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The last few weeks I've been on two crutches rather than one. This started when I tripped and tore a toenail off, then continued when I got new neurological symptoms in a rather large new section of my left thigh.
While I am normally all in favour of the wonder of mobility aids, because they give people freedom and independence and, well, mobility, I get seriously less enthusiastic when I need two crutches rather than one. It means I am hurting my elbows and wrists on both arms instead of just one, it makes doing nearly anything a nightmare. I have to ask for help a lot more, it hurts, I hate it.
If it turns out to be long-term I'll just have to get the hang of it, but in the meantime, I'm seriously unimpressed.
This morning I got on the bus. It's a local service where it tends to be the same drivers most of the time, so I know some of them. Today, on spotting that I had two crutches and not one, a driver I know reasonably well said, "got another forgery then, have you?", and laughed.
It was banter. That bloody word. Can't I take a joke?
On top of feeling distinctly unimpressed with the two crutch situation already, this idiot added a whole other layer of fed-up-ness to the mix. For the rest of the day I felt self-conscious. Do all these people think I'm faking?
If he had thought about it, even for a millisecond, he would perhaps have realised that an increase in the number of crutches perhaps corresponded with a deterioration in my health. He would perhaps have realised that I might not be overjoyed about that.
Today was so painful. My arms are completely wrecked, and my right hand is considerably worse than usual. I don't know if that is a progression of the condition, or just a reaction to too much crutch use today.
It's not funny. It's not banter. It's thoughtless and fucking cruel, if you take even a second to think about it.
It started with a blog post, where David Gillon challenged 38 degrees about why, despite a disability benefit cuts campaign receiving lots of votes, it never reached the 'call to action' stage.
Then there was an article (now amended) which described an athlete's move from Paralympic to Olympic competition as a "move up".
I then read in Jezebel about a sex worker who is awesome because she works with disabled clients, which apparently makes her intriguing.
And I started to wonder, what do you think of us? Of me? In these three stages, the mainstream, and the left-wing, tell me that I am inferior, and I am other. So very, very other.
Then Lisa Egan wrote a post (trigger warning) about suicide, and her despair at the lack of support from even campaigning organisations, and I still, somehow, didn't cry.
Then, finally, the article that did make me cry, in which I learned that 2/3 of people avoid disabled people because they don't know how to act around us. In addition,
A third of those questioned demonstrated hardened negative attitudes towards the disabled. Reasons cited for this ranged from disabled people being seen as a burden on society (38%), ill feeling around the perceived extra support given to disabled people (28%), and the personal worries and sensitivities which rise to the fore during a recession (79%).
It went on,
Some 60% of Britons admit to staring at disabled people because they are different, with more than half of people (51%) admitting they feel uncomfortable when they meet a disabled person for the first time, with more men (54%) admitting to being uncomfortable compared to women (50%).
At a time when cuts are actually killing disabled people, we are also experiencing more negative attitudes, perceptions of being a burden, an additional cost, especially during a recession. How very inconsiderate of us to not wait to attain crippled status until the economy is fixed.
If you're questioning whether this is a feminist issue, then the point is being missed. I am a woman who 38% of people polled consider to be a burden. I am a woman who 2/3 of people polled admit to avoiding for reasons of prejudice. I am a woman who 50% of women polled admitted to being uncomfortable to meet. I am a woman who is witnessing her friends become more and more afraid to leave the house, for fear of government- and Daily Mail-inspired abuse in the street. I've experienced it myself.
There are so many issues at the moment which are putting us all into a state of crisis. This is one of many: people are starting to frighten me. Is the person I'm talking to one of the 38%? Or the 50% Or the 65%?
Given that women are the hardest hit by spending cuts, and disabled people are the hardest hit by spending cuts, disabled women are being overlooked, avoided, resented, marginalised and othered. It takes non-disabled people, at this stage, to make some of the changes that need to happen.
[The image is a photograph of handmade print next to one of the stencils. They read "FEAR MORE HOPE LESS". The photograph and artwork are by Ben Murphy and are used under a Creative Commons Licence]
I have been doing some research on sex and disability, and thought I would share some of the links I have found. This will be useful for me in the future as a resource, and hopefully to others too.
Some disabled people are completely fit for work, but cannot find any, so claim Jobseekers' Allowance. This is particularly an issue because disabled people face many barriers to work, including inaccessible workplaces, employer prejudice and employers being ignorant of, or refusing to adhere to the Equalities Act in relation to reasonable accommodations.
Increasingly, however, disabled people who are not fit for work are finding themselves claiming Jobseekers' Allowance, when they are reassessed and fail to meet the limited criteria for ESA. The result of this is that more and more people are signing on, but also unable to work, for health reasons.
People who have been unemployed for more than two years and haven't secured sustainable employment could be referred onto compulsory community work placements under plans being considered by the government.
Under the proposals people who have been supported intensively through the Work Programme for two years yet have still not entered sustainable employment, may have to do community work or ultimately they could lose their benefit entitlement.
Ministers believe a minority of jobseekers struggle to engage with the system fully, are unable to hold down a job and therefore require a greater level of support.
