Benefits

I totally understand. Political parties are dangerous and their followers can be very cruel. The whole aim of politics is to keep the population in a state of fear by menacing us with an endless series of imaginary enemies so we'll vote them into power to keep us safe.  

Blue, I've been through that cycle. It started when took my very first job when I was 15 (selling and delivering dairy produce on a pushbike).  Since then, I've had 11 jobs (it could be 12 actually). One of them lasted just under ten years and another just under three. The rest lasted no more than a few weeks or months. All of them ended badly. Things only changed once I'd reached a point of no return mentally and physically and I had accumulated overwhelming medical evidence to present in a Capability Assessment. I had support from a local charity with every step of the process. It's not the life I had imagined way back when I was 15, but compared to the daily exhaustion, long periods of depression, six-monthly nervous breakdowns, weekly panic attacks and constant thoughts about suicide, this is a much better existence than I've had up to now.

Thank you for that I Sperg, I did suspect that psychological manipulation by tapping into unconscious weaknesses was what you were alluding to. I know it's used in advertising. In fact, I once visited a language school that professed to use these techniques to 'work' with people, another school turned out to be scientologists.

I was particularly interested to hear Cambridge Analytica is said to have manipulated the public into making a certain crucial vote in 2016.....

I don't come here to make rows here necessarily either, and again there are those at the top who are more than happy to see the poorest and most vulnerable peoe tear each other apart instead of saving their anger for the real enemy.

I suspect your political views are very different from my own,  but then my parents'political views were diametrically opposed to my own too, which caused plenty of tensions! I won't pretend I don't still feel deep anger about what unemployment does to people (and me, at the time) and the way it is used to create a very useful scapegoat, and the same goes for immigration. I am an immigrant too, rather than an expatriate, and being one was at times worse than being unemployed, until the EU expanded in 2004. That is why I will never understand why there is so much opposition to immigration. That's where I am coming from anyway. 

I didn't say there was anything wrong with your understanding, (that would be pretty arrogant!) I did say that your understanding is incomplete, (as I am sure my own is) and supplied an obscure but very educational concept. So obscure it turns out, that the search engine doesn't pick it up so I guess I'd better flesh it out a bit.

"Depth manipulation" (as opposed to depth of field manipulation, a photographers technique often used to draw the eye where the photographer wants it to go) is a psychological / advertising concept whereby the target audience (that's you and me) is manipulated to take on a particular belief or action by triggering the deeper more subconcious and less rational part of your mind. It's obscure for a good reason, not least being that knoweldge of the technique seems to confer a degree of immunity to it's effects! It's used on us by various agencies and businesses ALL THE TIME, and it's as effective as it is evil. .  

If you can find a copy of Vance Packard's "The hidden persuaders", enlightenment awaits. I would suggest based on my own observation and teh knowledge I obtained all those years ago, that "depth manipulation" is what has been used to make the British public accept the replacement of both itself, and it's previously cherished values. 

Nothing wrong with my understanding of the society I am immersed in I Sperg.

I always thought that depth manipulation had something to do with photography. 

If you don't know, I'm not going to tell you. I learned that lesson LONG ago.

I'm sure not fighting a deeply entrenched "depth manipulation"* scheme on my own any longer.

*Depth Manipulation is a thing very few peopel know about, and when/if you learn about it, you will understand much better the society in which you are immersed.

Replaced? Who is being replaced? Who is being bussed in? I heard that most farmers' produce in rotting in the fields and trees these days. 

Not Europeans, and anyway the lack of those shows it was immigrants who were propping up the economy. I seem to remember a certain chain of pubs that has been hit particularly badly now the immigrants are no longer here to serve their customers. 

Afghans? I would hope someone would welcome me if any country I was trapped in was doing what the Tacloban do to anyone who tries to stand up to their outrageous demands. 

Or be the immigrant population that have most recently been bussed in to replace us.

That seems to work out very well...

The whole system is punitive, the idea that the poor have only themselves to blame for their predicament. It comes from Bentham, from Elizabeth's times, though research, possibly counterintuitively, more often indicates that poverty itself is what may drive poor decidion making, idleness, turno g to drink and drugs etc

When I graduated there was sky high unemployment among graduates for the first time, experiencing hostility for not having a job was like having acid thrown into your face.

It wasn't entirely anger and other deep dark emotions I couldn't deal with the time, I did fear bullying as I had been at school too. But I worked voluntarily in an alternative bookshop instead, lived there, and experienced the joys and delights of being bullied there instead: being humiliated in front of customers and constantly named and shamed in the day book. Super!

Better to become truly self employed if at al possible and learn at least certain kinds of assertiveness skills if you can.

Just so glad I got out of the UK when I did. 

I am only 25 and I have realised that I'm not the problem, the labour market is the problem. Employers are getting with so much abuse in the workplace, I just realised they actively seem to encourage it.

You can keep your head down and get on with the job/task and you'll still be in the firing line either because your keeping out of the drama which get you noticed or getting on with job and accidently showing someone up that been in the job for years who want you gone because your making them look bad.

