My DSP was approved (aka why JobSeeker is not a safety net)

You’ve probably heard me buzzing about on Twitter about how I received a positive outcome on having my DSP rejection reviewed. I’m getting DSP baby! I got the call at 5.15pm yesterday, smack on 49 days since the review letter said I’d be getting the decision in that timeframe. A phone call from an actual person too! I guess unlike a rejection I won’t yell at her. I squealed a little I think. A friend asked if I cried, but yeah not yet, just relieved to have it approved.

I’ll probably (and already have) go through some guilty feelings like I don’t deserve it (I do) and I’m giving up (I’m not) but yeah, riding high for now! Just sceptically keeping an eye on myGov to make sure they change it over, oh and that I get my backpay.

Some people (like my psychologist) have “checked in” to make sure that getting disability doesn’t mean I’ll be giving up on getting back to work one day. For those people, I reassure them that being on DSP won’t make me stop wanting to get back into paid work, or unpaid work using my many skills, and will in face HELP me to get back into that state. How so?, you may ask, if you’re unfamiliar with how being on the lower JobSeeker payment and having mutual obligations actually creates MORE of a barrier to gaining and maintaining employment, particularly for someone with a chronic illness that fluctuates and is exacerbated by the whole process…

I had started going on a rant about Work for the Dole, but having never done it all I can truly say about THAT is thank flying spaghetti monster that I’ve never had to. If you’ve done it, you might want to help the Antipoverty Centre in its campaign to Abolish work for the Dole by contributing to their survey of WFTD experiences or if you have the means, contribute financially to the GoFundMe.

So, why am I “completely stoked” to have been approved for DSP and not be on JobSeeker? What’s the difference, aside from the payment amount (both of which are below the poverty line and need to be lifted, but JobSeeker much more so)?

The obvious first one would be that I do no have to apply for jobs or complete those mutual obligations like studying or going to meetings or volunteer work in order to get my payment each fortnight. If I was under 35, I could still have mutual obligations though for DSP, which is a whole other kettle of fish. As we see by story after story , Disability employment services are a very expensive way to police people with acknowledge disabilities and illnesses that impact their ability to find and keep work. Generally you get sent to a DES provider rather than a regular mainstream JobActive provider after you’ve submitted medical certificates to Centrelink to get some time off from your mutual obligations. Because you’re more unwell that usual. At some point the exemption doesn’t get approved, because your GP ticked the wrong box, or said it was a permanent condition, and you go through an employment services assessment (Esat). This is a chat over the phone with a Centrelink-employed health work like and Occupational Therapist, and they determine how many hours a week you should be able to work based on this interview. This is given as a range, from 0-7 hours where you’re basically given an extended mutual obligations exemption for up to six months with regular check in appointments to make sure you’re still alive, to 8-15 or 16-30 hours, in which case you’re referred to a Disability Employment Service, who we’d all like to think specialises in getting disabled people into SUITABLE employment or study and has some knowledge or education around disabilities, illnesses and workplace supports.

(I hear some of you cry-laughing, and I can just tell you’ve been through DES at some point. The rest of you stick with me?)

So, if I have employment prospects, why isn’t going to a DES with JobSeeker allowance going to be helpful? Why won’t this be a suitable way to gain and maintain employment?

Disability services company pocketed nearly $1m for barista course lacking basic equipment, inquiry hears

Let me paint a picture of what it’s like looking for work with a mental illness (however I’m sure similar principals apply with any disability, particularly as most people fluctuate in their day-to-day ability to perform to the standards of the world without an illness…)

Hi, I’m Fiona. I have borderline personality disorder, I have a degree in speech pathology but I haven’t worked in the area in 8 years and I no longer have registration. I also have postgraduate qualifications in inclusive education. I stopped working as a speech pathologist due to my mental illness and its impact on my ability to be a reliable worker. When I’m not doing well, my planning and organisational skills go out the window. I become very unreliable. I’m erratic. I’m not going to outline everything here, but I’m not a good employee. Maybe I still show up to work, but it’s very hard to concentrate or to be around people long enough to get the work done. I may have started having problems with alcohol or self harm again. I may just head to Sydney on a whim and call in sick. I may show up work but not be in the condition to work, function, or be responsible for others safety let alone my own.

I’ve had many lots of therapy in the last 20 years. Psychology focussing on anxiety, CBT, medication, throwing myself into exercise (running 5km every morning DOES actually help with my anxiety), a 2 year block of weekly therapy that was thankfully covered by the government doing the conversational model. At the end of that last block I was working with a DES provider to try to get into some sort of work. We went with Disability Support/ carer work.

