The Reclaiming of a Name: An Open Letter to the DWP on the Inhumane Terror of Claiming Benefits

For the past several years I have been living in subterfuge, under a pseudonym on Facebook to keep my sharings free from the skulking eye of the UK government who I am relying on for my financial livelihood.

It is awful that a person should, having real and disabling chronic health problems, feel they have to hide their life and live in such caution.

Having struggled, through years of immeasurable anxiety and stress, at the behest of the DWP and their tribunal services where every detail of my medical notes and personal life was dissected and leveraged against my right to claim benefits, I have been afraid. Scared that at any moment I’d get my money taken away. Shrewd faced lawyers and assessors picking apart my actions as if I am a criminal “well, I can see here that you sprained your ankle while walking in the woods, this contradicts you saying in your forms that you couldn’t walk far.” or “you say here that you’re unable to get out of the house easily, how did you then make it to this tribunal?”, are the kind of absurdities you’d be subject to, despite it being widely advised by the CAB and benefits rights lawyers to answer about your symptoms as if on the worst days.