Pushing Back Against The Cuts

People with disabilities do not need to be fixed; they need to be accepted for who they are.

Jordan Christian

The fact that the UK Government have managed to not only piss off not only the disabled community but also those outside of it speaks volumes. I, along with others, have previously written about the cost of living crisis and the disproportionate effects on the disabled community so the fact that the government want to dig an even deeper hole for a community who are already teetering on the edge of said hole is disgusting.

I am happy but saddened at the same time about this being talked about. Mainstream media have mostly ignored similar issues since post 2010, the cuts to vital services and now what could become a financial hole that disabled people are going to struggle to fill during a cost of living crisis as well as post Covid, the world hasn’t been the same.

I have seen many MPs attempting to defend these cuts, one actually broke ranks to speak out against it but that’s the only positive thing any MP has done from our current government while the rest cower in fear. I saw an interview on TV recently and the journalist asked an MP about if they could survive on £70 a week like they propose disabled people do. Want to know what he said?

I have a mortgage to pay.

These are the type of people running this country, it made me sick watching that interview. They don’t understand the plight they are leaving disabled people in, we’ve been the government’s punching bag for some time so this is a new low but now the mainstream media as well as celebrities are starting to take notice.

I’m feeling the tears in my eyes as I write this. Why are the disabled community being scapegoated? But I am happy that the disabled community are standing together and not accepting this, pushing back against those who want to penny pinch from an already struggling community. They are currently taking consultations until the 30th June and there are ways to contact them which I will share near the end of this post. Protests across the UK will be taking place, none local to me as far as I’m aware, but be aware of your rights, don’t get violent, our government have had a track record for calling protesters ‘far right’, after all.

Here are ways to contact those in charge of consultation that I found:

https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=6fbxllcQF0GsKIDN_ob4w8sPhcBFC_lLibLhGndbUv9UN0Y4UTYzNUVVM0lFUThFWFM3VVEwSFJPMCQlQCN0PWcu&route=shorturl

Email them at: [email protected]

Or write a letter to the following address:

Disability and Health Support Directorate
Department for Work and Pensions
Level 2
Caxton House
Tothill Street
London
SW1H 9NA

Thank you for reading.

G2G,

Crazy World Online

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The Cuts That Could Cripple Disabled People In The UK

People with disabilities are just as worthy as those without disabilities to live happy, productive lives.

Sydney Badeau

If you live in the UK and you have any kind of disability, the Government’s budget and the rumours that had been swirling probably had you on edge, questioning your future. Will my money be cut? What will happen to me financially? Would I be able to survive?

The claims that Government are putting out about how Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is ‘becoming unaffordable’, making the bar to be able to claim higher but what about those with mental or learning disabilities? Where do they stand when it comes to their claims? That wasn’t really acknowledged or mentioned. But these cuts are understandably causing anger and tension within disability and anti-poverty charities. Here are some of the numbers according to www.communitycare.com:

  • People who received the health element of UC but were not eligible for PIP would lose access to the health element through entitlement being based on the PIP assessment. This would make them worse off by £2,400 a year (in today’s prices), from 2028-29. Currently, 600,000 people qualify for the health element of UC but do not receive PIP.
  • About 2.4m families would be worse off by £280 a year by 2029-30 due to the freeze in the health element of UC.
  • New claimants for the health element of UC would be worse off by £2,500 a year than were the green paper changes not introduced.

How is this supposed to help those already struggling? I previously wrote about how the cost of living crisis was affecting those within the disabled community and quite frankly, these cuts are going to do more harm than good but how do they benefit from this?

Our Prime Minister can attempt to defend these cuts all he wants but he’s not the the one who’s going to be affected by these cuts, it’s the millions across the UK that he’s willing to leave behind while refusing to raise tax for the wealthy elites like himself that run this country. According to our Government as quoted by Neil Shaw on Yahoo! News in March 2025, “As part of its reforms, the Government also said it will invest an additional £1 billion a year by 2029/2030 to help support people into work, including through one-to-one help.”

The announcement was met with criticism from Labour backbenchers, unions and charities. But explain something to me. What about those who are deemed not fit to work? Are you going to cut them off at the knees, leave them to struggle while you go on this “crusade” to cut money from the most vulnerable in society?

I’m going to quote another thing our Prime Minister had the nerve to say. “The rising sickness and disability benefits bill is “devastating” for the public finances and has “wreaked a terrible human cost”. What would he know about a terrible cost? He’s not a disabled person that I am aware of that is going to have their money cut to make room for what? People who might not be able to work to be forced to work? Where’s the consideration?

