Journey to Jabba's Palace

Sometimes I think living in the Star Wars universe would be more appealing than this shitty old world; despite the prevalence of death stars.

So today is the day. I knew it as soon as I saw the postman hand me the letters. One of those 'I just knew it' moments that represent a sort of mundane clairvoyance.

They don't use brown envelopes anymore, I guess. But the big black "THIS IS NOT A CIRCULAR. THIS IS IMPORTANT!" slogan emblazoned on the front confirmed it; the same as the ESA50 form when that came a few months back.

The 16th of November is the date for my next WCA.

Curiously, and likely the only positive thing so far, is that I now no longer have to dread the post each day - until the next time, when I have to wait for the result of the assessment. A pointless affair really since the outcome is 99.9% preordained. I'm only surprised I passed last time, I certainly can't see lightning striking that favourably twice - and I have to act as if it won't.

It's a bizarre feeling to have to fear something as mundane as an envelope, but the sound of the letterbox snapping and post slapping the carpet has engineered a fear reaction in me. For the rest of my life I suspect that is how I'll react. It could be someone breaking into my home and that wouldn't be as stressful. One sound and that's how your life can change.

Now for the next fortnight I have to live each day as if it was my last because there is a very real chance it could be. I have £1200 in savings, which has meant, for the last couple of years, I have been unable to spend that on things that might actually help me - a decent computer or even a trip to somewhere new. The sorts of things that people who don't worry do - the sort of things that move a life forward. The money is there, but it has to wait for this situation, because if I fail - and I think it highly likely - I will need it to live, if only for a time.

That's the tragedy of it all; those savings won't last very long. A few months at least. Inevitably I would have to go to the Jobcentre that wasn't recently closed and make a claim for Universal Credit and hope that even £1200 is enough to tide me over until that claim comes through - if it does at all.

And then the fun really begins: dodging the conditionality and playing footsie with a psychopath who's only interested in causing problems for people who already have them.

All this begins with a journey, on a November morning, to an assessment centre. I feel like C3P0 and R2D2 in Return of the Jedi as they head to the impenetrable fortress of scum and villainy (not unlike the DWP) that is the sanctuary of Jabba the Hutt. Just like that place, the assessment tower is impenetrable: one must have the proper access codes - and I only have two thirds of what they want, so this could be a very short interview. In lieu of a driving license (I do not drive) you are told to bring 3 forms of ID. I do not have three, I have two: birth certificate and bank statement. That isn't going to change so they will have to accept it. What else can I do? I don't make the rules.

However unlike the two lovable robots, I am aware that I am walking into a trap. Threepio might not have known that he was to be handed over to a master of interstellar infamy, but I do.

Doesn't help me though.

The Fucking Cosh

This is the fucking cosh.

Over our heads, for the sake of some dosh...

What agitates me the most: the thought of losing my income and having to go to the local foodbank. I would starve. I can't eat that kind of food, no matter how kindly the hand that gives it to me. Even then their packages are only intended to be an emergency stopgap for a few days. Sugar is no answer to a nation starved by a ruling elite that doesn't give a damn.

I don't even think they could, were they so inclined. Stones don't bleed.

The local foodbank. Hah! Even that's a lie: without an income how do I get to the foodbank? is the bus service going to be made free for victims of Tory sanctions? Somehow I don't think so.

If this happens I am fucked. That would be it.

This is the black hole people like me - the thousands facing this ruinous pernicious government - face. If you stare into this hole, something very dark stares back and it is the shape of a non existent future. It's a void that consumes you such that there is only one way out.

And we can't talk about that.

Everyday I now have to wait for that brown envelope - or maybe it's camouflaged: the last one was white instead. I knew what it was. I recognised the shape of the enemy. They can't hide from me.

That will be the envelope telling me it's time.

Time to go to that place: the Mount Doom of our time. Here the receptionist ringwraith lives. I shall not pass without three forms of ID. Opening a bank account would be easier. I don't even have three, as I don't own a passport nor do I drive, so she will have to let me pass or...well there's that void I mentioned above. The DWP, compassionate in its wisdom, doesn't care about that kind of situation. Neither does it care if the forced waiting that follows becomes too much for you. This is how the sick are treated. This is the new normal.