The government is to test compulsory community work coupled with more intensive support through Jobcentre Plus in four key areas ahead of rolling out the scheme nationwide in 2013.
This is fundamentally unfair. We are in a position as a country where unemployment rates are rising, and job opportunities are shrinking. If someone has failed to get a job in 2 years, it is most likely to be due to circumstances outside their control, and to then force them into unpaid labour, against the threat of losing their pittance of an income from JSA, is exploitative.
For disabled people, even moreso. People who are disabled but genuinely fit for work will still require adaptations, accommodations, and accessibility. These people are less likely to have found a job in 2 years because of the reasons I explained above. And will the people who are happy to take unpaid labour also be happy to accommodate people with complex needs and requirements?
And those who have been found fit for work but are, in fact, not at all fit for work, will be in the most trouble. All of the above, on top of not being well enough to do it. Will their regular sickness absences or inability to be reliable cause them to lose their benefit entitlement? I would imagine so, according to what the press release says.
Workfare is exploitative and unfair to everybody who is forced to do it. For disabled people it has added layers of unfairness, which have the potential to leave, yet again, the most vulnerable abandoned without financial support.
[The image is a black and white photograph taken at a protest in New Zealand against a Workfare programme. There are numerous people with placards saying, "The rich get rich at the expense of the poor" and "Real jobs not workfare". It was taken by SocialistWorkerNZ and is used under a Creative Commons Licence]
So, I have made my podcast debut. And as if that's not exciting enough, I am sharing the stageairwaves pod with Sir David Attenborough, one of my lifelong heroes. Very exciting! I talked about the language of disability and disablism, and you can hear me on the Pod Delusion here.
Then, to add to the excitement, Clare Horton at the Guardian liked it and quoted me. My head may eventually shrink back to its self-deprecatingly normal size, but I wouldn't bet on it.
So, head over there and have a listen. You'll notice the Schizobird story I blogged about last week
Disabled people in the UK have been under constant attack lately. Whether it's the vast and wide-ranging benefit cuts; Birmingham city council refusing care to people with substantial needs, which has since been ruled unlawful; cuts in Access to Work, ironically when we are being told we should all be getting jobs; or the impending closure of the Independent Living Fund, the hits feel like they are coming from every direction.
But I read about a case a few days ago, Court tells disabled woman: just wet yourself, and it showed me just how government cuts are affecting real people. It is not an 'austerity measure', nor is it 'small government', it is an affront to a woman's dignity and human rights, and we should all be utterly outraged.
Elaine McDonald has just lost a Supreme Court fight for her local council to allow her to continue to have overnight care. Funding was withdrawn by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea for the overnight care that Ms McDonald needs to assist her with going to the toilet during the night, and the council instead gave her some incontinence pads, stating that this was cheaper.
Elaine McDonald is not incontinent! And she, quite rightly, objects to being asked to lie in bed for 12 hours at a time (since her care has been cut), in her own waste. She needs to go to the toilet regularly due to a bladder dysfunction, and complained that providing pads instead of care caused a lack of dignity and independence.
Can you imagine if you were at work and your boss stated that bathroom breaks were wasting time and money, and that it would be cheaper for the company to provide everyone with incontinence pads instead? If you weren't on an authorised break then you could just use the pad instead, and sit in it until you were permitted to go? And Elaine McDonald is in her own home - of course, moving to a care home instead would cost the council considerably more.
Even in purely economic terms this is a questionable decision. The lack of mobility which she will now experience, and the potential infections from spending night after night in your own faeces and urine, could cause significantly worsened health and social problems, which would increase the cost of her care significantly. And some people in Ms McDonald's situation may try to go to the bathroom or commode regardless, risking increased falls and, thus, increased health and social care costs again.
But the Supreme Court judges ruled 4-1 that the council had acted lawfully. Judge Lady Hale, the sole judge to rule in Ms McDonald's favour, stated that,
"A person in her situation needs this help during the day as well as during the night and irrespective of whether she needs to urinate or to defecate.
"Logically, the decision of the majority in this case would entitle a local authority to withdraw this help even though the client needed to defecate during the night and thus might be left lying in her faeces until the carers came in the morning.
"Indeed, the majority view would also entitle an authority to withdraw this help during the day."
Of course, incontinent pads in themselves are not bad things. For people who are incontinent, they are invaluable. But Elaine McDonald does not need them and does not want to use them. Nobody should be put in this position, and she was right to challenge it legally. The depressing truth is that the council and courts rated costs over human dignity, and Ms McDonald could be the first victim of many.
And it seems that she is not the only person being challenged on their use of a toilet to save money. According to The Scotsman, "disabled residents at a supported-housing complex have been told to train themselves to go to the toilet at fixed times to fit in with a strict new rota". Is this where the infamous Big Society comes in? You can run libraries, or you can assist disabled people to go to the toilet. Because after all, those who should be providing those services will not bother.
[The image is a photograph of a hand, holding a piece of paper on which is printed, "The budget is killing me!". The photograph is adapted from an original, licensed under a Creative Commons licence, by Steve Rhodes.]
Earlier today, a BBC news producer tweeted a story that provoked an instant twitter storm.