What’s going to happen to the 3.6m people who are affected by these cuts? How are we going to be helped in a country that seems to be going backwards, not giving a shit about those with any kind of disability? It wasn’t even two days ago that, according to the WSWS website that an MP was “railing against the disabled and sick, vilifying the “1 in 10 people of working age now claiming a sickness or disability benefit… 2.8 million out of work due to long term sickness… And the number of people claiming Personal Independence Payments set to double this decade, from 2 to 4.3 million… with the growth in claims rising faster among young people and mental health conditions.””

These types of messages aren’t going to help us, it’ll cause more discrimination as I talked about in my last post and what are going to be the long term effects of what is being done? Another generation is going to suffer because the Government want to paint the sick and disabled to be the bad guys who are stealing everyone’s money, it’s disgusting that a sitting MP basically said that.

Here are a couple of articles that I referenced in this post and there may be more to read as we see this unfold:

https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2025/03/19/many-disabled-people-face-benefit-cuts-in-government-plan-to-save-over-5bn-from-welfare-system/

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/dwp-benefits-cuts-explained-defended

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/03/18/dtnd-m18.html

Thank you for reading.

G2G,

Crazy World Online

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Disability Hate Crime and Police Discrimination: Why Is It Allowed To Happen?

I do not suffer from Autism, but I do suffer from the way you treat me.

Tyler Durdin

I would say this quote is appropriate for this post as this could be a tough read for those who have been on the end of a disability hate crime. But here is the definition of a disability hate crime below:

A disability hate crime is a criminal offense or incident that targets a person because of their disability. It can include violence, abuse, or property damage.

Disability hate crime has always been a hot topic, the definition, the lack of understanding or even the lack of help from not only the police but the courts mean that disability hate crime isn’t always recognised as such a thing. But why is that? The laws for disability rights only started gaining traction in the 1990s, only being taken seriously in the late 2000s, unrepairable damage having been done to people who suffered due to discrimination, hate and conspiracy theories of why such things existed.

When I was younger, I used to hear from my mother that my disabilities came from an injection. I never believed her, I always questioned her narrative of why she would say such a bullshit thing. It was a lonely world as I am part of that awkward generation where the law brought in 1995 existed that was meant to stop discrimination against disabled people but it didn’t protect those with learning disabilities such as autism, that came into play 15 years later in 2010.

The police have had a track record for not doing enough for the disabled community. I haven’t had great experiences with the police and I’m sure there are others who have stories about their experiences with them and how they were treated. There are so many papers with stats that come to similar conclusions that not many autistic or disabled people are satisfied with their experiences with the police and in a world where almost everything can be found online, hiding any type of discrimination or bad treatment of a disabled person can’t be hidden forever, someone will be filming even if unintentional, police have body cams, they can’t hide it on that even if they try.

The police are hypocrites. For a starters, their track record when it comes to discrimination of disabled people within their own ranks ain’t good. According to an article written by John Pring for http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com in March 2023, the Metropolitan Police were found that 1 in 3 disabled members of staff had faced bullying with 358 employment tribunals between 2017-18 and 2021-22 being related to disability discrimination. (I’ll share a link to this article near the end of this post to read, don’t worry, I’ll probably reference a few articles as I write this.)

Another article written by researchers at the University of Cambridge found some shocking numbers. The study found that only half of autistic people (52%) were considered by the police to be vulnerable adults, even though the law recognises all autistic people as vulnerable.

Over a third (35%) of autistic defendants were not given an ‘appropriate adult’ during police investigations, even though their diagnosis was known to police, and despite all autistic people being entitled under the law to have an appropriate adult present when being interviewed by the police. A further 18% did not have an ‘appropriate adult’ present because their diagnosis was not known to the police.

Only a quarter (25%) of autistic people were given ‘reasonable adjustments’, with 38% not given any even though lawyers stated that this would have been beneficial. This is despite all autistic people being entitled to reasonable adjustments under the law. A further 33% did not receive any adjustments because their autism diagnosis was unknown at the time. Of the autistic people whose case went to trial, more than one in five (22%) were not given any reasonable adjustments even though their lawyers stated that this would have been helpful.

In just under half of the cases that included a trial by jury (47%), the jury was not informed that the defendant was autistic. 59% of prosecution barristers and 46% of judges or magistrates said or did something during the trial that made them concerned that they did not have an adequate understanding of autism.

