To be terrified about PIP?

[BobbyBiscuits]

I've tried to blank all this out for ages, but today it hit me when the government basically are saying I'm going to (they want me to) have my PIP cut off?
My main illnesses are severe depressive disorder, general anxiety disorder and severe anorexia. I've severe PTSD symptoms and also think I may have ADHD but have not been able to get diagnosed due to phobia of MH services since I got sectioned.
I now have physical symptoms also and severe osteperosis which I put on my last forms. But had no assessment for several years.
I'm praying this is BS from the Tories and they can't do it anyway as they'll be kicked out.
Or could labour still continue this assault against disabled people?
It would halve my already tiny income, other half is from ESA, and they could kick me off that too even though I can't do anything!?

What do people think?

"A) there isn’t that facility and B) many autistic young people struggle with public transport."

A) Write to your local council and suggest it.
B) Preferring a taxi isn't a valid reason to have the taxpayer fund a taxi. Autistic young people need to learn to function in society as best they can. Overcoming an aversion to public transport seems to be essential IMHO.

I don’t think the minister for DWP even understands benefits. He was wittering away, on the radio, that PIP was unsustainable, and that working age people need to get back into work, even if they have health problems.

DLA/PIP aren’t, and never have been, “out of work benefits”.

ESA is the “out of work, through sickness” benefit.🙄

If he doesn’t understand the difference, how can they reform it?🤔

The trouble is making something like that actually work and reach the people it needs to would be not only expensive but logistically impossible. I can't see how it would work.

They would still get the mobility part of PIP I think.

Work doesn’t always make you happier if you struggle with anxiety and depression. It is often the pressure of it that makes it worse. Only people who have never suffered would say that.
People who are unhappy to be off work that is a different thing and normal.

Therapy instead of PIP??? hahahaha.

DS 22 has multiple mental health diagnoses and only receives the mobility element of PIP.

He's been waiting for NHS Dialectical Behaviour Therapy for 2 years and 5 months so far, and has been told he "should" get his 1st appointment by mid 2025.

He's been waiting for his NHS ADHD screening for 2 years and expects to be waiting several more years.

So instead of paying him £100 PIP a month, the government are going to provide him (and all the others on waiting lists) with instant dialectical behaviour therapy and ADHD screening plus medication???

DBT isn't a cure anyway. He'll always have his diagnoses and will always require extra resources, compared to fit and healthy people, to support him to live more independently.

@BobbyBiscuits
I think disabled people are going to have to start direct action and protests. Can you imagine any other group of people being scape goated, slagged off, marginalised and demonised as we are and it being tolerated?
The country will march for gay people, black people, people from Palestine, trans people but who will come and support disabled people? Probably nobody so it will just be up to us with the irony being that many of us can’t bloody march in the first place.
I am sick to the back teeth of the ablesism of this scummy so called government, of the press, the public and of course much of mumsnet.
I am a retired nurse who spent most of my life looking after others until I became disabled through no fault or choice of my own. I loved my job and lost my whole identity when I had to give it up.
I am now housebound with advanced arthritis and degenerative disc disease. I can barely walk a few steps even with crutches, can’t stand for more than a minute without severe pain and leg giving out, can’t sit for more than a few minutes without pain, spend most of my life on my bed.
I also have stage 4 cancer and immune related colitis from treatment side effects. I have anxiety and depression, OCD and panic disorder. I am newly diagnosed with autism. I live in constant chronic pain. I can no longer bath or shower, cook, drive let alone do the things I used to love like ride or walk in the countryside or garden. I struggle with social contact and my anxiety is so bad I can’t even open my own post. My depression is so bad I am now only allowed a week worth of my huge regime of medication at a time.
Life is not exactly a bowl of cherries.
Despite all this I am apparently a lazy scrounger who this country cannot afford to sustain with “handouts”.
When I renew my PIP claim I have to vomit out all my symptoms and the many embarrassing truths about my so called life for some unqualified unsympathetic DWP robot masquerading as a human being to pick through to see if I am deserving enough.
Believe me if I could possibly afford not to go through this torturous process I would.
As for help and adaptations well I asked for a disabled facilities grant because I have not been able to bath or shower for five years. Although I qualify as clearly in need because I get a tiny nurses pension I am assessed as rich enough to pay the first £7k myself even though social services assessment team had copies of my bank statements and could see I have nowhere near this amount in savings. So it seems I will never be able to bath or shower for the rest of my life.
Every time there is a story in the press or a thread here on mumsnet about disabled people being frauds/cheats/bone idle I feel under attack and as if I am hated. I feel I often can’t tell anyone I claim PIP because I will be judged. This adds enormously to the stress and worry of everyday life. If I ever fell out with someone would they decide to lie that I was a fraud and spread stories or make malicious report to dwp?
So when you think about us as work shy scroungers draining the country dry with our insatiable and unsustainable benefit grabbing ways just remember this could happen to you too one day and only then will you truly appreciate the damage your views and your words cause.

