About the PM's (Sunak's) speech: Stop demonising us

rita444

Hi I really can relate to Eliza roses comment ,has I too have a grown up daughter with autism ,and her brother who is 30 as paranoid  schizophrenia he is on strong antiphycotic medication ,and sometimes doesn't take it .he's been scectiond twice in the last 2: years he is now stable ,but he can't look after himself ,he dosnt  wash,his flats a mess he's totally disorganised on most days . I accompany him to the shops to get his weekly food .he can also be verbally aggressive to random people in the street . So it really worries me as a mother how would he cope without the benefits .he's on esa support group and pip 
How would he be able to work it's inconceivable as he just wouldn't be able to  cope with people .
  Shame on you Rishi Sunak 

rita444

ElizaRose said:

Hello. I am new to this forum and never really write posts as I am not a computer person. I just really feel for everyone who has written on here about all the anxiety this is causing.

I was recently, very thankfully awarded higher rate PIP for both physical and MH problems, and after finally getting through that soul destroying, horrendous process it feels like it could now just get ripped away again. Since this was announced last week my anxiety has been through the roof and my physical problems have been made a lot worse. The last few days I have just had to stay in bed and have hardly been able to move.

Also, I am terrified for my eldest son who is 24 and has autism and schizophrenia. I have been battling the system and banging my head against a brick wall for him pretty much his whole life. Now I am just too ill to do it anymore. He spent the last four years in and out of various mental health hospitals with psychosis. Twice he was discharged to street-homelessness whilst still very ill with the psychosis. He wouldn't let me help him for fear of "them" knowing where he was and putting him back in hospital again, so he spent a couple of months each time living rough until he got picked up by the police again. I was a wreck and now have ptsd attacks at night because of it, on top of everything else. I did not even know if he would survive. His social worker told me that even though he was still ill, once he became the least ill in hospital, and they needed the bed, they would discharge him. What sort of help/therapy is that? The whole system is broken and completely heartless when it becomes normal to discharge ill people to the street who could be a danger to themselves and others.

After more battles he is now in a rehabilitation hospital. He only has up to a year to be there and has already done four months. I am absolutely dreading what will happen when he is discharged, especially with all this going on. He is not going to be able to just get a job! I know even now he has a work coach phoning him periodically, and although there is no pressure at this time, what will happen when he is discharged? As he is finally a little more on an even keel, I don't want a load of pressure and stress to send him back to square one again as he suffers terribly with anxiety at the best of times.

This barbaric government has no idea about the realities and struggles of living with mental health and any disabilities in the real world, especially when any so called services have been cut to next to nothing. They also have no idea of the devastating impact and knock-on effect on families and loved ones....and now they want to take the little bit of support which helps us towards surviving and trying to have a little normality in life. I am at a point now when I have nothing left to battle with....for my son or me, and I fear if I go down both my sons will too, as we only really have each othe

Jimm_Alumni

Hello, I saw a few people requesting a clip of James on Sky News. Here is a twitter link showing the clip 

James Taylor from disability charity Scope spoke to #BBCBreakfast about reforms to personal independence payments (PIP) 

mrsBB

@Jimm_Scope

awww 👍☺️ thank you so much for taking the time to find that link. I was one of the ones that asked, I spent ages searching for it, thank you for providing it 😀

mrsBB

Just watched, James did a fab job, thank you Scope for all you do 😀 

Andi66

I have just ploughed though that green paper. Good grief. 
I have to fill it out, do I email it. What evidence do you put .

ElizaRose

I just saw an article on MSN from The i saying "Labour to target job centres and PIP assessments to get disabled people into work". It goes on to say "Alison McGovern acknowledged that fixing the welfare system would need "big changes" if Labour got into power." This is all so distressing. I am shaking like a leaf!

Andi66

I've just read it, there just as bad.

ElizaRose

I know. It's becoming really scary.

ElizaRose

rita444 said:

Hi I really can relate to Eliza roses comment ,has I too have a grown up daughter with autism ,and her brother who is 30 as paranoid  schizophrenia he is on strong antiphycotic medication ,and sometimes doesn't take it .he's been scectiond twice in the last 2: years he is now stable ,but he can't look after himself ,he dosnt  wash,his flats a mess he's totally disorganised on most days . I accompany him to the shops to get his weekly food .he can also be verbally aggressive to random people in the street . So it really worries me as a mother how would he cope without the benefits .he's on esa support group and pip 
How would he be able to work it's inconceivable as he just wouldn't be able to  cope with people .
  Shame on you Rishi Sunak 

Hi Rita444. I understand as my son can sometimes be verbally aggressive to people too and he rarely looks after himself, not washing etc. Even in the rehabilitation unit they are getting a bit frustrated with him. He has always had terrible anxiety which is now making all the paranoia worse. They are calling him "treatment resistant".There is no way he is going to be able to just start applying for jobs as soon as he gets out of there. He is also on strong meds but often doesn't take them when out of hospital so will probably end up back at square one again. I hate sounding negative about him as I just want him to be well enough to have some sort of normality and relationship with us but I am just going on his experience of the previous four years.

