A DWP disability benefit assessor told me I could cure my partial blindness by wearing glasses. When I explained that glasses don’t bring back missing sight, she said I could walk around constantly rotating my head in a circle to give me a full range of vision. This was part of the reasoning used for giving me zero points on my reassessment despite me being in active cancer treatment, recovering from a stroke and recently having become partially sighted.

It’s sad that some people can’t structure themselves without a dead end job though. If I had no money worries and wasn’t disabled I could easily structure my day around hiking, political activism, learning art, reading and other such activities.

I remember a news article years ago about a poor elderly couple who worked in a supermarket. They won millions on the lottery… and kept their jobs. They said the work helped pass the time and all their friends worked there too. I just thought, how sad. You could do anything with that money but you can’t think of anything else to do except stack the shelves and sweep the floors in the same place you’ve been doing for decades.

I feel like the average person would still use this against you, either say “No, I mean what do you do for work?” Or think “Well if you won’t answer the question the way I intended you must be unemployed and therefore worthless.”

your value as a person is defined by how you answer the “so what do you do” question

I feel like this is a huge part of everything that is wrong with our societies. we are expected to be human doings rather than human beings.

This is so true. There is always this assumption that there is a cure, or at least a way to effectively manage, every condition well enough that you can return to work (because returning to work is all that matters, they never care about you being cured so you can be pain-free or have a life) and won’t accept that medical science can’t fix everything already. So you’re treated like it’s a moral failing on your part for still being ill/disabled. A moral failing that you still need help - you’re a lazy scrounger.

If you’ve been ill or disabled for a while, other people get over it. Like when I was diagnosed with cancer, at first people were shocked and offered help, but as my illness wore on and I didn’t get better, these people got bored of it. Soon, it was no longer shocking or exciting to them. I still continue to need help, I am still unwell but everyone I knew drifted away and didn’t bother to stay in touch any more because I’m just some boring disabled person who needs help and isn’t fun any more. They can move on from it but I can’t. And then you get all sorts of shit for still being ill or disabled, like it’s been ages now, time to get a job! Especially from the benefits office, the government and society at large. Like there’s a time limit on being ill or disabled. You’ve been ill or disabled and a drain on society long enough so get a job. Like, what? I’m sorry it’s been a long time but I’m still in active cancer treatment and suffering immense, life-ruining side effects. I can’t just say “It’s been a while now, I’ll get a job.” My cancer treatment caused me to have a stroke and now I can barely even get my own clothes on due to the disabilities I’ve been left with. I’m having multiple foot surgeries, because of infected ulcers caused by the cancer treatment and I’m adjusting to becoming partially sighted but you’re right I have been a drain long enough I am sure there is some job out there where they don’t mind someone who can hardly walk or dress themselves, falls asleep during the day due to exhaustion from cancer treatment, can’t see properly and needs regular time off for hospital appointments and surgery.

Thank you.

Thanks. yeah, it’s so insane, there is plenty of money in existence to pay for everyone’s basic needs but more and more it’s being squirreled away in billionaire’s offshore accounts that they’re not even being taxed on. The rest of us can starve and die of treatable illnesses. And meanwhile our fellow plebs blame the disabled for the financial woes of the country.

Thanks. Yes and the problem seems to be getting continually worse rather than better. It’s getting like Ready Player One, where all the wealth was owned by a few trillionaires and everyone else was crammed into caravans piled on top of each other without a penny to their names, struggling and scrounging to get by with nothing real to live for, so had to spend all their time in virtual reality because the real world was so awful.

Thanks. I’m not going to get better though, I’ll be taking cancer and thyroid meds for life and the side effects seem to be degenerative, I’m getting worse all the time. They’ve already caused me to have a stroke and they say I’m in danger of another. That was a whole thing with the NHS too. After my stroke I had to wait so long for physiotherapy that the damage is permanent. I’ll never be able bodied again. Which means I will be dealing with the NHS and all the stress that causes for the rest of my life.

Sorry to hear about your wife. The capitalist society we live in really does make being ill much worse than it needs to be. In fact my biggest worry is always finances. I actually got zero points on my benefit reassessment despite being in active cancer treatment, learning to walk again after the stroke and being left partially sighted by the stroke.

Track them how?

Once again your opinion. Some people consider that abortion ends in someone dying. Honestly, you sound like a hypocrite and I’m tired so goodnight.

Suicide is not murder, except in your opinion. You realise there are many people who consider abortion murder? And it’s after midnight, some of us need to sleep.

There is no need for assisted suicide to be suggested to people just because it becomes legal. It could quite easily be run dignitas style where people seek it out for themselves. By your logic abortion should be illegal and people should have to perform DIY abortions because if it’s medicalised there’s a danger a doctor might suggest it to a patient. But there is no point going on with this, we aren’t going to agree.

So… you want to make access to trans medications easier then, not harder. And think people should be able to pick up DIY suicide kits at pharmacies?

The point is we are already being systematically abused. The disabled are already being murdered via starvation etc. It’s a genocide already and it’s not going to stop. So I’d rather it was made quicker and painless.

You being trans, presumably would not appreciate being told that you shouldn’t be allowed to choose to have a gender reassignment because society thinks being trans is a mental illness and wants to save you from yourself. Yet that’s exactly what you’re supporting by being against assisted suicide. That people who want to access this service - for whatever reason, whether they’re dying slowly, disabled, in chronic pain, or being completely neglected by society - should be told suicidality is just a mental illness and they should be saved from themselves by having their freedom of choice taken away.

There’s been a lot of stuff in the news over the years with people claiming that some young people are being brainwashed into having gender reassignments and then regretting it, and this has been used as an argument against gender reassignments, or a tightening of access to them. How do you feel about that? Do you think it’s fair that a trans person should be denied this service because anti-trans people fearmonger this way, and convince lawmakers that people who consider themselves trans need to be protected from themselves? Because from my point of view, the point of view of someone who wants to be able to access assisted suicide, this is exactly what your anti-assisted suicide argument sounds like. It sounds just like what a detransitioner probably sounds like to you. Fearmongering and trying to take away other people’s right to make decisions about their own bodies and lives.

Abortion is another example. People were outraged when some American state made abortion illegal and now women have to travel to other states and spend a huge amount of money to access it, and some have been threatened with punishment for travelling across state lines for abortion. People are up in arms about this, yet this is the exact situation with assisted suicide in countries where it’s illegal. A British person who wants assisted suicide must be able to travel to Switzerland, spend up to £20K and their relatives risk years in prison for helping them. What’s the difference?

You either support freedom of choice, or an unwanted lifestyle enforced by the state.

No it’s not.

I would sooner support proper and guaranteed benefits for dying people so they don’t have to keep working until they drop dead.