It's been five months now.
Five months since we moved south.
Five months since J started the new job.
160 Miles each trip, up and down the motorway, packing and unpacking, hefting boxes. Probably why my knee's decided to go again, the other one starting to follow suit, eyeing up crutches on Amazon while I wait for a referral for physio and crutch fitting and the walking stick hammers my wrist and ever-so-slightly hypermobile elbow. Might not improve this time.
But I'm relaxed.
I'm still making it to the shops in the battered old Seat, with the radiator tank that needs regular filling, the back door that doesn't open again, the temperamental engine and the lights-on warning sound that doesn't always, leaning the trolley like a Zimmer frame the whole way round and using the self-checkout; the checkout staff aren't so chatty since I started using the stick again and I can't tell if it's only because I'm so tired from the shop.
But I'm relaxed.
It's tight down here. We got a good deal on the rent: can't get in or out without concrete steps, families don't want it 'cause it's close to a busy road, old people don't want it 'cause it's hard on the joints (yeah, that could be a problem), yuppies because there's no tube station in town. It's still more than double what you'd pay up north. So I'm changing utility suppliers, making some meals veggie, begging and borrowing.
But still, I'm relaxed.
J got the job not long before I was coming up for another Work Capability Assessment (WCA). After eleven and a half months of busting a gut, fixing other people's mistakes, slogging slogging slogging we (all 4 employees) got 2 weeks notice. A breach of contract for sure, but you can't get money out of a man who paid your last wages with a bank loan. For a man with a lifetime of poor mental health, who'd run himself almost into the ground trying to manage a job and ill health it was a blow.
When my old boss asked me back to do a month's work that December (2011) I agreed. The backpay, the frontpay, the being off benefits again. It was a different location and I didn't know the bus routes, didn't have a car and didn't want to spend the bus fare so I walked the 3 miles each way up and down steep hills. OK, there's a lie there. I marched it. That's right, I was that bastard who'd stride on ahead while others had to run to keep up. Boot's on the other foot now, eh? Hypermobile knees and strain are a dangerous combination.
It wasn't too bad at first, a swollen knee for a couple of days and I could stumble into work after that, but by mid January I was having problems. I'd claimed ESA before the month's work and claimed it again, I've never been entirely well and the Jobcentre's an unfriendly place at best. I'd still apply for jobs, go to interviews up and down the country, just so long as I didn't have to suffer regular judgement, but my mental health got worse, I struggled to get out without calling a taxi and the WCA, not the first I'd had to go through, came up.
The first rule of a WCA is don't go alone. It doesn't matter if it's the first time you've been out of the house all week, you've been resting as much as possible, you went overboard and had a whole two meals in the last 24 hours and splashed out on a taxi. If you can get to a six-monthly assessment on your own, you can do it every day.
Besides, you'll need the moral support.
I turned up with my Dad, 74 years old at the time he'd driven 90 miles. He'd done the same a month before and they phoned half an hour before the appointment to cancel. They said someone had called in sick.
No sleep in over 30 hours and I'm feeling like hell. Hypermobility tends to come with a surfeit of adrenaline, depression makes you worry, being on ESA makes you worry, ATOS make you worry. I've had so much worry over the last two years I once slept only four hours in three days. I struggled into the room, head down. Amazingly the assessor had the decency to hold doors open for me.
You notice details like that, they don't seem right. When you fill in the form you have to understand: they are out to get you. They want to trip you up. Some of them enjoy hurting people like you. At the very least you have to write it as the worst days you have because maybe you have good days but if you tell them that, they're all good days. You need the support because the worse days, the worst days, mean the good days aren't enough to function in the well and able world. Too little, not often enough.
You don't know how the assessment goes. Carefully neutral, it's done. If you're having difficulty answering questions, you break down, that's in your favour. Early finish, they'll do the rest, open door and out to cry outside the entrance.
But sometimes, they try to trick you.
A pen is dropped. Pick it up. You want to be helpful. Part of human nature, right? So you can pick up a pen. It might be the most effort you've made all day. It might be that you'll have to wait five minutes even before you can bend over again but it's such a strong inbuilt instinct that you've done it anyway. So you're fit to work. If you can pick up a pen, you can pick things up all day, in an office or factory, 9-5, 5 days a week. It doesn't matter if your back regularly means you get only 3 hours sleep.
It doesn't always happen like that. One woman at a WCA was crying, offered a tissue from a box like they do in counselling. She could take the tissue from the box.
The WCA goes over the same ground as much of the form, trying to catch you out in contradiction. I hadn't been using the walking stick when I filled in the form and it was mentioned. That's how long it took them to get to me, it was April. Don't say you can watch TV, don't say you go on the internet. You can Tweet 5 times a day, you can write a 10 page report in a day.
I was put in the WRAG, an impressive result for a mentalist. Maybe the bad knee helped. A mixture of relief, disappointment and fury. It's said that depression is anger without motivation. Well ATOS, the DWP and the Coalition certainly sparked some kind of motivation in me. I finally found I could hate someone more than I hate myself.
When the new form came through earlier this year I didn't tell J. I didn't want her to be stressed out, I didn't want her to worry. Of course, I can't really hide anything from her but she didn't know exactly what was wrong. I filled it in, again constantly trying to second guess the hidden duplicity in every tickbox, every line and sent it off.
I'd driven J 386 miles to one interview, got caught by a speed camera along the way. There's some beautiful coastline in Scotland I can tell you. When she got the job, from an unexpected place, it was like a prayer had finally been answered. It wasn't in her preferred area, it would be costly to move, it would be difficult and the living expenses would be horrible and she had interest from other companies. I told her she didn't have to take it. It was probably a stupid thing to say knowing what might happen. She took it anyway.
So I'm relaxed.
I'm in debt up to my eyeballs again, the bills keep coming in, we're still arguing with the shitheels at the last letting agency about the deposit and we're only cutting it at all because my dad has a generous pension to help us out. The move had to be done in multiple stages, with help, and cost so much I maxed out my credit card and overdraft. My right knee's gone again, my wrist hurts, my elbow hurts, my left knee hurts and I can't stand for more than 10 minutes because I'm standing on one foot and the weight makes that hurt. It takes another 10 minutes to get the circulation back.
I'm still depressed. I often sleep no more than four hours a night.
But I'm lucky. I'm no longer living in fear. I'm the one that got away.
