Sticks and Stones

I'm sick of coming up against prejudice because I have a disability, or because I'm unemployed, or because I'm on benefits. I know people don't always mean to be disrespectful, but sometimes the remarks and quips like "oh, you're one of the people scrounging off my hard earned tax money are you?" really do hurt. Why? Because it implies that I like being like this. I'm not denying that there are people in the country today who are living like this out of laziness or because it's easy. I'm not. By making these jokes, even though they're jokes, you lump me in with people like that. I struggle as it is with the belief that I am not ill, that I am making this up, that I am in fact just lazy and worth nothing. By making those comments all you do is reinforce that belief that I am trying so, so hard to break down.

Not only that, but it means that the focus of my mind for the next while will be the state of my life as it is. I won't focus on the fact that I have a wonderful family, that my boyfriend is incredibly special, that for the first time in my life I have friends and actually believe that they care about me like I do about them. Instead I'll wake up and be overwhelmed by the knowledge that once again, I have nothing to do with my day. Or more accurately, I have nothing that I can do with my day. I'm not saying that I'm never lazy or that I couldn't try harder. I'm sure I could - but in order to actually properly heal, to truly get over the place that my heart and head have been in for the past decade or so, I need to do that at my own pace.

Please, when you want to make a joke, think about the fact that I'm already struggling with the knowledge that the coalition are revamping the benefits system; and if some MPs' attitude to those on disability benefits is anything to go by, I'm not going to do well out of this. Money is horrible. I live in a council flat - in an area where I feel unsafe, where I know that having a roof above my head is totally at the whim of someone else - where I am an hour away from my support network of my friends and boyfriend. I have £200 a month on which to look after myself. Of that, a good deal will go straight on bills. Once I've fed myself, paid bills and all the other sundries that an even barely tolerable life requires, I have no money left. Often I find myself using more than I have.

If that's taken away from me? I will have nothing. I will be forced to destroy the life I have made for myself here, the first beacon of hope that has been in my life, and move back to Norfolk with my parents. My independence, which is very precious to me as a shelf for my self-esteem, will be gone. I don't want to think about how much of this progress I would lose if the world crashed down like that. It makes my stomach churn and my hands shake.

Usually I try and use this blog to be optimistic. Or at the least to express confusion, rather than negativity. But right now? I'm just terrified. I'm sorry that I can't be more than that right now, but I suppose it's all the worse now that I feel like I've actually got something to lose.