To expect people to have a little bit of empathy as one day it could happen to you

[Dollymixtureyumyum]

Totally fed up of all the benefit bashing threads on here.
10 years ago I developed epilepsy out of the blue and suddenly had to give up work (well lost my job through it). Was having 20 fits a day and spent the next three years on benefits. I looked healthy, would not have seemed to have had a disability to the outside world. I claimed housing benefit, DLA and income support. At the time I thought people where ok but now I know how much I must have been judged.
Now I work with people with disability and the comments and sometimes abuse they get us disgusting especially those with unseen disabilities.
All I am saying is one day you may wake to to find you or one of your family is disabled. You may lose your nice job and not be able to pay the mortgage
You may even find you have a condition where you put on weight.

FFS have a little bit of empathy and please don't be silly enough to think it may not happen to me, it bloody well might.

Most people on here do have empathy, I certainly do. I was unemployed a long time ago, so wouldn't bash anyone now.

And you'll often see other posters pulling up the few who do bash.

YANBU. I've seen a few threads saying that you should be prepared for illness and disability; saving money and ensuring you have critical illness cover. However, with that attitude, you're fucked if you became disabled/ill at a young age. Plus, I don't think those people realise the costs of being a disabled person.

^a few posters, not a few threads.

I suffer an invisible disability. I think people struggle to have empathy because they cannot see it.

But people have too much judgement over things they have no knowledge about.

But sadly I have found even people who have the same condition can be bloody horrible.

Sorry meant I few posters.
And god forbid they may have had 7 kids and then fallen on hard times after

YANBU. Kids in my Year 10 often say unpleasant things about people on benefits during our current affairs discussions, and I always tell them that they're going to look very foolish if they end up having to claim one day. More empathy and less judgement will make them better people. Not sure how effective I am, though!

I have issues that mean I can't work 'just anywhere' easily. I've never claimed benefits so I haven't faced judgement but I do know what it feels like to have health problems impact your capacity to earn. It's very very frustrating and upsetting.

Yanbu, you never know what is around the corner.

I'm 32, i got a 1st class degree, PhD and then a good job, and then got ME... It's horrible to feel ashamed that you can't contribute to society any more, to feel guilty for living on ESA and PIP, to feel guilty for having been granted them when so many people are refused, to feel guilty for what I buy, to feel guilty for actually not struggling financially (I'm housebound and have little appetite).

Very true, no-one knows what is around the corner. Mt db has epilepsy and although he does not have many seizures and manages to hold down a job it is a constant worry for him.

I had a very good career working in senior marketing in central London was married and relocated to Norfolk to start a new life. A year later my now ex left me for the girlfriend he'd had before me he'd found on Facebook and upped and left dd and I with debts worth almost half the house (which I didn't know about). We couldn't trace him and then I got made redundant and despite all my best efforts I could only find a 16 hour minimum wage job to keep me and dd afloat. We downsized and then found out that despite having had a survey done on our new property there were serious roof issues and I had to remortgage up to my eyes. We had to get our broken toilet fixed by the local church charity who despite not being religious myself I am extremely grateful to. I lived on my min wage job and income support for about two years until things started to change, we didn't have the heating on for all that time.

I wish people wouldn't judge others. It really can happen to anyone.

Yanbu. Most of us could tip over the edge with poor health and a few incidents of bad luck.

Agreed. I was born with a genetic condition, symptoms began at 15, I went to university, started work and did pretty well, but had to stop working in my mid 20s. I can't believe this is my life - pretty much housebound much of the time, or in a wheelchair to go out for short periods. I had so many dreams and aspirations. Unless I win the lottery, I will live in poverty my entire life.

I don't feel sorry for myself, but it's frustrating hearing/reading the stupid things people say.

I'm also wondring what people who say 'you need to plan dor it' really think that an insurrance will pay you money every month for years on end. Even with a good insurrance it won't happen.

I also suppose that these people will also be very happy to get their pension when they get to it, whic, really is the same thing. Money given to you by the state because you aren't seen as able to work anymore (or not with great ssues).

I fully agree OP but then I have a chronic illness too so ....

Your not being unreasonable at all. Nobody knows what the future holds. Nobody. People judge and its not always black and white.

The only people bashing anyone are twatsters and knobbers.

for you OP.

YANBU BUT - I started a thread asking if I WBU not feel sympathy for the woman on QT. Just that, hard to be sympathetic given she voted for it. To read some responses, it sounded as if I'd advocated murdering her and dancing on her grave (for the avoidance of doubt, I didn't, and wouldn't under any circumstances.

I think there is a serious issue about opinions being shouted down without being properly listened to. I am very firmly in the "there but for grace of god" camp.

I have had to claim benefits once, briefly, a long time ago and it wasn't any fun then.

There seem to be a lot of people who have been fortunate to dodge that need and extrapolate that to mean anyone who does has something fundamentally wrong in them (lazy, etc).

With that said, IMHO things won't get any better unless people like QT woman wake up to the fact that if you vote for a certain party, they are likely to do certain things.

YNBU. You do never know what's waiting around the corner. I don't look down my snout at anyone. I've no right to. There but for the Grace of God. Anyone can end up needing help. It's what the welfare state is there for, and if these toss pots have issues with the poor and the needy getting financial help then, It certainly begs the question. WTF am I paying my taxes for!!!!!!!!!!!. To get called a scrounger if heaven forbid i should come out of work for what ever reason and need to claim MY money back!!!!!!.
What you're discribing though Dolly, not only is it benefit bashing. It also sounds like hate crime to me.

I agree with the OP to some extent. I didn't expect to have a son who needed a lot of extra help. I had to limit my work and although I have supported myself after twelve years I'd gone through all my savings and needed some help. I am hugely grateful that there is a bit of a safety net. We wouldn't have needed it if the school had been any good - but it wasn't - it was shit.

Often though the benefit bashing threads are not about people who have worked, tried, who contribute in other ways, who volunteer when they cannot work who need help - they are about the people who don't try, who don't contribute, who abuse the system, who ask and ask and ask more from those who are working. It is as naive to say that all benefits claimants are deserving as it is to say that all are leeches on society. It is not that simple.

I hate the automatic assumption that so many people have that 'on benefits' means 'not working'.

The language used by the government separating 'hard working people' from 'people on benefits' is disgusting, as if the 2 cannot be one and the same.

I don't think it's a lack of empathy. I'm sure many people could put themselves in a disabled person's shoes and see how it would be hard to work.

It's just a matter of being an antagonistic asshole for the sake of it.

Agree Eponas many, many benefits are paid to people who are working and that includes pensions, Housing Benefit, WTC. Generally though the benefit bashing threads are about a specific type of claimant. And it is true that some of the comments are horrible.

But by separating "hard-working" from "non-working" there is still a judgement over those not working.

That includes people too ill to work, those unable to find work, those who care for someone, or other valid reasons.

It's no good the public/media writing scathing comments about those awful scrounging benefits claimants who don't work, over and over, for years on end, then shrugging their shoulders and saying they're not including the above. They are! Of course they are.

I have said it before on here, nobody knows what is round the corner for any of us. I am getting on now and know so many folk who think they are okay , then suddenly something happens, and bam, life is never the same again. Be it ill health, partner leaving them ( men and women) being disabled, all sorts of things. I try to count my blessings, but its so hard when there is so much uncertainty.