Employment and Support, an odd name when you think about it.

Hello I am new, and must apologise in advance for being a little bit shy when writing in public. My story has a happy ending and a sad beginning.(Its a bit existential in the middle)
It begins sadly thirty years ago when as a child I witnessed a car crash of amazing violence where several people including my younger brother died. My life began and ended that day and I relive it most days. Back in those flared times no support seems to have existed and the quiet little boy was left to sit in a corner while all those who cared were sedated beyond caring any more. I rebuilt myself over the next couple of years a shattered vase glued back together by childish hands. Sitting on a bench watching kids I was told were my friends playing bulldog one day I got up and joined in. I overcame the fear and dread and ran over and the kids acted like I was never away. I am emotionally sat on that bench whenever I need to step up and take action, even the routine trivia of a haircut can become a ponytail growing Oddessy.
I didn't go to school that often and annoyed most of my teachers by getting top grades, then went to university and at the ripe old age of twenty broke down and annoyed my teachers by not turning up again. Asked if I was depressed I said no. This is how I always feel how I have always felt. I Knew the real problem back then and after watching the Monocled Mutineer could give it a name "shell shock". It was mine though, it was something I nurtured and fed, a secret to loathe myself for. A never ending vivid technicolour dream of emotional intensity, of feeling alive through the experience of horror. I became a junkie to it strung out on my own grief.
By the time I got to twenty five I realised after another break down that as a child i had done a pretty bad job of glueing the vase back together, but I forgave myself it was a good effort for a little boy. I used every bit of courage I had and got up off the bench and went to see a doctor.
The doctor was understandably annoyed when I had the nerve to self diagnose myself with post traumatic stress, and dismissed me saying I was just a bit depressed and gave me prescription for something very cutting edge in 1995 which for some reason I refused point blank to take. In the following fourteen years I did not see a doctor for any reason, luckily my physical health has been pretty good.
I glued myself back together again, I did a better job of it. Unfortunately I started using alcohol as glue.
I wasn't misusing booze I was very effectively using it. There is a reason so many people with Ptsd drink; it works. The side effects are nasty though.
Two years ago I stopped drinking, it wasn't difficult. No really it wasn't. I manage pubs by trade and not once did I feel an urge to sample the wares. Unfortunately all hellish fury is running loose in my head now the beer hammer can't beat it down.
The end of last year I broke again, and after three months living on my savings surrounded by my own squalor I got up off the bench and went to the doctor again. I was determined this time I would get professional help whatever it took. No matter what, I would not get pissed off and sort myself out for another decade, there should be more to life than just living.
The ridiculous waiting lists are not a deterrent. The strategy I am using is to basically shut down and tic over until the appointments come due. For those interested from today four months for counselling which will tide me over till cbt and the one about eyes which I find hard to remember in a year. To do this I decided I should not work. My G.P. and the specialists I was referred to all agreed. Sick notes were provided.

What fools we have been though because we had no idea a miracle cure was just around the corner. I am sure some of you might guess the name of this hero to medicine. Atos was his name. A happy ending.

My experience with them was bad, not as bad as some peoples but up there with my mid nineties run in with a doctor.
The ESA is gone and I scored six points for being a confrontational bugger.

I started my appeal yesterday, and have no fear I don't plan on following my gut instincts and stropping off (into one of the highly paid jobs I am still strangely getting offered). I love a good scrap with authority especially when something is so unjust, it certainly helps when the dole office can't even file the paperwork correctly bless em. It gives me something apart from typing at five in the morning to do with the adrenalin.

My last two thoughts and then I stop rambling; promise.

1: At what point did being capable of work start meaning the same thing as being well enough to work. This would mean that work related stress simply cannot exist.

2: I wonder how many of the drug addicts huddled by half eaten Kebabs, and the bearded full throated tramps swigging cider with a tear and a smile had something truly awful happen to them. You don't have to fall through the gaps to end up there, all you have to do is stop fighting tooth and nail one day. There but for the grace_ go I, and many days I look on with envy.

Thank you for your patience.

Interesting and thought provoking. You write well. There were a couple of bits I didn't understand. "Atos was his name" and "The ESA is gone and I scored six points for being a confrontational bugger". I don't know what these two sentences mean. Please explain, thanks.

