Who are you?

When someone asks you who are you, what do you say? What identifies you? For many disabled, it depends on context. If you have a visible disability, and you are present at an event, usually you are defined first as a disabled person with out even opening your mouth. While communicating virtually, depending on whether it is an open forum or not, no one can see a wheelchair, braces, sticks, scooters. We can be people, just like anyone else.

The world has become a frightening place for disabled people. Punitive welfare policies define us. The mainstream media takes the view that we, with some well known disabled folks, as scroungers, always on the fiddle with benefits. We are spied on, either from the local Sainsburys, requested by the Department of work and pensions and the local fraud squad from the council. We all have seen the horror stories on social media.

If you are not aware, when you are a disabled people, your life is not your own. We’re not talking about the information one might use to get a social media account and we’re not talking about the information gleaned from those fun quizzes that your friends send you through Facebook. No, we are talking about a person’s most intimate details, which you might not share with your closest friends.

You see, when you need help from the government, you need to lay your entire life out before the gate keepers. When you apply, you get this long winded form to fill out. It begins by asking you the details of your personal habits. Here is where you lose bits of yourself. You have to answer questions which just lay you bare.

You are not allowed privacy anymore. The government wants every last personal detail. If you try to maintain some vestige of personal pride, you don’t get the help you need. You now owe yourself to the DWP. Most of us didn’t start off mistrusting the very agency you have to let into your personal habits.

The television depicts people like us as lazy, the term circles round in your head long before media turns you into a criminal, committing fraud against the state purse. You are beholden to an institution that films you every time you have to renew your claim. The longer you are forced to relay on the DWP, the more of yourself you lose. You are forced to attend assessments with people who may be filming how you arrived at the assessment centre. Often you are required to go through the assessment process every two years, although you have a award for three years, even if you are ill. People struggle out of their sick beds, often very unwell in fear of being penalised for non attendance. The DWP doesn’t seem to feel the same way about making sure they they attend the appointment. Sometimes they just don’t show up.

Never mind, suffice it to say, that if you ever want to feel totally laid bare, walk up to some random stranger and talk about how you wash yourself and your toileting habits. Talk about how many fungal infections you’ve had because it takes so much energy to shower. Once you tell this complete stranger your deepest secrets, you leave it to them to decide if you are sick enough to merit the help you so desperately need. And then wait for two or three months for the verdict.

Those of us who face this process time and time again get worn down. We dread the brown envelop which announces our fate. If we are lucky, we keep our precious benefits, which means we can eat, possibly even heat our home. Maybe we won’t need a food bank. We will retain be able to keep your home. We will start to relax. Until the next time.

When you ask us why we feel such fear, there is no way to explain the fear that grips us when we have to open the envelope and face the verdict. We hate what the DWP has done to us, but we accept all of this because the outside world has made us less than human. Second or third class citizens. No dignity left. Hostages to austerity created by this cruel government to draw attention away from the real thieves. The government themselves.