Four and a half years later....

Thanks, Gary. I think I was just outrageously lucky, although it is true that I have been very persistent. I was reading books written by samurais, of all things. But as I always say, luck trumps everything: persistence, skill, even knowledge, although of course it would be a mistake to deem these useless.

For example, I stayed on course equally well for four and a half years, yet for the first two years I hadn't gotten anywhere at all. Then suddenly the tables started to turn.

I wish all the best and best of luck to all here. Hope they too win their battle, it is certainly not an easy one.

PS. sorry to all for repeating something here and there. I tend to repeat stuff. 'Too' drawn in my world, I suppose. Thanks to all!

PPS. the upshot of the 'luck belief', as a skeptical and pessimist, is that the tables can turn in one's favour. It's something that can be hardly controlled, unfortunately, but it can happen. In my past, modest experience in martial arts, I have seen smaller and apparently weaker fighters who beat a much bigger and skilled fighter, to the astonishment of all.

My modest advice is: if you are convinced you have been treated unfairly, be relentless in the long term, but not uncompromising. For example, if the DWP would have offered me a fifth of what I received, as a consolatory payment, without reopening the claim (i.e. without continuing to get the payments, as I am getting now), I would have accepted. These requests I made from the very start, because I believed its lie of how my claim could never be opened in a million years, etc, which was rubbish, though at the time I believed it.

But the sum would have worked for me, because other than keeping a roof over my head and a bed to sleep on, and buying basic food, there's not much else I am interested spending money on. I never buy anything new, I live almost like a monk.

So I really had nothing to lose, other than some time over a long stretch. I had lived like a pauper before, I wasn't particularly worried, as long as I kept a roof over my head. Of course, this would not work for all, everyone is different. But of course the outrageous indifference, lies, self praise and pomp from the DWP greatly fuelled my motivations. By then for me it had became an interesting challenge of patience and persistence. Of course, I am sure this is nothing uncommon, people suffer injustices all the time and they feel challenged. I am not even much of a fighter, I think fights of any kind are ugly and mostly unnecessary and even foolish, but that's the world we live in. And I am certainly not indicating that I don't get angry/ frustrated/stressed/fearful ....

In retrospect, I too made some mistakes, and the ICE even pointed some of these out, to which I agree. The problem was that my mistakes, in comparison with the ones by the DWP, weren't outrageous. For example, I never lied to the DWP about anything, but the DWP spared me no lies. It's been an interesting journey. Of course, it's easy for me to say that now, after receiving all these arrears. Had I not, I guess I would be thinking and feeling very differently now.

''After the DWP had done its utmost, for years, first to ignore me completely (including my MP)''

sorry, I meant that the DWP had ignored my MP too, not that I was ignored by him. In fact, he has been very responsive to me, and he would phone the DWP the same day he'd read my message, and email me about it. I have the emails to prove this. Yet he was ignored for six months, and then the DWP said to the ICE that it was he who did not contact the DWP, which is absolutely false. I myself have afterwards asked the MP if the DWP was right, and, as he had told me previously, he contacted the DWP as quickly as he possibly could do, meaning within one or two days. I have his emails

I felt the urge to take the ICE complaint to PHSO level, since the ICE never disputed what the DWP said regarding the MP, and I was never given a chance to prove the contrary. The only reasons why I decided not to go further were: 1. I had by then received more money than I had ever hoped for, frankly. From my point of view, I was repaid of everything, and I had won the war, though not every smaller battle. 2. I didn't want to take anymore time from either the ICE or the PHSO because I am sure there's plenty of people who need to get some justice, and 3. the ICE investigator in reality had exceeded my expectations, since it caused my MR to be finally sent. For a claim almost 5 years old. This is not something I even knew was possible (because of the lies from the DWP). The ICE investigator even gave me some other basic advice, which they don't usually do.

But the ICE is not the investigator (the investigator submits the investigation for the approval of the ICE, I seem to understand), so I don't think he played a part in the issue about the lies that the DWP said about the MP. Anyways, to me he seemed someone who did his job well, although the final conclusions from the ICE had the issues described.

You can't have everything. I'll still let the investigation out there, with my arguments, but overall I really can't complain, if I look at the big picture.

Hi Schopenhauer and thank you for your kind words.
For the benefit of any readers thinking of trying the AQ50 autism/Asperger's test, I received good advice from our extremely Asperger's and rather like you in terms of philosophy and high level thinking friend. He said just grab the most obvious answer quickly and avoid dwelling on, eg, the relative appeal of this library or that party.
Thanks for all the quotes, they help us know we are not the idiots.
Denby