Atos are a private contractor that have won contracts with several government departments. Atos healthcare is a part of this organisation that provides the medical assessments for the Department of Work and Pensions(DWP) for a very large amount of money. Atos asked me to attend an interview/examination to assess if I had limited capability for work and was therefore entitled to receive Employment Support Allowance(ESA) which has replaced incapacity benefit(I.B.). The healthcare proffessional (I was lucky and got a doctor) with the aid of software designed by the main part of Atos group then scores you in capability in several physical and mental categories between 0 and 15. If you score a total of 15 or more over these categories you are judged to have a limited capability of work. Any less, 6 points in my case, you are good to go and actively seek employment. Any reports or statements from your own G.P. or specialists are only requested by, or if you include them with your initial questionnaire(ESA50) considered relevant by Atos healthcare. All this information is then sent to the DWP.In my case as in many cases the only information sent on was the report with its nice clear number (6) and a decision is made. Then you appeal, as I hope everyone does.
In my case I could only find 22 factual inaccuracies or misrepresentations over the 23 pages of the report, some were particular highlights though.
The health care professional only referred to PTSD as Anxiety and Depression, which was the absolutely correct term to use if you are not qualified to discuss or diagnose PTSD.
The three word memory test used was "Red Ball Bounces" which is such a strongly visual image it is actually quite difficult to forget almost as if someone had gone out of the way to design a very difficult to forget phrase.
The last section of the physical section assesses problems with conciouseness. It states in the results that this assesses problems with losing conciousness or altered conciousness. This was assessed by asking if I had any trouble staying awake, to which I replied that far from it getting to sleep was the tricky thing, and that was it done. Unfortunately flashbacks can only be considered here in this strange physical not mental section as they represent altered conciouseness.
I got my 6 score in the "problems relating with others" area and generally being being an arguementative wired up angry bugger, who had the affront to tell the good doctor that his cognitive reasoning questions were piss poor and belonged in a 1960's I.Q. test. I mean asking someone who has worked in retail twenty years if they can do a round of serial sevens or subtract 75p from a pound is really not a very in depth array of cognitive reasoning questions.
All in all I found the whole experience distressing beyond belief. From arriving through the disabled access compliant main door that lead straight to a locked second door that is opened by using an intercom that is five foot off the ground to catch the fakers in the wheelchairs. Being made to wait under reasonably obvious observation for an hour and twenty minutes, (observations included in the report). Being sat in a low chair with no arms that catches the back and leg fakers during assessment. Right through the bizarre and again pretty obviously stacked questions of the assessment. I was left more than a little bit angry. It doesn't make it any better getting stitched up if you know its happening.
My experiences are pretty tame compared to some people though its worth a google.
It is all so pointless though. On one hand you have a contractor who have targets and goals that encourage them to catch the fakers and scammers and well anyone else they can while they are at it, at huge expense. Then you put huge additional pressure on the DWP who then have to deal with the appeals, at huge expense. All of which if the appeal fails will result in someone who has been signed off sick and has presenting medcerts from their G.P. getting roughly the same money but having to sign on to JSA and actively seek employment against medical advise clogging up the job centres and making the jobless statistics look even worse. All this to catch a few people scamming the system who can quite easily still fake their way through, I know I could have but I chose not to lie to load my answers to get a score.
Someone in government hasn't used joined up thinking and has been sold an absolute lemon of a service for half a billion quid. Its all in the communication style of the company, aggressive marketing drivel that if you have any business experience you can spot a mile off. All the "you must reply to this letter within three days" openings to letters and half correct use of personal information outside of context. Its stuff that should never be trusted, used by hot air salespeople trying to make money providing unneeded services to unknowledgable punters.
Anyway that lengthy little rant is my explanation for those two sentences.
Thank you very much for the reply, I hope this offers more clarification than murkiness.

I had a lot of harrassment from the DSS. After I tried to explain my condition so many times, eventually they got it through their heads that although I would be able to drive to their office for an examination, because of my agoraphobia I wouldn't be able to get out of the car to get in the building, as I can't deal with noise or crowds of any description, and even have to either get groceries on line or go to the 24 hour supermarket in the middle of the night.

So a doctor from the DSS came to my house to examine me here but because he could hardly speak English I had to keep on explaining over and over, and answering the same questions over and over because he couldn't understand me. Because of my mental breakdown and ptsd I struggle to make myself understood verbally as it is, so he added extra unnecessary stress.

He openly criticised me during his visit because my house was clean and tidy, and because I was clean and tidy. I feel so guilty about that. Should I let myself go completely and live in a slum? That's not me, and the discipline of having a morning shower is the only thing that has given me some sense of normality through the nonsensical times I've had since this started.

When I received a copy of his report and the DSS decision as to whether I would be allowed benefits or help, he had written that I drank alcohol every morning, even though I told him I don't drink at all, I don't like it. And even though I have crippling symptoms he advised the DSS that there was no reason why I shouldn't go back to work. And the (probably 19yr old) clerk in the DSS recommended that I be given no benefits and put that I should get myself for job interviews immediately. I just about had another breakdown reading that, and it took letters from my (then) gp and former employers the police (who had medically retired me because of ptsd) before they would leave me alone.