It read, "Tory MP Philip Davies says disabled people should offer to work below minimum wage so they get a job when competing with able-bodied people.". Paul Twinn followed up with information that this had been said in the House of Commons, that his statement applied to people with mental illnesses as well, and that he will provide a link to the statement on Hansard when it is available later.
Suggesting that disabled people should offer to work for less than the minimum wage is an outrageous proposition on many levels.
1) Firstly, disability is expensive. The cost of living is much higher for disabled people, and disabled people are more likely to live in poverty. Non-disabled people struggle to survive on the minimum wage, so disabled people living on less than that is a prescription for extreme poverty.
2) It creates a two-tier system in which disabled people are viewed as second-class citizens who are not worth paying the legal minimum wage to. We couldn't possibly have a lot to offer to an employer, we are automatically only worth employing if we can undercut the non-disabled competition.
3) Access to Work and various benefits which support disabled people to work, are all being cut by this government. This makes working for less money even less realistic.
4) Suggesting that people seeking employment undercut the minimum wage essentially makes the minimum wage meaningless. We fought hard for a national minimum wage. Before it was introduced I had a friend working in a sports shop for £1.50 an hour, and this was completely legal. His wages were pretty much tripled when the law was introduced. If employers can pay less than the minimum wage on the suggestion of the employee, then it makes a mockery of the whole thing.
5) Disabled people need MORE support to work, not less. To quote @HelenWayte"I just don't understand how someone can look at vulnerable/marginalized people and think 'lets make things harder for them'".
This isn't the best blog post I have ever written, but I am so full of rage that this is how little one of our parliamentarians values disabled people. I am too ill to be doing this right now, which of course is the point. It makes me a very easy target.
I've loved nearly all the TED Talks I've ever watched. Not just liked, but really loved. But I've just watched one which was so misguided, so downright offensive, that I am fuming with rage.
Julia Query is a writer and psychotherapist with a disabled son. She talks about "Being In A Club Nobody Wants To Join" and having watched it, frankly, I don't want her to join it. Anecdote after anecdote about how horrifically prejudiced against disabled people she *used to be*, damaging oversharing to serve the purpose of taking her to an end point where she can be smug and self-congratulatory about how she is now less hateful. Woo.
This wouldn't be a story, never mind a chapter of her future book, if she had not held such appalling views in the first place. She talks about them unapologetically, as if they are somehow natural or understandable, and didn't she do well to overcome them?
Well no.
She is too proud of herself when relating each level of her disgust at disability. Too proud of each harmful attitude she has encompassed. Yes, she might be less disgusted now, but that just means she's where she should have been in the first place. It doesn't mean she should write books and give big talks about how well she's doing because she doesn't hate disabled people any more.
I mentioned that this story is part of her future book. Well, the title she has chosen for this chapter: "If you haven't partied with retards, you haven't partied". I think that says it all.
Julia, you still have a long, long way to go before you can join any club that I'm in. If nothing else, at least have a good read of Spread the Word to End the R-Word. And that's only the very, very, very beginning.
You can watch the talk below, but to be frank, I wouldn't bother.
Tomorrow will see the Hardest Hit campaign against the cuts action in London. It is an opportunity to protest the cuts which will affect disabled people so devastatingly, and join together with other disabled activists.
If you can't make it to the march, for whatever reason, you can protest online and there is also a really good guide for writing to your MP.
Full details of the route, and frequently asked questions have been made available, and they have also created a flickr group, a twitter list and a facebook page, tuning in well to the influence of social media in recent protests and campaigns. Hardest Hit is also including lobbying MPs about the Welfare Reform Bill into the protest, which can also make a palpable difference to the situation of disabled people in Britain.
Hardest Hit has the potential to be a huge and important event for increasing visibility of the issues facing disabled people during these so-called 'times of austerity', and the involvement of several big charities may increase the likelihood of media interest. At a time when disabled people are being constantly vilified in the right-wing press, raising awareness of the issues we face could begin to change perceptions and increase support for disabled people in Britain.
The whole of the Where's the Benefit? is dedicated to talking about why the welfare cuts are not only demeaning but downright dangerous, and it would be wrong of us not to mention Hardest Hit. However, not everyone on the team, myself included, feel we can fully get behind the demonstration.
Some of the big charities and organisations involved in organising the Hardest Hit campaign are ones which, historically at least, have been a part of the oppression of disabled people. Disabled People Against Cuts have publicly withdrawn their support of the demo, saying,
Do we ignore the fact that organisations might be viewing disabled people as ‘helpless cripples’ so long as they are prepared to come out and oppose the cuts? We believe it is precisely because we are facing severe attacks upon our rights and lives at this moment in time that there is even more reason than ever to ensure that the messages we’re sending out and the actions we take are clear and work in the long term best interest of all disabled people. I make no apology for saying that DPAC refuses to “turn a blind eye” and betray certain groups of disabled people for some mythical “greater good”. Some may accuse us of cutting off our noses to spite our face or needlessly creating barriers where none exist, however, it is our view that it would be hypocritical of DPAC to speak of defending people’s rights, including the right to independent living and self-determination, if we gave a nod and a wink to anyone who is engaged in activity undermining these rights.