This DES provider worked with me to work towards getting a job. But there was always the threat of being cut off from payments if I didn’t tick the right boxes, submit the right forms. That does wonders for anxiety filled perfectionists with a ticking mental health problem that’s wanting to take you down.

I figured I could do volunteer work, at a special school, get my confidence up, get me some references. That all worked nicely. Also I got to use my speechie skills in classrooms again which was actually a very good use of my time.

By that stage I’d already been applying for jobs for about a year (I did interviews for so many Speech pathology jobs, locally, in Tamworth, Sydney, Bowral, Canberra, by phone to Albury and Broken Hill, and ones in the Northern Territory and the Pilbara that came with contracts and sign on bonuses. Some went okay, but I was never the top candidate, or some were uncomfortable with the gap in work that wasn’t due to having kids, a couple of interviews I ran out of in tears, and at least two I hung up the phone on. it got harder and hander and I was relieved to be told it was okay to stop trying for those)

But we went all in on the disability support jobs. Applied for all the companies in town, had a few interviews, I actually REALLY liked the group interview process for one, and managed to show off my knowledge and skills in that environment, only to shake my way through the individual one. I got to the point of doing a medical with them, but I had to do a couple of rounds of that to show my mental health was good enough… I got offered a different position elsewhere and took that one on. Casual. It was casual for a year, but I basically had as much work as I wanted.

I probably should have been getting post placement support from the DES provider but I don’t recall hearing from them again.

Alright, so I had a job. For four years. We won’t go into the process of losing that job, but it was mental health, alcohol misuse, and a WHOLE bunch of anxiety. That employer was so supportive to keep me on, and we tried to work with each other to make it happen, while I was accessing therapy and support, but it wasn’t working for me at that time, and I really feel like I let them down, but then I also was letting myself down by continuing to pretend I was okay.

Covid has been a bit of a blessing for me. The coronavirus supplement, having mutual obligations suspended, being able to access services by telehealth, all a blessing in disguise. I’ve had a wonderful GP who was willing to write me medical certificates. And I’ve answered to phone calls and done the reporting to Centrelink as they wanted, and not really had any way to step out of line. This would have continued to mid-year when I was going to be reassessed for job capacity and would have probably returned to the DES system with a 15 hour a week capacity assessment, and have to start working with the requirements again.

I’m happy to look for work when I’m ready. Not now. Now I’m not ready, I’m still doing hours of therapy each week, I still am working on meeting my daily standards as a human being. But I’d like to look for work (paid or unpaid) that uses my skills and interests and now this can happen in my own time rather than following the schedule the DES provider has to work under to meet their KPIs.

Currently I’m required to answer the occasional phone call, and to report mine and my partners income each fortnight in order to get paid. I’m pretty reliable at doing that, though I have been late on the reporting at lease once which meant waiting another day for my JobSeeker payment to land. My fault, but I forgot due to being overwhelmed with other aspects of dealing with existing with a mental illness, and did not treat myself kindly for the mistake. I’m my harshest critic…

I’ve been doing well in therapy, only needing to take a step back when I had Covid myself. I still made it to the group sessions by telehealth, but cancelled a couple of the individual ones as I wouldn’t be able to participate properly even by teams. So, I’m pleased with that , and myself.

I get scared when my psych brings up work and trying to come up with goals around that. I have some vague notions of what I might like to do if I can get myself able to work to a certain standard with the right supports from the employer and my other supports to stay well while I’m there.

Getting DSP means I can do this in my own way, in my own time. I have a little extra money each week. I don’t have the threat of having it cut off for failing to meet a target set by someone paid by the government to police me. I CAN choose to try getting a DES to support me, and there’s a “couple of good ones” in my area that I’m probably going to talk to. But I won’t be with one not of my choosing. I won’t have to do anything to make up hours that isn’t in my interests or that doesn’t help me with my skills or confidence. I can apply for as little or as few jobs that interest me. I can quit a job that isn’t working out and not face suspension of my payment. I have more leeway in terms of how much I can work without my payments going down or being stopped because I’ve been going well for a longer time. More of a safety net to fall back to if pushing myself starts doing more harm than good. I’m not there to meet someone else’s quotas, for a business to refer me to their education wing for them to earn a bonus and for me to study something meaningless outside my cares or my skill level.

There’s always this threat on JobSeeker that you’re going to do the wrong thing, knowingly or unknowingly, and be cut off from your only (woefully low) source of income because computer says no.

