To be sick of all the newspaper articles saying lies about DLA and PIP

[elliejjtiny]

To get any DLA or PIP you have to be significantly disabled. To get the higher rate of either part you have to be severely disabled.

A motability car is not free, it's rented. To get one you need to either be unable to walk 50 metres or have a severe learning disability, which is very difficult to get.

It's always happened but since the stuff in the news about changes to PIP it's got worse.

Articles in the newspapers claiming you can get a free car for bed wetting, which just doesn't happen. There will be children like my ds who get DLA because they have a number of problems including bedwetting but nobody gets high rate mobility for bed wetting on its own.

There are other articles about people claiming PIP and DLA for various minor sounding conditions and I am so fed up with it. I know from experience that the newspapers will have talked to people claiming PIP/DLA and twist everything they say to make them sound like a scrounger.

All these articles are giving off the message that anyone with any minor disability can claim loads of benefits.

Then they should investigate it not take people's money away and just hope for the best

Here are some ADHD specific figures for PIP. We have over 50,000 people claiming with ADHD their main condition. Assuming they all get low rate that’s £240,000,000 per year.

https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/personal-independence-payment-pip/pip-health-conditions/claim-pip-for-adhd

Right. But you understand that autism exists even though there’s no such thing as a binary ND/ NT brain.

See how that works?

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/bulletins/annualmidyearpopulationestimates/mid2023

Main, not "only".

And in terms of population percentage, your shock horror numbers don't measure up as the gotcha you think it is.

So their second condition is even less relevant apparently. Come on, it’s a shocker and you know it.

"Four fifths though!! Come on, that’s a shocker."

For the 3 conditions it's roughly 60% with learning difficulties as the main reason and about 12% with ADHD as the main reason.

The only thing that shocks me is the number of people genuinely suffering and finding themselves floundering on a world that only values money above all else. And the willingness of the "I'm all right Jack, so should you be" crowd willing to throw them under the nearest bus because they feel hard done by. It shocks me that you'll give these people a good kicking rather than accept neoliberalism has failed everyone spectacularly. Except those lovely deserving billionaires propping us all up by off shoring their money, asset stripping and war-mongering.

Yes, I’ve seen this for a few years now. When teen girls have a cluster of MH issues they should always be assessed for autism as it can then be easier to manage the MH stuff which tend to be less manageable when using NT methods.

I believe that ND is far more common than we currently see, and that it’s only a problem now because our environment is increasingly hostile for our neurotype. (You just need to see the increasing numbers of children struggling in schools that coincides exactly with the changes made in schools)

I do believe there could easily be a world that would suit us all better, but that would require the inflexible NT contingency, who seem to be the ones to dictate how things are done, to accept that there isn’t just one way to do things, and that adjusting expectations, allowing a level of flexibility and lack of pressure in schools that seemed to be more achievable in the 80s (not perfectly obviously), but it’s fairly obvious that the targets heaped onto children and the pressure and the stubborn inflexibility is all detrimental to them, has seen a rise in numbers of children requiring a diagnosis and a lot more help. There’s also the vicious cycle of mental health and how it’s talked about - they created a problem, they introduced more MH awareness, they grew the problem to massive proportions. The way schools and CAMHS handle it all is completely counterproductive.

Sadly this just pushes a rise in attitude that it’s the SN children ruining things, when instead I’m certain they are simply a symptom of what’s going on. The growing view that disability and SN are “other” and not to be highly considered in how society functions is not only hurting them but hurting everyone else, particularly in schools. I don’t understand how other people don’t see that.

Unless things change this will carry on. The following is my prediction, following the steady pattern of having autistic children (who likely wouldn’t have needed a diagnosis 40+ years ago) in mainstream schools:

Children who are currently just about managing at school, flying under the radar, will become part of the new growing cohort of SN children as they are pushed to their limits (as has clearly been seen over the last 20 years) then they and their parents will be the targets of this nastiness, and people will wring their hands, clutch at their pearls, and wonder why so many children are behaving like this, and what are their parents doing about it, and “my child shouldn’t have to be in school day in day out with monsters like this”, and more children will be failed, more families will fall apart physically and mentally and need financial help in order to manage, and so the cycle will go until some sort of equilibrium is reached, the number of SN kids will reach a peak, and finally someone will realise what’s happening and so will start the huge task of dismantling the beast that has contributed to the downturn in society, that has pushed too many needlessly to breaking point.

