What a difference a day makes...

So. Maybe I'm about to embark upon a rant full of self-pity and unwarranted entitlement (I'm sure there are people who would assess my situation as such, so I figure I should get the warning out of the way). However, I think this is something I need to say, because the situation I'm in isn't one that is faced by me alone. It's something facing thousands, and in the spirit of Bedding Out I'm putting my private self out there because it's something not many people see. And maybe they should.

I have epilepsy. I also have dissociative seizures, which are also known as "non-epileptic seizures" "psychogenic seizures" "non-epileptic attack disorder" or whatever other flavour of the month name is going around, seeing as it's something which doesn't actually appear to have a universally recognised medical name just yet. (This is something that is oh, just super helpful when it comes to trying to manage the condition by the way.)

I'm writing this because I just got my DLA renewal form through (well, it was actually a week or so ago but other family issues intervened), and while I seem to have struck the lucky jackpot in that I fall into that thinnest of margins where I don't transition to PIP just yet, I'm also struck by how badly my current postition sets me up to claim DLA at all.

The Dreaded Form

I'll say now, my health has not notably changed from when I first made my claim in 2009 and was awarded medium care, low mobility. I've had my ups and downs, but hey. I didn't notify the DWP when my seizure frequency skyrocketed and I was having them multiple times every day. I managed with what I had, and I didn't want the stress of filling that out because, hey, while I was worse I also know that I fluctuate and eventually they'd settle back again. I'm not out to get every penny I can. I just want to be able to live.

So. Here I am now with the above forms in front of me. Back in 2009 I had help from my local CAB filling out the forms. Navigating them is daunting and intimidating. The single-purpose form covers such a vast array of illnesses and disabilities that you start to doubt you're entitled to it at all when you're dutifully replying: "No, I'm fine with this" to the majority of the options. Given that the dissociative portion of my seizures are strongly correlated to stress, it's not the most productive way to manage my health.

This time though, I appear to have fallen prey to the CAB's drastically reduced funding. I called my local centre yesterday and was told to call this morning and make an appointment, preferably in the first half of the week if possible as they only have one person who is a benefits specialist. So, this morning, at ten o' clock sharp, call I do. Unfortunately, today's advisor brusquely informed me that whoever it was I had spoken to yesterday must have been mistaken, that the only way to make an appointment now was to go in person to a different access point in town, but that there was only one appointment left for the remainder of the week, and really I ought to just fill out the form myself.

I explained that my disability is a fluctuating one and that I have difficulty in knowing how best to fill in the details to convey how it affects my life, to which I was told simply that I should fill it out from the perspective of me at my worst.

At my worst, eh?

At my worst, I lie on the floor, unable to move or speak. I sometimes convulse, and crash into whatever is around me - be it a wall, the floor, worktops, armchairs...I've hit them all before now. Last week, my adrenaline spiked before the seizure started and I randomly kicked the sofa before staggering out into the hallway and toppling over, landing hard on the side of my head and my shoulder. My neck is still stiff and sore from the muscles I pulled with that awkward landing. I can't communicate, sometimes I stop breathing for 30 seconds at a time, and when my eyes are open they are usually unfocused or rolling around in their sockets.

In short? I'm pretty darn incapacitated. So I should be a shoe-in, no? No.

The trouble is, the form doesn't actually ask: "How bad does it get?" It asks how often you are unable to do things such as: use stairs, walk, talk, bathe yourself, or cook. It mentions that it can't factor in "any problems you may have walking on steps or uneven ground" (Page 12 of the form). I mean, seriously? Just before I have a seizure I probably could manage to walk across a flat surface and only look a teeny bit intoxicated. I'd probably fall down a flight of stairs though, or trip over my own feet on a ramp. Just after a seizure, even the slightest incline may as well be a mountain.

That's just one example of many. The other problem is that my heath is wildly unpredictable. Some days, hey, you know what? I could run a race, I could climb a tree, I could do all the things "normal" people do. Heck. Some days I am the picture of a fit and healthy, fully able human being.

Some. Other days I wake tired and never lose that exhaustion. Other days I start off with a seizure and the grogginess never goes away. Other days I am all well and good until I just keel over with little warning. Other days I get auras that last hours, filling me with drowsiness or shivering fits or bouts of depressed or paranoid moods where I am convinced the world is better off without me and anyone who claims to like me or love me is putting on an elaborate act so that they can better stick the knife in later on. Some days I have to force myself to eat, to drink. Some days the thought of going and having a shower, or getting dressed is just another arduous obstacle to overcome.

And then there's my children. No matter what I have to make sure they eat and drink and are clothed. In term time I have to make sure my son (and as of September) my daughter get to school and pre-school respectively. I've had seizures in the kitchen where they've both stood watching me, complaining that I won't get up. A couple of weeks ago my daughter insistently pushed her cup into my hand because she wanted a drink, and when it fell out she pushed it back in, harder.

