AIBU to think that all the recent threads about benefits are heading too far towards online bullying?

[LeopardsRockingham]

The way disabled people are being treated and spoken about on here in recent days is disgusting. It is verging on online hate crimes and if ithey were about other marginalised groups would not have been allowed to stand by MNHQ.

The disinformation, the sneering, the complete lack of compassion from so many Mumsnetters is vile.

Disability for the very most part isn't something that people bring onto themselves. Parents don't do anything but have different luck to you and have a disabled child.

My genetics are different to yours so I have a fucked up immune system and the host of problems that has given me.

My DH had a horrific upbringing which has led him to have MH problems- he works by the way. I did too for a long time until my body couldn't cope.

My DC was injured at birth due to a hospital fault.

My neighbour fell off his bike and has a traumatic brain injury.

My friend has breast cancer.

My cousin is dead at 38 due to epilepsy.

My nephew is so unhappy due to his ADHD bot letting him fit in at school and my sister is having trouble helping him through it due to hers.

Why are we so unworthy to you?

Are we not due the same courtesy of online treatment as those of different races and religion...or does that go out the window as you pay for us?

@MNHQ why is it acceptable for you to allow your users to bully the marginalised on this site?

To try and hammer the point home.

Clearly it missed.

Yes, it did, not that it’s made any difference.

I have to carry around a 3 page digital document for my conditions and medications. I've had paramedics Google my conditions while treating me. I am constantly in pain and the fatigue is debilitating. Yet if you looked at me, spoke to me, you would have absolutely no idea I was ill at all. My conditions are chronic, liay long, and will worsen as I age. So some of the opinions here, saying disabled people are lazy, faking it or are spending their days drunk are highly offensive and beyond ignorance. Someone even said they are funding disabled peoples life styles! No one asks or wants to be disabled. I worked for my whole life until I couldn't. That is what the system is meant to be there for. The tories are peddling this shit that people who don't work due to disability just haven't found the right job yet is complete bullshit, and trying to gain votes by getting people who work, against people who can't. It seems @MNHQ are happy to allow this behaviour in comparison to other topics which are considered to be mains stream opinion.

Your opinions on being disabled and receiving benefits based on disability are not valid at all if you are not living the experience.

Ah, sorry! I get it now. I bloody wouldn't start a coffee van business!

No one chooses to be an addict or drunk to avoid work. No one chooses to be unfit for work.

And tell us, if you were an employer, would you take them on?

If it's so easy and such a great life, then quit work and claim benefits.

I work full time, and I know full well I am far better off than people who can't work for many reasons. I don't have some weird, envious mindset of "working to pay for others" I look at alcoholics and drug addicts and feel nothing but pity and thankful that my life is not like that. Anyone who says they are "tired of paying for others" needs to give their heads a wobble and get a grip.

Not this again.

Most benefits claimants work.

Just because someone claims doesn't mean they haven't been a net contributor in the past or won't be again. It's lazy to make sweeping generalisations that are inaccurate.

It's only polarised by people incapable of understanding the nuances involved.

It's absolutely appropriate.

Ableism is as abhorrent as racism.

Well by the 2017 equality act disability has the same protected characteristics as race....so why shouldn't it be used?

There were comments on the thread about disabled children that echoed some of the arguments used by proponents of eugenics.

Miss the point much?

Absolutely

Because they don't like a mirror being held up to their bigotry.

Funnily enough it was the Martin Niemöller poem, First they came I had in my mind when I made this thread.
It isn't about benefits.
It isn't about taxation
Its about how I am so utterly shocked that I/we are an "other" with seemingly far less support than many other groups who do have protective characteristics because unfortunately some of us do require someone else's money.

Says someone who lives their life in blissful ignorance to what disabled people have to fucking suffer from day in day out and have done all throughout history.

@LeopardsRockingham, did you know the incontinence nurse can give you prescriptions for DC's incontinence products for free. You could spend his DLA on something else for him.

Shockingly so.

It was a turn of phrase, ie worshipping the lifestyle and buying lookalike clothes, having lips done etc. And yes I do have close ties with people who try to emulate them. They are on benefits but get rent paid for, and they don't pay it as living with family. The money they get they spend on labels, lipfillers, nails, eyebrows and obsessed watching the Karashians to see what they can aspire to next.

Of course this isn't normal but please believe me when I said I know people who live like this, get money in one hand and fork out for £100 nails in the other. Shameful I know. Xx

@caringcarer thank you but due to his condition he needs nappies and pads. We get 5 a day. He uses 15....ongoing bladder and kidney issues and then bowel too. They will only supply nappies OR pads and only 5🙄so this is the cheapest way. Hopefully an operation soon will change this back to tubing which then though more expensive to supply is then freely prescribed.

But thanks so much for the thought x

Don't assume that everyone will understand your turn of phrase.

I was in therapy with a lady who was always made up, nails, hair etc.... it was her mask. She had suffered awful trauma, and was just trying to get by in the best way she knew.
I am sure she never had a letter from DWP or her mental health team telling her that she had to look like shit for her issues to be taken seriously.

Did you miss the bit when I said I had every sympathy for people who genuinely couldn't work?

Addiction is more complex than a lifestyle choice.

I see Mumsnet have deleted my original reply when I stated I had every sympathy for people who genuinely couldn't work. Excuse me Mumsnet but how exactly did I break your talk guidelines?