Other concerns involve the motives of the charities. Miss Dennis Queen writes,
When campaign success is going to happen you can count on these charities use their plentiful resources to to sweep in and be there to help government 'resolve' the anger, fear and penalties disabled people face. They get to sit at the table with Government and make sure THEIR business interests get served first, not the interests of disabled people. They take control of matters for government, claiming to be the people who represent disabled people and 'look after us' so nobody else need get bogged down in the detail.
A post I wrote last December talked about Disability Works UK, who were bidding for contracts to carry out the Government's compulsory back-to-work schemes. Disability Works UK is made up of 9 disability charities and organisations. 4 of these (Mind, Mencap, Scope and Leonard Cheshire Disability) are listed as supporters of Hardest Hit. I find it hard to understand how they can support a campaign against the cuts, while seeking to profit from the legislation that will result. Would we support a march organised by ATOS or A4e?
But the aspect which caused perhaps the most concern was the announcement that Maria Miller had been asked to speak. Maria Miller is the Minister for Disabled People, and she is fully behind the disability benefit cuts. She has, unsurprisingly, turned down the invitation to speak at Hardest Hit, but the fact that she was invited in the first place poses yet more questions about the motivations of the march's organisers.
There is always a fear that it is wrong for us to show disunity in public. Will people use that to discredit the movement as a whole, or the good done by parts of it? It's possible, but I also believe that we are doing ourselves a disservice if we do not speak up about what concerns and hurts us.
Where's the Benefit? are not endorsing the event, nor are we opposing it. We are here to report on and discuss issues to do with disability benefit cuts, and the Hardest Hit march is without doubt a part of this. Many disabled people are supporting it, and everyone hopes that it is a great success. We all want change, and for many, Hardest Hit is one step towards this. It is well organised, well publicised and could make a real difference. The potential differences in motives and structures are less important than the message, and the impact that this campaign could have. However, for other disabled people, it is more problematic, for all the reasons I have outlined above.
So for those of you who are participating, I hope it is fantastically successful. For those not, there are many other ways to protest the cuts. Keep reading here and take a look at DPAC's Week of Action against ATOS Origin, for a start.
[The image is a disability access symbol for people with visual impairments. It has a dark blue background and a grey circle, in which there is a stick figure using what appears to be a cane. The image has been edited to add a fatter tummy and pink hair.]
"To become visually impaired, for instance, may be a personal tragedy for a sighted person whose life is based around being sighted, who lacks knowledge of the experiences of people with visual impairments, whose identity is founded on being sighted, and who has been subjected to a daily diet of the personal tragedy model of visual impairment."
They go on to explain that the Tragedy model of disability and impairment "is not just significant for non-disabled people in understanding themselves and their own lives. It is extrapolated to assumptions about disabled people and their lives".
Non-disabled society's view of disability as something awful which happens to people is very disempowering, and negates the reality that what disables us is an inaccessible society, not the impairment(s) we may have. So, with that in mind, I found the horror with which the revelation that 'some women would rather be blind than fat' was met, to be very telling. Reading between the lines, I hear, Who on earth would rather be blind? Who would choose such a dreadful affliction over fatness?
How would that read to a blind woman? Oh em gee, some people would rather be like YOU than be fat! And how would it read to a fat, blind woman?! How much can we disempower disabled people in one go?
I agree that this survey suggests some very distressing things about women's attitudes to fatness and weight gain. It is depressing that being fat is so feared and so loathed. But saying that the most noteworthy of the things that women 'would rather be' was blind, and then using that as an example of just how incalculably far our body fascist society will make us go to avoid fatness, speaks volumes about our attitudes towards disability too.
Maybe if we stopped fat-shaming and equating women’s attractiveness and worth to unreasonable, media-driven standards of beauty, women wouldn’t value their appearance over health..
But blindness in itself is not ill-health! There are very, very many completely healthy blind people, both thin and fat. While I agree with her absolutely about fat-shaming and unreasonable standards of beauty, the rest of the equation does not sit comfortably me, speaking as a fat, disabled woman. It makes me feel like women believe I must have the absolute worst of both worlds, and the last thing I want, when reading feminist websites, is to come away feeling worse about myself than when I started.
(With thanks to Leo Reynolds for the image which I used to create the picture above).
Today is Blogging Against Disablism Day 2011, and this year I wanted to look at how accessible feminist groups are in the UK to disabled women. So I emailed several feminist network groups at random, whose email addresses I could find, to ask the following questions:
1. Does your group meet in accessible premises? 2. In what ways do you meet the needs of disabled feminists who are / want to be members of your group? 3. Are there aspects of access, and other needs, that you find difficult to meet? Why? 4. Is there anything you would like to say about disabled feminists being included in activism?
The 3 groups I heard back from all reported that they were doing their best to be accessible, but in some cases were having trouble with this. Funding was quoted a few times as a problem, that finding accessible rooms which were also free to hire was very difficult.
Solent Feminist Network, for example, meet in two venues, one of which is accessible and the other not. However, they have a deaf member and have had some good ideas about how to make meetings more accessible to her, and are proactive in inquiring about disability access to other events which they might be promoting or attending.
