Living on Benefits in 2017

Living on Benefits in 2017

A lot of people seem to think that other people being on benefits is all out of pure laziness in not wanting to find a job and such, well let me say just a few things right there.

first up yes some people on JSA are probably just lazing about not really trying to seek a job, others meanwhile may be on befits for reasons such as disability, severe mental health etc.

i for example am on Employment Support Allowance for a fair few years now, ok so yeah the name makes it sound like it is for those working and maybe on low wages or something and while i believe some can get it for that reason but will be low rate, the major reason is the inability to work, before being on it i did work, I did not have the best of grades thanks to being kicked out from moms twice and moving schools several times during GCSEs which caused serious drops in grades as some courses were not available at one school that were at the other school, and then there was being in hospital for long periods also during those GCSE years also causing drops to my grades due to not being able to take part in certain exams and aspects that would help grades, but I'm quite proud to say that despite that i came away with 4 Cs, 2 D's and 4E's as well as a foundation degree award or whatever you want to call it in Latin.

 The moment i left school I went hunting for jobs but several injuries caused me to lose the job at McDonalds which was a shame as i actually enjoyed working there, for a while i bounced around a few other trial jobs as well as many work with agencies which i actually did pretty well at too , JSA and College with Income Support,
but then things started to go tits up in my life and that's not with the whole transition thing included, the major drop in life came at the moment my granddad on moms side passed away, we didn't exactly have the best last words last time we had spoke and i had not seen him in years probably since the passing of my Nan also on moms side, i had actually begun a plan to go and see him and was virtually there, i was staying at my brother and sisters shared house for the weekend and early hours the morning after i arrived the day of which i was going to go and see him , i was awoken to the terrible news of his passing, now up to that point i had always tried to keep my feelings inside and I'm sure i did pretty well at it though when i came back from what was almost a suicidal walk I'm pretty sure they knew what was going through my mind, that was the start of where things went bad, from there i just couldn't forgive myself for never getting the chance to apologise and guilt began to built and to this day has not entirely gone away, though i am pretty certain he would have forgave me.

Then became a bad passing of a few years the events of which i do not wish to go into but i would not wish that on even the worst person in the world but on the exit of those events i ended up, Homeless, Broke and Severely suicidal to mention just a few things, that was when i decided to try and start life fresh, also the moment when i began my transition, and things very slowly started to look upwards though still a long way from positive, after several events with me ending up in hospital from suicidal events such as overdoses, attempted suffocation and much more, not to mention one time when i woke up in hospital while homeless with nothing, i was apparently taken in after collapses from a drug overdose from some drug i had never heard of not did i even remember taking, only thing i remember was being with a few other homeless people who accepted me for being transgender we was wandering around trying to find some way to earn some money to pass away the cold winter nights we was sleeping rough in but next thing i remember like i said i woke up in hospital apparently having an overdose, i also was being called some name i had never heard of and apparently the reason was i had a phone and some other stuff belonging to someone else, as the days past i tried to retrace steps and found out that the stuff and the drugs were given to me by a lad we bumped into and though i offered him his stuff except the remaining drugs which of cause were confiscated at the hospital he told me i needed it more than him.

After those events i thanked the lad for letting me keep the phone and some cash, but gave him back his id so i would not be mistaken for him again, i began to try to sort my life out first was getting myself a roof and then i got registered at a doctors and once that happened at my first check up i was referred to a new mental health check up having seen my history and was slowly dragged back under by the re issued diagnosis of Schizophrenia, Severe Depression, some form of Anxiety i van never remember the full name and another diagnosis i can also not remember.

