To ask you to watch Panorama re Universal Credit

[longwayoff]

God, this looks grim already. Look what we're allowing to happen.

I don't work because of anxiety.

I think I am probably bipolar but it's easier for them to medicate me than to help me with a diagnosis.

Anxiety isn't the same as a stubbed fucking toe 😡

It is constant, crippling, intrusive, painful, lonely, humiliating and soul destroying.

I'd give anything to live without it.

It's not a choice or a cop out.

Its an illness. A serious one.

@UCWorries I too suffer with anxiety along with imposter syndrome. I know how debilitating mental conditions can be, whereas some people with good mental health either take the piss or don't understand/cannot empathise.

My son has autism. Guess he made a poor lifestyle choice, being born . We stopped having children after he was born.

@Dontwalkaway you get a choice to pay it back over either 3,6 or 12 months I think. I done it over a year

The only problem is I’ve been constantly a month behind on my rent ever since, because IC pays in arrears not in advance, and because of the 5 week wait. I’ve never been able to catch up/get in front.

@steakandkidney

It is my choice to keep working - despite being suffering. As much as it is others in the same situations choice to give up and stop working. Unfortunately I believe benefits should only be paid to those who genuinely can’t work not those who simply feel their quality of life is better if they don’t.
Nobody should be able to make the ‘choice’ to be funded by the government - benefits are there for when there’s no where else to turn not when you’d rather stay home!

@HelenaDove I’ve worked retail and in a warehouse, both times as a Christmas temp. I think people like to believe that officers are nicer and you have more autonomy over toilet breaks and such but as someone who has suffered from IBS in both, I found it much easier to ‘slip away’ in the busy retail/warehouse environment than in the intense office environment - one had managers micromanaging my breaks and the other has intense psychological pressure ‘can’t leave this meeting’ - ‘can’t dial off the conference call’

One isn’t easier than the other but people love to make out that their specific role was why they can’t possibly work anymore - yet they don’t try to get a different job in a different environment.

Life is hard guys, seriously work isn’t easy and the majority of the workforce are finding it tough.

I love how Meteor is trying to talk to the rest of the posters as if a bit of pep talk will mean they can 'just work'.
Working in a way which severely impacts on your physical and mental health is, IMO, unacceptable and unmaintainable. I would have managed that 10 years ago. I couldn't do it now.
Just because you choose to 'manage', doesn't mean that others can. Some have things going on at home which means they cannot maintain it. Some have lost their will due to negative events. Some people with IBS don't just need to toilet a lot, but are incontinent and have to change their clothes and smell. I don't think that anyone in that situation would be weak for not working. I would say they genuinely cannot work. Of course in your opinion they should just let others smell them, get changed and carry on. No mention of the shame, low self esteem and suffering they would go through.
You seem very proud of your 'suffering', I was once like you, a 'survivor of difficult odds'. Now I'm utterly worn down and fucked. Probably futureless tbh. No amount of 'come on guys' is going to make life easier for me.
Please don't be patronising to think that a change of attitude is all it takes. You don't know others' lives at all.

the Government isn't there to provide financial cushioning for lifestyle choices. It simply can't keep shaking the benefit tree and millions of pounds fall off it. I don't know what the answer is, but something has to change

Please find me statistics that show 'lifestyle choice' is why the majority (as in 51%) of all benefit claimants claim benefits and not because of illness/disability/redundancy/other job loss/ etc.

In fact, find me any statistics that show 'lifestyle choice' is what benefits are all about.

I claim Tax Credits. I am also a single parent. I am also a teacher who tutors in the evenings and takes one season exam marking when available. So three jobs. I am still entitled to claim Tax Credits because my salary and part-time jobs thrown in do not meet the threshold. I guess I am, somewhere in the stats, classed as 'poor'. Can you tell me, please, what it is about my lifestyle that is a choice? And to be clear, my children were born in a long marriage and my ex left for another woman. None of that was my choice.

🤔 I love how @steakandkidney uses the worst possible case scenario to try and claw back some reasonable validity to people choosing not to work and expecting the government to fund that.

I’m not, for a second, saying some people don’t suffer so severely that it is dibilatating. But realistically once ‘incontinence’ and similar comes into it that’s no longer ‘stress and anxiety’ is it? It’s a physical disability which would render someone unable to be in a work environment.

I also like how @steakandkidney ignores the possibility of other avenues, if you feel uncomfortable in one environment- try another- start your own business you can do from home if need be.
But don’t be like @steakandkidney who sounds very much like they’ve given up on their life ‘I’m beaten and worn out and can’t do it anymore’- fine but why does the tax payer owe you a living?

What would you have done 50 or 100 years ago @steakandkidney? Back when saying ‘nah I’m too tired of this’ wasn’t an option?

I’m not ‘proud’ of my suffering I’m ‘proud’ of my strength of character to pick myself up and keep going - so I should be. So more people should be! Unfortunately people who don’t have that strength of character like to band together on places like MN and make it ‘unfashionable’ to keep going and struggle on. Because that makes those who aren’t feel ‘less than’? It’s not fair to take away one persons achievment because it makes others feel lazy!

