I never stop being surprised at how good it feels to find a bunch of supportive notes waiting for me. Even when you write mostly for yourself, it's good to feel you're somehow being heard.I feel a need to rant about the whole topic of welfare and benefits.
I remember on a web board I used to visit, a woman used to post about how she worked at a welfare office so she knew how many of these people were cheats - why, one woman didn't declare $300 she'd been given by her aunt. How shocking! You're living on money that covers your rent and gives you another $200 spare, and you don't declare it when you're given $300 because they'd cut it from your benefit. What evil, wicked frauds these benefit cheats are.
The amount you get for disability simply demands that you try to find other ways of making money, because you can't live on it. I don't know what countries have a workable system - I know someone in the UK who had ME. She wanted to work two days a week so she could slowly build up her strength, but apparently you can either work full-time or not at all, so she was kicked off her benefits.
And as atwowaydream said, many people don't really regard depression and mental illness as "real" enough to qualify for disability. When D's psychiatrist signed his papers she told him she hoped he wouldn't have to be on it for too long because it's not a "dignified" way to live. Great comment from a psychiatrist - someone who is struggling to survive is made to feel that now they've lost their dignity too, by someone who's supposed to be help;ing their mental health!
(Meanwhile the deficit balloons, spending is cut on everything except the war and tax cuts for the rich, and some people out there are still going to vote for that fucker Bush.)