This alone is shocking. How is this being allowed to happen in a country where people are supposed to have equal rights? But there is a slight positive out of this. “However, a positive finding was that, in cases where their client was found to have committed a crime, 60% of judges saw the defendant’s autism as a mitigating factor, and in these cases the majority of autistic people were given a suspended or reduced sentence.”

I know this post was supposed to be about disability hate crimes but discrimination within the police has a role to play in how the investigations are handled. While the numbers are reportedly going down according to the Home Office, people also don’t report these crimes to the Police, which may not be fully surprising considering those who have dealt with the police when reporting such crimes. But there also articles that state the number is rising.

But for now, I will finish this post and if you want to read more, there are two articles linked that will help but you can also search:

https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/disability-discrimination-in-met-police-is-baked-into-the-system-says-report/

https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/autistic-defendants-are-being-failed-by-the-criminal-justice-system

Thank you for reading.

G2G,

Crazy World Online

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Driving With Autism

Autism, like a rainbow, has a bright side and a dark side and even though it can mean rough weather, it can be beautiful!

Stuart Duncan

Recently, a kind gentleman reached out to me on this page regarding this subject with a link if you would information on driving with any type of disability or illness:

https://www.milavetzlaw.com/driving-with-a-disability-guide/

But going onto the subject of driving while having autism.

Driving can be difficult for many people, but it can also be harder for those with disabilities. Many of those with disabilities may have been told or asked if they are capable of driving or been told they aren’t allowed to drive. But being allowed to drive can depend on symptoms, which maybe a difficult thing to hear and questioning these things may make that decision on whether to get behind the wheel a lot harder to decide as you may feel capable of driving but someone else may disagree with you.

I’m not going to pretend I know these things like the back of my hand, I don’t have firsthand experience of driving with a disability. But sometimes, making that choice or being told the choice can be something people don’t want to hear or questions being asked of their capability as it can make a person feel less. But for autistic people who may sit in the driving seat it could be difficult.

  • Becoming easily distracted on the road could be seen as an obstacle
  • Difficulty with hand-eye-foot coordination may things difficult if you are autistic and driving a car.

But there are ways to support an autistic person who wants to learn how to drive. There are instructors out there who can help with steps that may be helpful.

  • Repeatedly practicing a skill many times
  • Using driving simulations such as a video game to become familiar with controls and driving functions
  • Identifying any specific areas the individual may need to work on to overcome any driving challenges

Sometimes, driving may be risky but if you have the right support or are allowed, you can drive no matter what, don’t let little things get in the way, some things you may not be allowed to do, just make sure you’re allowed to.

I hope you enjoyed this read and click the link if you want to learn more from people who know more in this field and learn about any other thing you may want to know about driving with any type of disability.

G2G,

Crazy World Online

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Life After Education

The lack of posts have been for a reason. I’ve been needing to figure my life out, a life outside of education, a life outside of an oppression and constant cover ups to hide any bad treatment. The last few months have been a time of reflection, a time of finding a new path after not only speaking out but being punished for speaking out.

Life has a thing for throwing obstacles in your path but it’s also about how you overcome those that stand in your way. Going into a world that you’re not always prepared for can be one of the hardest things anyone can do. For me, walking away from a toxic learning environment even though it wasn’t my choice, when I look back now without trying to let the emotions get involved, has probably been great for my mental and emotional wellbeing.

This transition has probably been the trickiest one I have been through so far in my life.

Any advice for this?

G2G,

Crazy World Online

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Reaching a Breaking Point – Time To Speak My Truth

I don’t start this post with a quote like normal as I feel it’s not appropriate for what I am to talk about. I am no longer restricted by the college institution in which I spent 6 years as a student, therefore I can speak my truth, but by speaking my truth in order to get advice of where I should go next left me with few options as I am to not return to a place where misery was forced upon me for reasons I will never fully grasp.

I will be honest, the bumps in the road have been there from the beginning. From hearing that I wasn’t capable of going on higher levels to strains of many obstacles that have been thrown my way the last few years, as a result, my commitment wasn’t 100% due to these circumstances. My path to this point hasn’t been easy or fun to drive along, it hasn’t been sunshine and rainbows.

As a student who has a disability, I have something in place called an EHCP (Education, Health and Care Plan, for context of initials) (It’s a British thing, not sure about other countries, my apologies) so every year, I have to attend meetings to adjust or talk about whether these adjustments have been met or not. Well things with my Plan changed 2 years ago as it turned into an ambush, one that I haven’t recovered from emotionally or mentally.