There will still be those who think autism is just an excuse, a made up thing to cover up our inadequacies, that we’re just a society of crap parents raising crap children, but at some point someone who isn’t one of us parents, who generally are gaslit and ignored, will see what’s going on and will have the power to do something.

At some point I wonder if there’ll be the big realisation that this rise in children with autism of the high functioning type are just bog standard humans after all, forced to live in an environment created by people who believe that we should all be the same and if we’re not we’re flawed and don’t deserve a place at the table, and that the world should be created to meet a mix of needs, not just expect a whole great number of people to suffer in order to keep the status quo.

Still waiting patiently for @Wildflowers99to answer my question

@MistressoftheDarkSide i wrote that whole essay to see your post that sums it up so well 😂

🤣🤣 I do completely agree with both of you though I'm that young female diagnosed with bpd and when the physchiatrist gave me the diagnosis it was over the phone first ever time talking and was just rushed iv always thought it was wrong and have questioned autism many times. It felt like they just went for the easy option

But your essay is fabulous and I think your analysis is excellent.

The world we live in is a complete paradox - for all the progress and advances we are making, allegedly, we are not able to adjust and access the benefits (which are often questionable) at the necessary speed.

Everything changes so fast, which is why I get frustrated when people bang on about how important routine, security and consistency are for MH. I've been on a thread about "Things that should be better, but aren't" Sounds laughable, but things like the multiplicity of parking apps, intermittent Internet provision, being so reliant on technology, all of these things have exploded over the last 30 years and it's an unprecedented change.

We have no reference point in history for this. It's not the same as previous industrialisation and the destructive and possibly unintended consequences (at least one would hope they're unintended, although sometimes I wonder) are much of the root cause of division and destabilisation worldwide, I think.

The state of people's health and mental health overall is, I believe in part due to all this, plus organic issues that are finally being understood and addressed.

I wish there was a pause button to allow us to catch up and truly get to grips with the most harmful aspects of modern life. But unfortunately the money and power aspect will never allow that to happen.

Which is over 50,000 people!

It amazes me when people ‘chase’ on here after 15 minutes, like there’s no possibility we have a life outside of this forum. Especially given most of us are parents!

Life now should be more ND friendly than ever. Screens, screens and more screens (which apparently help regulate), many wfh jobs, greater variety of jobs due to advances in tech, more awareness, less social interaction due to messenger apps etc

Or - could it be that actually, greater tech is hindering young people’s social interaction skills and therefore more of them ‘feel autistic’ than before? It’s all very chicken and egg.

This is just a musing but I do wonder if the broadening of what constitutes an autism diagnosis, and especially the increase in women being diagnosed, is the solution to the hysteria > BPD misogyny problem or another layer to it.

One of the biggest problems with BPD is it's a fob off diagnosis; "you can try therapy but we probably can't do anything for you because it's a personality disorder" given mainly to women. Autism diagnosis is a "it's part of who you are and doesn't need to be treated" diagnosis, now given in increasing numbers to women.

Is it the solution to the problem or is it just another step of it, making women feel like they have an answer to their questions but offering no support or solution?

Do you work for free?

And in order to get that they will be significantly impacted in their daily living to get it.

DS has severe ADHD (on high dose of two meds and still scores as moderate on all the charts!) but even then the only reason he will be entitled to PiP when he is 16 (and that he gets DLA now) is because of the comorbid conditions he has and the other medical issues that he also has.

it’s worth remembering these benefits aren’t given out based on diagnosis but on the impact they have on day to day life. Impact that you have to prove even though often that is hard to do!

