To think there is a definite surge in annoyance towards the disabled?

[WarySwan]

I have seen it in real life. Not just social media forums and news outlets where every other post seems to be about 'free money this for disabled' and 'free cars'.

My 2 children have autism. They get highest rate DLA. About £800 a month. We get respite care funded that costs the tax payer about £700 a month.

Just had an extension on our new build house, housing association, brand new bedroom and ensuite installed. Free of charge through the council.

Motability 7 seater car. 25 plate.

People seem to just see this and see the money. They do not see the costs that are present because of disability. The amount of time and resources it takes to keep 2 profoundly children at home.

They do not see that my children will need 24/7 care for life. 2-1 support in public. The constant cleaning and caring. Waking up at the crack of dawn, years on end. Cleaning smearing and endless washing. Endless marks on your body from a child who doesn't get that taking a chunk out of you will hurt that much and scar

Watching your eldest almost die as he can't speak a word or use a communication device. Meaning appendicitis went undetected until he was almost dying. The constant battle of keeping a cannula in his arm with hospital staff just not getting why a play therapist does not bloody cut it and he needs constant supervision that I cannot possibly do 24/7 without moving from the bedside. The weeks spend in recovery because of this.

If we do not or cannot provide this care, residential placements are about £40,000+ per month. Yes. Per month. It is eye watering in cost. That won't change anytime soon because social care is beyond shot to bits.

My children deserve the best life possible. And a dignified society should surely want to ensure this happens? Children who are not disabled and their parents have options. They have chances and doorways. Mine will never work. Never have a marriage or children, they won't even be able to cook a basic meal.

There is no overtime or upskilling for me. No situation where they fly the nest and I can focus on my career again. Unless they become some dangerous through no fault of their own that a 40k plus a month placement goes ahead as the alternative means I could die or be seriously injured, and that would mean they'd be at risk if I am literally unconscious on the floor.

They still deserve dignity and compassion. The chance of a good life. They are very happy currently. Good routines that are followed to a T. Safe at home because I have the resources to do it.

Care placement does not save money. Unfortunately. It would cost over ten times what I get in benefits.

I have seen so many mentions of people saying those on benefits should have no savings at all. Nothing. Really? You think my life isn't hard enough? You think I shouldn't be allowed a small nest of savings too?

When I finally drop down from caring, I will have next to no pension. After spending a lifetime ensuring the state doesn't have to take full responsibility for 2 adult men that will mean at least 4 paid members of staff are present at all times.

I am not just talking about MN. It is everywhere. Even 'funny' reels on Instagram targeted about how the disabled get this and that. How they should all drive a basic tiny car that has something written in bold to make sure everyone knows its a free car, as if they're really disabled, they'll use. That'll stop the chancers eh!

This is NOT about criticism towards PIP and DLA for things people deem questionable... even though they almost certainly dont have all the facts. This is about the blatant and not hidden disgust and begrudge of help to those with lifelong and profound disability

PEOPLE keep saying in black and white, no room for confusion in their words, that the disabled get too much. That it isn't fair.

I suppose this thread will get deleted. But a lot of views seem to be going unchallenged about the disabled that wouldn't be allowed if it was about something else that's suppose to be a protected characteristic. Seems to have quite a few comparisons with a certain country in Europe 80 or so years ago. When the hatred and deceit was being thrown around and brain washing people before not many years later, the public became okay with euthanasia of them.

Hell, I am sure we are already there for some. As I have seen with my own eyes, people commenting on MN and the likes of social media where their bloody name and pictures of themselves and their work can be traced, that euthanasia could be an option, ideally.

There are companies who show you how to fill the form in. I know several people who have exaggerated the truth to claim PIP and they were advised that’s what you have to do by the company that helped them.

Plus, you can get PIP and still work. How can someone who needs help with preparing food and caring for themselves actually hold down any sort of job, really?
I looked into it recently and was baffled how any working person can get PIP because you basically have to be incapable of doing anything basic such as personal care. If I really can’t shower without help, how can I work most jobs? Yet it seems you can.

As I said, we had a half hour online chat with a psychiatrist where my DS sat happy as Larry and I reported otherwise. (GPs can’t prescribe antidepressants to children). But my point was that both occasions simply involved a shortish chat with a health professional, not even necessarily in person. On both occasions it would have been possible to manufacture the complaint. Certainly the only thing my son did to back up my evidence was not contradict my description verbally.

Indeed. State education should not be one size fits all. It has gone backwards to the mid 20th century approach while the rest of the world moved on. DD2 has very mild SEN that did not even cause an issue at primary school and only came to the fore with the extreme pressures put on children from Y7 onwards. What a crazy system where a little girl who always got such fantastic reports and glowing comments from teachers all through primary school and never had any discipline issues was made to feel so anxious, depressed and on edge every day and got detentions for such minor things which made her burn out so quickly. It was like a really stressful job you can't get away from. We took her out of school and got our daughter back.

