How Do We Fight?

I feel so angry and hurt, that I've been crying, again.

I hope that one day, disabled and ill will get justice, for everything we have been put through, and for all the people that have died, at as a result of what this government have done to us.

Today is not a good day, for disabled and ill people, (with the 'Independent Living Fund' closure being ruled lawful, and the ruling about priority access to buses, going against us),  but neither is any other day, under this government. It just feels like a couple more kicks, while we're down.

Even the law doesn't protect us, because when the government doesn't like any victory we get, they change the law retroactively, (which means everything that went before, no longer stands).

It's one thing after another, after another, and then alongside that, the media, does the government's work for them, and tells us that we are any variant of 'scrounging scum', relentlessly!

It's only a matter of time, before it all starts to rip apart your self esteem. In my case, I've spent my life trying to build it up, because I don't have much. What I do have, is fragile.

It's not just the impact of what's happening to us now, that hurts and frightens me. It's the thought, that when this government is gone, (which it will be, one day), it's the long term campaigners, that will be left to pick up the pieces.

We'll have to work even harder, to bring back the cause, even to where it was, before the damage was done, - in more ways than one.

How do you do that? Where do you start?

This government has told the public that we're all 'fakers' and 'scroungers.' They have vilified us, and made us second class citizens, if that! They have made people view us, with doubt and suspicion, rather than understanding, and compassion.

Everything I, (and so many others) have done, over the years, to help people understand disability, and view disabled people positively (and as equally as we had been), is being eradicated,by a government with malicious, cruel, twisted, and heartless ideology.

They've taken the cause back thirty years - if not more, and if they win again next year, they will keep doing it!

People like me will keep feeling unwanted, keep feeling that they are a burden, and they will keep being victims of disability hate crime. I dread to think how many more of us will die, or commit suicide, if this is allowed to carry on.

Sometimes, I feel so hurt, and angry, that I can barely breathe! It's all I can do, not to sit and scream my head off!

One of the hardest things, is getting people to listen to what the truth, actually is. This government has been so effective in turning people against us, with a drip, drip, drip, of lies, and (ahem), 'massaged' fraud figures!

They don't want people to know the full extent of what welfare reform has done. and they've stopped counting our deaths! What does that tell you?!

I miss the days, when disability rights campaigning was about fighting access issues, changing attitudes,and being positive. I didn't know when I was well off! None of us did.

If you had told the little eight year old girl, I was when I started campaigning, that twenty five years later, things would be worse, rather than better, she wouldn't have believed you, and I wish it wasn't true now, but it is!

Now, disability rights campaigning is about saving lives! It's about playing 'cat and mouse',with politicians that, (largely), don't care, (because we don't fit the twisted ideal). It's about reading policy, and thinking constantly about the best way, to solve the next problem.

It causes tension with your family, and rifts with your friends, because they just don't understand that this is something that IS happening, and that I, (we), have no choice, but to fight! If we don't, no one else will.

The anxiety and fear, (caused by the Work Compatibility Assessment, and benefit sanctions), that disabled and ill people feel, now, is so great, that you think about it,and you feel it, even when you try, with every fibre of your being, not to!

I want this to stop. I would give up, almost everything in the world, for this to stop!

Disabled, ill, and poor people, didn't ask for our lives. None of this is a choice, and yet, we are being punished for it, and being made to feel bad about ourselves, every day single day.

We can't take another five years of this government - at least, I know I can't.

‪#‎helenswriting‬