer treatment when he was very young, and also pain brought on by a car accident, which had also worsened his previous disabilities.

I was terrified to be alone and terrified that I was going to lose my husband. I couldn't concentrate on anything, including my studies, reading or writing, and I had a very hard time doing the essential things I needed to do by myself because of the deep anxiety this had triggered during the lockdown period.

Today, we are both trying to build ourselves up by pursuing writing.

We hope to build into a business so that we can move away from the benefits system, which, in truthfulness pays degrading amounts to someone who has worked looking after others for many years.

I am also registered as a carer towards my husband, and I do not get paid for this. I get Carers Allowance, which is taken from our other benefits.

We also get PIP for our disabilities, UC and the housing allowance element, which also gets deducted from our main benefits.

This might seem like a lot of money to those who have never had benefits, but it really isn't.

Many people struggle to pay necessary things, such as bills. We have little left to cover basic needs.

Once the bills are paid, we are lucky to have received some income from our writing. However, we are not past the stage where we can solely live off our writing income, because we earn below the threshold.

Benefits constantly change. I do not understand anybody who would want to remain on them, and those people committing fraud do not help.

People like me and my husband get a bad name for claiming benefits because of people who commit fraud, and we are often mistaken for doing it ourselves, even though we are not.

We confirm our income with the benefits agency regularly and on time. It might sound strange, but we are actually looking forward to the day when we will no longer have to rely on benefits, and are earning enough to become a tax-payer!

Disability can make it challenging to work.

Whilst I understand that some people can work with specific disabilities, there are others like my husband who would put their health at serious risk of harm by working.

My husband can barely do chores around the house, and he can sit down and write, but it isn't without pain. He also sleeps a lot.

He can do things like washing up if he is sat down, and he can help in the garden, but he can only do very light things with my support, and by sitting every five minutes, sometimes more.

He feels under pressure to do too much because he feels terrible about not being able to work anymore, and worse,

The government make him feel worse, by its plans to pressure disabled people into work.

I get that some people can work, but they are making people like my husband who has been permanently deemed unfit to work after 30 years of hard work as a nurse, feel bad about themselves.

There are also many people with severe mental health conditions who cannot work. I couldn't work when I was unwell. I wouldn't have lasted two minutes because of my severe state of health, and my husband needs me at home so that I can help and support him. I am the sole support network for him.

The point is that we need to stop labelling everyone who is claiming benefits as 'lazy.'

Of course, there are some people who will not even try to find work, but there are people like me who are looking for ways around it, and people like my husband who are looking for alternatives even though they don't have to.

My husband has been told by a doctor that going back to his job as a nurse could kill him because he also has arrhythmia.

Do the government really want to do that to people?

I don't think so, but I do think they need to be more considerate of the people who have a legitimate reason for not working while trying to catch the real ones who are trying to get out of doing as much as trying to find a job with no valid reason for not working.