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Thankyou so much for this award from Laura – I feel very honoured to be nominated, and not a little relieved that I don’t have to spend several hours tearing my hair out over trying to find other nominees and do all the links so that they actually work!

Thanks to Laura – check out her blog at

http://bipolarforlife.me

L. X

19 thoughts on “Warrior Child Award !”

  1. The disability consultant has a blog at lindanee.wordpress.com. She has a specific category for “UK Issues.”

    Searches you can use on my blog include Unum and “UK” or “ATOS Healthcare.” Here’s an example:

    https://painkills2.wordpress.com/?s=Unum+and+UK

    Other search term examples would be “Work Capability Assessment” and “Department of Work and Pensions.” If you need help searching for a particular subject, just let me know.

    Hope you’re holding up well under all this pressure. 🙂

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    1. Thanks, Jo. I’m not eligible for ESA, which is what the Work Capability Assessment is part of, because B got too worried about me living on my own so moved in to keep me safe. But meant I went from the Support Group (where they don’t insist that of course being horribly sick and disabled and throwing up all day won’t stop you working, so fuck off and stop trying to claim money) to not getting any of that benefit at all. But I’ll look for DWP and PIP stuff, and see what she says.

      Hopefully, my region is not going to be covered by ATOS, mostly because they screwed up too badly for anyone to cover it up. The suicides and deaths from their completely wrongly determined examinations were horrific. One man suffered cardiac failure in the car park of the examination building, after the stress of the medical exam by an ATOS “health professional” and died. The family received the letter telling him he had been found Fit For Work on the morning of his funeral.

      Mind you, we don’t yet know how the replacement bunch, Capita, will perform. The forms all sound friendly, but you know they have to stick to targets, and the name of the game is to disprove as many claims as possible.

      Thanks for asking, I’m touched, but no, I’m not doing a great job of holding up under the pressure. I’m trying and trying to organise the right paperwork, sort through previous apps, etc, but apart from one burst of two hours a couple of days ago, when my brain was working properly, I’m just struggling and feel like I’m wading through wet concrete in lead boots, and my brain is back to that useless lump of jelly again. I can’t think. I can’t organise. I can’t do what I need to do. So, I am struggling with that.

      Thanks for the info, and the kindness 🙂 I really appreciate it. X

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      1. I spent months and months trying to respond to the termination of my LTD benefits, so I know how you feel. I had so much to say but I couldn’t organize it in my mind. Doesn’t matter anyway because Unum is allowed to do whatever they want without any consequences. At this point, I’d have to hire an attorney to fight back, but I can’t afford that. Our justice system is only available to those with money. Makes me so furious to think about it… It’s just so unfair that you need to spend money to meet the terms of a disability insurance contract, and if you don’t have the money, too bad so sad. I had a couple of months where I was worried about having enough food to eat because of the decrease in income, but I think I’m doing okay now. Still, if I had those benefits, I’d be able to access medical cannabis. Grrrrrrr….

        Sorry for the rant. 🙂 Let me know if I can help. I’m pretty good at researching and proofreading.

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      2. Thankyou, that’s very kind of you. I know you know how I feel – ATOS and our glorious govt have been beyond the law, and our rights to Legal Aid (the free stuff because we can’t afford the other stuff, same as you) got mysteriously abolished so we have no way of fighting back, either.

        Why do all the systems claimed to help people like us just end up penalising us for being ill? X

        Liked by 1 person

  2. Keep in mind that you’ve only been quiet for a day or two, while some bloggers go quiet for weeks or months. Or disappear altogether.

    Your nightmare to keep proving that you’re disabled happens to all of us. In fact, I recently lost my (private) long-term disability benefits because I couldn’t afford to see more doctors to update my status. But here in the states, the Social Security Administration doesn’t have the funds to research each claim like you’re describing. Unfortunately, we don’t have an Indefinite Award, so that doesn’t mean our claims couldn’t be scrutinized at any time. Seems like your government had to give your disability administration lots of money to conduct this work, which doesn’t sound like much of a savings to me.

    Roach Saga, Part 3: I am happy to report that since I laid down the Borax, I’ve only seen one roach, and it was really, really dead. Most roaches that I find are still kicking a little, if not running marathons. So far, so good!

    Hope you feel better soon. Well, as good as can be expected. 🙂

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    1. Yeah, I know, is why I was surprised anyone (other than the lovely people who’ve been nominating me and wondering why I haven’t done anything about it yet) had noticed I was being less bloggy.

      Is it like that in the US, too, then? Our system was hard but much fairer until new govt got hold of it. There are three ministers who make the rules up as they go along, and seem to not give a shit. There have been suicides due solely to the distress caused by refusing or withdrawing the help that sick and disabled people need, and deaths in medical examination centre car parks following gruelling medical exam (usually performed by a physiotherapist and not a doctor, never mind someone who has any experience of living with whatever condition(s) you have. I think these men are probably the most hated men in England. Every time a new criteria is met, they change it to make it harder to meet. They lose more than 40% of the appeals brought against unfair decisions, and yes, it costs them way more money than they expected to save. When they lose appeals, they go back into parliament, change the law, and back-date it to pre-empt the court’s ruling. The whole thing sucks.