Andi66

Just read that the woman of labour said about getting the young back to work as well as older women in the 50s who are disabled or carers.
This is terrible.  Work made me ill with copd in the first place.

ElizaRose

Just read that the woman of labour said about getting the young back to work as well as older women in the 50s who are disabled or carers.
This is terrible.  Work made me ill with copd in the first place.

Work made me ill too. I am a woman in my 50s, but there is no way I could do that again at this point in time, however much I would like to escape the guilt of having to claim these benefits. I really don't know anymore!

                   

Andi66

I'm the same , also in my 50s . They have no shame.  I worry about if they take cash payments away,how to pay for things. Heating etc 

Bingo

ElizaRose said:

I just saw an article on MSN from The i saying "Labour to target job centres and PIP assessments to get disabled people into work". It goes on to say "Alison McGovern acknowledged that fixing the welfare system would need "big changes" if Labour got into power." This is all so distressing. I am shaking like a leaf!

Is this what you read?  https://www.msn.com/en-ie/news/other/labour-to-target-job-centres-and-pip-assessments-to-get-disabled-people-into-work/ar-AA1o0VZw

I don't necessarily think this is Labour taking aim at PIP and disabled people the way the Tories are or would if they got the chance. It sounds more like its aimed at improving the system and giving disabled people more opportunities to work. 

We should be aware that the media bias in this country despite MSN being centrist is in the main going to (for now at least) back the government.

One things for sure as said previously. Who would you trust more as regards looking after the disabled? The Tories or Labour?  Having worked for the Tories in a previous life. Trust me. They do not care about the disabled, poor or the working class. 

Andi66

Labour have brought out a manifesto for disabled people, called breaking down barriers for disabled people. It's online 

poppy123456

Andi66 said:

Labour have brought out a manifesto for disabled people, called breaking down barriers for disabled people. It's online 

That's not new, it's from Dec 2019.https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/13130_19-Breaking-down-barriers-easy-read-manifesto.pdf I can't see a date on that but if you google it you can see dates next to them. 

Meg24

I've said before on this issue, the Tory plans would kill me, Labour can't be worse than that...

I did well under the last Labour government, got tax credits & help from Sure Start, my daughter got EMA & a good university grant. I might feel as pessimistic as many about what this current version of Labour might do, but if I had to bet it all - and I do - I'm betting my life on Labour.

ElizaRose

Andi66 said:

I'm the same , also in my 50s . They have no shame.  I worry about if they take cash payments away,how to pay for things. Heating etc 

I worry about that too. Last year I was on lower rate PIP and I could hardly afford the heating as I am always terrified of getting into debt. The cold definitely made my pain worse.

ElizaRose

Meg24 said:

I've said before on this issue, the Tory plans would kill me, Labour can't be worse than that...

I did well under the last Labour government, got tax credits & help from Sure Start, my daughter got EMA & a good university grant. I might feel as pessimistic as many about what this current version of Labour might do, but if I had to bet it all - and I do - I'm betting my life on Labour.

I do agree that on the whole I would trust Labour more than barbaric Tories. It is good to hear how well you did when they were in power before and maybe gives me a smidgen of hope. Hopefully, whatever any of these reports say they would be a little kinder.

ElizaRose

Bingo said:

ElizaRose said:

I just saw an article on MSN from The i saying "Labour to target job centres and PIP assessments to get disabled people into work". It goes on to say "Alison McGovern acknowledged that fixing the welfare system would need "big changes" if Labour got into power." This is all so distressing. I am shaking like a leaf!

Is this what you read?  https://www.msn.com/en-ie/news/other/labour-to-target-job-centres-and-pip-assessments-to-get-disabled-people-into-work/ar-AA1o0VZw

I don't necessarily think this is Labour taking aim at PIP and disabled people the way the Tories are or would if they got the chance. It sounds more like its aimed at improving the system and giving disabled people more opportunities to work. 

We should be aware that the media bias in this country despite MSN being centrist is in the main going to (for now at least) back the government.

One things for sure as said previously. Who would you trust more as regards looking after the disabled? The Tories or Labour?  Having worked for the Tories in a previous life. Trust me. They do not care about the disabled, poor or the working class. 

That's interesting that you used to work for the Tories so have first hand experience of their attitudes towards the poor, disabled and working classes. Hopefully Labour will be more about improving rather than punishing. It's just hard when you see these articles out of the blue as I constantly feel on high alert, panic mode these days.