Winter fuel payment petition

krisskross

sandy71 wrote: »

Yes but your original post only said

I don't have a chip but you need to be realistic.

You have edited it since I replied.:rolleyes:

I pressed submit by mistake, so went back and added the rest.

Just a little story about disapproving people.

In 1962 I had a baby. When he was 9 months old I was 7 months pregnant with our 2nd child. I had to remove my wedding ring because of swollen fingers. I can't tell you how many men and women 'tutted' at me and muttered that I was 'obviously no better than I ought to be and should be ashamed to be out in public showing my shame to the world'. I used to go home and have a laugh with my husband about the silly old biddies. And I was very young, just 18.

You need to grow a thicker skin or you will forever be upset by slights, real or imagined from people who don't even matter.

seven-day-weekend

krisskross wrote: »

his idea of 'disabled' is complete loss of a bodily function. Totally unable to walk because of missing limbs etc. He is very very deaf but would not class this as a disabled because with powerful hearing aids and various adaptations (special telephone, flashing doorbell, vibrating smoke alarm under his pillow etc) he can cope.

His eyesight will be cured with surgery, in the not too distant future. at the moment he is prevented from doing things like reading which he loves but this is temporary.

Nothing can be done about diabetes except manage it. It is an illness NOT a disability. If it isn't managed it could cause disablement through loss of limbs or unmendable eye damage.

Nothing much can be done about rheumatoid arthritis. However it isn't life threatening. Yes it limits his mobility dreadfully and the pain has him crying, which is so unusual as he is so stoical. The deformities make manual dexterity very limited but he still can use his hands, he would have to lose the use of them completely to consider himself 'disabled'.

I do think some illnesses are 'bigged up' and exaggerated to claim disability benefits which is why so many people are being refused. People do need to be able to distinguish between something which is a nuisance and inconveniences them and something truly disabling.

Unfortunately describing oneself as 'disabled' for all sorts of fairly minor things has trivialised the word itself and it is fast losing the meaning it once had. I know people who call themselves disabled because they can't walk due to obesity. Call themselves disabled with depression because they have down days. Frankly the word is totally overused.

BTW SDW does your husband see himself as disabled or does he see himself as having a non curable condition that you manage between you as best you can and just get on and live with it?

Neither of us see his depression/anxiety as a disability, although there have been times when he has been disabled because of it (in the sense that he could not function with day-to-day activities). We manage it, make allowances for it and live with it. We know what makes it worse and when to pull back.

Having said that I think that sometimes it can be a disability - if the person cannot go out of the house or answer the phone for years at a time because of panic attacks , when they cannot perform even simple tasks because the mental 'fog' is too great etc. My husband has been like this for a year or two at a time - but then the condition has improved to the point where it is manageable.

My son and his girlfriend both have Asperger's Syndrome. My son usually manages his condition reasonably well, making allowances and adaptions for things he finds difficult, although sometimes he needs help for things that other people would not. He does not see his condition as a disability and claims no benefits for it. His girlfriend, who is further along the spectrum than he is, can't always manage her condition and needs quite a bit of help. This is reflected in that she has been awarded low rate care and mobility DLA (she also has a problem with balance and quite often falls over).

So to sum up, I don't think you can say whether certain conditions are disabilities or not. They vary in severity and can disable one person but not another.

Hope this helps and thanks for answering my question.

krisskross

With a grandson diagnosed with Aspergers by a consultant I looked into the condition. This is the basis of his LRC LRM DLA

Looks like most of the males in my family have it to a degree. I honestly thought they just had obsessive traits and were 'quirky'!

picassopete

krisskross wrote: »

You need to grow a thicker skin or you will forever be upset by slights, real or imagined from people who don't even matter.