Yes if those autistic people would just stop being so autistic and be able to do "normal" things that would solve the problem.

I'm so glad you've thought of that. I'm sure no one's ever suggested that before.

I will go and tell my autistic DD to become neurotypical right now.

Exactly this and some of what my dd is and has been waiting for. Will be bloody fantastic if she finally gets it. As I said previously what she is waiting for is going to cost a shed load more than what she gets from PIP. If she had had it a long time ago she may well not have needed enhanced PIP. The longer she waits the harder she is going to be to treat.

Sorry you are going through this. No one who dispute you being entitled to PIP. I don’t think you should have to apply for PIP you should just get it if you see what I mean. There is just no argument about it.

You can’t switch autism off, it’s a disability, My dd is already functioning in society as best she can. She actually finds taxis with people she doesn’t know just as stressful. It’s not her fault she is ND and can’t just switch it off. Do you not think she would if she could?

Would you say that to disabled people whose disability isn’t hidden?This is completely ableist. You can’t switch autism off. My dd has tried to take her own life when overwhelmed several times. Gleefully looking forward to her struggling even more is just appalling.

OK cycle then

🙄

Are you so dismissive of all disabilities?

This "we can't afford it" narrative that's trotted out for things like welfare, healthcare, pensions and public services never seems to get trotted out when discussing corporate welfare, defense spending or offshoring our wealth.

Estimated cost of pip expected to rise by 52% by 2027 to £38.2 billion vs cost of subsiding energy companies last time £170bn.

Expected revenue from a wealth tax of the top 1%, starting at 1% for those with between 3.4m and £5.4m = between £70-£130 billion a year.

Estimated cost in excess deaths of austerity 330,000 people and rising.

So for those who use PIP to enable them to work you're going to take away PIP because they can work?? Make it make sense!

"Would you say that to disabled people whose disability isn’t hidden?"

That wouldn't be a case of somebody preferring a taxi, would it?

He simply hasn’t got a clue! It’s staggering, he seems to have zero awareness that MH provision in children and adult services aren’t fit for purpose.

What are you talking about?

I’m dismissive of Schrödingers Parks which are too narrow to run in and have too many cyclists to cycle in.

That's the whole point!! Not all disabled can go for a (free) run. Many have to do something that costs money...hence why being disabled has extra costs associated with it that the able bodied don't have because they can just go for a run!! Not sure why I need to spell that out!

But it feels like we’ve reached a point where so many people have issues that require some kind of tailored and expensive lifestyle that there’s no way the taxpayer can keep up with it. Are these projections remotely affordable?

I have expenses related to my disability but I economise as best I can and get on with it. I don’t claim or even try to because it’s extracting money from a dwindling pot when I can realistically pay myself. Sometimes life isn’t fair.

I’m sure you’re aware that disability varies hugely. Great you don’t need pip, others do. I too have a disability, don’t claim anything and can work full time . My dd isn’t so fortunate. FYI she hasn't got an expensive lifestyle, she lives on benefits and is very frugal.