I Hate The Cold!

I can't get on with this time of year. There's no getting away from it. The freezing temperatures are only a part of it. There is something that sinks during winter and for three months you feel like drowning. I don't like it at all. It's like the very world is conspiring against you; the hostile cold. It is very hard to stay motivated and energetic during this period, and currently I am neither. Bring on the Spring on, says I.

Thus have I been lax in posting here.

It's been almost a month since my Work Focussed Interview. Fortunately I was able to request a telephone interview, though why that should ever be an issue is beyond me. Typically DWP bureaucracy makes requesting one a pain in the arse; you contact your 'work coach' but you can't because they don't give you the details. Instead you have to keep ringing the call centre to finally get through to someone that will give that information. Sometimes they don't. It's a system that exists to make a rod for its own back - and thus makes those operating it difficult to deal with. Bureacracy begets pointless bureacracy.

To be fair, the woman - let's call her Tracy (because the DWP did) - was actually pleasant to deal with. I can't lie. However the whole thing is such a waste of time. It isn't remotely work focussed because, as we all know, the lsat thing the DWP does to help people find work is to help people find work. They have nothing to offer, but want to check up on you, every six months (so see you again in the Summer I guess), to make sure you're doing it.

That's all fairly banal stuff and mostly obbious to anyone involved with the DWP. We all know this. However what might not be known is that the system isn't just there to check up on you, it's there to make sure you are doing 'something', even if that is to agree to speak to your GP (no matter hiow pointless). If you don't, that is, if you are seen to refuse (it would be impermissible for the GP to say whether or not you have visited them, they aren't - or weren't - allowed to divulge that to anyone), they can stop your benefit.

What this means is that ESA (and probably UC) can be disallowed on the basis that, regardless of your health, you are not 'towing the line'. You are not seen to be 'moving forward'. Insert your euphemism of choice.

This is actually a pretty big deal. I explained the situation to her and she seemed to listen. I don't get the sense she's a troublemaker, like of the tinpot generals that work for the DWP. I explained that the local area has no mental health services and that ancillary organisations such as Second Step (who now comrpise the totality of 'support' locally) are essentially useless. I joined their Peer Employability Programme in October and have had next to no interacts with them nor have the anything to offer. These schemes are cheap to run and offer nothing. It's essentially a scam where they get service users to provide a non-existent service.

I did agree to go back to my GP, in regard of my ceaseless pursuit of an aspergers diagnosis. I couldn't explain to her that just wasn't going to get anywhere. GP's have no understanding of these issues and simply deflect any concern by saying "why do you need one anyway?" as if you can just function in our system the same as people who don't have cognitive/social differences, or that you can just positively think them away. It's a deflection from the reality that there is no help and that the local mental health partnership is, frankly, bollocks. I'm trying to pursue a case for advocacy but that again is difficult since finding people who can stand up and be counted on your behalf without tugging the bureaucratic or procedural forelock is nigh impossible.

So I had to agree that I would visit my GP or furnish the DWP with grounds for depriving me of an income. Does that seem reasonable? I'm essentially being forced to speak to a GP while I know full well that it will achieve nothing. Even if another diagnosis attempt can be secured it will be months possibly longer before anything can happen, with no guarantee it won't be the same people undertaking the same crappy process as before. That process was flawed and they ignored me explaining my situation. I even provided evidence from online tests (proper tests, designed by actual professionals, not just any internet nonsense, I should add) to the GP but they just lost it and gave up interest. There's a weird thing that happens with GP's: their interest seems to vacillate. One minute they offer to help asking to look at what evidence you have and seeming to agree in a way that suggests understanding. But when you return it's the opposite; you might as well be talking to someone else.

Of course I didn't argue the toss with the DWP. I haven't the energy for their bullshit. But I don't think it's right that people can be bullied into talking with a doctor. Nothing should surprise us about their attitude anymore. I haven't been though because there is no point. They can't help.