Gloucester Feminist Network are newly formed and have only hold one meeting so far, but did meet in an accessible venue, inspired in part by being accessible to people with buggies as well as disabled access. They were also aware that there is more to access than physical things, and hoped they could meet anyone's access needs as they occurred.
Finally, Bristol Feminist Network, whose regular meetings are not accessible. They identified the difficulty of finding free accessible rooms, and of not wanting to meet in places like pubs which might not be 'friendly' to women from various communities. However, they are aware that it is a problem, and are taking the issue seriously by continually seeking more accessible venues to meet. And for events, rather than regular meetings, they do strive to always make those accessible, and also mention that they do a lot of online activism which is more accessible to some people.
Sian from Bristol Feminist Network summed up the issue really well, saying
I think that it is vital that feminism looks across all privileges and takes intersectionality seriously and does all it can to be accessible to all. I cannot tell you enough how long we have spent discussing and talking about trying to find the right venue. It will happen because we cannot continue to work in this way. Disabled feminists face discrimination on many levels, vawg [violence against women and girls] effects disabled women at disproportionate levels, workplace discrimination and the cuts are affecting disabled women - we need to work together to fight patriarchy.
One of my first posts at the F Word raged about this issue, and while I stand by how infuriating the situation is, I also cannot rage at individual feminist groups for not meeting in accessible venues. As long as businesses and organisations completely ignore the Disability Discrimination Act and Equality Act and do not provide reasonable adjustments, for instance a ramp or an induction loop, then it is harder for local, grassroots groups to find places to meet that do meet even the legal criteria, never mind the ideal.
The groups I heard back from were at least aware that they may not have as an accessible a group as they wanted, and I do wonder if they replied because of this. The groups I did not hear from may be doing better, or worse, or have not considered the issue, but I only had just over a week to gather responses so it might just be that they did not have time to reply.
There are some recommendations I would make, however.
All feminist groups should, at the very least, have a prepared statement about how accessible their meetings and events are, to disabled people. Ramps, large print leaflets, a quiet room somewhere nearby, regular breaks, an induction loop system installed, accessible toilets, grab rails, accessible parking, nearby public transport, whether steps have handrails, etc. etc. The best way to find out how accessible your meeting place is, is to ask disabled people to tell you. Often centres for independent living and other disabled groups offer accessibility surveys.
If this is an issue your group has not looked at in detail, it has to start being one. You are not representing women, you are not supporting or fighting for women, if a large group of women can't get in, especially if you haven't considered it.
Don't believe that you only have to start looking at disabled access when a disabled woman expresses an interest in your group. If there isn't an accessibility statement on your website, or even if a woman sees the venue you meet at, and knows she cannot get in, she may well not contact you to express an interest. The assumption will be made, and you may never know about it.
Don't look at the issue as 'letting' disabled women take part, or that you should be an accessible group because it's the right thing to do (although it is). Do it because disabled women have new and different skills, opinions and tactics to contribute to the group, like any new woman who gets involved does. You're not doing us a favour, you're doing yourselves one!
If you have limited choice of venues, which are inaccessible, take the initiative and put pressure on those venues to become DDA-compliant. We disabled folks sometimes get tired of always being the ones battering the doors down to try and get in - others taking responsibility to hold businesses to account as well can only be a good thing.
Don't assume you know. It is ok to not know, and holding disability awareness events and training for your group, preferably run by disabled people, is a good way to get an understanding of living with impairments, and of the ways society disables us. Because, key to the Social Model of Disability is the understanding that we are not disabled by our bodies or minds, but by steps, small type, complicated language and tiny toilet stalls.
If you have a website, do your best to make sure it meets web accessibility standards. If it can be read by a screen reader, and text size easily adjusted, this is a good start. Making easy-read alternatives to your leaflets available on the site is really useful to many learning disabled or neuro-diverse people, and large-print leaflets, and transcribed videos for visually impaired and hearing impaired people.
Please let me know in the comments of how best you think feminist groups can be accessible to disabled women.
[Image is the Blogging Against Disablism Day logo. It contains 20 coloured squares, each with a stick figure in, some with apparent impairments. At the top is text which says Blogging Against Disablism.]
[Image is a vintage food advertisement from 1895. There is a drawing of a young woman with package of Loring's Fat-Ten-U food tablets and package of Loring's Corpula, a fat-producing food. The text says, "Get Fat on Lorings Fat-Ten-U and Corpula Foods".]
According to these statistics, the number of people who claim disability benefits because they are obese, is 1,830. Compare this to 398,700 who claim for depression. It is hardly a raging epidemic. There may, equally, be other people who claim benefits for a particular impairment, while also being obese, and this is a whole other matter entirely. Yet here we have a new message of hatred from the government.
I am on benefits and I am fat. I am not on benefits because I am fat, but I am on benefits because I am ill, and I am fat because I am ill. This is many layered, but before I was ill, I was slim. Too thin for a good while, in fact.
Then I started taking psychiatric medication. The more common antidepressants didn't affect my weight, but when I started taking neuroleptic medication the weight piled on. At the time, Olanzapine was the 'wonder-drug' of choice by many psychiatrists, and I was put on it at a time when a lot of other mental health service users were. We all gained a significant amount of weight, very quickly.