The DSS still refused me any benefits, so I survive on a very small pension and that's it. It was a horrible experience, and they only leave me alone now because when I asked the Federation for advice I was told that I have fallen off the DSS radar and now I don't exist. That really makes me feel good. If I felt a failure and freak before for breaking down as I did, this has really added so much more to it.

Juli.

The human cost of all this bureaucracy doesn't seem to get accounted for. After my interrogation by a medical practitioner I didn't sleep for two days and after the results was such a mess that I went to see my G.P. and asked to be put on the anti depressants that I had desperately been avoiding. This has an additional financial cost on the NHS.
Juli I am pretty sure that if you put a perfectly well person through the assessment that they would come out of it feeling pretty dreadful there is nothing freakish about it. I was also asked the same questions over and over but there was no problem with my doctors English. The focus on swearwording shopping was absolutely baffling, it appears as a mitigation in all but one of the mental categories on my report. I have no problem with going to the shops but I really cant see how this becomes relevant in dismissing so many health points. I did ask whether the doctor had heard of Paypal and that they should make a note of it, but it must have slipped their mind. They also claimed that I said I enjoyed going to the pub, which is odd as they elsewhere note in the report that I haven't drunk for 2 years and couldn't face going to work in a pub. It really does seem very computer generated.
The presentation of the report is strange as well it seems to be laid out like a balance sheet. This results in many trivial observations on one side e.g. no problem going to shops. Used against on the other side "has thoughts of self harm", which results in 0 points in a category. The strangest example seemed to be on one side it states I do not suffer from obsessions and on the other that I do suffer from excessive ruminations. These are very nearly the same thing except obsessions indicate psychiatric illness and ruminations indicate psychiatric injury. PTSD is an injury not an illness, the effect on the sufferer is the same its just you have an awareness of its lack of reality. In this my lack of illness counters my injury and equals 0 points. All in all the whole process stinks and no one should judge themselves on the results of it.
If only it where that easy.
There may be ways still to appeal, if decisions have gone against you but they are tricky, particularly if to much time has passed which I suspect it has. The main thing it might be worth looking at is whether you were informed of your right to appeal correctly, I know I wasn't and have included this within the appeal itself. It might instead be better to turtle up, it all depends who you are. I keep wanting to but I hang on to self righteous ire and scrap against the system. It might not be good for me though.

Matt
I asolutely agree with you, the system stinks. But I suppose it's made that way to filter out all the scroungers who make up symptoms. Unfortunately it has a detremental effect on those genuine sufferers. It reminds me a bit of the old ducking stools they used in witchcraft trials - if you float you're guilty, but if you sink you're innocent, never mind the fact that you drown in the process!

Good luck with your appeal. I'm afraid they've beaten me. I know I should have made more of it, like I should have sued the police for what they did to me, but the person I am now isn't the person I was then who would have fought them and hung on until I won. Now for the sake of my fragile mental state I have to take the quiet option. They bank on that, even though they know that what they've all done is wrong.

Juli.

Thanks for explaining Matt. That's very well written to the point where I was about to riot against anyone you'd like! So infuriating the things people say and do in their pathetic jobsworth system. It was also very useful to learn about what goes on in case I ever have to go down this road and it might be a possibility.

I had an interview at the local NHS intensive psychotherapies centre for group therapy. One of the questions the doctor asked me was if I'd ever hurt animals. Being an animal lover and a bit appalled (but understood he had to ask), I said NO! But what annoyed me was when he said "really? for example, when you were a kid, didn't you put some kittens in a bag and throw it around?". A bit surprised, I repeated my NO! (I love animals more than humans!) and thought what kind of a question is that. Then the doctor said "oh, I did". What the feck?

It must be said that I got some good things out of this therapy but there was a lot of crap and unprofessional behaviour. I got bollocked one week for saying I felt suicidal because "it might upset the rest of the group". I only said it once in 5 months. I was told that I needed to make sure I had my 'safety net' in place. Feeling like a thick idiot, I asked what a 'safety net' was. The female therapist wandered around the corridor aimlessly for 5 minutes looking for an NHS phone number for me to call. She returned with the advice "google it". Google what exactly?

Anyway, rant over but I must end this by saying that there were MANY positives and helpful tools that I learnt. No great cures but some very useful stuff that has helped me hugely in the past. I still think they're arses though lol. I was the only one not given an exit interview. Everyone else got one. I think it's because they know what I'm going to say. I'd give them both barrels ehehehe.