The waiting is over when the not-really-nurse-Nazgul calls you in for the interview. At this point it's almost a relief. You no longer have to hide your shame from the strangers in the waiting area, while hiding from theirs, all of us together, huddling in uncertainty to the point of exploding.

If you weren't stressed before, you will be now.

All of this awaits; coded in a few lines of simple text printed on a sheet of paper. There are more warnings and threats than there are instructions and support on this paper. It is not an invitation to attend something positive; it's a road map to your own destruction. It's a constellation of misery that stays in your sight - until the next time, when it happens again.

One letter that changes the world, the outcome of which is largely preordained, insidiously; designed to leave you with nothing. It would, I think, be less arduous to put us in a plane, take us up to altitude, and simply through us out the door. Good luck!

This is the future for people like us. This is what it looks like. Staring into the sun would be less painful.

There is no future. If you can't find anything to help you with this, oh well!

Unfortunately that support simply doesn't exist. For all the kindly intentions and positive rhetoric of those who work in this sector, they have precisely no power. Can they intercede with the dark lords of the DWP? What light do they wield to shine on the shadows within? Would a 'work coach' listen?

Do I even need to answer? Perhaps some might, but that isn't the norm.

If you can't find your own personal Gandalf, to accompany you on this unwanted quest, you will fail. The system will swallow you up and spit out your bones, recycling them for the paper needed to write the incantation of invitation to destruction for the next poor soul. It is every circle of hell in perpetual endless motion.

It will never end. There is no hope this system will change in the foreseeable future. No pause will call a halt to this. The likelihood of a general election is slim, and even that is no guarantee Corbyn will get the 60+ seats he needs for a victory - and that would only be the start of his troubles.

We have to set fire to this world or it will not change. That is the only answer, take it however you want.

Universal Chaos

You sometimes think it can't get any worse.

Universal Credit proves you wrong.

What more evidence is required to show, clearly, that we are not governed. We are oppressed.

This is beyond hypocrisy. This transcends incompetence. This is ideology.

Way back when IDS was at the levers of control he was told that this system would not work. It cannot work: how can you possibly combine, into one single system, a variety of different benefits each unique to specific circumstances. This cannot be done in any way that could possibly simplify the system. All that you would do is make claiming for one reason, whether unemployment or sickness, as difficult as claiming for ALL of them at once, since that is effectively what you are doing.

And consequently the system has failed. As, over four years, since that man promised - with fist pumping certainty - that it would be delivered "on time and in budget". That date was October 2013.

Quelle surprise; it never happened and now, after a slow rollout, it is a walking disaster. It is a pestilence of bureaucracy and indifference. It's Typhoid Mary spreading poverty instead of cholera and patient zero, the new IDS (same as all the rest, probably awakened from a vat where they keep his evil DNA), is nowhere to be seen.

What do the Tories have to offer, as they cling to this like desperate apes: to cut the six week wait to four? How bloody generous! As if that two weeks will make all the difference. Six weeks is the minimum many are having to wait. The system is in such choas it takes way longer for many, not everyone survives either.

The notion this is meant to represent the "world of work" implies this is a positive thing; a transformative (ie corrective) thing. It's about control, but it rests on a fallacy. The implication being that the way the "world of work" operates is itself problem-free. It isn't, never has been; the waiting period when people stop claiming upon starting work and have to wait until their first pay cheque has always been a problem, never addressed. The advice was always to beg borrow or steal from friends/family. Or, if you were 'lucky' enough to have the opportunity, to take a loan!

Apparently you still can. This, if I've read correctly, is about £150. This has to cover at least 6 weeks and so at best is £25 a week for upwards of one person. Even for just a single person that is still painfully little. My weekly budget is upwards of £30 not including bus fares, at least one of which is required to get me to the shop. I need at least 2 bus journeys a week which comes to £13. So we're almost double that.

And it has to be repaid; this means, at best, the claimant, while struggling, has to have the presence of mind to budget the loan, work out how much they will have left even though they cannot possibly know because they won't know when they will get their money, and then budget that, taking into account the repayment. Does this sound reasonable? Of course not and the disaster is playing out all around us: poverty increases, rental arrears, foodbank use.