I talk about 2 years ago in particular because that was a big part of my breaking point, but I bottled it up and kept silent for a reason. It was just supposed to be a normal EHCP meeting like every other year, but something felt different this time. Things had already been happening as no one was having a clue what to do with me and with an incident 2 days before the meeting, emotions were running high. Being branded as a bully by a tutor when you had faced so much bullshit that they will NEVER take accountability for or apologise yet I pay the price by facing punishment for wanting a simple apology. I’ll talk about the incident of why this “EHCP Review” as they called it, happened.

I had grown fed up being tossed aside. No one wanted to help me, support they claimed there weren’t enough so I spent half of that academic year on my ass, not knowing what to do as I was dumped on different people as my main tutor sat around with no clue what to do with me. I wasn’t allowed to say what I was thinking as it would get me into trouble, everyone took sides, I felt alone and no one will ever understand that feeling that weren’t standing by my side. The meeting happened due to the incident in question as I had asked for an apology for being called a bully. How am I a bully when I walked away from the situation yet they followed, insisting on escalating it quickly? But no, they listened to one side, took that side without listening to mine or witnesses (yes, there were witnesses!) Side of the story. It hurt, I was lied to to my face all that day, insisting it was a norml EHCP meeting, a meeting I couldn’t get out of yet people were pulling out.

My trust was broken beyond repair that day. From that day forth, I vowed to make sure no one went through the same incident. I couldn’t keep my mouth shut, and that made the staff as well as the higher ups nervous. I remember this incident like it was yesterday as I always feel tears prick my eyes when I think back to it. The day they tried to force me to sign an NDA.

I remember it so well because they tried to cover this up as well. I held it and still do, over their heads as they knew I could get them fired, I know this because I spoke to people about it and whether this was allowed or not. I hated myself for talking, I couldn’t help the guilt that I felt in my head, why wasn’t I allowed to speak my truth? I refused to sign it. No way was I keeping quiet about this, as I have already said, I didn’t and still don’t want the next generation of people within the Autism community or have similar issues to go through what I did. They wanted to use ME as a learning point. Me! Yet they continued their behaviours towards me, it felt like a slap in the face. How are they meant to learn when they get rid of half my file so that they can cover up how I have been treated? That is a question I will never know the answer to.

I chose to tell my truth so that no one would suffer or for those who have been treated similarly, know that they aren’t the only ones. I am getting out of that place, they can’t silence me when they know that what I say is the truth.

Thank you for reading.

G2G,

Crazy World Online

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Understanding The Links Between Mental Health And Autism

Autism doesn’t have to define a person. Artists are like anyone else: They define themselves through hard work and individuality.

Adrienne Bailon

Mental health and autism is probably something that many outside of the autistic community wouldn’t fully understand because like I have previously said, mainstream media, the NHS or the UK government, they don’t really like to talk their failures when it comes to Autistic people.

I would make this a stat fest but this isn’t the way to do this. As someone who knows people who have had their Autism dismissed by many organisations in favour of blaming mental health or just plain bad behaviour. I have seen it happen to people I know and love, it’s probably happened to yourself or someone you may know or care deeply about.

Here’s the thing about Autism and mental health: the previous treatment that Autistic people have faced in the past, such as systematic lock ups within institutions, lobotomies and the fact that we were never seen as equals for a long time. There can be no doubt that the damage done in the past cannot be undone, no matter how deep in the archives you have to dig.

People who have been ignored before finally being diagnosed would probably have told you that as a result of the ignoring has done a lot of damage emotionally, mentally and physically as they simply asked people to stop ignoring them, other things getting blamed so that they can be dismissed as just another ‘problem’.

But understanding the link between Autism and Mental Health is always going to be difficult as not everybody thinks the same way.

G2G,

Crazy World Online

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Understanding Autism In My Own Way

Autism is a way of being. It is not possible to separate the person from the autism.

Jim Sinclair

When I was a child, autism wasn’t seen as something good to be diagnosed with, if anything, it put a target on my back when it came to people who would take advantage of my vulnerability. Not many people were genuine friends towards me, joking behind my back about my diagnosis or using me until they had their fun then using me as a punching bag.

I learned not to trust people from a young age as a result. I remember one particular incident in bits and pieces, never in full due to a head injury I got from the incident in question. All I remember is the pain I was in, lying there as people drove or walked past where I laid in agony, having been battered and kicked in the head, left basically for dead under a bridge at 12 years old. Police were useless back then, I will state that and I have never trusted them since. I understood and resigned myself at that time to the fact that nobody would ever accept every part of me, including my autism.

