Jobs in Mind...

It wasn't the mental health charity Mind I had an appointment with yesterday, it was another charity called Jobs in Mind.

My interview ran over which I won't go into here apart from suffice to say, this self elected leader of the I Don't Know party kept saying "I don't know if I want to work, yes I do want to work, no I don't want to work, I do want to do a job that I love that suits my life, I don't want to be forced into looking..."

This charity, I was able to see objectively after about 15 minutes, is amazing actually. They support you back into work. They help with your cv, they help with application forms, they can do mock interviews with you.

For the long term unemployed (and it doesn't take six months to get depressed about it really, so imagine what it's done to me) something like this is a godsend because jobseeking for so many, is soooooooo depressing. To have someone support you without pressurising you into anything, well, I imagine you might pick up some self worth on the way but also have someone who understands your anger and frustration when it's another job you haven't got, another company you haven't heard from.

Sounds great don't you think?

One problem.

In order to access this service you have to have a mental health problem.
In order to access this service you have to be referred by a support worker or social worker.
Apart of me was depressed to even be there.

"I don't want to be like them," I said to the woman.
"Like who?" she answered.
"Like all those depressed people, all those people who can't see a way out, all those people who just feel hopeless about their lives, all those people, well, that feel like I do."

Lucky.

I am lucky.

I am really lucky. 2.7 million unemployed people do not have access to this service although the charity would love to extend its service to 2.7 million people. Funding though ey....

She said she'd be in touch in a couple of days then must have seen my eyebrows shoot up or something because then she said "A couple of weeks" and I breathed closing my eyes.

In an ideal world, I would go from ESA straight into a job. Not from ESA to JSA back to the Big Black Hole which is what I'm frightened will happen now.

Well done Spartacus Report people for getting the Lords to triple defeat the government on timelimiting ESA and benefit rights for disabled people. People I know are very much worse off than me.

Typical this know nothing clueless care-less Government are vowing to overturn it:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jan/12/welfare-reform-government-reverse-defeat

No idea, none that there is a ton of blood not to mention increasing mental illness attributable to them and their ideological tearing apart of the fabric of our society.

Rising crime is the only way you'll know our country's sinking if politically you stand to the Right. Will those papers report the rest?

I hope so.