Since age 18 I have been going through that destructive cycle of employment to unemployment. I've had over 20+ jobs and haven't managed to stay at any of them for very long. about a half of the jobs I've quit due to bullying and about half of those ended up with me coming to seriously and purposely inflicted harm from the other members of staff. The other job did not last because they where either zero hours and temporary. I've been through every pointless work programme and none of them work to find suitable employment. They keep trying to force me into employment situations that neuro typical are refusing to do because they think I'm an easy target at the job centre, my support workers have stopped the job centre and the shawtrust for trying to dump me back on a livestock farm or working in meat production.

break the cycle. i know its easy said then done. Ask for help. their are organisations out their but you have to find them. Highly recommend avoiding the shawtrust their health and work programme is joke and they are extremely abusive. From experience the smaller organisations that are locally based are more productive and hands on. 

If anyone needs help highly recommend looking for your local Integrated Housing and Community Support Service county in England should have a similar organisation operating within their borders 

its when politics come up that things get heated lol
because politics is ofcourse things that negatively effect peoples lives. 
person A things of a good moral idea but that good moral idea despite being well thinking is bad for person B and ruins that guys life, and person A cant understand that and thus politics causes rifts between people wanting to make changes and people who those changes harm, and neither side can never understand but just knows what the other guy wants is bad for them and needs confrontation to prevent any such ideas.

I'm so glad things eventually worked out for you Moon. I'm in a similar situation to yourself. But it didn't come easily. I had to jump through many hoops, and provide a lot of factual evidence to support my claims. That's how it should be. I'm not complaining about that. I've been paying into the system for thirty years, and so I have no shame or guilt in receiving welfare payments that have been legally awarded to me after many and rigorous assessments.  

I've noticed a definite change in you, C. You're much less confrontational now and much less antagonistic. Your true personality is shining through, compassionate, practical and down to earth.

i got lucky recently and managed to net myself a picker packer job without need for interview as its agency based and i think the agency got my cv mixed up with someone elses lol so pretty much free job, its repetative and busy and grindy so it suits me fine and time flies. but before this yeah i spent years on job seekers and universal credit, honestly its better off not bothering with that system, they treat you like a criminal and talk down to you and threaten you that being unemployed becomes more stressful than full time busy work, but yeah that is the jobcenters job, to make life miserable for you that it forces you off the dole lol they get paid to put you off it and get paid for all those they manage to kick off.

I am one of those diagnosed in the 20s and. Yes I am currently on universal credit & was given support to move out of an extremely toxic environment home environment where I was living in a damp and cold static caravan. using near to all my universal credit at the time paying for both my working parents, My sister, her daughter and partners electric usage, internet and water, council tax and coal to keep the house warm even though I could use the living room in the house. The only access I had in the house was to the kitchen and bathroom. I was also contributing the last of my income to family shop which only p[provided me few hot meals a week and breakfast. the rest of the week I would have to survive on just plain pasta. 

I had to move because my family where making me ill & kept sabotaging me into working in environments that near crippled me. It took until age 24 to get the support and i am grateful. I do have to admit It, I have got it easy at the moment because my universal credit is paying my rent and is giving me enough to pay bills and support myself. I know i am extremely lucky to have four hours of support a week to help me with deal with doctors and access the community (Like clubs and Gym) . I am also lucky that i had the support and encouragement because my support worker got me into college to study my GCSE in English and Maths which is free to all adults if they do not possess a C or equivalent which will hopefully let me access the access to technology course next year.

The support is out their but you have to put the effort into arranging it. For me it started with a needs assessment which was i had to call up and arrange with the help of the safeguarding lead at my local job centre.  

You need to understand how your condition affects your daily living and list your support needs , 

I was in a daze after my diagnosis and tried for housing & pip and did not get enough points , 

After having some more CBT sessions due to depression & anxiety I could start to see what my support needs are , 

You wont be housed unless you are at risk of homelessness , The government changed the criteria for social housing in July and it is even more difficult to get housed , I have only just been housed after having an eviction date looming from my last home ,

Pip is a more of the same thing , you need to be able to explain how your condition affects your daily living ,

Having to go to the job centre unfortunately is something we have to do to , or we would not get anything , 

My job count is up in the 20's  but still want to do something so this week I have enrolled on an adult collage course to help me understand autism and the workplace . 

yes yes yes it is

There's the fact that Elected Politicians fill out Benefits Forms; to buy votes. Perhaps they can pull strings better.

NAS69281 said:

I've heard of people getting a late diagnosis (in their twenties) and all of a sudden they were housed and had benefits thrown at them. I just can't understand why there are some people who are given housing etc and others who are given nothing at all.

Where is your evidence to support your claim that people getting an autism diagnosis are given housing and have welfare benefits thrown at them? I think you'll find that in order to receive any state welfare benefits most people have to jump through rings of fire.

NAS69281 said:

I've heard of people getting a late diagnosis (in their twenties) and all of a sudden they were housed and had benefits thrown at them. I just can't understand why there are some people who are given housing etc

Could you point me to the source of where you heard this and the type of benefits.

I'm unemployed, on universal credit, and been told many times by many people that I'm unemployable. Yet I'm having big problems paying rent, I've had my applications for PIP and ESA rejected.

I've fallen in between the cracks where on the one hand I'm told that I'm perfectly fine and on the other hand I'm beyond weird.

It's a mad world out there.