DWP address? Dispute resolutions / ESA

[id665310]

I have got my second assessment for ESA on Thursday, presumably with Maximus this time unless they too have been sacked? I had been away for four months from the flat I've lived in for 21 years and feel a bit panicked to learn of this appointment being so near ( and this time it's due so early in the day that the train fare will be double). This is in part because I am severely stressed out because I already have another concurrent fight on my hands with the local council over its handling of a violent and antisocial neighbour (documented on another subforum here). When I was coerced back to the flats by the council I began to get heart pains of the same kind I'd got when my neighbour threatened me for making complaints. The initial period of pain died down after thirty hours but has begun again. I will go to my GP about this but I'm not happy to be reporting a more or less new health issue within a few days of an assessment, because of how it might be viewed with suspicion. Having had something very like a heart attack at 29 as a side effect of antidepressants I'm seriously concerned about this heart issue, though a visit to A&E last week showed nothing up. I am vividly aware as I type though that something is not right. There is pressure in my heart or a feeling of a knot. It's actual and not merely chemical/ psychological even if aggravated by an emotional state I'm trying to combat with breathing.

 

But I'm more concerned about whether I have the energy for another fight over all this. I am half angry, half exhausted. I believe that if I still allowed myself to risk the involvement of professionals I would have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder by now because of the extremity of the swings but it is some bind when you are utterly exhausted part of the time and full of rage the rest of it.

 

We could say that having been through one of these assessments I know the lie of the land - and it certainly is a lie and not a lay - but I read that for example that some symptoms/sentiments that arise from mental health issues (which I've learned I cannot discuss here, which I accept) which six months ago were cause for assessors and DWP staff to treat an individual with caution, are now indiciators that an indivisual should be pushed firmly towards the workplace, despite an apparent overall impression given in the media that there should have been a moving away from the aggression of these asessments experienced from 2011-2015.

 

I am going to ring to assert that I will be recording my assessment as last year's assessor lied repeatedly in her report, which I was going to use at the tribunal. A leaflet tells me I can use my equipment and that's how it's going to be as I have no reason to trust these people.

 

I was put in the Support Group last year but only short term. I had applied to go to tribunal but this was cancelled without my say-so when the one year Support Group was decided upon. Someone senior in the Dispute Resolutions team actually rang me, and even by coincidence had agreed with a colleague on calling the dogs off on my birthday. I want to ask to speak to him tomorrow or am considering writing a letter to ask for this to be viewed in conjunction with Thursday's assessment. I do not have room for manouevre financially for any ESA cut. I have thirty quid in the bank to last nine days and no savings. I have nothing left to sell because the other business with the council led to me selling everything to pay to keep a roof over my head somewhere safe over the last four months, though I slept outside sometimes too.

 

Last year as I was under attack by the DWP and my neighbour's behaviour at once I developed for the first time in my life a period of binge-drinking. In the second half of my 30s I didn't touch alcohol, and for most of my adult life I could take or leave it and went for weeks without a pint. For several months last year I was losing my memory about three times a week, falling over, having to bin clothes that became scuffed and torn. I was shocked out of it once a friendly waitress saw me staggering around, and then when a stranger approached me who'd guided me home. I'm not ashamed but it's pretty horrifying to be pushed into uncharacteristic behaviour without personal precedent, and I resent this period. I hadn't slipped back into this until Thursday just gone, and hope that was only a blip and not new stresses.

 

Additionally, being angered by this new medical I have decided to stop being a mug over something that happened around twelve years ago. Before the advent of ATOS and the like I had a medical in the same building when I was on SDA. The doctor who did it carried out an act of aborted sexual abuse. I don't know if you can understand but at the time I could hardly believe it, and then felt fearful of rocking the boat due to my need for my benefits. Now though, feeling harrassed and angry I want to go to the police and pursue things. If a celebrity's abuse form forty years ago can be pursued then so can this. I would have no trouble identifying this person because I remember his manner vividly. At present I'm intending to go to the police station on Tuesday, will explain what happened and then ask if there are records of other complaints having been made with reference to the same building. I am not going to back out of this now but I suppose need to prepare myself. There are no doubts in my mind regarding what happened - it was nothing whatsoever to do with the medical and a clear assertion of power. I am absolutely aware that people do worse as one family member suffered horrifically and so did someone I was engaged to, but as this person has or had a position of power which has continuity with the comparatively respectable veneer of Maximus's power I want him dealt with.

 

I will soak up anything helpful anyone wants to say here but at times I feel like walking off the grid altogether nowadays. I have thought of turning myself in to a hospital but fear losing autonomy regarding diet and medication. I spent a weekend in a particular creed's monastery a decade ago and remember they had a 'lay monk' there, a man who basically mucked in but had not adopted the garb, and who seemed to have retreated from comparable aggravation in the regular world. I've considered going there but do not really have the conviction of that creed despite sharing some agreement with it.

 

Sick enough also, despite being aware of what I'd been put through last year several people in my family voted Conservative and didn't hide the fact. Sometimes sitting down with them and acting like they hadn't put a cross in box that could have a very dramatic consequence you do feel that family life has become farcical.

 

Thanks for your time.

[id665310]

I need to forward some materials to support the process following my medical assessment for ESA but want to try and get these to the person/department who basically saved my life last year by vetoing the decision to have me found 'fit for work'. I believe this was someone senior at the 'dispute resolutions' team, who actually phoned me to tell me that he'd spoken about my case to a woman in another department, actually on my birthday last year weirdly enough. I was not happy to have m tribunal procedure halted but gave in in relief after much stress and aggravation regarding my benefits.

 

I am highly anxious about what will happen in the next few weeks, already feeling worn out and miserable in a freezing cold bedsit and have had two slippages back to what had already been an uncharacteristic binge-drinking habit begun during last year's stresses.

 

I am in north Kent if it makes a difference. I can just imagine my papers coimng to nothing if I use the wrong address.

 

Thank you for any help.