Thursday 30 December 2010

An admission

It's been a few weeks since I've written and many of you may be wondering what happened. I went from posting several times a day to nothing for weeks.
Well, quite simply, I am tired. The constant onslaught of articles, the nasty comments, the blinkered views, have all combined to make me feel worn out.
The right wing press and believers have been doing their work on me and making me feel like I have to constantly justify myself, why I'm not working, why I'm claiming benefits.

I'm ashamed to admit it in the face of all the admirable and ongoing action from others but that's what it is. I have been sleeping a lot and my MS symptoms have been flaring again because I have caught a cold. Yep, a normal, everyday cold.
For most people a cold is nothing but an irritant that makes them feel a bit icky. For me, it makes me so tired I could cry and makes my head hurt enough to stop me sleeping properly.
I don't have the energy or the mental faculty to write with my previous zeal. And that in itself makes me feel bad. Because I want to be fighting, I want to feel useful and do something against these cuts that will make the lives of so many people miserable.
There is so much out there that makes me angry and I need to do something about it. But my body won't let me.

And that is part of the issue. If I have an illness that affects me to the point where I can't fight for myself, then why should I feel bad about that? Why should my own Government make me feel bad? And why would they be trying to implement plans that will make my life harder?
People like me aren't starting from the same level playing field. But the government refuses to see that.
And that in itself makes me feel even worse.

I don't have the strength or the energy to fight right now. I need others to fight for me. I hate that. And I hate that I don't see it happening. There is solidarity for the students, solidarity for the tax avoidance protests, solidarity for the public sector job cuts. As there should be. But if I can support them in the small way that I am able then why aren't they standing in solidarity with me?

Is the right wing press doing it's work on them too?

Cross posted at Where's the Benefit

3 comments:

  1. I am halfway through a considered response to the govt proposals - including comments about the dodgy data and analyses - but caught a cold before Christmas that wiped me out.

    I will get back to it. And I will circulate the data/analysis issues to some other sites.

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  2. If I were a broken toy
    You would throw me in the bin
    If I were an animal
    Euthanasia would come in

    But - I - I am a Human
    I have supposed 'Human rights'
    And yet this coalition
    Has turned my life into a constant fight

    I have to fight to prove I'm broken
    Just enough to qualify
    For PIP and ESA and stuff
    Or they'll just hang me out to dry

    I didn't ask to be disabled
    I didn't ask for my life to change
    I didn't ask for all this pain and stuff
    And my life to be re-arranged

    I do not enjoy begging this government
    For food to line my belly
    For heat and light and housing
    And to hear how they hate me on the telly

    I do not enjoy being a nothing
    I do not find warmth in being one of 'the scum'
    I really hate having to ask for money
    And I am not the only one

    I am too tired to fight the big guns
    My voice it is far far too small
    I know you cannot hear me as
    Up on that pedestal you are too tall

    Your ears are closed to the needy
    Your heart it has just turned to stone
    And the broken ones of Britain
    We have to get through this all alone

    I am sorry that my body
    Will not work as I need it to
    I am sorry I cannot do things
    That would make me not depend on you

    But I really do not want to
    Cease to exist to help your cause
    I just want to be allowed to LIVE life
    Even tho mine has so many flaws

    Please Mr David, please just hear me
    Please listen through my tears
    Hear what I am saying
    About my fright, terror and fears

    Please stop attacking those people like me
    We are NOT the sh*t upon your shoe
    To show Humanity is not a flaw
    It's what could make the huMAN of You


    02.01.2011

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  3. We need a unity and many are running scared of financial cuts, we are vulnerable, and without unity of purpose or view we can do nothing. How can we take on the might of government, AND the nasty press that gains column inches from attacking us ? We've been called liars, frauds, scroungers, work-shy and all sorts, and yet we have to sit there and take it, some of us don't, but not enough to make anyone listen. If only the much-vaunted social sites if Facebook or Twitter could be utilised, but they are obsessed with trivia. Brian Lamb CBE ex rind said that despite the hype of social site usage not a single or viable campaign has emerged from it. National charities are now ex-officio support areas sub contracted to the state, they aren't going to bite the hand that feeds either, so you have to take THAT on as well. Petitions have been scuppered, they didn't work online anyway,because the rules have changed, now you need at least 100,000 before they will even look at it. I remember motorists got 2 MILLION and still got nowhere. I think the upshot is simply online campaigns are not going to work. We need bums on seats feet on the roads, but this is hard too, we must keep plugging away, else what is there ?

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