      I’m truly sorry that you too are subjected to the stress, distress and humiliation that we are here. No-one should have to go through this.

      And just to make everyone’s jaw drop in disbelief, our PM had a disabled son, so he of all people should have some sympathy with disability. But then, it probably didn’t affect him very much in terms of understanding how much care his child needed or how much pain he was in, because he will have had staff to take care of all the unpleasant and undignified bits.

      Makes my blood boil. I have a new understanding of Guy Fawkes.

      Our “free press” (ha!) don’t help, because they largely portray chronic illness and disability “claimants” as scrounging moaners who are just very lazy, and all we apparently need is to be forced to work, and then all our illness and exhaustion and pain and vomiting and depression will magically disappear. If you have a partner, you aren’t eligible for any “out of work but looking” or “out of work due to illness” benefits. You only get those if you live alone. My partner can’t get Carer’s allowance (which is anyway a very small sum of money a week) because he’s self-employed and they don’t like estimating hours of work a week for self employeds. I think it’s something like 20 hours a week and less than £100 a week earnings to qualify and get something like £30 a week Carer’s allowance.

      The new chancellor of the exchequer just announced in his emergency budget that all working age benefits will be frozen for the next four years. Which, tbh, is better than we were expecting, but I suppose he thinks that he can get enough of us off disability and sickness benefits that atm he won’t have to resort to making it taxable, or reducing the amounts paid (which aren’t enough to cover even the mortgage, even at top rate benefit and lowest mort interest rates).

      I think the thing that pisses me off the most is the way that the law keeps judging against them, so they go back and change the law, and back-date it to before the trial date. I don’t understand how they can be allowed to do that.

      I usually say that I wouldn’t wish any chronic health or disability through chronic health conditions on my worst enemy. But I think I could be persuaded to make an exception for these particular ministers. If they could understand what we go through, they might have more sympathy or empathy. They have no idea what it’s like to live in a body that is not healthy, normal, energetic, vital, or comfortable, and far less about living with depression or anxiety, or other mental health problems.

      L. X

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    2. And yay re Borax vs Roaches! I must have missed parts one and two, this is the first response I’ve seen!

      I used some on my gammy feet the other night, and it does seem to have got rid of the foot fungus……rubbed it on wet feet, left for ten mins, rinsed off, no flaky, manky, athlete’s foot skin, quite amazing.

      Loads of info online re diff uses, everything from replacement for shampoo to cleaning toilets! I bought a kg of it for about £4, which seems v cheap to me.

      Also, I think I said, it claims (because of Boron contained in it) to resolve at huge amount of inflammation based conditions if you dissolve it in water and take X amount a day, starting low and building up as detox effects can be v unpleasant if too many toxins get released from fat cells too fast – liver can’t cope, headaches, pain, nausea and vomiting will happen at too high a dose, same as with MSM and other detox agents. So am on low dose ( eighth teaspoon in litre water, 100ml of that drunk throughout the day, you titrate gradually up to a rounded teaspoon in a litre of water, but diff sites say different things about the higher dose, some say take 3 x 5ml a day, others the full 100ml, so am going to see how I go as to how much I increase my basic solution to. Had one morning when I felt quite normal, and got through that pile of paperwork, but that hasn’t continued :-(. I need it to, or I won’t be ready for the reassessment when it comes. Was wondering if it would do anything for you. Says it rebalances hormone production, fixes causes of inflammation, all sorts. I thought I knew about boron, but looking at all this borax info, obv I knew sod all! So thankyou for having roaches! Lol.

      L. X

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      1. The Roach Saga began on my blog, then traveled to Kat’s (end of comment section):

        https://lookingforthemissingme.wordpress.com/2015/07/04/roaches-borax-is-the-best-to-get-rid-of-them/

        And while it’s nice of you to suggest boron might help, there’s nothing that can be done for me. Nothing will fix my jaw joints or decrease my pain levels. Although I’ve tried “natural” alternatives in the past, nothing really helped, and I’m just not willing to spend any more money (except for bud).

        Liked by 1 person

      2. I appreciate it must seem pointless, but bear in mind borax and boron both v cheap, and I reversed severe osteoporosis with boron (& D3 & K2, D3 makes calcium more available to body, K2 sends it to bones, & boron/borax carries the instruction to repair damaged bones and joints, all are dose-dependent). Really depends on what the damage is as to how much of each you need.
        Also, did I talk to you about DLPA? Binds to morphine receptors in brain, so natural pain killer. And helps mood, not sure if via pain relief or other, my Oramorph doesn’t improve my mood!