This leads me on to to the topic of foodbanks. This is a real problem. While there is no doubt those who donate and work in these places are good people, what they give out isn't. Even for three days, people are receiving parcels of complete rubbish. Who is deciding that a bag of sugar, some margarine, a box of sugar pop cereal, some tinned veg and tuna (probably the best you'll get out of it if you're lucky) and some horrible refined carbs in the form of pasta and rice, is healthy? It isn't! People shouldn't have to tolerate this.

No one's expecting haute cuisine, but this is a recipe for blood sugar instability: hypoglycaemia and diabetes. What have we come to when this is how we treat our own?

We have supermarkets, places with security guards because poverty is such a force in society that multi million pound profiteers like Tesco are afraid the masses might want to eat rather than die, that collect donations. Yet they bin huge amounts on a daily basis. Why is it down to the individual customers, already making them their money (often at the expense of farmers and food producers). Why are we content to give away a tin of blue stripe carbohydrates or sugar pops for the poor? This is a horrible situation. They deserve decent meals the same as everyone else. We won't get that while the rich can claim thousands in attendant allowances for not actually attending.

This society is dying on its arse and nobody seems to have the answers or the means to sort this horrific mess out. A pause will do nothing and if that's the best Labour politicians can manage then what good are they? A pause, in the form of no money, is exactly the problem.

I'm afraid that Universal Credit cannot be solved in this manner. But what won't happen is an immediate, charge free, gratis payment to all those affected. These sorts of situations, IT gone awry, take ages to clear up. This all assumes the government has any desire to actually even try and fix this mess. Instead they will cling to their ideology and hope that the situation resolves itself. That won't happen without more misery blood and tears, and lives being lost. That this situation has been allowed to get to this point, when everyone knew it would roll out this way, is beyond scandalous, but there will be no accountability. IDS has gone, the civil service got paid off (unlike those claiming, ironically).

The only answer is to take to the streets. Democracy has failed us, utterly. Relenting on the 55p/minute phone line (if and when that materialises) isn't even the least they can do - and they've given that phoneline to G4S to control! The same people beating refugees behind close doors and raping immigrant women in detention centres. So if you're lucky your Universal Credit claim might end up with a midnight raid from some private goons dragging you off to a secret flight to Somalia or something!

Fuck!

Mental Health Manifesto 1

It seems apposite that I set out what I think should be done regarding mental health and the wellbeing of our society, instead of simply bemoaning the lack of either. Ok fair enough, says I.

Anyone else that wants to add to this list, a set of ideas that will have zero influence politically and will be read by precisely no politicians ever. Oh well!

The support that exists, that I have experienced, feels like it is intended simply to keep people "off the streets". It borrows from the "idle hands" model: keep people occupied to keep them out of trouble, specifically keep them from realising the truth of their reality. That life in modern capitalist western society is, for the vast majority, shit. This is what I mean when i say that these places institutionalise people. Out of sight, out of mind - literally!

Now clearly there is a place for peer support, but that must not be at the expense of providing proper support, by which I mean offering a framework, or at least guidance from properly trained and motivated facilitators. Not just button pushers and bean counters who, at best, might offer some cheap (not really cheap) counselling or the odd mindfulness course.

A structure is needed that recognises the social model for mental health. This means educating people on the truth of the society they live in. This is intended to emancipate people from the oppression of magic thinking which is nothing more than tacit victim blaming.

In my experience, peer support groups are shackled by restrictions on these discussions. You aren't meant to talk about controversial issues because it might lead to bullying. That's understandable, and no one should be bullied obviously, but it ignores the reality: we are ALL being bullied, and those of us who suffer for it need to learn why. The purpose of this is to build networks of support and empowerment.

Why do I want this? Because knowledge is power. It might sound conspiratorial to say, but once this starts happening this power can be directed against our hapless state mechanisms to force change - or at least try. Anything else, in my opinion (and at the risk of being far too reductionist), just maintains the status quo.

Look, I get that a Tory voter with mental health issues deserves support just the same as some wordy and suave anarcho-blogger. But they will need to learn that the Tories they may genuinely support for honest reasons are not their friend. Surely this can be done with kindness and respect. Such a person is not my enemy; the people he supports are. They are clearly not supporting him or her.

