The new benefits system and mental healh treatment

There are many things in this blog post that I am not happy to be sharing but I feel strongly that people need to tell their stories about what the benefits system is really doing to people. So I have decided to ignore everything in me that is telling me not to post this, and post it anyway. I believe that keeping quiet is only giving this government more power and I no longer wish to allow this government to continuously tell lies about what they are setting out to do with the benefits system-so here is my story-please do not judge me too harshly lol

 This has resulted in me claiming ESA and DLA. I finished a degree in Psychology and counselling in May last year and gave myself a year to recover from the mental health issues I have had for ten years now. I wanted to get better, get a job and save to do my masters, so that I could eventually become a counsellor and help people in my situation.

The problem I have found with this is two fold. First is actually getting treatment to suit me. The only treatment that seems to be available on the NHS is CBT-which I have previously had to no avail and medication, which the side affects of are always too much for me to get through. I have found that I am now blamed for my illness and viewed as someone that "doen't want help" which is incorrect. I do want help and I do want treatment, I just want a treatment that suits me. Any mental health professional knows that no one form of therapy suits every single person. Yet this is no longer coming across. CBT is cheap and fast and therefore the only form of therapy that I seem to be able to get. While the figures for the success rate of CBT may look impressive at first glance-at around 49%-this still leaves 51% of people that make no improvement throughout CBT treatment. So I fail to understand how this can possibly be seen as a treatment that helps all.

Further to this on follow up studies a year after treatment the success rate fell to 39% and two years are this fell to 18% of people successfully helped through CBT-it also found that during this period some paitients had received further treatment. Also the majority of the 18% were the ones that scored at the bottom end for meeting the criteria for an anxiety condition. Which suggests that for people with a more severe case of anxiety-such as myself-CBT is of absolutely no use. Yet this seems to be the treatment continuously pushed upon people. I myself have often felt hopeless as a result of CBT not working as so many professionals will tell you the only time it doesn't work is when you don't put the effort in-not really a good thing to say to people with mental health issues-especially when the failure rate is so high.

The second wall I find I face in my recovery is the constant badgering I get through the benefits system, to go for medicals, fill out medical forms to prove my illness. I am constantly found to be in the medium term and work can be considered in 6 months. This means that while 6 months sounds like a long time in reality this drops to 4 months before the whole process starts again.

I will receive a medical form 2 months before the date that my review needs to be done. I filled it out, sent it back (filling out the form on its own is extremely stressful because you have to admit to yourself all the ways in which your illness affects your life-I have found this has made me a lot more depressed than normal).
I sent it back and had a very worrying two month wait until I heard anything. This sent my anxiety through the roof and I became extremely irrational. I lost friends during this period as I became paranoid and starting attacking people-verbally-that I care about. In the end I ended up at the hospital as my friend was worried that I would do something stupid. I had become suicidal at the time and the thought of taking my own life became very rational to me. After months of not self harming I began to self harm again.

I eventually received a letter to say I am in the work related activity group, which means the DWP consider me to be someone who is ready to work on returning to the work place. However they do not wish to give me any mental health support to get there. They make no allowances for my illness, I get an appointment for my meetings with my advisor at Cheshire training and I have no choice but to attend-despite the fact that I can have days when I am so anxious I find it impossible to get out of bed, let a lone out of the house! I cannot guarantee which days these will be and therefore I may be unable to attend on the day of my appointment, yet if this happens I get sanctioned.

I did a degree while ill and not only did I find it a lot less stressful and worrying but I found they were more accommodating to my illness. They made allowances because of my illness, I was under a lot less pressure there than I am now. To me this makes no sense. How can it be an academic setting is more supportive of an illness than the benefit system that s set up to support me during my time of illness?

The only way to describe what they are doing is it feels like they are poking you constantly saying "are you ready for work now?" "you need to get out to work" "you need tough love" "you should be at work by now" while at the same time giving me no suitable treatment for me, to get me there!

The way they are treating people like me is not likely to get anyone out to work, it is not tough love, there is no love involved in any of this. The compassion has gone out of this government and again the poor are being made to pay. I am one month off of my year deadline and I am a lot worse not better. This new system is not only, not helping me back into work, it is also guaranteeing that I will be unlikely to be well enough to return to work for a very very long time!