Well, a week from now I will be back, or just arriving back, from my medical to see if I still qualify for my Incapacity Benefit. I think I do but sadly there are 3 big reasons why I beleive I am going to fail:
1) I don't sound mad: I honestly believe that the people they bring in for these tests have no idea what a clinically depressed person looks like (not that there is an actual type) or worse has a pre-supposition of what one is. I sadly rarely come across as that supposition. I am coherent, eloquent, capable of stringing a whole sentence together without using phrases like "You ken" or "ken what I mean" (to my non-Scottish readers, ken is a Scots version of the word know) and I don't sound unintelligent. This I think counts against me as I think these adjudicators see Clinically Depressed, and for that matter the mentally ill in general, as incoherent dullards, incapable of basic English. It is a reverse snobbery and it really gets my goat.
2) Friend of mine, who is disabled, failed her assessment. Now she is right to point out that they seem a little more cagey about the mentally ill but her denial of benefits, when she is such an obvious case, doesn't exactly fill me with confidence cos I figure if they can do that to her they could do it to me as well.
3) The Government are on a cull: This sort of ties up the other 2 points really. The Government have set a target of getting 1 million people of sickness benefits and back to work. laudible, even commendable, but sadly it has now become a case of "1 million any way they can". I am painfully aware of how some people use and abuse the benefits system and I agree wholeheartedly with them being found out but what scares me, given the problems I've mentioned above, is that I'm on a hitlist. I know that this is feeding into my paranoia and is aggravating my sleep to the point where I can barely think straight.
So where does this leave me? Terrified to put it bluntly. I am not ready yet to return to the field of work as I still find people much too scary to work with full time and whilst I ahve considered a college course, I've not really found one yet. But if I lose my benefits I will have to work and that will leave me even more isolated and terrified and I am scared, rightly or wrongly, of having a relapse and doing harm to myself again.
So I am a nervous wreck and there is still a week to go.
Wednesday 9 December 2009
Wednesday 2 December 2009
New York Senate Vote on Marriage Equality!
Yes, this is going to be a rant so I am sorry if this comes off as being a bit rabid or even slightly unfocused but I am very disturbed by the events in New York today.
In a saddening but not wholly surprising vote, New York State Senate voted down the Marriage Equality Bill by 24-38. As the Yes vote needed 35 to pass, this couldn't even be called a close vote. So what happened?
Simple - close minded hatred and bigotry won the day with the intolerant trying to sound dignified as they rang out the old arguments to justify the fact that they do not accept that being gay is worth standing up for.
What amazes me about these hypocrits is that they state that they are freedom and equality, but what they really mean is freedom and equality for people like them. If the group being discriminated against were being so because of the colour of their skin, their faith, their nationality or their gender, then I am positive thse self-same Senators would be standing up for these people. This is why I call them hypocrits.
What galls is that America is, supposedly, overseas right now spreading democracy. We all know that was a pretext for things more sinister by President Bush and his cronies but under Barack Obama it was a phrase that at least had a chance of gaining some legitimacy. But how can America, or any country with the same legal position, talk about spreading freedom to other countries when it hasn't got it right back home. This has far reaching consequences as a vote like this weakens America's world view as a bastion of equality and tolerance.
Over the last few years under President Bush, I was becoming very jaded with America (and with some Americans, specifically the right-wing bible thumpers) and would happily make sport of their terrible inner lie of talking justice in other countries whilst not delivering the same at home. With Obama I ahd hoped that it was a sign that the people of America had had enough of such views, and wanted to reclaim the country they loved, a country that they felt should do more than just talk about concepts like freedom and justice and tolerance, but walk them as well, both domestically as well as internationally.
However this vote means one of two things: Either that was a false dawn and the religious right still have a terrible and debilitating handhold on the civil rights and human rights views in America OR it means that the last gasps of theocratic tyranny and abuse of the innocent in America has still to be swept aside.
I desperately hope it is the latter, and that this terrible vote, which has only shown that in the Senate there are 38 very ignorant people (that i hope will be remembered as such come election time) is merely a set back towards the greater goal of proper equality and respect that should always have been given the LGBT community. If it is the former however, then I fear that America is going to tear itself apart and perhaps do more damage.
I want to be wrong. I want this to be a blip on the screen and not a sign of the flood to come. I want to be wrong, but I fear I may not be.
In a saddening but not wholly surprising vote, New York State Senate voted down the Marriage Equality Bill by 24-38. As the Yes vote needed 35 to pass, this couldn't even be called a close vote. So what happened?
Simple - close minded hatred and bigotry won the day with the intolerant trying to sound dignified as they rang out the old arguments to justify the fact that they do not accept that being gay is worth standing up for.
What amazes me about these hypocrits is that they state that they are freedom and equality, but what they really mean is freedom and equality for people like them. If the group being discriminated against were being so because of the colour of their skin, their faith, their nationality or their gender, then I am positive thse self-same Senators would be standing up for these people. This is why I call them hypocrits.
What galls is that America is, supposedly, overseas right now spreading democracy. We all know that was a pretext for things more sinister by President Bush and his cronies but under Barack Obama it was a phrase that at least had a chance of gaining some legitimacy. But how can America, or any country with the same legal position, talk about spreading freedom to other countries when it hasn't got it right back home. This has far reaching consequences as a vote like this weakens America's world view as a bastion of equality and tolerance.
Over the last few years under President Bush, I was becoming very jaded with America (and with some Americans, specifically the right-wing bible thumpers) and would happily make sport of their terrible inner lie of talking justice in other countries whilst not delivering the same at home. With Obama I ahd hoped that it was a sign that the people of America had had enough of such views, and wanted to reclaim the country they loved, a country that they felt should do more than just talk about concepts like freedom and justice and tolerance, but walk them as well, both domestically as well as internationally.
However this vote means one of two things: Either that was a false dawn and the religious right still have a terrible and debilitating handhold on the civil rights and human rights views in America OR it means that the last gasps of theocratic tyranny and abuse of the innocent in America has still to be swept aside.
I desperately hope it is the latter, and that this terrible vote, which has only shown that in the Senate there are 38 very ignorant people (that i hope will be remembered as such come election time) is merely a set back towards the greater goal of proper equality and respect that should always have been given the LGBT community. If it is the former however, then I fear that America is going to tear itself apart and perhaps do more damage.
I want to be wrong. I want this to be a blip on the screen and not a sign of the flood to come. I want to be wrong, but I fear I may not be.
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