I don't work at all actually. I'm currently accepting your taxes so I don't have to live on the streets. But when I was working, it often felt as if I was just working to transfer money from one set of people to another with no personal gain to speak of. So you could say I did "work for free".

So, if I tell my GP I need ADHD assessment, and tell them I have all the symptoms (easily searchable online) and I am eventually diagnosed, then say it’s severely impacting my life, what checks and balances are there for this?

Dunno. Why don't you fuck about and find out like everyone else does apparently 🙄

If I remember rightly, at the diagnosis stage I had to show school reports to evidence that the issues had always been present (I don't know if that's the same nowadays with private diagnosis).

What I've seen quite a bit in the ADHD groups on Facebook is people describing their symptoms as having a severe impact, and the report comes back with "you reported you can't do X. I have decided you can do X". Based on posts in those groups I'd imagine the vast majority of those ADHD cases receiving PIP were awarded at tribunal, where I have no idea what the process is.

You have been posting consistently though, 85 times so far, I’m not surprised that poster mentioned you ignoring their question. You either ignore or respond with something irrelevant and seem to think that being dismissive of disabled people is a clever thing to do. You are really just embarrassing yourself on this thread

@wildflowers You are correct. Many organisations and schools and individuals vary considerably about what they can tolerate in behaviour too. When my son was young I’d have friends that would take him and return and say “What’s the problem?, He’s just a proper boy” Then have several places exclude him. Identical hobbies some place he thrived and became their top winning all the trophies possible others excluded before even getting a chance. One thing I noticed about the intolerant is they’re pretty inflexible and in every incident they have low achieving dysfunctional teenage and adult children themselves, which makes me wonder. Do some people have totally unrealistic expectations of kids? I think many do.

Would my son of required a diagnosis without the intolerant? As he is diagnosed as severe at age 4 yes, but he’s achieved good results in his final exams it shows exclusion is not the answer and actually secondary was the better when they start streaming the kids more, which they don’t do as much as they used to. Having disruptive noisy classes is terrible for some ADHD kids.

We are far less tolerant and the pressure is on when they’re young to have them be well behaved constantly so you give them Ipads at restaurants and get the judgy looks. Years ago children were not taking out to restaurants as much so they can’t really judge. My own son at a young age simply couldn’t sit in a chair without stimulation, he grew out of that at about 14. It wasn’t a problem for me or some other but we know many have their rigid views and expectations of children.

You’d think wouldn’t you?
In that respect though, the tech, my life has been so enriched.

The things that make my life more difficult, the things that flare up my MH, are the human interactions with people who are unable to see that their world experience is different to mine, and that doesn’t make me wrong, or a shit person, it just makes me (or you, whatever your perspective) different to some others. The tech has helped. The tech isn’t generally the problem (ime anyway).

I would say this extends out into the world, into many workplaces, into schools, into social groups. This expectation of fitting all pegs, whatever their shape, into the hole created by those in charge.

Continuing with the peg/hole analogy, if these holes were created to either fit all pegs, or there were easily accessed areas of differently shaped holes (which allows some ND people like me to thrive and be productive) then the world would be a better place for everybody, not just those that are funny shaped pegs will thrive and be more productive if they don’t have to knock bits off themselves to fit in, but everyone else because they’re not having to deal with the inevitable fallout out of big groups of people having to knock chunks off themselves in order to take part in vital societal situations like work or school.

And before anyone says I’m expecting a reorder of the world - no, I’m just expecting that large groups of people, instead of being isolated and treated in a subhuman way, would (in a capitalist world) be more useful members of society if they could access environments that suit them better than the current situation that has us having endless discussions on MN about fucking scroungers. It’s not really a big ask to expect that a growing population has space that suits them rather than constantly destroying ourselves to fit in with some arbitrary set up that only suits a few.

It’s the inflexible human attitude that’s the problem, that drives more people to failure. Fix that and we’ll all be better off.

Edited to add that the tech is a problem in the way it’s increased the human interactions, when the human interactions are with the wronguns!