Has media coverage of benefits made anyone else feel guilty claiming PIP?

I received full PIP on my first attempt. I am seriously ill with autoimmune disease and feeling worse all the time. I hate the uncertainty of knowing it can be taken away at any time. My condition is incurable and gets worse over time. How it can be taken away is beyond me.

No. I feel attacked and scared that vile people like Farage don't believe in mental illness. Well why was I sectioned then?! Why do psychiatrists have the ability to take away people's volition and consent? Over something that doesn't exist? Ok then. I'm mad but I'm not that fucking mad.

It's absolutely disgusting what some people say about the mentally ill.

Still a far cry from the £600 the other poster quoted! Starmer's govt and now Burnham's in conjunction with the Tories and Reform/Restore clowns all guilty for demonising a group of people in a way they simply wouldn't be able to for any other group with protected charecteristics! Even the DWP said the rates for combined fraud and overpayments was almost statistically negligible!

How much do you get?

Have you any idea what it costs to get a car adapted?

I’m afraid I have to be the spanner in the works here… I think if you feel guilty for it, you know you’re getting a lot of money that realistically you could live your life without. You mentioned you have other incomes so it’s not like your disabilities are stopping you from living a fairly normal life. I don’t doubt for a second that it’s not a lovely supplement to have. I’m on side just because you can claim it, doesn’t mean you should. But I know I’m in the minority here.
4 x PIP/DLA is astronomical money on top of everything else or wages.

@Trivialpursuits I feel your pain. I was going to have soup but I’ve snapped the opener on the tin. Bowl of cornfkakes it is lol . hope you’re doing a bit better tomorrow x

This 100%. It disgusts me that British born disabled people are treated this way and made to feel like such an inconvenience, when asylum seekers get everything for nothing. It is really upsetting. No one chooses to be disabled. I desperately wish I didnt have severe depression and could participate in a normal life.

I bet you have additional costs associated with living with a disability. That's what pip/dpa is for.

I’ve just done a Tesco whoosh order because I literally could not get out the door to go to the local shop for groceries and I’ve no bread. I thought I had a loaf in the freezer but I don’t.

I ache everywhere today. My tinnitus is horrendous. My fingers are like claws and so painful so I’ve ordered a dinner to ping in the microwave and some bread for tomorrow’s breakfast.

I can’t even self propel to the local shop.

anyone who wants my pip can have my disabilities for a month

Probably not fuck all to most people but if you factor in the extra cost of just being disabled it’s not a lot at all. My power chair alone is costing 200 a month. My carer Monday to Friday to get me washed and dressed at 7am and ready for work costs close to 400 a month. And then there’s my physio that I’m paying for as the waiting list is huge, my shopping costs more as I have to get it delivered, keeping warm in winter to stop my muscles going into spasm (oh and the taxis as I’m only really able to use the bus in my chair during good weather) listen the list is endless. It’s money to bring my standard of living up to a normal persons and it’s allowing me to stay in work. Because if I was relying on council funded carers I’d lose my job, they don’t turn up on time nor early enough plus I’m sick of having to be intimately washed by a stranger.

Still not a vast amount and I am sure that most would exchange it happily if it meant a normal life again.

I think you have to at times because it can be very hostile out there. A lady I know who is in her 40's but has severe heart failure was quite literally verbally abused in a super market car park for parking with her blue badge. She can walk into the supermarket from the disabled spaces but then needs thode little buggies to get her shopping with the help of staff. Because she didn't fit the image most have of someone disabled, people thought she was fair game. She is receving palliative care only now. The ignorance, rudeness and sheer lack of compassion is astounding!

£30 is standard mobility. Standard daily living is around £70

ONLY if you get the very highest award for daily living and mibility and do you know how ill and how much evidence you would need to claim that?! Most people get daily living rate which is about £30 per week. Standard mobilty rate is even lower.

I don’t feel guilty. I feel scared though. The attitude and hate aimed at the disabled recently is awful. People see crap online and think we are living in luxury at their expense. Then they see other people slagging off disabled people and it becomes normalised. People are becoming very comfortable in showing their hate for people like me.

im not long in from work. I’m a wheelchair user. Today I’ve had someone at the traffic light give me the middle finger and shout something awful and a customer at work called me an ableist slur. I should be euthanised apparently. This is becoming more and more common. I’ve even got family who’ve refered to me as lucky! Because I had a car through motorbility. Lucky would be to be able to walk, not have someone have to wash my lower half and to not be catheterised.

no guilt here. I use my pip to employ a carer and hire my wheelchair. I no longer drive.

Why would I feel guilty? I had to do a mandatory reconsideration to get it.

I think its insightful of you to recognise it for what it is. If it helps think about your children. Would you think it fair for them to be poorer throughout their lives than an able bodied person in the same job, when both worked equally hard, because their disabilities cost them money for things the able bodied person doesn't need to pay for? That's what PIP is for. To try to address the cumulative years of financial disadvantage people often face, however hard they work.

But they can't claim UC or anything else until they're awarded LTR, which can take some time and they don't get anything that anyone else doesn't before, during or afterwards..

No I dont feel guilty. I have just been awarded PIP following a diagnosis of incurable breast cancer.
Apart from a two year self funded career break when I was 40 ie no benefits needed or claimed, and a year adoption leave, I have worked since I was 21 and left uni. Im 61 now.
Maybe I will recover enough to go back to work, maybe I won't, maybe I'll just die prematurely. But for now I need the support.

@SunCloudRain

How old is your son ? Maybe think a bit laterally about what might help him to gain skills and independence.
I adopted my son age . He was already in receipt of DLA. He was in special school and had what was then called a statement, now EHCP. There was a lot of stuff in that statement which he just didn't get. So I spent the money on things which replaced them - swimming lessons, tennis lessons, even a personal trainer. We worked on his hand/eye coordination, gross and fine motor skills, not walking on tip toe, core strength so he could sit and stand up straight. Later on it was extra tuition in English. I was just a bit imaginative about his needs and how they could be met. He did go on to get PIP which is now up for review. We have agreed that he has progressed so much in the last 2 years that we will decline the review and stop it.

No one should ever feel guilty claiming a benefit that they are entitled to. If the powers that be decided your children were disabled enough while you still work then they are entitled to claim. I was finally awarded on my third claim and I was awarded a years worth of back pay after a tribunal for my second claim.

No, I do not feel any guilt over the benefits me and my husband receive.