(Long saga about my volunteering etc.)
I did loads of volunteering in the past. I was particularly into committees, but did other stuff as well. I've won awards for it.
My difficulty is that I began to realise that if I told the DWP I was doing new voluntary work, they started asking questions, thinking there may be a change of circumstances. But I was afraid not to tell them, lest they find out, think I hadn't told them because I was cheating, and stop my benefits. Either way, paperwork and stress. Anyone who knows me (e.g. on here) knows I explain things at length - that actually goes back to early childhood and is born of a "No, I'm telling the truth, really I am" desperation.
In fact, it's never been the case that the DWP has re-assessed me simply on the basis of doing voluntary work; however having volunteered in an advice centre and an online advice service, I helped plenty of people for whom that had been the case.
Over the course of my life, I've done tens and tens of thousands of hours of voluntary work, both whilst also in paid work, and after. That used to be considered the norm for us mad'uns and actively encouraged under incapacity benefit, but then under the Tories, I gradually chickened out.
For some years, that wasn't such an issue because I was looking after elderly relatives. Then they died one after another, but I'd already dropped all my voluntary work by then, and the most I feel able to do these days is little informal things like a bit of shopping for a neighbour or picking up a neighbour's medication for them, i.e. the stuff the powers that be don't want to deem to be voluntary work.
But given that my DLA to PIP migration took 10 months including two reconsiderations, that even after all that, I'm still not getting all I'm entitled to, and that most of my conditions are relapsing-remitting which doesn't necessarily compute for some assessors, I succumbed to cowardice.
Initially, I focussed on sorting out my late father's estate, and there's still the work to do on that, but repeated problems with HMRC giving conflicting information attacked my confidence and there's also been some extreme nastiness by a relative trying to rip me off that's left me feeling loss and hurt.
Meanwhile, my carefully thought-out plans for what sort of (paid) work I wanted to do for a new career fell apart after I had some very bad experiences as a customer/client of the sort of professional/businesses to which I thought I could sell a particular set of skills I have on a fixed contract basis.
Meanwhile, I'm finding my extremely poor sound-discrimination very isolating. I like kids playing in quiet areas outside because they cope better than grown-ups with a dotty grey-haired woman who witters away and doesn't seem to hear what they're saying.
There are local groups I'd like to join, but I can't find any with acoustics I can cope with. There's usually background noise and hard surfaces giving the wrong sound balance, and poor lighting, and I end up just pretending I know what people are on about. There's one dance group where I cope because the steps are so clearly demonstrated that I don't need to be able to hear what's said. Even shouts telling us what to do next I can mentally process just as timing beeps. And the conversation before and after is manageable because it's predictable and I've found a couple of people that don't actually listen to what's said back to them and one that speaks loudly and gestures.
I joined a local zoom group, which has closed now, and I liked the atmosphere, but even then I struggled, because I couldn't cope with both one person talking and messages from others appearing on the screen, because my brain processes messages as subtitles. As I type that, maybe it would be worth trying other zoom groups.
I'm sitting here crying. No, you didn't cause that. My circumstances did. But children, like Ouchers, can do a really good job, as you often do, of helping me to feel less depressed.