I keep a stock of frozen ready meals and microwaveable tins like baked beans for when it isn't safe for me to cook their dinner on the hob. I drill into my son and increasingly my daughter that they are to stand back if I am lying on the floor because it's not safe. If I feel a seizure coming on I'll put on a DVD for them and quietly go into another room so that they're occupied. I hate that they're occasionally telly and computer addicts but I'm also relieved because I know that if I'm going to be out of action for ten or fifteen minutes they won't even notice because they're absorbed in what they're doing.

I'm recently a single parent, too, so I have to get on and do this by myself. It's impractical to spend my DLA on someone coming in to help me, because I don't know when that will be, so instead I spend it on the more expensive instant meals and not buying in bulk so I can ferry it back home by hand. On getting taxis to places, on the difference between scraping out an existence shut indoors and a life where I can be free of the stress of making that last few pounds stretch until the next payment. On knowing that that lack of stress means I won't have so many seizures, so I will be a better and safer parent. On cable TV so my kids have something to watch when I'm on the floor.

Will I manage if I lose the DLA? Yes. I'll have to, really. But it will mean cutting back. It will mean I go out less, and I will probably eat less, and buy clothes less. It will mean sitting in the dark more to cut down on electricity, and showering my children more swiftly so the bathroom light and extractor fan don't run as long. (I don't have a bath in my apartment as it is a health hazard for myself and my children.) It will mean asking for more help. I'll confess to being proud. I'll confess to wanting to be independent and not have to ask for help all the time. I want my children to see me at my best, and I want them to grow up knowing they can do anything, be anything. I hide my seizures from them where possible - drag myself through the motions when I feel like collapsing exhausted, and make it to that golden moment when they're in bed and I can flop in the living room and let down my mask of normality. I try not to snap at them when I am weary to the bone and just want to sit with my head in my hands.

Every brown envelope, every test and hurdle from the DWP makes me want to cry, because it threatens to rob me of the strength to keep up that mask for my children. Breaking down my mask for the DWP makes me question my ability to care for my children. After all, for all I do, I still have seizures. I still collapse at times, and every now and then a friend has to collect my son from school because I can't get there to pick him up. It's not about dignity. It's not about pride and having nice things. It feels personal, a cutting choice between getting support and feeling like a competent mother.

At my WCA the assessor asked me how I looked after my children if I had seizures. I felt like the worst person in the world.

ESAendgame and Me.

So, I'm hauling myself back from the shadowy realms of the dead blog god's domain. Not just for epilepsy this time either, though that is why I started this little space. Today though, I want to talk about a bigger issue.  A wider one which affects hundreds of thousands of people up and down the country and has led to hardship, despair, fear and even death. I'm going to be as impartial as I can in this blog despite that though, and lay out just what the system is that people are protesting.

For a long time now, I have been a recipient of Employment and Support Allowance, or ESA as I will refer to it from now on. This is the benefit that replaced the old Incapacity Benefit, and is a benefit for people who are too sick or disabled to go on Jobseekers Allowance.

That point is worth repeating. This is a benefit for people whose health prevents them from working as an able-bodied or fit person can. Obviously, this is a wide ranging bracket, so ESA is split into two groups. The "Support Group" is for people who are incapable of any kind of work, and who are highly unlikely to ever be able to. The other group is the "Work Related Activity Group" (WRAG), for people who probably could work, or whose health condition may not be permanent, but still, they're not fit or able-bodied enough to look for a conventional job as would be required by Jobseekers Allowance claimants.

People in the WRAG (such as myself) are encouraged to participate in "work related activity" such as training programmes, voluntary work or work focused interviews - some of which are mandatory unless you are a lone parent with younger children.

By far the biggest hurdle people face, however, is getting placed into a group and then staying there. Claiming ESA is easy enough, at first. You go into the assessment phase and have to provide notes from your GP stating that you are not fit to work. And if your GP is willing to state that, then chances are, you aren't. Because a doctor that knows you and your medical history (and all the back and forth between any specialists you see) can make that judgement, and is hardly going to lie. I see my GP a lot and he recognises me when I come in, but I can't for the life of me imagine him or any other GP committing fraud on mine or anyone else's behalf.*

However. When you apply for ESA, it's not just a matter of providing doctor's notes. You also get put on the list for a "Work Capability Assessment" or WCA. This is an interview process outsourced to a company called ATOS, wherein a "doctor" who has never met you before over the course of one interview decides whether or not you are as sick as you (and your GP) say you are. This would be problematic enough on its own, but ATOS has a track record for getting the decision wrong. (Note: that article is two years old and yet ATOS are still in charge of WCAs)

Terminally ill cancer patients have been found fit to work. People with severe epileptic seizures have been found fit to work only to die a few months later from those same seizures. Profoundly sick and disabled people have been left destitute, forced to appeal decisions which took away their only income, and 40% of those appeals against ATOS are being upheld. 16% of ATOS's decisions overall are being found to be incorrect.