        Is fine if you don’t feel it’s worth a go, I have no axe to grind or anything to sell, & I won’t be offended I’m just keen to help try to alleviate at least some of your pain 😃😃😃:-) X

        PS RDA’s are always way way lower than what is needed as any therapeutic dose, Big Pharma makes a huge scary issue out of taking therapeutic amounts because guess what, it would reduce their profits too much.

        Liked by 1 person

      3. -Glad that the roach saga is coming to an end, with Death To All Roaches via Humble Borax. Must be v satisfying to see them dying off! Victory is yours! (Cue evil laugh) Mwahahahaha!

        Seriously, it must be such a relief. Who knew borax could do all that? (Well, apart from Kat, and thank God she shared!) Brilliant!

        Liked by 1 person

    3. And the dept in charge of benefits has outsourced the medical exams and initial claim assessments to private firms, whose objective is to hit and not exceed a specified number of “passed” applications. There are so many a month they can say deserve the benefit, anyone else can go whistle. It’s all target-driven so govt can say what a great job they’ve done getting sick and disabled people back into work, when all that’s actually happening is they’re refusing to help those who need it most.

      I’m so sorry your system is as bad as ours.

      Ours aren’t individually researched cases, the applications are read, then from the convoluted questions and answers we give, the assessor says Yes or No by ticking a box that supposedly summarises your answers. But different boxes allot different numbers of points per answer, so they try to keep the points down to allow less applicants the benefit, or the correct level of benefit. You need more points for the higher level. It’s all very clever, and designed to make us say we can do everything for ourselves with no pain of difficulty. They call this encouraging us to be positive, because to sympathise with a chronically sick or disabled person may be viewed as discrimination. !!!!! Plus, even when your honest answers should have got you higher points, the assessor reserves the right to discount your answers, so can simply negate them by ticking a different, lower scoring box on the form we don’t see.

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      1. Those private firms are connected to my ex-long-term disability insurance carrier, Unum, so I’ve read a little bit about what’s going on. There’s a blogger who used to work for Unum that runs a disability insurance consulting business — she has a connection in the U.K. I can find some links for you if you want.

        Liked by 1 person

  3. I have nominated you for the Sunshine Award over on my blog. I just posted it, so if you choose to do it (you don’t have to!), you’ll see the post and all the info there.

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    1. Thankyou so much! I’m touched, thanks Kat 🙂
      It may be a while til I can sort it out (I seem to have been nominated a couple of times recently but am still struggling with inserting links and doing it all properly) but I will definitely check it out and sort it out as soon as I can (rough time with heath too right now)

      And how appropriate, given that my badge thingy here is the sun!

      Huge thanks, Kat. I really appreciate it 🙂

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      3. I be in land of Battle With Govt over forthcoming disability re-assessment 😦 So much paper. Overwhelmed. And could be commanded to supply evidence as of 3rd July (was supposed to be Oct). V unfair, was granted Indefinite status just 2 years ago, now they’ve withdrawn everyone’s Indefinites or Lifetime awards, and are scrapping the old benefit, given it a new name and a whole set of new criteria. Basically, they’re looking to slash 60 bn off the welfare budget, and targeting those of us who are too ill to prove a case adequately. Hence really can’t afford to blog as was, because the stress is making everything worse, it takes me ages to do anything, sorting through papers sends my back into spasm, I feel f****ing awful, and I have no option but to at least try to put it all together so when the forms come, B can fill them in for me. Whole thing sucks. Our govt is malevolent. The having to document every single thing is exhausting, would be even if you’re well. They demand so much proof to get a claim through. They could reduce it to two questions, really. 1. Are you breathing, aided or unaided? And 2. Is your heart besting, aided or unaided. Answer yes to either and your claim is dismissed.

        I’ve been on the highest rates for the old disability benefit since 2007, had to prove it all each year for five years, then got the “ok, we believe you now, here’s an Indefinite Award so we won’t keep making you worse by keeping on harrassing you and your doctors” in 2012/13, then last year they changed it. Now they’ve changed the date.

        Brain fog not helping either. Nor the time they’ve reduced your required response by. You only get a month now, and are told not to delay getting the form back by waiting for letters of support from doctors!

        Right, that was my break from trying to categorise a stack of probably three feet high papers (I keep copies of everything). Only another two foot deep pile to go, plus whatever else is lurking in what used to be my office.

        What news with Borax? Have found some extremely interesting research and info online re it sorting out a massive amount of chronic inflammatory conditions.

        Oh, and spent yesterday morning throwing up and then passed out for rest of day. Joy. Nothing at all to do with the stress.

        Bet you wished you hadn’t asked!

        I’ll be back into my blog again as soon as I can. I might manage to some quick photo posts instead of my usual.

        Need to grab some sleep now, fell asleep earlier trying to find new document folders online. Hope you’re having the best day you can,

        L. X

        PS Thanks for asking – I don’t see anyone else asking what’s up or why I seem to have gone quiet – maybe they’re scared of long answers, Lol.

        Zzzzzzzzzzzzz………

        L. X

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