The Restart Scheme: Mandatory, Miserable, and Completely Wrong for My Brain

I have an easement now. It helps. But the system is still broken, and I'm still expected to perform "normal" for people who don't understand.

The DWP put me on the Restart Scheme. It's mandatory. I didn't choose it. I didn't volunteer for it. I was told—in the same bureaucratic tone they use for everything—that I had to participate. That if I didn't, there would be consequences. Sanctions. Lost benefits. The ever-present threat that hangs over everyone who relies on the state to survive.

Let me be clear: I am not well enough to work. I have lifelong anxiety. I have diagnosed GAD. I'm waiting for ADHD and autism assessments. I've been through the work capability assessment, the mandatory reconsideration, and I'm now waiting for a tribunal. The system itself has acknowledged—through the very fact that I'm pursuing this legal route—that there is a question over whether I'm fit for work.

And yet. Here I am. On a mandatory employment scheme. Because the left hand of the DWP doesn't talk to the right. Because the system is designed to process people, not to see them.

What the Restart Scheme Actually Is

For those who don't know, the Restart Scheme is a government programme—delivered by private providers—that's supposed to help long-term unemployed people get back into work. It involves appointments. Group activities. CV workshops. Job search requirements. The kind of thing that might, conceivably, help someone who is out of work for straightforward reasons and just needs a bit of support.

I am not that someone. I am someone who has panic attacks at 4am for no reason. Someone who avoids the kitchen at night because I can't face a housemate. Someone whose executive dysfunction makes basic tasks feel like climbing a mountain. Someone whose social anxiety makes phone calls—phone calls, the thing the Restart Scheme relies on—feel like a form of torture.

And yet I was referred. Mandatorily. Without anyone asking whether it was appropriate.

The Phone Calls

I don't answer the phone unless it's someone I feel safe with. That's a very short list. My children. A couple of close friends. That's about it. Anyone else—unknown numbers, official-sounding voices, people who want something from me—I can't do it. The phone rings and my heart starts pounding. My chest tightens. I stare at the screen, willing it to stop, unable to pick up, unable to breathe properly until the ringing ends.

This is social anxiety. This is real. This is not me being difficult or avoiding responsibility. This is a genuine, diagnosed, disabling condition that makes phone calls feel like a threat. And the Restart Scheme requires phone appointments. I still have to have them. I have an easement in place now—a formal acknowledgement that I can't cope with face-to-face appointments or group activities—but the phone calls remain. And they are hell.

Every appointment, I spend the hours beforehand in a state of mounting dread. My mind races. I rehearse what I'm going to say. I imagine all the ways it could go wrong. By the time the phone actually rings, I'm already exhausted. I answer—because I have to, because the consequences of not answering are sanctions and lost income and a deeper hole I can't climb out of—and I perform. I sound calm. I sound capable. I sound like someone who could work, if only the right job came along.

That's not the truth. The truth is that I'm white-knuckling my way through a five-minute phone call and I'll spend the rest of the day recovering from it.

The Easement

I have an easement now. I fought for it. I explained—again, to a stranger, in a system that requires constant self-advocacy from people who are least equipped to provide it—that I can't do face-to-face appointments. That group activities are impossible. That my mental health makes the standard Restart Scheme format actively harmful.

The easement helps. It means I don't have to physically go to an office full of strangers and perform "jobseeker" in a room that smells of industrial carpet cleaner and other people's anxiety. It means I don't have to sit in a circle and participate in workshops designed for people whose brains work differently from mine.

But it doesn't fix the underlying problem. I'm still on the scheme. I'm still required to engage. I'm still having phone appointments that drain me completely. I'm still being asked—regularly, by people who mean well but don't understand—what steps I'm taking to find work. The answer is: none. Because I can't work. Because my body and brain are already working overtime just to keep me alive.

The System Is Broken

Here's what I want people to understand. The Restart Scheme is not a neutral programme that happens to be a bad fit for me personally. It's part of a system that is fundamentally broken. A system that forces sick and disabled people into inappropriate interventions because the alternative—actually assessing what they need and providing it—costs money and requires nuance.

The DWP refers people to these schemes without care for the outcomes. They don't ask whether it's suitable. They don't consider the impact on someone's mental health. They don't think about the panic attacks, the sleepless nights, the hours of dread before every appointment. They just process. Refer. Mandate. Sanction if you don't comply.

And the providers—the private companies who deliver Restart—are paid based on outcomes. They have a financial incentive to push people toward work, regardless of whether that person is well enough. It's not a support system. It's a box-ticking exercise with profit attached.

I'm lucky. I have an easement. But I shouldn't need luck. I shouldn't need to fight for basic accommodations in a system that's supposed to be helping me.

What This Costs Me

Every phone appointment costs me. Not money. Energy. The energy I don't have. The energy I need for basic survival—making food, keeping my room vaguely habitable, managing the sensory chaos of an HMO, navigating the benefits system that's supposed to be supporting me.

After every call, I crash. I lie under my weighted blanket. I rewatch Harry Potter for the 400th time. I try to bring my nervous system back down from the state of high alert it's been in since the phone rang. The rest of the day is a write-off. Sometimes the next day too.

This is the cost of being forced into a system that doesn't fit. It's not just the appointments themselves. It's the hours of anticipatory anxiety. The physical exhaustion of the crash afterwards. The cumulative toll of repeatedly being asked to do something that your brain and body cannot do.

A Note to the DWP (As If They're Reading)

You are harming people. I know the individuals within the system are mostly trying their best. I know the policies come from above. But the outcome is the same: sick and disabled people are being forced into inappropriate, harmful interventions because the alternative would require a system that actually sees us. Actually believes us. Actually supports us.

I am not fit for work. I have told you this, repeatedly, through assessments and reconsiderations and appeals. I have an easement because even the Restart provider can see that I can't cope with the standard format. And yet I'm still here. Still on the scheme. Still having phone calls that drain me. Still being asked what I'm doing to find work when the answer is—and always will be—nothing. Because I can't.

The system is broken. You are breaking people. And you don't seem to care.

A Note to Anyone Else on Restart (Or Any Mandatory Scheme)

I see you. I know how hard this is. The appointments you dread. The phone calls you can't face. The constant pressure to perform "jobseeker" when you can barely get out of bed. The fear of sanctions. The exhaustion of advocating for yourself when you have no energy left.

You're not lazy. You're not failing. The system is failing you. And every appointment you survive, every phone call you get through, every boundary you set—that's a victory. A small, hard-won victory that no one else will celebrate. But I will. I see it. I know what it costs.

Anxiously Ever After is written by me, Jennie, a 50-something-year-old woman with lifelong anxiety, diagnosed GAD, and currently navigating the Restart Scheme while waiting for a tribunal. I have an easement, but the system is still broken. I write from a rented room in a shared house, door locked, recovering from the latest phone appointment.