(no subject)

FUCKING USELESS SON OF A BITCH COCK BUCKETS.

I am very close to just stabbing myself in the eye.

You know that Pathways to Work interview I have that I was so optimistic about? The jobcentre, the people who have been receiving my medical certificates for the past three months, called last week to confirm the interview, and it had to be rearranged because it wasn't in a cripple accessible room, and they were going to get back to me early this week with the nearest buses and how far the nearest bus stop is.

They just called, saying effectively do it your-fucking-self, he doesn't know where the nearest bus stop is but it's only a couple of hundred metres, no they won't pay for a taxi.

So yeah, that has drowned any optimism I had for this interview or indeed my fucking life.

What is the fucking point? I am so fucking fed up of living.

EDIT: I called them up because on my letter it says they can offer help with travel costs. They say that only applies to bus fares. Totally unsympathetic about how fucking difficult it's going to be to get from the bus stop to the jobcentre. I told them I found this whole thing shocking. An advisor will apparently call me back later.

Seems like this is the situation: I will take a taxi. It won't get paid for.

I can take a taxi. It'll probably be a bit less than a 15quid round trip, which is expensive but on a one-off is affordable, but only because I have a hefty overdraft. The shocking thing is that this interview's entire *purpose* is to give people with health issues help to get back to work, and there is no help available for people with mobility problems. For someone with no overdraft, you cannot be expected to take taxis everywhere, the bus stop is actually pretty far from the jobcentre and also if memory serves up a small slope, and the interview is compulsory. These things do not match up. There is no help, so I am now expecting an interview which goes something like "we're not going to give you any more money, so you have to take a job, and bugger if you're actually able to do it, go die in a gutter, scum." Until you're permanently disabled, you're fucked. On the bright side, if I continue to be fucked like this maybe I will be! At what point does a treatable disorder become permanent because nobody is fucking treating it.

(no subject)

Who wants to know the result of the jobcentre twattery? I do I do! Well, they've decided they can't accommodate me so the interview has been deferred for two months in the hope that by that time I'll be able to walk. Which seems like a grand epic fail considering the interview and pathways to work programme are touted as helping people both get over their health problems as well as booting people off the dole and finding work, when in reality its sole purpose is to boot people off the dole and if I'm lucky help find work ..

I am not Disabled. You can get disability allowance if you've been affected for three months and are likely to be affected for another 6 months, although the disability act defines Disability as a long-term impairment, where long-term is 12 months or more. At that point you can make a hoohaa about discrimination. If you're just plain disabled but going to get better in less than 12 months (one hopes), you got nothin'. And people keep throwing that up in my face as a reason why they don't have to do squat for me (except for air travel, which is amended to include people with recuced mobility). Which is nice.

I think I might write to my MP. I don't know what he'd do about it, but hell, I've got time and you never know.

(no subject)

I just wrote a somewhat long but I think well-put letter to my MP, MSP, and all my Councillors. I feel somewhat like I might have done something useful. This productivity (if it counts as productivity) was brought on by a well-meant comment on my facebook which I think was a very flowery "life is beautiful and wonderful, today is great, tomorrow will be great, yay for things" which I had to reply to saying yes there are beautiful things but also to make things better you have to first acknowledge them and then do something about them. I have felt a bit chained due to not knowing how to do the second bit. This is something, at least.

I had quite a nice evening in the end. Helen and Tef came round and we made Healthy Banana and Chocolate Cake, which was delicious and tasted like chocolate-stuffed bananas that you cook in tinfoil on a barbecue. And Celia came and brought delicious Peckhams bread with fennel in it and houmous. And I knitted and played with Tef's Korg thingy on his DS, and generally chilled out and had many cups of tea. It was good. Celia! You left your hat here.

And Steven has been huggy, which is lovely. Lately hugs have been causing pain from shoulder death (we are all of the cripple) so we've both been pretty horribly grumpy. Hugs are good. If I don't get hugs I start to go feral.

Tomorrow, physio, asking about MRIs and re-referral to the Orthopaedic clinic (hopefully not the bloody "sometimes I send people to physio because I don't know what else to do with them" doctor).