"You know you will be seen fit for work don't you?"

There are many tentacles to this crushing, suffocating system I'm trapped in and call me weak but I often feel crushed and suffocated by it.

Take the letter I got yesterday saying I needed to send a new medical certificate by Monday or my payments would be stopped.

My doctor's appointment wasn't until Tuesday. I couldn't get an earlier one when I booked a month ago. So I had to make an emergency one and 'luckily' some other doctor had a cancellation this morning.

Doctors too, especially now since the government has clamped down on sickos, are a tentacle to this crushing, suffocating system.

This one had never met me, just read a few notes on the computer, clearly thought I "looked" fine and said: "You know you will be seen fit for work don't you?"

Oh I wanted to hit her. Not her..the System. RRRARGH. "I know," I said. "I've got a questionaire to fill in which I can't bring myself to do at the moment."

The questionnaire is twenty pages long...

No I don't have a community psychiatric nurse
No, I'm not waiting for chemotherapy
Yes I can move 50 metres before I have to stop
Yes, I can move 200 metres too...school run is further than that you know..
I can go up and down two steps
I can move from one seat to another without help
I can sit in one place for an hour without help (though who can stand, really, apart from the Queen's Guards?)
I can pick up a 2 pint carton of milk
And the number of times we've been evicted, yes, an empty cardboard box

(I must take a break here and mention that I am aware of how lucky I am, much luckier than someone who can go up two ateps but not five and much luckier than someone waiting for any kind of hospital appointment)

But hang on, I'm a mental case not a physical one
Can I start and finish daily tasks?
There are coping with change questions, going out questions, coping with social situation questions.

In the multiple choice of answers of whether I can do any of them there is "No" "Yes" and "It varies" then write an essay on why my behaviour upsets people and how often.

You know what?

How can a single mother say she is not "fit for work"

She has to be "fit for work" or she'll be done for neglect and her child be taken into care.
She has to be "fit for work" or she'll be sectioned under the mental health act and her child will be taken into care.

Of course I'm fucking fit for fucking work
I'm just not fit for the kind of fucking work you want me to do right now ok.
Just because you tell me I am fit doesn't mean I am. LEAVE ME ALONE.

It's a patronising crushing suffocating system and I wish the doctor had just kept her mouth shut and told me to focus on getting better instead.

She's given me two weeks

Better than a kick in the teeth I guess

If only there was a way of not thinking of any of this shit

That's what gets people down

down

DOWN

Don't think about it

Breathe
again
Breathe