The Labour Government’s DWP Pathways to Work Green Paper is brutally damaging people’s mental health. Below is one such testimony. If you want to share yours, in confidence, please email
recoveryinthebin@gmail.com
My paranoia has increased dramatically. (Though is it really paranoia if you know they are genuinely trying to remove support from people?) I am afraid to leave the house on days when I am well enough to go out in case a DWP person photographs me or a neighbour reports me for what they wrongly perceive to be ‘fraud’. I am trying to keep my health from worsening and going outside when I’m able, especially to walk, is literally keeping me alive, but since the green paper announcement every day I am frightened to do it.
I live with intrusive images and thoughts which have increased in frequency and severity. My brain compulsively rehearses the scenarios, forcing me to live them out.
One of the most common scenarios now involves being in the DWP office and being interrogated about intimate and embarrassing aspects of my ill health by a complete stranger then being disbelieved when I try to explain, and having all income removed, leaving me destitute. Another common scenario my brain forces me through is me being anxious, distressed or panicked at a benefits review and being mocked for it and dismissed as a liar. (I have good reason to fear the latter, an assessor once laughed at me when I tried to explain how distressed and exhausted I was feeling, and I struggled, and I found it difficult to speak.)
My brain tells me that I am being investigated for fraud, that every time I spend money I am being tracked by the DWP, trying to find reasons to remove my support and force me to try and work. My brain shows me what will happen if I try to work, that the environments and the work itself will make me more and more unwell, that I will spend all my time and energy failing to get to work or trying to get an employer to believe me about how impossible I am finding things, until eventually I collapse or die. I speak out loud more and more to myself, forced to act out these scenarios alone in my home, which is exhausting.
These images and scenarios replay and replay and replay. I have developed some strategies to try and reduce their duration, and to help myself recover afterwards, but since the green paper announcement they are getting harder and harder to manage. I have no support managing any of this because I find it so difficult to make and keep medical appointments, and whenever I’ve tried in the past nothing has really helped, and I am made to feel like a failure. This all adds to the guilt and fear I already feel about not having enough money to live and having to rely on benefits. And it worsens all my other health conditions, mental and physical: fatigue, pain, depression, anxiety.
I wish more people who have never had prolonged contact with the DWP would understand how traumatising the green paper announcement has been for so many of us. I hold no hope that politicians will do the same but perhaps if more ordinary people listen to us they will be forced to hear our voices.
Recovery in the Bin 