I know it’s not all rose coloured glasses from here, but being on DSP is a weight off. A chance to be a little free-er, to be able to take more time to work on myself, being and doing the things I want to, not being chewed up by a machine that’s not working in my best interests.

Aaaaaand I’m done

You know when you know you’re over-doing it and you know the end is close but there’s “just one more thing” to attend to and you need to do it NOW otherwise once you sit down, it won’t happen?

Yeah, that.

I flagged it with my psychologist on Monday that I knew I was getting busier and I needed to keep up my resting and other good habits in order to maintain the good track I’ve been on. I mean, it’s great, I went out and socialised for the first time in FOREVER at the Newcastle Greens federal campaign launch. A good few hours socialising, meeting new people, networking. Oh and all sober. Got a diet coke when I go there and ran off nervous energy the rest of the night. I was brain dead by the time I got home, unable to answer questions without a delay. Lol. Those spoons were long gone.

In other good news, I’m so close to having my Disability Support Pension approved after asking for the review when it was rejected last year. an Yvette from Centrelink called while I had covid to let me know that looking over it she wasn’t sure why I couldn’t have been marked as fully diagnosed and stabilised on what she was reading and sent it to be more thoroughly reviewed. I’m told they got in touch with my case worker at the substance use service and also the Occupational Therapist I started DBT with while I was on the waitlist for the public program and have come to the conclusion that I do meet the criteria for treated and diagnosed and then also that I meet the 20 points necessary on the impairment tables which freaks me out a little when I read it but year, I need to admit that I need a lot of support and structure to do more than the bare minimum, whatever you think that is.

So the next step is a telehealth appointment with an external psychologist to confirm I meet the criteria, which will be next Friday at midday. So I’m nervous about that, and worried about presenting well but not TOO well, if you know what I mean! Need to not mask, be honest and open.

How’s everyone going in the weather? It’s just one added thing to my mental load, even though it’s not REALLY affecting me, it stops me from doing the washing, or taking the dog for a walk if I could even motivate myself to do that. I watch the creek, assuming it won’t get much higher. I make sure I have food and medicine and have my phone charged in case. Water bottle filled. Little things that will make a difference if that storm cell does hit. Bruce is working today, for the first time this week, the weather being awful doesn’t make boat detailing an easy doable job. Oh and Maxi needed the vet yesterday another thing on my mental load – I’d finished a telehealth group, there were three new patients, so there was nine of us in total, it was full on, hard mental work even without trying to do therapy. Then i had to adult and take the dog to the vet. That’s why I splurged on chocolate at the service station on the way home and self soothed with m&ms :p

One thing I’ve also come to realise, and to accept and embrace, is that I rely on the meal prep boxes we get each week in order to be able to have the mental capacity to make dinner each night. Having the meals planned and the instructions there means my weary brain can pick up the recipe each night and follow the steps and come up with something nice, something different, something I’m proud to present as dinner for me and my partner. the nights I’ve been too zonked after taking on extra stuff without allowing for the energy, or when I’ve been sick since the Covid hangover is still niggling with a night cough and occasional headache and I can’t bring myself to cook, there’s only so many times I feel okay about Bruce getting us pizza, or us getting whatever is on special on the Maccas app. Though we DID have a lovely “date night” walking up to the local Maccas for cheap meals :p

So, it’s the weekend. My plans for this afternoon are dishes, dinner and relax. Might fire up the Sims or go fruit picking in Animal Crossing. But nothing too braining. My brain is done.

I just want to write

I want to just write and feel like my words are meaningful. I feel stuck in a little hole, looking out, but I’m not even that profound. I listen to the lyrics of K.Flay, I know I won’t have the articulatory skills to rap like her, but her words call to me, they make sense, I want to make words and sentences and rhymes and phrases like her. Call on my life and experience and knowledge and contribute something. But I see it as selfish and futile, or maybe not maybe I’m just talking shit.

