A Bad State

by lore green

I’ve been a bad way these past two weeks. I feel overwhelmed by everything. I am in so much pain that I can no longer describe it, the sore bits have all merged into one so my whole physical and inner self feels engulfed in fire. I suffer with an unexplainable guilt and can’t process much without feeling a rush of panic. I fear the phone and the letterbox dreading what extra burdens may be sent my way. I try to distract myself from the pain and write/type as it’s the best means I have for momentary distraction and whilst I take small comforts in being able to post, to feel I have achieved something (however small), sentences are taking longer to write and some posts (even small ones) are taking a day or days to write.

I have no doubt that an inward focus on examining the minutiae of my symptoms, on being forced to justify myself, the burden to prove a truth (my innocence), the stress in evidence gathering, dealing with a system that refuses to listen and the uncertainty of the future has made my health dramatically worse and my doctor agrees. The short-term focus of the government cuts, demonstrated by an unfair and dogmatically cruel administratively-led ‘health’ assessments, has meant that I have had to see more doctors and take up doctors time in asking them to write often repetitive letters. In making me sicker it means that I will be using up more health workers time, using more medication and will be out-of the job market longer. This short-termist obsession with quotas and stats (not people) will end up costing the country more financially as well as morally.

The £12billion cuts to welfare and the abusive system of ‘re-negotiating’ illness and disability to fit a short-term political agenda is a phantasm, an illusion that is only delaying future nightmares. The welfare system and it’s deep cuts are one of the cons that the Conservatives have been peddling.

N.B. I have written three times in three weeks to the DWP and still no replies.