Well I joined this site driven by a rabid fear of what is occurring and I apologies in advance if this devolves into some anxiety ridden rant. But I too am under threat by the dreaded medical review. But there have been a few comments on the forums on how this newest innovation of ESA is having a devastating effect on those with mental health issues.

I fall in that category having been diagnosed with Bipolar. Which consequently makes me extremely unreliable, in life and anything else I deign to do with my time. So here it is from my perspective. The stigma of this illness also just adds to my struggles to fit in or get work. Last time I worked was when I was seventeen at eighteen I had a serious episode and I have been on benefit ever since. Now at twenty seven I had hoped things would have improved but it seems it all just comes down to managing as best I can. While playing Russian roulette with the right combination of medications. Many of which leave me just above the mental faculties of a vegetable and even a vegetable is more productive due to its nutritional content. It is hard enough at the best of times with out having to jump through added hoops just so I can feed myself and not end up homeless. The whole therapeutic strategy of managing this illness is to reduce stress and limit triggering factors. Now insert the DWP into the picture...

One of my major triggers is anxiety so you can guess my joy at receiving the first of the Atos letters. Which quite prominently in bold told me I needed to respond to this letter in two days of receiving it. Now being the unreliable person I am who does not regularly check the mail the letter was already four days past the time I was meant to respond. The result full blown anxiety at the level the sky is falling and I am doomed to an apocalyptic hell of being destitute and sleeping in a gutter. Making face splatting into concrete from high up seem like a better prospect. The date of the appointment was also on a Saturday, typically a day when none of my support network are around.

Still I gathered up my courage and rang trying to fight down my very strong urge to throw up my intestines and have a heart attack simultaneously. But did not get through. It took me another half an hour to psyche myself up to dial again. I get through to some guy who quite casually tells me to not worry about the bold font implying bad things may happen if I don't respond in two days. I tell him I cant make the time on the letter as I will need my support worker to accompany me. To this he said he had no weekday slots available. I explained how I needed a weekday appointment I think after some explaining I managed to bring to the surface the human being on the other end of the line I am put on hold for a while and then he tells me he will make a note of it and get the appointment changed..

A short time later I get another letter a new date that works for me and my support worker who will drive me to a strangely out of the way location. But no, a while later I get another letter saying that the appointment is canceled due to unforeseen circumstances. For a good number of days I am left in terrible limbo then smashed against the proverbial rocks of disappointment and frustration as the newest letter arrives. Its a new appointment but on a Saturday! I don't have the will to phone up this time and anxiety has dropped me into an anxious depression that is worsening due to stress and the Holidays don't help either as such my anxiety goes into overdrive I enter the depressive phase.

I torment myself by imagining the medical interview a few thousand times and all the worst case scenarios play out in my mind as I have imaginary conversations. I question my own self worth aware of how painful each time it is to explain the illness and the stupid stuff it has caused me to do. I read on this site the questions and experiences of others and find the thought of further interviews a terrifying prospect. What if I cant attend the work focused interviews as I am having an off day, week, month?

I have numerous nightmares and panic attacks of imagining trying to stay consistently employed or braving the job center. Of other benefits messing up due to this one turning to job seekers. Of losing housing benefit or the ability to get my medication for free. Aware I cant consistently even brush my teeth or eat like a normal human being at times other times I am fine. But I know of no job in existence that is flexible enough to allow time off when ever you need it which on average for me is seven good months and five bad months spread at random intervals so just never know. Even my friends jokingly call me the most unreliable person on the planet. None of the questions account for variability, my average day could be broken into three very different average days.

A day when I am one step down from God in all I can do and achieve. I am sure if God showed up on that day I could beat him with my superiority in everything I do. Or alternatively run across parked cars topless making manly poses.

Then there are the average days which are average, where I do average normal things. Like watch TV which apparently is a trap in of itself. I am very good at watching Tv and sitting on my sofa. But this is mainly due to being medicated with out much in the way of desire to do much else. I am at least productive in my local community but that is not an income now is it?

Then there are the average days when I lay in bed trying to will myself to move and freak out if my phone rings or some one knocks at my door. Where the dishes in my sink mock me as they attain furry mold. Making a cup of tea seems like running a marathon up a mountain whilst doing hard maths equations, the distance from the sofa to the kitchen an expedition in of itself.

So what is an average day for a person whose average days change dramatically?

Any way I digress.

The newest letter comes due to the efforts of my support worker but now I cant even take my rubbish out to the bins. The outside world has turned into a hostile place and every one is judging me to be scum. The papers back this assumption up as does Jermey Kyle and I begin to question if I really am a Work Shy scrounger. My mind says yes and such wastes of life should face splat into concrete.

I cant breathe thinking about a busy waiting room and uncomfortable chairs. I slip into crisis mode and freak out. This involves my local friendly crisis team coming out to see me giving me medication which makes me not care so much now. My Gp promptly writes me a note so that the medical now will be done at my home. Still the anxiety remains the date looms large in my mind. So much so I will be seeing my psychiatrist to get some anxiety medication beforehand.

