Mr Smith

Below is my comment with signature of the open letter to Iain Duncan Smith via the Daily Telegraph:

http://blacktrianglecampaign.org/2012/05/16/urgent-callout-for-letter-signatories-iain-duncan-smiths-dla-claims-dpos-letter-to-the-daily-telegraph/

Lynda Phillips May 19, 2012 at 6:15 pm

Iain Duncan Smith should count his blessings that he’s not disabled. The man has no comprehension of the word ‘shame’. Unfortunately, I suffered an horrendous series of life changing illnesses/injuries two years ago. “Mr Smith, I’m a coma and severe brain damage (amongst numerous other physical and psychological conditions) survivor. I shudder to think what would have happened when I was in a coma on life support in Jan/Feb 2010 had the coalition been in power then because my prognosis was very bad to no hope for FIVE weeks. It’s expensive to keep a patient alive in Intensive Care. Would the doctors have withdrawn life support with such a bleak outlook? I made remarkable progress and exceeded the doctors wildest expectations. Would your government give me the same chance? All I know for sure Mr Smith is that Hades is waiting for you on the far bank of the river Styx. Make sure you have a gold coin to pay Charon, the ferryman”…

The CONDEMS bring a whole new meaning to the phrase 'Nanny State'

Here's my comment on Sonia Poultan's piece in the Daily Mail today:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2146422/The-Coalition-ploughed-millions-parenting-website-practical-virtual-advice-need.html

How on earth, or off it in their case, do they think we managed without the internet?

My DD is 19, born a decade before even 50 % home internet coverage was used in the UK.

Even though I bet my schoolmates would have probably voted me 'least likely to become a mother, good or not', I gave birth.

There were problems but I'm not here to talk about that side of things; and horror of horrors; not mine, other people's; I was a natural mother. Mother nature in all her evolutionary glory kicked in.

I had to stay in hospital for six days because of complications including me having the wrong blood group, which, as me things go, wasn't such a bad thing...

Day three and the midwives had me showing the newer mum's how to clean up the ickiest babies, bath, change etc. and present them, in their sublime wonder for relatives to see :) I got on with it and anything I found difficult I asked my mother, aunts and grandmothers, SIMPLES!!!

Pain...

Phoned my doctor's surgery today 'cos I need an urgent home visit to re assess my pain relief but cannot be alone because I'm classed as a vulnerable adult due to my disabilities and STM issues. The answer given: arrange a day with my social worker, call the surgery then it will be determined if he can visit or not and what time etc... Do these people actually know what anal retards many social workers are???

I could queue up on the banks of the river Styx without a coin to pay Charon and get an appointment with Hades himself quicker!!!

I get the 'sleep a lot' but a lot at inconvenient times and have been known to doze off/have a blackout/mini seizure in front of various health professionals even though they know my history... 

Having that and then insomnia as a 'nice' lil' contrast is soooooo not fair :( 

I believe that the good kind of sleep is our bod's way of telling us we need to rest and heal. 

If I can't get to sleep at a nap time I try and think through nice memories and then, at least, I'm resting but also having a look back through the enjoyable pages of my life...xxx 

Reply to a school friend...

In short: got meningitis and hypothermia in January 2010; had a cardiac arrest as doctors didn't know I was so ill; spent five weeks, in a coma, in intensive care in PCH (they were angels); on dialysis with major organ failure; pneumonia; rhabdomyolysis; two different kinds of brain injury (even though we both know I'm mental enough anyway lol...).

 HDU until medically well enough to move to Aberdare for intensive physical rehabilitation, even walking, dressing cutting my bloody food etc...

Stubborn bitch me wasn't going down without a fight and it was horrible watching Emily go through all that (17 at the time).

Considering what the original diagnosis and prognosis were I've annoyed quite a lot of people by not ceasing to be an oxygen thief lol...

Seriously, I've had, mostly, the best care post brain injury and stroke that I could have had. Still more to go and I aint giving up.

Next challenge is Rookwood hospital in Cardiff where they're geared up to deal with both brain injuries, strokes and any other mental fallout from there; plus practical advice and help finishing getting my house fully adapted and a personalized wheelchair.

Wonder if you can guess how long it's taken me to accept needing a wheelchair :|

I didn't want to post this on an open page on a social networking site because a few people (who shall remain nameless) have tried to use it against me by saying/posting horrible things... Thanks for getting back in touch *hugs* 'n love to you and yours...xxx

Female circumcision...

During the birth of my daughter some 19 years ago, I was unlucky enough to experience genital mutilation. 


A difficult birth, a useless midwife (she cut me across the muscle), and an hour and a half wait to get stitched properly because the midwife was too ashamed to look me in face, drew my attention to this subject and I became a member of what was called the 'epesiotomy support group'. 


After the tedious, tearful and laborious rounds of consultants, operations and bloomin' misery, I discovered that, although not as horrific as these descriptions, I had been mutilated by a midwife... 


I couldn't have any more children and went through 12 procedures to get as close to normal as I'm ever going to get. I have virtually no perineum left and suffer extreme pain as a result of this... 


Think before you write ;) 


Or look at it this way guys - if someone cut you with a pair of scissors from the base of your penis to your ass how would you like it?


I did say my piece on national television 15 years ago as an invited guest on two television programmes... Still have them on video...

Basildon Borough Council cock up against disabled woman hounded on basis of lies...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2144163/Basildon-Borough-Council-evidence-benefit-fraud-probe-Mandy-Barratt.html


Now who're the liars and cheats? Poor woman forced to go through such an ordeal based on lies made up by council staff!

