072 DWP

 

" DWP "

My anxiety problems mean I cannot work a normal job and that has been the case for many years now. Mostly that is down to agoraphobia but not totally. I can't look for work over 2 miles walk nor via public transport even if I wanted to. But there are places near at hand. A big supermarket for example on my doorstep. I would have no problem in principle working there. Then there is the other aspect, that trapped anxiety. That claustrophobia almost in any place I can't leave of my own will. That is what prevents me. There was a part of me that thought maybe if I had a job and had to keep going it would pass on time. My times at the job centre proved that is not the way of it. Put simply I cannot work a normal job. Its not through choice. If someone offered me minimum wage tomorrow to work from home I'd jump at it regardless of the work. That work is either not there or I just cannot find it.

With my wife's wage we have come to rely heavily on benefits. Firstly there was my own. In 2018 I had to do without my benefit while it was contested. That was hard. All my great progress was lost in a couple of months. I went from getting ever closer to being able to work to being as far away as ever. I can't see how this was a win for anyone. Anyway in December I won my case for a second time after a year contesting it. A few weeks later I received my second last payment as once again the DWP summoned me for a medical. I got no payment from January 2019 to June 2019 then a big bumper payment with no communication as to why. And that is the last time I was paid any benefit.

We have had to get by as best as we could on the year and a bit since. The truth is that experience fried my brain so much I could not contest it any longer. I'll go into it in more detail at some point but needless to say it done a lot of damage I am still trying to repair now. Without my income it has been down to my wife's wage, child benefit and working tax credit. That was until a few weeks ago. My oldest daughter left school last year so my wife notified the DWP as that meant no more benefit for her. All good. Except a few weeks ago they then told us we had not notified them, they had overpaid us and as a result they wanted the money back. Its not the first time we have had to pay for their mistake. It's the third time. But if in the end its the right call then I don't have an issue with it. What I do have an issue with though is that of the money they pay us they now want to hold back 75% of it to get the whole amount back quickly. Its something we are going to really struggle with but they are unmoving. Even in this period they are unrelenting and uncaring.

I'm hoping we can get something sorted on this as my wife is going to contact citizens advice. As I said we have no problem paying what we owe but it would have been nice to do it in an affordable way. 

This is not the life I envisioned when I started a family. At that time I worked as I mostly had and never saw that changing. It's difficult to be saddled with these financial problems and be unable to do something about it. Its more frustrating when I know if I had been allowed to I would possibly have been looking for work now. But having my only income removed seriously set me back mentally. Lying in bed awake unable to sleep because of dread was draining and waking in that same state was just as bad. Just as I seem to have cleared my head and started to get back on track the DWP appear again. It's so frustrating. 

Anyway I had to get that rant out my system. There are other people with bigger problems than ours. We'll find a way through it. Other people won't. Some people have problems without solutions. Once the anger clears I think it will give me more resolve to push on. If I can quieten the dread then in that clarity I might find solutions. The walks are helping do that to some degree as a tired mind worries less. I just wish the DWP would talk with people to help them back into work rather than down to them with no care whether they work but only that they stop claiming. It's not going to happen though because too many people are cheating the system unfortunately.