Violation

My work capability assessment did not go well. For the interview, I had brought a fit note from July which diagnosed me with mood disturbances and a letter stating that I had been diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder from October 2017, which I had obtained from a GDPR1 request. Neither my GP (Dr Haq) nor the psychiatrist (Dr Mathurine) had the courage, courtesy or decency to state this to my face leaving me to find out in July by reading my documents. I do not have bipolar affective disorder.

I could not understand why a neuropsychiatrist and a psychiatrist both thought I had an elevated mood and it appears it’s because I am autistic. The main reason originally I wanted to look at my medical records is because I thought that hypochondriac had been written there and that would explain why my attempts to access healthcare nearly always failed. But it appears they are treating me badly for an even worse reason. I wrote to my GP’s practice detailing all of this, explaining that the misdiagnosis is because I have ME/CFS, a much maligned illness by medicine, and because I am autistic as doctor’s often misread our mental states. Writing this letter set off my ME meaning that there was no possibility of me being well enough in time to start university this September, putting my life on hold because of medicine for yet another year. I deregistered from my GP in disgust. The only positive to come out of it is my near certainty that I would be diagnosed with autism and to finally have an explanation for medicine’s poor treatment of me.

With these documents in hand, I had felt quite confident before the assessment because I thought I would score 15 points again because although I was much improved since last time, I still have essentially the same issues. However, the assessor I got seemed much more hostile than the previous one and I began to feel anxious. I tried to explain the problems I have been having with the NHS but she kept referring to self-diagnosis and how these hold little weight. I began to regret my policy of “just-in-time” anxiety as in this case it appears to have been “just-too-late”.

I said I do not have bipolar affective disorder yet she asked if I had taken antipsychotics and I felt the combined force of the state’s boot on my face. I said that they would have set off my ME/CFS and that my intolerance and sensitivity to drugs is written throughout my medical record. She asked why I had not been tested for ME/CFS and got a proper diagnosis (showing she knows nothing about ME/CFS) and I told her that I have been traumatised by the NHS and in any case I have tried repeatedly but I get nowhere as I am now in the mental box so they no longer listen to me (not that they listened to me before).

Despite me telling her about PEM2 and the issues I have with concentration, she asked why I had not gone to university in September. I kept stressing the mental fatigue, brain fog, headpains and concentration issues yet she did not seem to be listening. She asked what time I got up and I said 3 and she asked if I went back to sleep and it took me two days to realise she thought I meant 3am not 3pm. Then at about 45 minutes into the consultation she started asking about how I got to the assessment centre and I told her I walked and it had taken about 1 hour 45 minutes. I then started to internally panic triggering emotional and sensory overload causing dissociation because as I have no physical disabilities then I would fail my WCA forcing me into destitution and homelessness as I am unable to work. I would not survive on the streets being autistic and having ME/CFS so it would essentially mean death. I am writing this because I still fear that to be the case.

I told her in the interview that I was dissociating, I had this intense urge to escape, but she said she was nearly finished and carried on. The only word I can use to describe how I felt is violation. I feel violated at having been forced to continue in an intensely vulnerable state whilst I was dissociating and would describe it as like being tortured. I felt like I couldn’t control my facial expressions and that it was stuck in a grimace. I had to read her lips so I could understand what she was saying as my ability to process auditory information vanished. I was not capacitous.

When I left the interview I was very distraught. I remember tweeting that it had not gone very well and I felt intensely anxious and fearful. I thought that was it I am going to have to kill myself and indeed when I got home I started writing a will. As I walked home past Picadilly Station and parallel to the Ashton Canal, I passed the Urban Village Medical Practice, one of those new city modern practices with a large NHS sign on the side. Looking at that sign with those three blue letters on white background I felt nothing but disgust and betrayal.