Here's the thing about inclusiveness ~ the theme of this year's #IDPD2018. I can only speak for here in the Uk but my husband has a lifelong cognitive processing disorder, a learning disability; Asperger's...I don't like to reduce him to a word but I will for these purposes...
He is permanently excluded from many aspects of society, both by his disability & by the fact that there is very little support for adult- diagnosed Asperger's sufferers; which need not entail nearly as much suffering as it does. He has tried to work many times. He always tries..
So hard & pits every ounce of his energy into it, often to his own detriment. He always fails, partly because others don't understand or can't cope, or because he has been sent to an unsuitable job by the job centre & so has been set up to fail from before he even starts..
He attended a Work Capability Assessment several years ago & had his welfare payments stopped. He had to go to court to get them pack. I can only imagine how traumatic that was for an autistic man. He represented himself because he is clever & amazing...
Whilst he was waiting for the case to go to court he stopped going out & his dad had to bring him food etc. When the court hearing came the judge, of course, returned his payments to him & said that he should be left alone for 2 years...during those 2 years I met him. He really..
Is quite an extraordinary human ~ you should meet him! Anyway, of course after 2 years they were straight onto him to go for another Work Capability Assessment. He wouldn't go & so they stopped his payments, which they were perfectly entitled to do. He pointed out to them that...
His condition is lifelong & unchanging. I must admit that they were sympathetic but what could they do? And I agreed with him that he couldn't go through that again. He had already lost his trust in doctors & has several debilitating conditions that are undiagnosed because of it.
And so we survive, just, through the work that I'm able to do when not supporting him, & through the kindness of family & others, for which I am ever grateful, but it shouldn't be like this. We are the lucky ones. There will be many disabled brothers & sisters who have fallen...
Through the gaps in this so-called welfare system. Mr RH says that even if he had no support he wouldn't try to claim anything again (a huge success for the Government then!). He would walk away with nothing & just wait to see whether he died, or just do the job himself. I have
No reason to doubt him. He is an honourable man & doesn't lie. I am relieved that he is not in that position. But this is about #IDPD2018 & inclusiveness. We long for a @jeremycorbyn led Labour Government, without expecting them to mend everything but knowing that they would wish
To, that they would be far less cruel and would care about pushing people to the very edge. They would solve many things but as for inclusion that will be a hard chasm to mend in this country. Trust has been broken. The trust that once told us that we, & especially the most...
Vulnerable amongst us, would not fall through. Even with a Labour Government, even if Welfare were restored to the disabled & others, he still wouldn't go to the doctors & so could give no evidence of his need, because in his head, doctors & the DWP are all the same. He is lost.
And there will be many who feel the same, especially amongst our autistic brothers & sisters. This will take generations to heal, if it ever does. To Mr RH any attempt at inclusiveness will never be more than a pretty veneer hiding the rot beneath. I fear he may be right. Our
Society; the one we have created and allowed to unfold in all its self-interest & cruelty, has told him in no uncertain terms that he is worth nothing. We will forgive him, & others who feel like him, for that I hope. They are the canaries in the mine. What we do to them we are
Are also doing to ourselves. I no longer know what inclusivity means, outside of the good people that we have met here & elsewhere, where we have found acceptance, kindness, understanding, & love. And Mr RH even finds this too much...
This Conservative Government have killed inclusivity, expecting the gaps of support to be filled by volunteers & the 'Big Society'. They turn even our love for others & our care against us, using our desperate attempts to help to say that their policies are working & to justify..
Their continued cruelty. This will indeed take generations to heal; for disabled people & for those of us who love them. My ex-partner died because he couldn't get the help he needed. I know about people falling through, & the gaps are only widening. I will not give support to
The pretty veneer that hides the rot & I am grateful to my brave Mr RH for reminding me every day of the effect that this rotten Government has had on good people who could be contributing so much. Shame on them for their hardheartedness and ideological Austerity agenda. Come..
Soon a Labour Government, but I hope that even when that happens we will all remember how much vulnerable disabled people have suffered. I hope that they, & we, can heal in time. Our grandchildren will feel these wounds in their blood & bones. This is the world that we have made.
Apologies for the many typos in this thread. It felt better just to get it out as it came. It matters more to be real than to get it right, and I am a terrible pedant so that shows how much it matters to me! Thank you if you have managed to read this far x