The principle behind ESA - to support the sick and disabled who cannot work, and provide the correct assistance to those who can work to help them find employment - is one that few disagree with. People want to work. I want to work. But I also don't want to go through the stress and fear of waiting for a letter to arrive on the doorstep telling me that a stranger I have never met has decided that I don't need that extra support.

WCAs are repeated. The "brown envelope" that comes through the door periodically can re-summon you to display your incapacities, or demand that you fill out an exceedingly long form with tickbox options to display how you are sick or disabled. This side of things is the other problem with ESA. Sickness and disability does not fall into neat little tickboxes. Yes, some people are demonstrably disabled or sick. Blindness, cancer, use of a wheelchair, the lack of motor control to pick up small items, these are all tangible ways in which some people can "prove" they are disabled.

What, then, about those with learning difficulties - those who spend their lives trying to appear normal, only to be forced to tell a stranger all the cannot do; those with autism or aspergers who are severely traumatised by having to talk to a person they have never met; those with mental health issues whose health rapidly deteriorates from the stress and fear of having to prove themselves and the prospect of losing everything if they can't; those with conditions which vary, such as ME or fibromyalgia, with few "tickbox-worthy" symptoms but whose lives are dominated by these problems?

The answer is that many of them are found "fit to work" and shunted onto Jobseeker's Allowance - only to be told by the jobcentre that they are too sick to work and therefore cannot claim that benefit either.

This is a system which is deeply and inherently flawed. It was flawed from the outset, too, because it was designed to save money, to reduce the welfare bill. Let me direct you to my asterix point below, and that 0.5% fraud rate. The only way to reduce the cost when there is a remarkably low fraud rate on a particular benefit is to take said benefit away from people who are entitled to it. This is what has happened. ESA has been taken away from deserving people so as to reduce the welfare bill. And as a direct result, people have died.

This is where the ESAendgame campaign is coming in. Such a system, which knowingly lets down society's most vulnerable people, has to change. Has to be replaced with a system which supports and works with them, instead of against them. And to do that, we need everyone to work together, to stand up and make themselves heard, to say "Not In My Name", and demand that change comes. Now.

*As it happens, the proportion of ESA and DLA claims which are fraudulent is around 0.5%

The Kindness of Strangers

I have a strange request. I had a seizure today, and I need to say thank you. The trouble is, I don't know who I need to thank.

You see, I was on my own in town, and I felt a seizure coming on. Since it had addled my brain a little, the only thing I could co-ordinate myself to do was to grab my epilepsy card out of my bag, and head towards a place I could sit down. I was sat slumped on a bench for a minute or so before the seizure took hold, and I flopped forward. My eyes were open, but I couldn't focus, so I could only see vague shapes walking past some way off. I remember wondering how many people would walk straight by.

Then I heard voices coming closer. Someone put their hand on my arm and asked if I was okay; a question I couldn't answer. They got more concerned - a man and a woman, it sounded like. More people approached. Someone found my epilepsy card. Immediately I heard a woman call 999. Meanwhile, the man was telling people I needed to be put in the recovery position. I was lifted from the bench, and lain on the floor. Someone said: "She's so young." (Now that I'm back to normal, I'm flattered, let me tell you that!) A man's hand came into view, and gently squeezed my wrist - taking my pulse, which was faint, as he said to the others.

He was worried; I could tell that much. My eyes were open and glazed, he kept saying my pulse was faint, and asked me to stay with them. In the background, someone was talking to the emergency services. The man rubbed my hands to keep them warm - he kept saying how cold they were, and checking my temperature on my forehead. Someone laid a coat over me. I finally got enough control over my eyes to blink a little, and I could hear relief in people's voices.

The paramedic arrived, and reassured the crowd that I was okay. They went on their way, after being told I would be fine. I wasn't back to normal at the point they left though, which means I never got to see what the people who helped me looked like, or to say thank you for what they did.

They were unaware that I could hear everything that was going on - or that I had a vague, fuzzy window on the whole sequence of events, and that I was touched by their concern and their kindness.

This is why I'm going to take a leap of faith, and ask for the internet's help. All I have to go on was that the man's hair was greying slightly, and he was wearing a waterproof coat, with (I think) red and black sleeves, but I'd like to try and track them down. So if you know (or you were!) the people who helped a woman having a seizure at around midday today in the Fremlin Walk, Maidstone - on the bandstand opposite the museum - please let them know that the woman in question is indeed okay now, and wants to say a heartfelt thank you for that kindness; the kindness of strangers.