Hello everyone. I have an autism spectrum disorder. I've never worked in my life, although I did waste an awful lot of my youth in universities, getting little education that cost quite a lot and lined the pockets of the people who administrated the products of my unemployed labour (back then, people could claim indefinitely and 'study'). I got through the review process the last time but this time, I must have given too many "maybes". I was trying to come across as a decent sort of person who wasn't just trying to sponge benefits (even though I've done this all my adult life) and, because, I have managed to do one or two things in life, I felt I was being more ruthlessly honest, if I put 'maybe' to some of them. Anyway, now I am in the nightmare situation of facing the benefits assessment. I feel anguish at my stupidity. I rely on benefits. It's the last straw tying me to any possibility. If they take my benefits off of me they'll put me in my grave because I am incapable of doing anything easily. People with autism spectrum disorders suffer acute over stimulation, strain, fear, and pain at the world. I exist as a hermit, without contact, afraid of going out, afraid of interaction, I do go out once-a-day for some exercise but it is a source of terrible fear for me. As someone with autism, fear is a massive part of my moment-to-moment existence, I live dealing with fear and shame even when I look like i am doing something else and what I do, do is usually an attempt to displace those feelings and struggle for absorption in something, although directing my attention is a huge struggle since my attention is usually occupied with flashbacks and flash-forwards to things that haven't even happened yet but which I am sure will happen. This assessment process is so cruel because it adds more fear to an already excruciating existence and in what way does it authenticate anything? I'll have to lie at the interview about most of the things. I can. of course, perceive danger and the like, so I won't be able to manifest 'illness' appropriately. In what way does this process solve the problem of authenticating people? It just condemns people to having to lie because the questions don't recognise the ways in which people are affected by complex disorders.
I fear the worst with this. I don't see how I can get through this. My problems are debilitating but nuanced and it's hard to manifest the price I've paid for what little I have managed to do in life. We don't live in a charitable society, where people are fitted in each according to their capacities, we live in a society where the potential of most have to be obliterated to force people to endure working lives that become forever more arduous. Even if you achieve the goal of certifying useless people, like me, as 'fit for work', the labour market will only ascertain the reality because it'll be manifest on the person's CV.
If the worst happens, which I am sure it will, and they kick me off, will I have any grounds for appeal on the basis that only 16 per cent of people with the condition work full-time? If the condition you are diagnosed as suffering has others claiming, does that count for anything to them or can they just single people out and victimise them?
