Well, obviously I'm not currently in receipt of it due to my appeal, but still. When I first started claiming, people were often rude and insulting towards me because of it, but as my illness progressed and I pretty much withdrew from the world, I thought at least I wouldn't have to listen to it any more. But today I'm even getting it at home from my landlady.
She gave her daughter £20K for a house deposit last year. She couldn't afford it, she put it on a credit card, at least most of it. Now she's in debt and complains about it constantly. She sucks up to her daughter and then takes her frustrations out on me. Just now she was on the phone to her daughter, and her daughter was telling her about how she has a holiday planned, after just coming back from abroad, and has just bought a new expensive bike, and been out partying, etc, all kinds of expensive things. And my landlady was cooing "Ooh how lovely!" and acting all nice about it.
As soon as she got off the phone, she started angrily having a go at me, saying when my benefits are reinstated and I've paid off the rent debt that's racking up, she's putting my rent up by 50% as she needs the money. I didn't feel this was fair and said it's not my fault she's in debt, she shouldn't have given her daughter £20K if she couldn't afford it. She started yelling, "She needs a house, and she works for her money! You don't even work for yours!"
And talking about how it's her money anyway as she used to be a taxpayer and my benefits come out of taxes. Well, I used to be a taxpayer too before becoming disabled.
It sounds pathetic but I feel like crying now. I've got no-one to talk to in real life. I haven't spoken to anyone but my horrid landlady, medical staff and delivery drivers in years. It just drives home that everyone from the DWP to the government to the general public thinks I'm undeserving of even the basic necessities of life and a burden to everyone. They act like benefit claimants are living it up, having a wonderful time, when the reality is reassessments on average every 2 years for me, appeals, and having to beg for every little thing.
If it wasn't for this site I would have ended it by now, this is the only place I have for friendship, emotional support and financial help. But even here I have to repost over and over on mutual aid when I need something, wondering if I'll be able to get the things I need. And forget ever having anything just for fun or pleasure, or to make life worthwhile, that's a distant dream. I try to convince myself that I'll get my benefits reinstated and then I'll be able to do the online art course I want to take and join the Order of Druids, but in reality who knows if I'll win my appeal or if I'll even by able to do anything after a 50% rent increase.
I don't understand why they won't just legalise assisted suicide for the disabled, nobody wants us anyway. And I hate those stupid cancer adverts for macmillan and cancer research, showing cancer patients surrounded by caring loved ones, showered with support and given all the help they need. It's not like that at all. At first people are shocked by your diagnosis and sympathetic but as your illness wears on and you get worse people get tired of you and can't be bothered with you any more. The country doesn't want to pay for you, the NHS waiting list is a million years long so your condition ends up worse than it had to be, and everyone treats you like scum because you don't work any more.
And I get blamed for my landlady's debt, just like the disabled in general get blamed for the country's debt. The disabled are accused of bankrupting the country with the benefits bill while MPs give themselves a payrise. I get told my benefits aren't my money anyway and that I'll have to pay more while my landlady almost bankrupted herself by giving her daughter a house deposit and wasting a fortune on horses and her estranged husband's nonsense (don't even get me started on that, it's an absolutely infuriating story.)
The daughter might work for her money but she also has a life, fun, holidays, family and friends. They act like I'm so lucky I get "free money" from other people, but what has that cost me? It's cost my life - I have nothing worthwhile, no fun, no friends, no freedom and nothing to look forward to. And everyone treats me like something they found on the bottom of their shoe - I have no other use to society so I might as well be used as society's punchbag.
I try so hard to find things to live for but at moments like this I wonder why I even bother.
I've just realised, I think I'm going through a midlife crisis. Lately I've been rediscovering the EDM music I used to listen to in the 90s, can't stop watching youtube videos of people clubbing in the 90s (the decade I started going clubbing) and watching videos of all the parks and streets I used to hang out on when I was young. Longing to go back. Wanting to change things and gaining new interests.