I need this to end. I've exhausted all internal avenues.

Please bear with me, I've made this as brief as humanly possible.

I've put off writing about my lengthy experience with this whole Centrelink bungle, I feel anxious and have a tight chest writing it now. I've been dealing with a false debt since the beginning of October 2016 and I'm no closer to resolving the matter. I have called almost every single day during my lunch break at work for almost four months and in that time been told conflicting stories and have been given conflicting instructions. At this point in time they have about five years worth of itemized pay histories from me, including one from a bankrupt business that took the liquidator quite a while to find. In five minutes I can see that their information is wrong and that I have never worked while receiving benefits. But I've been told that there is no service standard or upwards limit calendar wise when it comes to Centrelink doing the same five minutes of work. I have previously provided Centrelink with all of my separation certificates as I was a regular temp worker. This means that every time a contract ended and I needed to go on benefits until the next contract, I was required to provide bank statements and separation certificates to prove that I wasn't working. If it were just this arbitrary need for me to provide them with information they already should have saved, it wouldn't be as bad, but the Franz Kafka like nightmare that has been going on for almost four months has had a real medical, emotional and social impact on me.

I was first instructed to provide five years of bank records if I didn't have pay slips. I was assured that only one period was really the problem. I supplied my bank statements for a consecutive five years online. I then provided the pay history for the one employer who I worked for in two temp contracts with six months of unemployment between them. I was then told that I needed to initiate a review online. The only thing is that this online process was down every time I attempted it. Because of this my time run out and the debt was imposed. I tried up until the last day before the debt was imposed. During that time I was told by two team leaders and two IT specialists that I would receive a call back on separate occasions. I didn't receive a call back once. Not even on the two days I took off unpaid from work to await a call from a team leader. Three people said they would manually process the information themselves and call me back. None of them processed my information and two of them went as far as to not be traceable on my account.

After this I was told I had no choice but to enter an arrangement to pay back $100 a fortnight to a debt that I don't owe or I would have my wages garnished. So I did just that. Being told the money would be repaid to me and that this would not take long eased my mind a little. But I still was struggling with the regular bills people get and rent. After not hearing from anyone I was told by a particularly rude team leader that I had worked while getting benefits and was made to feel like a common fraudster. I still had not raised my voice, used bad language, remarked sarcastically or anything to that effect. I work in a call centre, I was going to my 30 minute break after being abused all day on a complaints line and not wanting to do that to other call centre workers. This extremely rude team leader at least told me that I had to actually provide pay histories for all five years. So that was a new piece of information. Mind you, this was now December. He then told me that I had to supply these papers in hardcopy at a Centrelink centre or via mail. He said this because he claimed that the online tool had been working the whole time and I was mistaken, I was not however. After speaking with another worker, that said that this information was incorrect and that I had to upload all the pay-slips. So I uploaded all five years of slips to now sit in their database with the five years of bank statements. Not to mention I had already provided pay-slips I had provided these same slips to disability employment support networks while working, and given separation certificates to Centrelink each time I stopped a job.

So now they have all the information they need and it's half way to February. A helpful lady told me that I could suspend two of the fortnightly payments because a few bills had come in and I am currently living on $20 of groceries a week, this is while I am employed full time mind you. I imagined in my naivete that a month more would see this problem fixed, so the two suspended payments were good news. I called yesterday to see how close to finished they are, but I have only been told each time that this will take a long time due to the backlog. The backlog isn't my fault. The debt isn't my fault. I can see in five minutes of reading my pay-slips that I don't owe a cent. So today after explaining this to a lady (I have been calling pretty much every lunch break at this point, I remember eating lunch three times instead of calling), she said I could initiate the review online.........I've been told this before. You could imaging the doubt I held. She did however initiate it herself so I could go online and see the review to complete. I went online tonight to change the details and complete it because she said it would probably be instantaneous in it's reversal. After clicking yes and no to correct and incorrect employment dates I went to click "next". "Next" is grayed out and unclickable however. So I'm back to square one.

I've heard a lot of people say that they were depressed, stressed and anxious to the point where they are being referred to lifeline by Centrelink. I can understand this. I have since childhood had clinical depression and panic attacks (misdiagnosed as asthma). In the last year I had stopped taking medication for both. A very huge achievement. I am now back on them and no better for all my hard work. I have also been given blood pressure medication for the first time in my life because the stress is giving me chest pain and headaches. These aren't straws I'm clutching at, I understand the disbelief and stigma that surrounds claims like mine but I have the medical records and physical symptoms to back it up. Not just an intangible emotion. This has turned me into a morose and antisocial person, not at all like myself before this happened. It has ruined relationships, alienated me and ruined my days because it's all I think about.

I need this to end. I've exhausted all internal avenues.
(I apologise for how inarticulate this is, but recounting this is exhausting)