We also need to recognise that, while medicalising people who have mental health problems can be counter productive, providing diagnoses is sometimes necessary in the system as it stands. It is not good enough to pretend you are helping someone who needs that diagnosis to interact with the likes of the DWP. That isn't helping them, it's hindering them.

No one should be frightened or stigmatised by a diagnosis. It is not intended as a label, that's just how our shitty system operates. This is all part of the propaganda set by the state that turns the provision of a medical 'sick' note into a 'fit' note; the purpose of which is sinister. It is to ignore the problems you have under cover of a 'can do' self help attitude (see magic thinking above). By ignoring problems we can decide more easily that you don't need help, and by help I mean income.

This is a capitalist society: people need an income. Bottom line.

That provision must be fought for. Going back to services and peer support groups. The staff working for these organisations must stop being neutral. There is no such thing. If you cannot help people deal with the DWP and, if you can't help them fight their case for ESA/UC, then you need to be able to help them find something else. We cannot have people starving to death for god's sake. In this there is no neutrality; by not helping people - or whatever reason - you are part of the problem. I say the same to DWP staff; it might sound simplistic but if you are pushing people into poverty because you are afraid of losing your job then you are part of the problem. This must be resisted and such people must be given all the support and tools they need to empower them to actually help people and resist becoming another tool of Tory cruelty. I say again: we cannot starve people.

That's all I have for now. More to come - possibly. This is a work in progress.

Eleanor Rigby's Lament

As the Chancellor dines with business bigwigs and mandarins, at a £400/head function, I am left wondering how different our worlds are.

How can anyone fail to notice the cracks in our society? The streets are like a warzone now; there's bodies littered all over the place. These were real people once, they still are despite what austerity and capitalism has done to them. Yet, despite their increasing presence, they are growing ever more invisible. I've never seen anything like it.

And yet everywhere I go there is damage and suffering. I attend a mindfulness class with people that also have the scars of a life forced upon them by this miserable system. People like this are everywhere that it seems the norm. It's only the rich ruling elite that seem to be the exception. Unfortunately they have power; the power to ignore us.

I have a facebook and twitter feed full of the casualties of this war on humanity, waged by profit. At what point does enough become enough - for all sides? We can't take anymore, and surely they can't make anymore. We are destroying the planet and in the process losing ground in our own lives. I have never seen anything like it.

What will future generations say about this? How long will it take for the scars of this strange and miserable period to heal? There is so much pain everywhere and nobody has any answers. It becomes a part of you that you have to wear like a heavy winter coat. People are smothered in fog and the grey clouds of opportunity stolen, all to save people who have the most a tiny bit more. Ours is a world where the most popular form of banking is the kind that feeds people - where supermarkets are proud to collect donations from other people but not themselves. Yet this isn't even real food; it's sub-bully beef ration book crap that the desperate must feel gratitude for. I'm not criticising foodbanks, by the way, but the quality of fare certainly isn't healthy - tinned muck, sugar, empty carbs. That would kill me! But what else can these people offer? Good people who have to prop up society on the basis of dietary advice sponsored by biased big sugar! There's no respite for anyone.

And yet these people are lionised in the media. Are we so broken that we continue to buy into the rubbish spewed by the press. Today's Daily Mirror headline cast shame on Wayne Rooney, an overpaid ball kicker, for falling from grace such that he had to work in a garden centre. What does that say about people who do that as a genuine job? Is this the same press that speaks of the unemployed as being ungrateful for not accepting such work?

These are the end times - for something.

Something is dying and it's taking a part of each of us with it. Hopefully there will come an end to this, but it won't be without a fight. The problem is most of us are beaten down and punch drunk. The strength isn't there when you have to fight conditionality laid down by government departments who wield bureaucracy as a weapon clothed in a notion of support. This has to end. It has to die.

Mindfulness

I have a feeling this may drag on. I want to be concise here because there's a lot to cover and, unfortunately, my concentration fades easily.

Mindfulness - the fashionable practice of meditation on the breath or other sensation (hands in the lap, movement of the belly, sensation of body on seat, etc) to stimulate well being, but ultimately the process of becoming aware of the present moment. At the fullest it is rooted in a worldview I'm not entirely sure is as helpful as it is positive sounding. It is my understanding it stems from buddhist meditation practises along with the accompanying worldview of compassion. That's a lovely quality to have, but, at the risk of being crass, it doesn't pay the bills.

