Being on disability benefits in a world of Supremacists

I don't resent those on out-of-work benefits as others do - mainly because I used to be on them myself, and know how hard it is to come off them - only to be dependent on new in-work benefits.

When you are fully dependent on benefits you get this 'mental block', which makes you fearful of even applying for another benefit in case you lose the ones you're on because 'they' "catch you out" even if you're doing nothing wrong. You fear every brown letter that comes through the door, in case it is the government telling you they are taking you off the benefits.

If people on benefits were anything like I was, then they want to work. I was on Incapacity Benefit, which was for people who have long-term work-limiting conditions. Because of this "mental block', I felt I could only work a small number of hours, and that was all I could work. Being forced off it because I went from 5 hours of voluntary work to 8 hours of paid work, and then being told that was "proof' that I could work, proved all those fears and anxieties right. Fortunately I managed to convince that employer letting me work 8 hours -- a firm owned by my father -- to let me work 16 hours so I could get tax credits.

As my brother, who was my line-manager, would tell you, I was not the most efficient of people, taking that whole sixteen hours to do things that would take him only a couple. This is part of the process out of the benefit trap -- and it took me over 5 years from when I started at my Dad's firm to overcome this mental block to work full time like others -- but I needed more help and not less to do so.

This is something the Supremacists, as I will call them, don't understand. They think if "disabled' people are in work we don't need any help -- they are wrong. They want us "cured' so we are less of a "burden" on them and won't need benefit. But these Supremacists need to realise, it is them that make us disabled, by expecting us to be "cured' when we can't be.

 
Ability Supremacists by Jonathan Bishop
 

I have a medical condition called "hippocampal scleroses'. This medical condition gives me many of the symptoms associated with the Autism Spectrum. Therefore it makes me "autistic'. Supremacists think that if I wasn't autistic, then I would be less of a thorn in their side, and life would be easier for them. It is this attitude to not accepting my autistic traits that is making me suffer from "autism'. If people were to be more tolerant, like not bully me because I have fixed routines, like eating specific things at certain times on certain days, or calling me names because I hold my views with conviction that I seem overbearing, then I would be autistic and not have autism.

The Supremacists see people with medical conditions that need adjustments as "malingerers' who "sponge' off the state. They think if they could be "cured' or if they were to stop "playing the game' then life would be better for them and there would be less tax burden for them. It is not "playing the game' to want to be yourself and not be expected to be perfect or "like everyone else".

So the next time you hear of someone who is on a disability benefit complaining that they are "too disabled" to work ask yourself this -- Are you a Supremacist that is putting too high expectations on them that is making them this disabled? If they are anything like I was, then their "mental block' is not something they should be attacked for having, but something they should be helped to overcome.

If a Supremacist government withdraws their support because of their criteria is expecting those with a medical condition who they have forced these "mental blocks' onto, to be able to "run before they can walk' then they are part of the problem and not the solution.

The Supremacists who exist in government and as members of the public should not be thinking of ways of how to withdraw financial support from the people they as Supremacists make disabled, but to find ways of redirecting that finance, so it is being using to support us back into work so we can stay in work with that support. With this support to help us overcome the problems associated with our medical conditions, and the "mental blocks' imposed on us, then while we may not be "cured', we won't be "disabled' in the way these Supremacists are making us at present.