This week in therapy we’re meant to be looking at looking after ourselves, setting up for a good time through diet and exercise and rest, and taking your meds and not mind altering substances. I can see where they’re coming from, but I hate focusing on those things, I get stubborn, I get wilful as they say. Eat right, and then I decide that icecream is my next meal. I’m still scared of focussing on weight loss, on exercise on diet, scared I’ll be successful and get back to that slim frame but be too obsessive about it, be to hyper focussed. I should probably raise that with my psych. Probably.

https://rainbowsandfairies.com.au/product/day-at-the-fair-jumpsuit/

I’m doing another shoot with Rainbows and fairies this week, I’ll try to be more relaxed and more confident lol. I need to get my eyebrows and other face waxing done, and I need to buy a beige bra, like a proper bra with structure and not the crop tops I usually wear and am wearing now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw5R06zel-E

Watching snippets of Kflay and Gflip’s gigs in the states, wishing I was there. Wishing I was out dancing and sweating and singing and being alive. I tried to not get covid, I really did. It didn’t work. I want to go out and play, but I’m stuck here. Stuck home trying to get myself to do the basics, put out the washing, clean the dishes, shave my legs. Looking forward to the cooler weather of autumn, to starting the interpersonal effectiveness DBT module, hoping I can do some of that therapy in person soon. Before another few months pass of being at home. I want to catch the train into therapy, I want to buy coffee and look at the beach. I want to arrange to see people for one off coffees, I doubt a regular thing, but just a one off, dumplings, coffee, something.

Feb 22

What’s on this week?

individual therapy Monday morning, should raise the PLESAE stuff, the eating, the taking care of health, the hard conversation I had with Bruce where I remember how hard being around a drunk me is. How that puts everything through another lens.

Do the beauty stuff, the waxing, the bra buying.

Tuesday night I’m starting an online things with Ausgrid. a panel that runs for months and they give me $1000 for at the end. Watch me shape the future or soemthing.

Wednesday is the Rainbows and Fairies shoot, Thursday group again, the last with one of the other women who I’m going to miss, the group is going to more than double to 8 patients the week after, which will be hard on teams. It would be better in person for sure.

Friday apparently Centrelink is calling again, even though they did last Friday, and my next appointment was supposed to be months away. Oh well.. Just answer, don’t get cut off. Go to my antabuse group online. Arrange to speak with my care coordinator next week, I need to start planning with her for the future.

it feels like a lot and I realise when I’m allowed the exemption from Centrelink and why they’re considering giving me DSP. That’s in a review stage. So maybe.

I’m tired.

So, I had covid

As I emerge from my Covid haze, let’s jot a few notes on the experience.

How did I get it? Well I definitely caught it from my partner Bruce, I’ve had so little contact with the outside world and he definitely had symptoms before me. Where he got it though exactly we haven’t pinpointed, but contact with the general public up in the boat yard, but again, no one person stood out so who knows.

I knew I was feeling off on Tuesday the 1st, I said so in my therapy session. But then I picked up a little. Bruce tested positive with a faint positive on the RAT he did Thursday morning. Mine was negative, as was the PCR I did that day, I tested positive on the PCR I took Saturday morning. I took to dog for some isolated exercise Friday afternoon and was wiped out by that.

I was down with body aches on the Saturday. Panadol and laying flat in bed wishing to sleep. Had various fever dreams. Headaches were a thing on and off. Slight sore throat but then not hugely so, and a nose running like a tap.

Did our first Woolies online grocery order, things are soooooo expensive! Still had my EveryPlate orders coming. Lost my tastebuds for a few days which made me so sad :p The food I made looked good but it was all textured water to me.

I cancelled my Monday therapy appointment, and didn’t do the Greens meeting Tuesday 8th. I did my group on Thursday just gone but was soooo wiped by the end of it and basically slept for two days once it finished!

I’m trying to get back into a routine. I did therapy this morning and groceries now so I can be back on task. Did some washing, the dishes are still soaking and I bought a premade lasagne for the oven tonight. Thankfully Bruce’s covid payment of $750 came through within a few hours of applying for it after he got the positive RAT so he could take the week off without too much of a financial kick. No allowances for the rest of us though, so thank you for those who bought me shiny purple coffee things on here because it made me more comfortable buying to extras for me in the grocery order like the delish $1 chobanis. When they’re $1 I go nuts hah! Though I’ve just bought a tasty lemon meringue ice cream dessert from Aldi. Yes, food is important to me. Yes, I’m overweight. What of it :p

Also bad timing on the Covid boosters! We were due to get them on the 10th as that was 3 months since the second AZ in November. So glad I was immunised though! We’ll get them later this month / early march and be super immune.

So now to get back on track. I feel like I’ve had another false start to the the year and it’ll really only start this week! So, let’s work with that assumption and start 2022 again on Valentines day!

Oh also, my DSP application is being reviewed and went to the Health Professionals Advisory Unit, so we’ll see how that treats me. Fingers crossed.

The year begins proper

https://youtu.be/SZNsvUT0DQQ

January is just a warm up for the rest of the year. People and the services they provide are still off on leave at the start, the come back in over time about a week in, taking days off to share child care for the long summer holidays, and more and more working from home due to covid precautions and generally increasing flexibility for the office worker after two years of realising a lot of things and the busywork of offices really isn’t essential.