Breath meditation is something I have tried for a while, on and off. I usually do it in the morning for about ten minutes. Recently I signed up for a Mindfulness class and the experience of it is oddly more formal than I would like, and I'm not sure that's for the best.

Firstly it's important to state that the person running the course is a well meaning kindhearted person, I feel she is bringing some baggage to this course as she believes in a lot of new agey practises I personally am sceptical of: Reiki, guardian angels, energy healing and crystals. Now, I do have a problem with this because I think it's potentially muddying the waters. I have no problem with people wanting to do any of these things if they feel it helps them - but there's a difference when you bring it into a classroom context. This is because we start conflating the practical reality of mindfulness as a practise, with the new agey belief structures which ultimately, in my humble opinion, leads to magic thinking.

Magic thinking is where we believe our thoughts can change reality. I don't think this is very helpful when dealing with a society that treats mental health abominably and where the government spits on the disabled. It gives way to victim blaming as well as (and this is the crux of this article) being an excuse to deprive society of vital mental health support.

This is exactly the problem with CBT, as experienced by me in dealing with the local CBT peddlers called Positive Step who did precisely nothing to help. Both CBT and mindfulness seem to have a lot in common. They seem to be about deconstructing your perception of the situation, with associated baggage and weight of expectations/assumptions, and seeing things as they are. This means they can be delivered on the cheap with no real thought to long term support. If the process is found wanting by the patient, well it's because they aren't doing it properly. It is no substitute for a decent caring society that helps people find purpose and community.

My problem is that it is too easy to sell this as self help in place of real help. This is why I say magic thinking: if we could just learn to live in the moment then all our problems disappear. But they don't. I will not stop being isolated, unemployed and alone. What will this do to fund the NHS, to bring a vital sea change in society re: mental health. What will it do to reorder society away from capitalism, greed and profit, toward what is good right and vital for a progressive world?

So I'm sitting in a classroom still waiting for the date to be called in for a WCA being told lots of dreamy wonderful fluff about how life will improve if I manage to learn mindfulness. I'm being given handouts which are filled with simple puns and worldplay designed to make me thing "ah, buddha!" (for example: Mind full or mindfulness, was the slogan that accompanied a picture of someone thinking cluttered thoughts alongside someone thinking about a lovely clear blue sky). Each class is ultimately the same because mindfulness isn't something you can expound on indefinitely, nor is it complex - the point is that it is experiential. Telling people that it is important to see things as they are is not a difficult concept, it is however difficult to develop that degree of mental clarity.

In fact I'm not entirely convinced it's possible. Certainly one can, and indeed should, learn how cluttered our minds are - as products of a deeply screwed up environment. We should also probably try practice ways to clear that mind and develop better attention and awareness. But IMHO that is really all it is. It's just way harder to do because of our minds, but noone's really 100% clear and focussed 100% of the time. Again that's magic thinking. It's unrealistic and it is bound to create unrealistic expectations.

So what happens when the course ends? The tutor has a 'teaching assistant', a guy who's been through many of her courses, including multiples goes at Mindfulness! Again he's a nice guy and I hope his experience has been a positive one, but if you have to do these classes over and over because your experience, in a shitty seaside town in a shitty little England shire with no opportunities or support, is such that you need to - doesn't that tell you something?

Aren't these problems that should be solved by fixing our broken society? I fear Mindfulness, with its spiritual veneer, is a sticking plaster, or at least has become one.

For what it's worth, I have a different take on the word 'spirituality'. I am not religious, I do not believe in a supernatural component, be it energy healing or angels. But I do believe that we should develop a relationship with the living world. What do I mean by living world? I speak of the natural flow of life on earth: the seasons, the warmth, the cold, when things grow, when they die. We are not in tune with that and I think we should be. Developing that relationship makes use of methods I would regard as the proper meaning of the word spiritual - and they may embrace methods seen as traditionally spiritual or even religious (though hopefully not dogmatic). So we may mark the passing of seasons or the change of the year or a birthday, or something more esoteric. No angels required.

I'm not sure this article conveyed what I wanted it to, but I'm posting it anyway - as you have no doubt noticed. Enjoy.