The country, world, life... doesn’t owe you the right to say ‘I’m too tired of this I’m gonna stop now and live for free’

Wow. Such a personal attack on my situation which you know nothing about that you had to reiterate how bad I am three times.
Time to leave the thread. I hope life never deals you a bad enough hand that you end up where others on this thread have been.

Ah sorry four times.

Anyone who thinks anxiety is not debilitating has no experience of anxiety.

Anxiety is not feeling a bit worried, you know?

My daughter has anxiety. When she's having an anxiety attack she cannot breathe, she cannot move, she literally cannot hear what you are saying to her when you're trying to comfort her. Her vision and her hearing go 'fuzzy and dark'. She's not at the age where she can work yet but it isn't just school she misses due to anxiety. She misses out on family holidays and social events too.

@ohreally

😞 arguably your situation is down to lifestyle choices - just not ‘your’ lifestyle choices. Your ex left you and your DC is a financially difficult situation which was totally unfair.

I really don’t think the government do enough to prevent women ended up in this situation but rather supplementing your income with ‘benefits’ they should be stripping his wage to enable you to live the lifestyle you would have were he still around.

Wouldn’t it be better to make it so that any parent who chooses to leave is still required to pay half of all the domestic bills for the family home? And then a realistic contribution to living costs? (Removing cases such as absue...etc)

It seems to me that as it is, having children (even in long established marriages) is really quite a precarious situation for women. You just have to hope that he won’t up sticks and leave you in the financial lurch?

I love when one person has a go at another ... then get all offended when they have a go back. Don’t give what you can’t take. 🙌🏻

I work, I'm a single parent and claim WTC and CTC and HB. Being a single parent was not my choice as my ex left for someone else. He pays nothing towards his DD, doesnt work so no CMS there either.

I dont want to have more children purely because I dont want to take from the child I do have to give to another.

Hopefully, one day, I'll be off benefits altogether, just dont make it hard for me to achieve that. Being on JSA isnt fun, when you are treated like scum. It took me two years to find my job, I dont want to go back into being treated like scum again.

Meteor - I agree to some extent. I suffer from anxiety, mostly work related and decided enough was enough . I ended a 30 year Nursing career because the stress of my job and shift patterns made my anxiety so much worse.I have embarked on a new career which is 2/3 of the pay and I have had to start again on a low wage but it has been worth it . Anxiety can be debilitating and it seems to affect an awful lot of people. My mum and my grandma before her both suffered from what I can now understand was a general anxiety disorder but of course back then there was no name for it just put down to "nerves". There needs to be better help and more government money put into helping people as help seems difficult to come by.

So many people suffering from anxiety and mental health problems these days! Perhaps we should be tackling that first.

Anyway, if one side is asking for statistics, then they should provide them too.

Warehouses are not full of people who suffer from IBS, and if you do suffer common sense says you should look for alternative employment to accommodate your condition.

Have you given any advice or support for people to help themselves? It just seems like there are so many excuses reasons on here why someone can not work. Most I think are from people that haven't really suffered themselves as most people do try to be responsible.

I wonder how these lifestyle choice people are managing to operate, what with sanctions and having to fill in online diaries daily etc.

As for soldiering on, good for you Meteor but that's not an option for a significant number of people. I have IBD, I can go to the loo up to 25 times a day, sometimes for up to an hour. I am fecally incontinent. I do get benefits and trust me, they are not for having a dodgy ankle, a situation for which nobody has ever been in receipt of benefits. Sometime when you're bored, do take a look at the ESA and PiP
forms, they're hell on earth to fill in and require a shit ton of evidence from professionals. Fraud is at less than half a percent.

"Warehouses are not full of people who suffer from IBS, and if you do suffer common sense says you should look for alternative employment to accommodate your condition"

An employer has to agree to give you the job first.

im in a state pension household btw i care for my husband who has COPD Hes nearly 70 So im not working Apart from caring for him.

My best friend has epilepsy. She was honest for a long time and always disclosed it every time she applied for a job. She would never get the job. She stopped disclosing it but did not do anything else differently.

Since then she has got most of the jobs that she has applied for.

the reality is that employers will not take on someone with health problems if they can avoid it.

Do people really want another similar incident to the Glasgow bin lorry crash.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/cardiac-patient-declared-fit-work-10522261

"A cardiac patient who was declared fit for work by benefits assessors suffered a third heart attack just three hours into a new job.

Michael Bispham, 44, was told he was well enough to work again, despite 11 letters from consultants and other medics saying he wasn’t.

He was refused ESA (employment support allowance) after scoring zero points.

Michael had already suffered two heart attacks, and he collapsed with a third on the day he started work as a delivery driver in Barrow, Cumbria"

and before anyone starts an employer has to agree to give you the job first.

it could well be that was the only one he was offered.

I'd still like to know how people who are born disabled have made this a lifestyle choice.

40 minutes to get through to chase your own payment in the citizens advice office thats disgusting. 6 weeks wait or more for money to come through whoever thought of that is sick.