I eventually found a friend who accepted every part of me, I’ll call him Giant for this post. He came into my life a few months after the incident, he also came at a time where I was in a DARK place, both mentally, physically and emotionally. At the time, I was being bullied in school, I was self-harming as a coping mechanism but I was also healing from the trauma of that day, dealing with the fact that I could only remember parts of what happened.

He didn’t have to accept me that day, but he did. He was one of very few people who accepted every part of me, even my autism, who understood and tried to accommodate to what I needed. My mother never approved of him while everyone else did, they saw he was a positive figure in what was a dark period in my life. He accepted me for me, he took me at my worst, he took me at my best, he was a like a big brother to me.

He was part of my journey in accepting and understanding that my Autism wasn’t something bad like everyone else thought. Everyone and everything started to make sense when he was around as he never saw me any differently from his other friends.

I will admit, it took me a bit longer to fully grasp and understand my diagnosis, what exactly made me different but I don’t see myself as different, I am just as human and so is anyone on the Autism Spectrum like any neurotypical person that someone may walk past on the street. We don’t have a look to us or a sign going we are autism as it doesn’t define a person, it makes us human and not an alien or a creature which I now grasp and understand that it isn’t a bad thing, it never was and I never felt that way.

Thank you for reading.

G2G,

Crazy World Online

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Autism Acceptance Or Awareness All Year Round, Not One Month

Autism is not a choice. Acceptance is.

Stuart Duncan

For one month, a day, we have Autism Awareness Day and Month in April. Except the path leads to acceptance so why can’t it be both Awareness and Acceptance? That is what we want so deeply is to be accepted by society and not be treated so differently like we are not humans because we aren’t prisoners in institutions anymore, they can’t try to hide us because we wouldn’t allow it.

The conversations that could be had around autism awareness and acceptance is a topic that shouldn’t be had only in one month every year as any things could be discussed when it comes to Autism Awareness and Acceptance. The problem with it only being one month a year is that for the rest of the year, these conversations can easily be swept aside like it never happened and nothing changes.

Putting up with silence for the rest of the year while we are left behind in the current cost-of-living crisis, laws and more cuts are made for services designed to help and accommodate us. But while the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, we march on with our fight for equal pay, equal housing and the same job opportunities as those who are deemed ‘more capable’.

Hypocrisy within our government has always been a topic of conversation in the Autism community as we think that we’ll gain a voice in Parliament, it’s quickly overshadowed by some other scandal that’s taken place, making the conversations forgotten in comparison to the scandals. There is an image from Parliament where there was a meeting regarding the disabled community, for example, no one turned up for that meeting but when it came to a pay rise, low and behold, everyone turns up. Hypocrisy much?!

The sooner things change, the better.

Thank you for reading.

G2G,

Crazy World Online

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A Cover Up To Hide Our Historical Pain

I look forward to autistics having everyday lives with things so many take for granted – going to school, being part of the community, having meaningful jobs with living wages along with meaningful relationships.

Judy Endow

As the darkest parts of history starts to rise to the surface which we now look back on in shame as statues are pulled down in protest, ashamed of parts of our history and as some would call it, “cancel culture”. But that day of reckoning has arrived for our community. Instead, there are parts of our history heavily covered up by “confidential information”, information I highly doubt that they would like to come out even though the laws and attempted laws are plain to see if you are willing to dig a little deeper.

For me growing up, being autistic wasn’t spoken about like it is today. The conversations that the Autism community have now, we didn’t have when I was younger. History will tell you that the laws and actions of those who came before, those who took part, stood back while they did nothing to stop the sterilisation, institutionalisation and our treatment while everyone else got on like nothing happened.

I am currently working on a piece of writing which I am hoping I will be writing multiple chapters of a story based on some of these things. To clarify what I mean, I am writing about a character with autism who experienced being in an institution because of their disability at the time. But I will talk more about that in another post, maybe a sneak peek at some of the characters I will be introducing into the story but I’m going off topic so back to my point.

Our pain may get covered up in favour of glamouring our pain and suffering but what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger as the singer Kelly Clarkson once sang. We are fighters and we deserve to tell our stories instead of it being hidden under the rug for it to be brought up painfully when a ‘Disabled Lives Matter’ was to ever happen.

Thank you for reading.

G2G,

Crazy World Online

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