My brush with benefits

Welfare Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith’s ridiculous claims that he could easily live on benefits if he had to is patronising and insulting to all the people living on the breadline in this country today.  It’s a lot easier to try this little ‘stunt’ (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/02/iain-duncan-smith-petition-stunt) if you already own (or live in a giant house owned by your father in law) a huge house with cupboards full of food, all the basic ingredients to feed yourself for weeks and over £1million in the bank. Try living on benefits with bare cupboards, no savings and no rich family to bail you out.

My own brush with the benefits system came in a ‘perfect storm’ of unfortunate circumstances. As is so often the case when you are desperate and need help from the state, (believe me, I know next to no people who actually ‘want’ or actively ‘engineer’ help from the state thanks very much Daily Mail) one bad thing causes another and another until you don’t know where to turn.

At 20 I was forced to take time out of university due to a combination of my epilepsy playing up and developing several ovarian cysts which kept bursting causing internal open sores – a kind of pain I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. I was renting a flat at the time which had four months left on the lease and I lost my part time job because I couldn’t crawl into work anymore. I needed money to pay my landlord and I had no savings. My family couldn’t afford to help me financially (though luckily they could feed me so I never went hungry unlike so many people relying on benefits) so to the state I turned.

Due to my age, school and university, I’d only had part time jobs since I was 16. This meant I didn’t have enough National Insurance contributions to claim sickness benefit (which in turn would entitle me to housing benefit). If I wanted money to cover my rent, Job Centre staff told me my only option was to claim job seekers allowance even though I clearly was too ill to even be at the dole office let alone work. But they were the experts, so that’s what I did and then duly applied for my Housing Benefit.

I remember the agony of this time, the indignity of hobbling across the road to the phone box with my 20 pence pieces to call the Housing Benefit office to chase up my claim, or call my landlord to apologise for the delay and assure them the rent was on its way. I couldn’t top up my mobile phone and I kept the heating off because I couldn’t afford the bills so instead wore four or five layers of clothes. All I could do was lie in front of the TV shovelling pain killers and watching depressing daytime shows like Jeremy Kyle and Murder She Wrote (actually I love Jessica Fletcher) in a Tramadol haze. I felt worthless, ashamed and utterly impotent. I couldn’t do anything to help myself and was utterly reliant on a few pounds from the government.

Luckily for me, this nightmare only lasted for a few months (unlike many others surviving on benefits). I went to hospital for surgery, recovered quickly and went back to University. I’m very fortunate to have been in constant full time work since graduating meaning I have more than made up in tax and National Insurance contributions for the benefits I received years ago.

I feel proud I was able to seek help because our country operates in a reciprocal manner meaning that there was a safety net available when I needed it most. By paying my taxes, I can in turn help someone else when they need it most because you never know when a freak illness or series of events might happen to you.

This is why the benefits cuts are so brutally unfair. They are the very definition of kicking someone when they are down. Yes, everyone can tell you a story of someone they heard of abusing the system, my next door neighbour growing up was a master at it. But he was the extreme minority – most people I knew then and know now who need help from the state are utterly desperate with nowhere else to turn.

I was raised to believe that by helping one another become stronger we create a better country with more opportunities to thrive and make money. I was taught that an ‘every man for themselves’ mentality is ugly and short sighted. It most definitely doesn’t sound very British.

And by the way Iain Duncan Smith, you should consider that at last count more than 15 times the amount of people signed the petition (https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/iain-duncan-smith-iain-duncan-smith-to-live-on-53-a-week) to get you to put your money where your mouth is than voted for you at the last election. That is not a stunt,  that is democracy.