I am not intimating that anyone claiming benefits should be like me. I have just been raised be uncomfortable with asking for help. You can ask TheSilentOne, how I will stubbornly continue at physical tasks which cause me such pain as to make me cry. Yet I will not ask for or even accept help when it is offered. I refuse to be cowed by the disease which is deteriorating my joints.

How much more I am determined not to seek assistance from the government even as a last resort. I am not built that way. It would be different if I were asking for someone else. I could easily be an advocate for someone else.

Is this pride? Is it a sense of undeserving? Is it the need for self-sufficiency? Probably a mix of all of the above.