So all in all from my perspective this whole thing is a trauma that I am finding very difficult to cope with. I empathize for any one who does not have a support network of some sort in place. With out their efforts I don't think I would have made it this far and dishearteningly there are more hoops to jump through yet. More judgemental people to deal with and my own mind attacking me. Whilst all the while the whole MP expenses scandal is swept under the rug, seems hardly fair to me.

Catch22 wrote:
Well I joined this site driven by a rabid fear of what is occurring and I apologies in advance if this devolves into some anxiety ridden rant. But I too am under threat by the dreaded medical review. But there have been a few comments on the forums on how this newest innovation of ESA is having a devastating effect on those with mental health issues.

I fall in that category having been diagnosed with Bipolar. Which consequently makes me extremely unreliable, in life and anything else I deign to do with my time. So here it is from my perspective. The stigma of this illness also just adds to my struggles to fit in or get work. Last time I worked was when I was seventeen at eighteen I had a serious episode and I have been on benefit ever since. Now at twenty seven I had hoped things would have improved but it seems it all just comes down to managing as best I can. While playing Russian roulette with the right combination of medications. Many of which leave me just above the mental faculties of a vegetable and even a vegetable is more productive due to its nutritional content. It is hard enough at the best of times with out having to jump through added hoops just so I can feed myself and not end up homeless. The whole therapeutic strategy of managing this illness is to reduce stress and limit triggering factors. Now insert the DWP into the picture...

One of my major triggers is anxiety so you can guess my joy at receiving the first of the Atos letters. Which quite prominently in bold told me I needed to respond to this letter in two days of receiving it. Now being the unreliable person I am who does not regularly check the mail the letter was already four days past the time I was meant to respond. The result full blown anxiety at the level the sky is falling and I am doomed to an apocalyptic hell of being destitute and sleeping in a gutter. Making face splatting into concrete from high up seem like a better prospect. The date of the appointment was also on a Saturday, typically a day when none of my support network are around.

Still I gathered up my courage and rang trying to fight down my very strong urge to throw up my intestines and have a heart attack simultaneously. But did not get through. It took me another half an hour to psyche myself up to dial again. I get through to some guy who quite casually tells me to not worry about the bold font implying bad things may happen if I don't respond in two days. I tell him I cant make the time on the letter as I will need my support worker to accompany me. To this he said he had no weekday slots available. I explained how I needed a weekday appointment I think after some explaining I managed to bring to the surface the human being on the other end of the line I am put on hold for a while and then he tells me he will make a note of it and get the appointment changed..

A short time later I get another letter a new date that works for me and my support worker who will drive me to a strangely out of the way location. But no, a while later I get another letter saying that the appointment is canceled due to unforeseen circumstances. For a good number of days I am left in terrible limbo then smashed against the proverbial rocks of disappointment and frustration as the newest letter arrives. Its a new appointment but on a Saturday! I don't have the will to phone up this time and anxiety has dropped me into an anxious depression that is worsening due to stress and the Holidays don't help either as such my anxiety goes into overdrive I enter the depressive phase.

I torment myself by imagining the medical interview a few thousand times and all the worst case scenarios play out in my mind as I have imaginary conversations. I question my own self worth aware of how painful each time it is to explain the illness and the stupid stuff it has caused me to do. I read on this site the questions and experiences of others and find the thought of further interviews a terrifying prospect. What if I cant attend the work focused interviews as I am having an off day, week, month?

I have numerous nightmares and panic attacks of imagining trying to stay consistently employed or braving the job center. Of other benefits messing up due to this one turning to job seekers. Of losing housing benefit or the ability to get my medication for free. Aware I cant consistently even brush my teeth or eat like a normal human being at times other times I am fine. But I know of no job in existence that is flexible enough to allow time off when ever you need it which on average for me is seven good months and five bad months spread at random intervals so just never know. Even my friends jokingly call me the most unreliable person on the planet. None of the questions account for variability, my average day could be broken into three very different average days.

A day when I am one step down from God in all I can do and achieve. I am sure if God showed up on that day I could beat him with my superiority in everything I do. Or alternatively run across parked cars topless making manly poses.

Then there are the average days which are average, where I do average normal things. Like watch TV which apparently is a trap in of itself. I am very good at watching Tv and sitting on my sofa. But this is mainly due to being medicated with out much in the way of desire to do much else. I am at least productive in my local community but that is not an income now is it?

Then there are the average days when I lay in bed trying to will myself to move and freak out if my phone rings or some one knocks at my door. Where the dishes in my sink mock me as they attain furry mold. Making a cup of tea seems like running a marathon up a mountain whilst doing hard maths equations, the distance from the sofa to the kitchen an expedition in of itself.

So what is an average day for a person whose average days change dramatically?

Any way I digress.

The newest letter comes due to the efforts of my support worker but now I cant even take my rubbish out to the bins. The outside world has turned into a hostile place and every one is judging me to be scum. The papers back this assumption up as does Jermey Kyle and I begin to question if I really am a Work Shy scrounger. My mind says yes and such wastes of life should face splat into concrete.

