To be honest I’m quite relieved yesterday is out of the way. A week or two ago, mum contacted me on Skype to tell me that she had received a letter about me: Atos wanted to assess whether I was ‘fit for work’, and had asked her to accompany me to an appointment at the Woolwich Medical Centre. Of course, I was instantly on high alert: one hears all these stories about how cruel Atos can be – in my mind there was a chance they would instantaneously boot me off benefits and tell me to get a job. My imagination went into overdrive, and I worked myself into quite a state. I want to be a productive member of society, but, on a practical level, what regular job could I do?

In the end, however, it wasn’t so bad. As well as Mum, I’d asked Dad to come along. I know some will say that I should handle such matters on my own, but I thought both my parents could add extra weight to my case: they know me and what I’m capable of. Besides, dad has a certain aura about him – the air of a man who knows what he is talking about. Yet the major battle I had readied myself for never came about. The lady doing the assessment was gentle and understanding; she went through her questions slowly and calmly, giving me plenty of time to answer. In the end, she assured me that I shouldn’t have anything to worry about, and that I would be told the outcome in about six weeks. Just as Lyn had told me it would be, it was no big deal.

With that, we left. I felt so much better on the way back. It would seem that all the doom-filled stories I had heard are exaggerations. Perhaps bringing dad all the way down here had been a bit much, but I needed to use all the weaponry in my arsenal, and it was lovely to see him anyway. I’m much more cheerful than I was this time yesterday, and far more upbeat. While I am sure many of the stories are true, I think the fitness to work assessments have been overly vilified. How else can the government make sure that benefit money is going to people who genuinely need it? While of course I can’t speak for others, my experience of this process has been civilised and perfectly reasonable.