This case is one of the reasons that fictitious and malicious reports about benefit fraud, currently running at 95%, should be investigated fully and prosecutions made against 'people' that do these kinds of things.

It isn't just benefit cheats either; the council and DWP should work more closely together to avoid highly embarrassing and costly mistakes of this kind. They should also be accountable to the ICO and prosecuted vigorously for their incompetence.

The mainstream media are also guilty of publishing out of context articles which stir up hate crime against disabled and others on benefits. People affected by this should not have to wait years for it to be sorted out...

My response to this from parentdish: Dragons' Den star Hilary Devey was raped at just 12 years old

I went through the awful way the police deal with women...

The rape was reported at 7.30 am. I was sleeping at a so called  friend's house after an afternoon drink which led to a party...

The guy that did it tried to 'get off' with my friend, even getting in to bed with her naked! I was sleeping in her son's room with PJs and a dressing gown on... Next thing I know I'm waking to being touched by a man who then went on to pull my PJ shorts off while doing 'things' with his fingers... As soon as I was fully awake I fought back and screamed; kicking and hitting him as hard as I could to get him off me...

Luckily he stopped because there was another guy sleeping down stairs and I was screaming, shouting and calling for help...

The rapist ran downstairs and I waited a few minutes as I could hear him talking to the other guy and asking him what was wrong. The rapist realised he had to get out of the house and when I came downstairs he was clothed and I screamed at him to get out. He did but told the other guy that I was 'asking for it' the previous evening 'cos I was flirting with the other guy... AT NO TIME DID I SHOW ANY INTEREST TO THE RAPIST; IN FACT I TURNED HIM DOWN POLITELY ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS!!!

My clothes had got wet the night before because a group of us had a water fight... I found them folded on the floor with a note on top say to phone the 'friend' as soon as I saw the note. I phoned her in hysterics so she hung upon me. The other guy was fully awake by this time and asked what was going on, so I told him briefly and he wanted to go after the rapist. I said no, please don't leave me.

By this time my 'friend' had returned to the house and explained that she had gone to her boyfriend's house to get away from the rapist...  She kept saying she was sorry that she left me but she thought at the time that it was safe because the other guy was downstairs...

To not bore you any more I'll condense the events following; the police went through some of their procedures which took until after 4 pm being taken to a specialist rape suite where the police and the medical professionals coked up everything, even saying that he hadn't raped me... They didn't do any internal DNA tests because they said he hadn't stuck his c*** in me! Exscuse me but it's very possible to get DNA from a rough fingering. He was so rough he me me bleed!!!

They questioned me on numerous occasions as well as a few other people... Their  attitude towards me in the beginning was very good but it soon turned in to a 'my word against his' situation and some evil persons said that I was 'asking for it'! How do they know? They weren't in the bedroom when the guy w

The worst cock up the police made was to refuse to interview my 'friend' because she'd failed to turn up or be at home for several occasions...

CPS threw the case out and didn't even bother to comment on the spectacularly gross negligence of the police!!!

Death Row

My view on the death penalty is it certainly is not a deterrent; the complete opposite of what it is intended to be. To take another's life for whatever reason is murder. You can dress it up however you like but the way death row inmates in the USA are treated and the psychological impact of being locked up in the most inhumane standards is both abhorrent and against all our basic human standards.

Yes, of course, anyone committing horrific crimes should be punished, but keeping these prisoners lurching from appeal to appeal, some for over 20 years is surely like them having 'the sword of Damocles' hanging over their heads.

Once the system is started after conviction and sentencing the inmate enters a dark realm of process; many not understanding much of what is happening because a large number of these people are poorly educated, come from impoverished areas where violent gang culture is a way of life, have had traumatic upbringings and are not treated fairly by the legal system; not forgetting that a very high percentage are non whites... 


Lawyers, judges, court appearances, ad infinitum; a constant circus with all sorts jumping on the band wagon including the aforementioned, other inmates, prison wardens and the media. It surely makes a mockery of the whole system.

Decades to carry out a death sentence? Why? Because when you dig down deep enough you find that most people involved in the process do not want to appear to be the ones that 'flicked the switch'...

There should be a time/number limit for appeals and then, if a decision could keep going to appeal, the sentence be commuted to life and actually meaning life unless an appeal is, in the future successful and the prisoner released.

There have been too many executed and posthumously found not guilty or perhaps guilty to a much lessor crime.

The UK got rid of the death sentence in the mid 20th centuary for all the reasons I have given.


This is a post I made on the FB page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Voices-for-deathrow-inmates/161880877228168

A response to a post on 'A Latent Existence'

Take a look at this, is really good writing:


http://www.latentexistence.me.uk/if-you-can-tweet-you-can-work/


******* ********!! 


Do they seriously think that we'd rather be stuck in our situations, in poverty, stigmatised and even subjected to hate crimes??? They're 'avin' an f'ing laugh! My last full time job was £40,000 net basic PA, often much more... 


My income; now that I'm severely physically and mentally disabled due to an horrific series of life threatening diseases and illnesses; that I've paid for many times over in tax and NI is way below the poverty line... 


The media beast loves it's titbits on real benefit scroungers and fraudsters and delights in telling the public that we're all of the same... 


As a former journalist it makes me feel physically sick that the government and media are responsible for fuelling this hatred. 


Many, including myself, have compared what's happening to Nazi Germany and been boohooed for comparing such things, but the truth of the matter is this is where the Nazis started... 


To end, I have this to ask the British public "are you waiting for when they will come for you?"...