now ill skip forwards a few years from 2013 to 2016, i had finally gotten myself not only of the street and the councils first provision of Hostels and B&Bs, which was where i was finally advised to go back onto Employment Support Allowance (ESA) a benefit i had been on for a couple of months leading up to the homeless, which enabled me to get into shared accommodation and then into a mental health housing association from there i slowly ravelled my way through several more short term property shares before finally landing myself in a flat, i listened to all the terms and conditions etc and was glad to hear that i would only need to pay an additional just short of £10 per fortnight which would cover rent, council tax, water rates and a few other property related issues, having signed the doted lines, now things started to look positive, things were getting paid on time, i got one debt paid off and was finally able to improve my credit rating enough to get a refurbished washing machine on credit, and a mobile contract or two, now that's where things once again turned sour, i agreed to let a friend have the first contract on the terms that he would pay the bill for that, other than paying me the deposit i paid for the mobile he did not pay a single penny now it only hit me back a little at the time and i was able to make a work around with the company having told them and them seeing on the agreement that the ownership was indeed switched to partially to his name but not fully and so i still fell responsible for it and agreed to have it disconnected and continue paying at a much lower affordable rate, but then things went even more sour, 6 months after moving into the flat i received a whopping council tax bill for the year and was told if i did not pay it i could be evicted i tried to appeal due to being told it was covered but apparently there was an increase in rates within the first week of me moving in and it was switched from being covered to not being covered though they gave no explanation to why i was not informed until 6 months later, this forced a chain of events which have once again dragged me to the point where i keep considering is life even worth living, i mean another ryear on from there and despite my best attempts to reduce the council tax, that first amount was not reduced enough and was taken to court and i received the letter about that 3 days after the court date, during further attempts to try to sort things out and find out why i still was not receiving letters from them except  the late court letter and 1 letter in a year and six months, i now have two years worth of council debt plus some for increased charges, i have fell behind on rent because of trying to balance council tax and rent and other bills, the mobile has been cut of just a month away from their end of contracts and now received extra charges for that as well as a full disconnection within a month of going over the credit limit which is extremely ridiculous so my credit rating has now dropped from an average back to a very low, and i am struggling to get by in day to day life, with bus pass also no longer being provided due to increases in circumstances required for it, so my volunteering has vastly dropped, once again knocking me right back and past that breaking point i had previously hit to an all new low, oh and did i mention gas and electric was disconnected and switched to pay as you go meters at ten times what i was told they would be, all because of bloody council tax not doing things properly and messing me up, right at this moment in time, i was paid a week ago, topped gas up by £50, Electric by £20 as it was already on a fine amount, and would you believe the gas was gone with 4 days including gas, so i have been without gas for 3 days so far once again, that means i am paying OVER £10 per day on gas in a property where the only thing that used gas is hot water hardly ever used and heating which is on extreme lowest settings and auto with lowest time settings so it is only ever on for a couple of hours each day which i find absolutely ridiculous, i tried to contact them and ask them why i was paying so high but they said that is absolutely standard rate and i am being charged correctly, despite the fact only 4 months ago when i was switched to it i was told i would NOT spend more than £40 per MONTH on gas including charges, i find the amount of money received to the amount of money i spend on only the basics of living is terrible, the government recommended food shopping budget is meant to be £30 per week, that's £60 per fortnight, after bills you know gas, electric, council tax, rent and washing machine hire purchase and majorly decreased landline and broadband costs i am left with only £10 to buy food, travel and cover other costs such a mobile bill, clothing, household stuff. it is IMPOSSIBLE to live like this and i really don't know how much longer i can go on like this i was only able to buy enough food to last 3 days and that's at 1 meal a day, plus some of the cheapest tobacco available to calm me down which also isn't lasting long enough, at this point as well i have not been diagnosed with Schizophrenia but several other diagnosis i can never remember basically equalling the exact same thing, and the tablets i am still getting are not even affecting anymore now that i have got to such a low point, and to make things worse over the next month, all my bills are each going up including the charge on gas and electric, council tax rent etc and from what i can tell are all between £5-10 extra, to make matters even worse the government are trying to redice the amount of money that people on ESA receive meaning I WILL BE BANKRUPT, i will end up being evicted again and so losing property will mean i will likely also lose my benefits, losing property also would mean i would loe my doctors which would mean my transition would be put on hold which is the only thing keeping me ALIVE.

so please for the love of life tell me again that life on benefits is so fucking easy because if you think it is hell ill switch lives with you, i have even tried Appling for jobs and ignoring the do not work diagnosis, because if i work i lose my befits and will like NEVER get back on it again, but every job i apply to either straight up ignores me, or during the very few honest interview i have give rejects me for my mental health or one even had the cheek to say they wouldn't hire a T****y, one word which i extremely despise.

i probably should change the title to something like Trying to live on benefits in 2017, or this world is falling to shit or you know anything that is actually truthful like that