I cant breathe thinking about a busy waiting room and uncomfortable chairs. I slip into crisis mode and freak out. This involves my local friendly crisis team coming out to see me giving me medication which makes me not care so much now. My Gp promptly writes me a note so that the medical now will be done at my home. Still the anxiety remains the date looms large in my mind. So much so I will be seeing my psychiatrist to get some anxiety medication beforehand.

So all in all from my perspective this whole thing is a trauma that I am finding very difficult to cope with. I empathize for any one who does not have a support network of some sort in place. With out their efforts I don't think I would have made it this far and dishearteningly there are more hoops to jump through yet. More judgemental people to deal with and my own mind attacking me. Whilst all the while the whole MP expenses scandal is swept under the rug, seems hardly fair to me.

Having wrote a most admirable and accurate account of what people with any degree of mental health problems suffer, particularly in your case as someone with bipolar disorder, I feel guilty in offering such a short response to say that you have detailed the situation perfectly, and I am sure that like me, other people with mental health problems will endorse and empathise with everything you have said.

Yes, it says it all, doesn't it?

Don't forget that if you don't get the points, there's still the possibility of getting the ESA on the basis that it would do you serious harm if you didn't get it. (I can't remember the wording, it's somewhere in the guides on here about ESA.)

I wonder how they'd react if you did actually freak out in the waiting room. In my mind, I can see a receptionist getting more and more worried as a claimant paces back and forth talking and manically rearranging all the leaflets. (At least that's what I do when manic.)

Good luck.

Hello Catch22,

One thing you sure are good at is writing, so not the waste of time and oxygen you imply. Remember that J.K. Rowling was in our position once, too. She doesn't need IB now, but I bet she remembers it.

I too am awaiting my next home visit as the last one on the 5th of Jan' was cancelled due to the inclement weather. ATOS rang me an hour after the doctor was due, - to tell me it was cancelled and to expect to hear from them again soon. So thanks for a stressful day waiting, and chewing my nails! (No! I didn't ask if the doctor had hit a tree!)

I failed my previous ATOS medical and fought for 15 months, jumping their hoops, to eventually win the final tribunal and get back to status quo, so I know how you feel.

I think we all read the scare stories here, and on the Internet generally, about what this wonderful 'socialist' government in hand with ATOS, are doing to the sick and disabled, branding us all as cheats, (which is laughable considering their behavour) and yes it is very angst causal.

Try to remain calm collected and make sure you have all the evidence at hand when it takes place. Read all you can relative to your own circumstances here on this site.

I wish us both the best in this war.


Angelica.

Thanks for the kind words, I wish you well in your own battles I am just disgusted at how poorly people are being treated. It's like being a criminal whose only crime is being ill. Any way here is an update.

The farce continued as I was sent another letter stating I had to come in again. This deepened my anxiety and so my support worker rang them to find out what was going on, if I was getting a home visit or not. What I found out was they were making a decision about it and would let me know at a later date, giving no fixed time. This did nothing for my mental health as I now was preparing mentally for two possibilities, having to some how face some places waiting room with people staring at me and judging me. Or the slightly more palatable prospect of them coming round mine to review me. Either possibility provoked anxiety, I went on a cleaning mission and grew increasingly paranoid about the state of my home and the possessions I own. Like my nice tv, would it be better if it were a black and white one with a coat hanger for an aerial? These stupid thoughts went round my head and as time went on my paranoia worsened. I thought some one was spying on me and for a brief time I thought there was a camera in my Tv.

I contemplated how society obviously has no compassion left and they may as well just put me down like a sick dog or gas me in a truck. Then I wouldn't have to put up with justifying my existence, going over my wasted life on forms repeatedly or being looked at like scum. Suffice it to say I became some what suicidal. The thinking moving from just thought to an actual plan.

So I went back to see my Gp and went a little 'weird' in his office, just verbally vomited my anxiety and nearly had a panic attack. He soothed me somewhat sent me home with some heavy chill out medication. A few days later I get a phone call from Atos, they are oddly polite and inform me they will not need to review me at all, for eighteen months.

I get a letter not long after telling me I will not need to attend for a medical examination at this time. One of their full time medical advisers had provided an opinion based on information contained in your file and on receipt of further medical evidence from your GP. With a nice finishing sentence of; 'I do hope that this will not cause you any further concern.' I almost laughed with contempt.

So I guess that's a result, until I have to jump through new hoops, or deal with the next scheme of getting tough on the work shy. The cost to my sanity for these past three months has been enough to send me into a near complete relapse. Others in my building who also have mental health issues are dealing with the same thing, like me some have not taken the experience well. But we are fortunate to have dedicated support to help us through.

Dear Catch 22,

I have just read your two posts and heartily wish (sorry about the split infinitive) that I could applaud you over the internet. This was so wonderfully and eloquently written. I feel that every MP and possibly G.P. should have a copy. You are an excellent and very intelligent writer.

My grandma was bi-polar and I could be said to be Uni-polar I suppose. Suffice it to say that you echo much of what I think about this whole benefits situation. I am currently going through my 6th I.B. review and it is not doing my mental health any favours at all!

All the very Best
Lesley