I'm not on olanzapine any more, but I take other neuroleptics and a newer antidepressant, both of which have the same effect on weight. I have, at times, wondered whether I should come off them, to lose some weight, but I made a choice to do all that I could to prevent big relapses, and stayed on the tablets. Believe me, I would be costing the state a lot more if I came off all my meds and lost some weight, but spiralled into a paranoid psychosis at the same time.
These days I also have the added issue of more limited mobility, which means that I often can't do any kind of exercise. Many disabled people face this same situation, and many disabled people take medications which can cause their weight to rise - not just psychiatric meds, but steroids, certain painkillers and all sorts of others can affect appetite and weight.
And if I can't stand up for long enough to cook, or manage to chop vegetables or stand near the stove, then I also can't eat well. If I can't go out to buy fresh food, or can't carry anything home, it is virtually impossible to eat a healthy, balanced diet.
Now, I don't have a problem with what my weight is. It is how it is, I don't hate it, it's just life. I don't claim benefits because of my weight, but if I wasn't ill or disabled I probably would weigh less. However, I am, and it's a small price to pay for relative mental stability (very relative!).
But because of Cameron today, as well as benefit claimants being written off as lazy, scroungers, liars, exaggeraters and malingerers, the Daily Mail readers of the world will be happy to assume that every overweight person on benefits is on benefits because they are overweight.
I don't have a problem with those who are, by the way, but there are many fat disabled people, just like there are many fat non-disabled people. But those who are believing the hype now have an extra line of attack against the country's benefit recipients. An extra line of abuse for us to receive.
(The image is in the public domain, and was made available by Chuck Coker. This blog post is cross-posted at Where's the Benefit?).
[A photograph of a bright pink, hand-written placard against a brick background, which says "I hate rape". There is a marker pen in the background.]
The Guardian has published an interview with Kier Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, about restoring rape victims' confidence in the criminal justice system.
Only 15% of serious sexual offences against people 16 and over are reported to the police and of the rape offences that are reported, fewer than 6% result in an offender being convicted of this offence.
The lousy conviction rate is a key reason that many women do not report being raped. It can feel like a waste of time to even report, when the likelihood is that it will go nowhere?
In recent years, new concerns have emerged among women who are raped, as we hear of more and more being imprisoned themselves when their rape allegations were not proved in court, and perhaps most high profile, a woman who was imprisoned for retracting true allegations. With regard to this specifically, Starmer has now requested that all perverting the course of justice cases that involve retracted rape and domestic violence allegations should be submitted to him for approval.
It seems he is taking action, and I am very glad of that, as it is sorely needed. And Starmer insists that the 25% funding cut to the CPS will not affect sexual or domestic violence services.
One group of women that has been overlooked in these efforts to improve reporting of rape, is disabled women. Around 10 years ago I spoke to a specialist sexual assault police officer about having been raped. It did not go well, and we both decided that I should not proceed with making a formal report. This was initially because I was unable to tell her the details of what had happened. From my point of view, she was a stranger, a quite intimidating one at that, and I had never told anyone the intimate details of what had occurred (and in fact, I still haven't). From her point of view, if I couldn't tell her, then I would never be able to stand up in court and tell a roomful of strangers. I agree. The other reason, however, was that she found out I had mental health diagnoses. She said that this would make me an 'unreliable witness' in the eyes of the court, and my word would not be believed. There was no acknowledgement of cause and effect - that in fact sexual violence may have caused my distress. Many women experience mental distress after rape. If that automatically means we are not 'reliable witnesses', then it needs looking at urgently.
And it is not just women with psychiatric diagnoses who have difficulty reporting rape, or being taken seriously in the judicial system. Women with learning disabilities face similar prejudice, and may have difficulty communicating that any abuse has taken place at all. Disabled women can have more difficulty leaving an abusive relationship, particularly if they rely on the abusive partner to assist them with communication or mobility, and very few refuges are fully accessible even if they can leave.
In terms of domestic abuse, as well as physical, sexual and emotional abuse, there is an extra layer of abuse which can happen to disabled women. Their partner can withhold medication, over-medicate, refuse to assist the woman at all, or refuse dignified assistance options, if the partner is also the woman's carer. They can withhold communication aids, and limit mobility and outside contact considerably.
And it is not just that disabled women are less likely to be taken seriously, and less likely to have access to support and judicial services, we are also much more vulnerable to abuse.
As many as 83% of women who have been disabled since childhood have been the victims of sexual assault, 49% of whom experience 10 or more incidents. 40% of physically disabled women in one study reported have been sexually assaulted, and for individuals with psychiatric disabilities, the rate of violent criminal victimization including sexual assault was 2 times greater than in the general population. 45% of female psychiatric outpatients report being sexually abused during childhood, and horrifyingly, lifetime risk for violent victimization was 'so high for homeless women with severe mental illness (97%) as to amount to normative experiences for this population'. (Statistics all from Wisconsin Coalition against Sexual Assault - the sheer dearth of figures available about sexual assault and disabled women other than these from WCASA, is very telling in itself).