I remember working over the summer holidays as a school-age speech pathologist. Planning and photocopying for the year ahead, booking up term one with appointments and workshops and meetings and training days. Seeing the older kids, the high schoolers, the ones that don’t do well being pulled out of school or class for appointments, finalising formal language assessments and reports for the next round of funding.

This month, January 2022, has had some planning for me. Goal setting, remembering where everything was working up to before Xmas and this new Covid rush.

So what are my plans for early 2022, now that I’ve taken most of January to re-establish a routine (yes, down to plotting it out on my calendar) and catch up with my therapists and co-conspirators?

Well, I’ve booked in for Japanese night classes for May and June thanks to a semi-anonymous benefactor named Eric who, after me posting about it on Twitter, sent the $310 needed to my PayPal bright and early one Monday morning, making my day, making my week and month! I was seriously buzzing after that, and it really helped me to focus on getting my other plans in place for this six months in order to get the most out of Eric’s gift. I’d already signed up for a trial of Duolingo as suggested by my psych, which is going along well, my hiragana and katakana is still functional but you should see me make the stupidest mistakes on there. The little broken hearts for mistakes do me in! I need to decide now whether to continue with a paid account so I can “clear” and practice my mistakes (and of course use any other feature on there) or just suck it up or you know, just get it right the first time!

I’ll need to start practicing speaking a writing too, speaking I can apparently do on there since I have a mic, but I’ll have to push myself to do writing, particularly so I can actually recognise and use the more complex kanji. I might get a workbook, or printable worksheets. Not sure yet.

Next up, I’m going to be taking part in a series of focus groups for Ausgrid over the next few months. I get paid $1000 at the end which is pretty sweet, so I’ve popped them into my diary and hope we do get to do some of the sessions down in Sydney as planned, cos I quite like a day out down there on the train and a catered lunch :p

Third thing for the coming months is the Federal Election and being involved in the local Greens campaigns how I can. I might be getting involved in the social media role and the advertising stuff. There’s training tomorrow which will give me more skills and information and also includes anti-bulling and “don’t get sued for defo by Dutton” training, so I’ll figure out if I’m up for the role after that! The election could be up to May 24th, and that time will fly once it’s called.

Fourth, but of course the most important, is continuing with my therapy and other appointments and homework. I might need to see if we can change my individual therapy session so I’m available for more or of the lunchtime campaign meetings, but my psych has already said that would be quite alright given it’s a part of working towards my goals. The group sessions are still 2.5 hours on Thursday afternoons. I really hope they go back to face to face in a month or so when we’re maybe past the worst of Omicron, but no one has any timelines, and we were just about to go back to f2f after Xmas, but then the surge hit and threw all that into disarray. The telehealth format isn’t ideal and I feel like brings up more communication problems. I really hope we’re in f2f by the time we’re doing the interpersonal effectiveness module at least!

We’re doing the Emotion Regulation module of the DBT program at the moment, and I’m struggling a little with whether my pushing through is actually opposite action and thus good, or I’m just sucking it up and masking even more and that’s working against me. I’ve more or less concluded that I’m probably autistic, and people I know and respect agree with my reasoning, so I’m trying to respect that part of me, and incorporate the strategies from DBT for borderline personality disorder into my life while learning more about how I inherently function and building on my sensory toolkit and being compassionate to myself and the little girl that struggled for so long.

I’m also still taking Antabuse tablets daily to assist me in staying sober so I can do all the things. At the moment that involves fortnightly visits to the Mater to get the medications and touch base individually, and fortnightly group sessions online using Teams. The group was only two patients, a nurse and the psychiatrist today, and I’m starting to dread the smaller groups to an extent and hope it’s much bigger next fortnight! Group for DBT last week at one point was me, two psychologists and a psych student, so it was a bit intense. At least they run it like we’re all participants when it’s like that otherwise I’d surely run away!

As far as working goes, I have my mutual obligations exemption til the end of June, so I’ll be working on my goals towards being more articulate and able to participate through my therapy, election work and Japanese classes, and look to pick up with a disability employment service in July. I don’t really know what I want to be doing work wise, I have ideas, but we’ll see. My partner is still running his business, and I’m helping out with that by being available, putting out the washing and feeding him. I still claim to be in Facebook social media manager, though there’s not much going on over there at the moment!

I think that’s plenty for me to be committing to for now!

Bring on the election!