I don't often agree with Krisskross lol, but she is spot on there, unfortunatly not only do you have to adapt your life to cope with disabilities but you need to get a very thick skin, its sad but true. If people are ignorant enough to stare or tutt, let them, you will probably never see them again.

sandy71

And where in my post did I say I was upset by it I just said it happened.

picassopete

sandy71 wrote: »

And where in my post did I say I was upset by it I just said it happened.

sorry i didn't quote you and neither did i say you were upset, you were annoyed and rightly so. i think this ignorance comes from everywhere young and old, if i go into town around the end of schooltime i get spit at, its like water off a ducks back now. i was merely observing that yes you do need the hide of a rhino, sad as it is

seven-day-weekend

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

Neither of us see his depression/anxiety as a disability, although there have been times when he has been disabled because of it (in the sense that he could not function with day-to-day activities). We manage it, make allowances for it and live with it. We know what makes it worse and when to pull back.

Having said that I think that sometimes it can be a disability - if the person cannot go out of the house or answer the phone for years at a time because of panic attacks , when they cannot perform even simple tasks because the mental 'fog' is too great etc. My husband has been like this for a year or two at a time - but then the condition has improved to the point where it is manageable.

My son and his girlfriend both have Asperger's Syndrome. My son usually manages his condition reasonably well, making allowances and adaptions for things he finds difficult, although sometimes he needs help for things that other people would not. He does not see his condition as a disability and claims no benefits for it. His girlfriend, who is further along the spectrum than he is, can't always manage her condition and needs quite a bit of help. This is reflected in that she has been awarded low rate care and mobility DLA (she also has a problem with balance and quite often falls over).

So to sum up, I don't think you can say whether certain conditions are disabilities or not. They vary in severity and can disable one person but not another.

Hope this helps and thanks for answering my question.

Further to my post above, my husband says he classes his condition as a disability inasmuch as it has stopped him working. I agree - if he had to go to work he would just keep being ill which is why in the end he had to take early retirement from Teaching, after ten years of trying to stay at work, with spells at work punctuated by longer and longer periods of sick leave, even after he had gone part-time in an effort to be able to stay at work. His condition was not manageable while he was at work. He just got sicker and sicker.

I don't think he would be able to do ANY job on a 9-5 five days a week regular basis, tbh.

sandy71

picassopete wrote: »

sorry i didn't quote you and neither did i say you were upset, you were annoyed and rightly so. i think this ignorance comes from everywhere young and old, if i go into town around the end of schooltime i get spit at, its like water off a ducks back now. i was merely observing that yes you do need the hide of a rhino, sad as it is

I was replying to krisskross, sorry I forgot to quote her. People spit at you? Why? That is unbelievable.
My hide is getting thicker but I am new to all this so it will take time

qwertyuiop12345

krisskross wrote: »

Everyone on here has a computer, internet access, no doubt TV plus licence to pay, mobile phone etc. Loads of areas where the small economies required to produce £5 a week could be made.

And if saying that makes me ignorant then so be it. Sometimes things have to pointed out.

I am not going to get involved in this argument about disability because it all seems rather nasty, but I thought I might just point out that it might be assumptions like these that are making people call you ignorant.

Even within this country different people live very different lives and people can find it hard to imagine the situations and problems of others.
For example, you post above where you have "no doubt" that everyone on here has a TV and mobile phone, shows that you simply can't conceive that some people don't have these things that you seem to consider essentials (I don't have either).

It is perhaps a bit harsh to say that this makes you ignorant, but it clearly makes you unaware - Which applies to all of us as there is nobody who can claim they are aware of everyones situation!

picassopete

sandy71 wrote: »

I was replying to krisskross, sorry I forgot to quote her. People spit at you? Why? That is unbelievable.
My hide is getting thicker but I am new to all this so it will take time

i really have no idea, i've been tempted to spit back but then i'd be a bitter cripple lol
i think sometimes, especially kids, are a bit like wild animals (although they behave worse, kids not the animals) they don't know how to handle it so lets be hostile to be on the safe side. my children would no sooner do that than fly to the moon, so i guess its an attitude that has been learnt from somewhere. for all the bad though theres 2 good ones, it just seems some days you only find the bad.
its sad that they can give us pills and potions but some things can only be learnt. and i for one as a member of the human race feel so sorry in saying its something you will come up against again and again.