If these efforts to encourage women to come forward, and efforts to support women following sexual assault, do not start addressing the specific issues faced by disabled women, then they are doing all women a disservice. If there is a space in a refuge, but the steps into the building prevent a disabled woman from taking that place, then we are letting women down. If nobody checks with the woman who is unable to speak, whether her assistants are taking care of her with respect and not hurting her, we are letting women down. And if somebody doesn't believe the 'unreliable' learning disabled or mentally ill woman who talks about abuse, then we are letting women down. If disabled women do not have the same access to justice as non-disabled women, then women do not have access to justice.
I didn't watch the Budget live this afternoon, and when I was back online I was expecting a flurry of tweets about how it would affect disabled people. There was nothing. The BBC summary of Key Points, and the Independent's summary do not mention disabled people at all, and the BBC Budget Calculator, to work out how much better or worse off will you be in the coming year following the Budget is only for people in paid employment, with no mention of benefits as income other than non-state pensions.
The one piece of possibly good news is that the government are going to 'revisit the issue' of whether the Mobility Component of DLA should be removed for those in residential care.
I was reminded of that speech Neil Kinnock made back in 1983, warning of the dangers of a Tory government: "I warn you not to be ordinary," he said, "I warn you not to fall ill, I warn you not to get old."
His warnings seem appropriate today: this budget was all about help for business, but with little regard for those not lucky enough to be able to fund a start-up. What about the old? What about the disabled?
and she summarises that, "There was no mitigation of the £18bn cuts in welfare announced in the spending review last autumn".
It is hard to understand why corporations will be paying less, and disabled people barely merit a mention. If the mobility component of DLA for people in residential care is kept, that is a good thing, but all the rest of the disability benefit cuts look like they are still going ahead.
Like I said, I did not watch the Budget myself, and am relying on others' reports about it, but from what I can see, we are again invisible.
[Edited to add: We have had confirmation from Anne Begg MP about what is happening with the Mobility Component of DLA for people in residential care. She says, "They have just delayed it by 2 years. Savings shown in Red Book from 2013 instead of 2011 which was original plan".]
I was dismayed to hear that today, your gallery refused entry to a woman who is a wheelchair user, on the basis that her wheelchair took up too much room. Your website boasts of 'some of the best press coverage in the country' and 'exciting, cutting edge and sometimes controversial' exhibitions, and states, rather ironically in the circumstances, that "Based upon a formula of exhibiting accessible shows around popular themes Proud Galleries instantly took the photography industry by storm".
How accessible is a show if a woman is not allowed to enter because of her use of a wheelchair?
As well as being deeply disrespectful and offensive, I am sure you are aware that this is also illegal under the Disability Discrimination Act. I see also that you have Mencap listed under your Sponsors, and I will be contacting them separately to ensure they are aware of this situation.
Companies like A4e, who are paid by the government to get benefit claimants into work, are treated with at best suspicion, and at worst fear and loathing, by many disabled people, especially following TV programmes such as Benefit Busters.
The DWP currently have a shortlist for other companies who are bidding for contracts to carry out government compulsory back-to-work schemes, and worryingly one of the shortlisted companies is the dreaded ATOS, who carry out the ESA medicals, and G4S (formerly Group 4 Security).
However, apparently also on the shortlist, according to benefitsandwork.co.uk, is a consortium consisting of a group of 7 charities, who have called themselves Disability Works UK.
Disability Works UK is a collaboration of national third sector disability organisations including Leonard Cheshire, Mencap, Scope, Mind, Action for Blind People, United Response, Pure Innovations, Advance UK and Pluss.
They boast about their £654.4 million turnover, and cash surplus of £15.6 million, which makes me feel a little queasy. As someone who has donated to more than one of these charities in the past, I will certainly never do so again if that is going to be used in a bid for them to gain their place in what is one of the most oppressive parts of the government's new benefit regime.
For charities and voluntary sector organisations who have done some campaigning against the punitive measures put in place within the benefit system, to now want to play an active part in that system, is disturbing. For them to use money donated by people in good faith as part of that, sickening.
And where does it leave our chances of major disability charities campaigning on our behalf against punitive benefit reforms? If they are hoping to profit from the legislation, I cannot see how we can expect adequate support or representation from them.
If Mind, Scope, Mencap, Leonard Cheshire et al win these contracts, will these charities, who are seen by many as the voice of disabled people, be playing a part in benefit sanctions? Will they be working with ATOS as colleagues? Will we ever trust them again?
For those readers on qualifying benefits, you can check whether or not you are yet eligible for any Cold Weather Payments on this direct gov website.
Payments are made when the average temperature for where you live is recorded as, or forecast to be, zero degrees Celsius or below over seven consecutive days.
Also from direct.gov, who qualifies for Cold Weather Payments:
If you are in receipt of Pension Credit, Income Support, Income-based Jobseeker's Allowance or Income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), you may also be able to get Cold Weather Payments.
You get £25 for each seven day period of very cold weather between 1 November and 31 March and it is paid automatically, you do not need to apply for it.
So, if you want to check whether you are due to receive one, you can do so here.
I am touched and moved that so many people have contacted me, and commented, in such a supportive way. It was a very scary thing to do, but it also felt very important. Thank you everyone.
The last few days I've watched the videos from BendyGirl at Benefit Scrounging Scum, and I loved them, I thought they were brilliant. But I never thought it was something I could do, until in her second video she pointed out how important it is for everyone to speak out.
Like many, many people I am frightened by the proposed changes, the cuts, to disability benefits, and what's going to happen to services and the third sector.
The thought of withdrawing mobility rate... the thought of withdrawing the mobility section of DLA for people in care homes is disgusting. The thought that just because somebody was living in a care home, they no longer need to go anywhere, they no longer need mobility equipment, is just obscene.
The changes in housing benefit rules so that people under 35 in private rented accommodation can't get full housing benefit if they live on their own is disgusting.
And limiting ESA to one year, when so many people were fighting against the very principle of ESA at all, and now to have to change that fight to at least, it was perhaps better than nothing, and if people are going to be put on it because they are considered fit to work, even though we know that many, many people who are not fit for work are being put on ESA, the fact that that's now limited to one year, and nobody seems to know what would happen after that.
When we are in a recession, and people – everybody who isn't working is finding it difficult to find jobs, and the strange assumption that the few jobs that there are will go to disabled people, is just not unfortunately how this society works. Disablism means that disabled people are discriminated against every day, and that includes the disabled person who is well enough to work can find it more difficult to find that job because employers are frightened, or don't want to make changes, or don't know what it means.
I'm frightened. And I'm also, like many other people, very confused. I watched the budget on Wednesday, and I was thankfully using twitter at the same time because there were many aspects that I didn't understand, or that I thought I must have misheard. And that there was a group of us all watching and using twitter at the same time made it more accessible to me, I guess.
But there are many unanswered questions. I've heard of people ringing the DWP to say, 'What's this about ESA being stopped after a year?' and the DWP not being able to answer, because they don't know.
The Housing Benefit cuts, I've heard so many different stories about who it's being cut for. So it's not just that the changes are frightening, it's that they're very unclear, and people don't know where they stand.
When I first became ill and went on benefits, I just got Income Support, and it was a horrible time. With paying part of my rent out of that, and with making debt repayments out of that, I had £15 a week for food, and electricity, and transport. For months I lived on... I used to buy these tins of Irish Stew from Kwik Save, and they were disgusting, but they were really cheap, and I figured it was as close to a balanced diet as I could get because it had meat and potatoes in it. And for months, every day, I had one meal a day, and that consisted of Kwik Save Irish Stew and as much bread as I could eat. Every day. For months. I couldn't afford sanitary towels, I couldn't afford shampoo.
I didn't know about other benefits. And someone told me about DLA and I applied for it, and I eventually got it, and it was one of the key... it was key for me, it was vital. Because my health was bad enough anyway, it was vital for me because I could afford to eat more than Irish Stew. I could afford to go to places on the bus. And I'm talking medical appointments. Before that I was missing medical appointments because I couldn't afford to get there. I could get taxis. I could get ready meals when I wasn't well enough to cook.
Getting DLA literally changed everything for me. And makes, still makes, such a difference. It means that I can afford the extra things I need because I'm disabled. Like taxis. Like ready meals when I can't cook. Like mobility aids, and other aids I use. DLA, along with everything, is being threatened. With ATOS taking over the medicals. And after what they've done with the ESA medicals that's frightening, and many people who need DLA are going to lose it.
Everything that is happening since the new government came in is frightening to disabled people. And I'm not a Labour supporter. I know that various important Labour politicians have come out and said that they would be doing what the Conservatives are doing with regard to disability benefits. So I'm not falling into the trap of saying, 'the coalition government is awful, Labour is the answer', because they are... although they are fighting some aspects of the budget, they are supporting the disability benefit cuts.
I feel like I'm being punished for being disabled. The press and the government are doing a really good job at the moment of whipping up hatred, whipping up this image of disabled people being scroungers, of disabled people not really being disabled, and being workshy and lazy. The government and certain parts of the press are promoting this strongly and I can feel, in the atmosphere, that this is affecting people's views. And with the further cuts, this gets worse and worse.
What depresses me is not my illness. What depresses me is not my impairment. What depresses me is how I am treated because of it. That's what makes everything so much harder. We do need to speak out. Because disabled people are being scapegoated and it's horrible. And for non-disabled people, you don't know what's round the corner. I became disabled. Many people become disabled. It could be you in a few years, with no care packages, with no benefits, with no support. With people thinking... with people thinking you're lazy or can't be bothered, or exaggerating. Nobody's immune from disability. And there are some people in the government, the Prime Minister included, who really should know that through their own lives. I am so... I'm frightened, and I want to give a message of hope, but at the moment it's hard to find one.
So I'll agree with BendyGirl that the hope... maybe we have to get hope from each other... from knowing it's not just us, it's not just me that's frightened, it's not just me that's confused, who doesn't know what's happening and what's going to happen.
Scope are running a campaign to email your MP to ask them to take action immediately to oppose the cuts to the public services and benefits that many disabled people in the UK use and rely on.
All you have to do is fill in your contact details, then your MP's email address is automatically found and you can read and alter the proposed message before you confirm that you would like it to be sent.
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