And this is in the context of having an older daughter who went to grammar school - super-selective and so hard to get in but far kinder and less pressurising! No ridiculous treating them like criminals every day.

Well yeah. But why the assumption the majority of them are faking it?! It's not easy to get it and you need evidence.

This.

I was only telling my partner this weekend how absolutely fucking tapped out I am. Absolutely exhausted.

I would give everything we have for a cup of tea in peace, nevermind a nail appointment. I would just quite like to not have to clean shit off the floor, for one day.

People who begrudge someone in our position 20mins to themselves to get a haircut, need even more help than we do.

There is a kid locally that is having his education paid for at a top boarding school because he is dyslexic. Taxis to Kent and back every week.
That's like a £100k a year education paid.
I got a dictionary when I was diagnosed as dyslexic.

It's not that people resent the disabled. It's that people resent unfairness of public funds and resources.

because it's easier to pretend that what's being done to disabled people right now is ok if it's under the guise of rooting out the huge huge honest it's lots probably all of them everyone knows a faker they're all at it real disableds don't go out or have a life everyone knows that numbers of fakers

Someone in a wheelchair still needs money to pay for adaptations in their life and possible help with personal care. But still perfectly capable of work.

I do think it might interesting for DVLA to cross check with PIP though. I know one person who put blackouts and seizures on their PIP form who is still driving.

I agree. The sheer number of claimants clearly shows that not all of them are genuine and needy. There's bound to be kick back against it and sadly the genuinely disabled are unfairly being targeted too, but that's inevitable. The genuinely disabled should also be fighting against the fraudsters to try to help bring the situation back under control to a place where all necessary resources are given to the genuine claimants rather than spread too thinly across those and all the fraudsters.

I tend to agree. I think there is a callousness and thoughtlessness that has pervaded our society. A lack of consideration and general manners.
The best example I can give is blind people. With a stick or dog. When I was growing up blind people were always given space when they were walking along. But no longer. Now, they just are not. I find it truly appalling. It is just one example.
The concern is where and why this callousness and thoughtlessness has come from. Do they not teach children to be kind at school ?
I understand the concerns about the seemingly overwhelming rise in people claiming ADHD etc. Something needs looking into there. By the laws of averages the numbers look odd.
But the underlying nastiness in society is an issue.

The rationale is that we have a hard line on the sanctity of human life.
We have decided collectively as a society that the rights of human beings to live is fundamental, that we do not remove that right from each other, and that we facilitate each other to remain alive.
Once this stops being a hard line, we are drastically changing a fundamental principle of our coexistence, which is a pretty big step.

Because people don’t change.

YANBU, people are being annoyed and disappointed and take it out on those that never deserved that in the first place.

The genuinely disabled are too exhausted between being genuinely disabled and proving to "well-meaning" nosey people that we're genuinely disabled to fight against anyone else. We're having to fight for ourselves / our loved ones constantly.

Are you advocating for mass murder?

I have seen multiple ADHD diagnoses which are based on an online 45 minute appt often carried out by a 'practitioner' of some sort i.e not a regulkated professional and then signed off by a single clinician who has never met the patient. I have also seen multiple ASD diagnosis report based off a single appt with a paediatrician and certainly not involving a multi disciplinary assessment. In truth SEN and disability has become a big business and it is very naive to believe that all clinicians are acting with the highest levels of integrity. Medical professionals are not infallible despite what some like to believe.

I have to say I have not come across any of this negativity? There was reporting around the cars for disabled but I’ve not seen memes etc on social media. I’m not saying it’s not there though. Just stop looking at it.

Ultimately people are a bit thick, lead by a right wing press and unable to empathise.

It wont be as simple as that don't insult all of our intelligence, s by insinuating it is.

I haven’t read the full thread (yet).
OP you have my sympathies.
I too have a severely disabled daughter.

The first time I saw anyone wrinkle their nose in disgust was when she was about 10 days old - a consultant at UCLH when she was born. The consultant was informing the neonatal team that in her opinion my daughter did not Arthrogryposis. She didn’t even look at me once in her speech. She was probably right about her medical opinion - at least in part - but that was the first time I’d encountered a look of utter disgust at my daughter.

Plenty more followed. I don’t care any more. Plenty of people are lovely to her.

I don’t know when or why people find disability so immensely uncomfortable (I suppose there’s innate fear at work) but yet became self-proclaimed mini economic experts and forecasters with the hindsight of a backwards seer suggesting one should have saved sufficiently IN CASE you had a severely disabled child.

People think it’s appropriate to question why you kept a foetus alive or (as is on this thread) had a second child if the first was disabled (where’d I put that crystal ball?).

The state of the economy and the alleged fakers of serious disability who somehow get away with it will inevitably take up 50 percent of a thread like this. Some people love to doom forecast (when there will be no more disability “handouts” etc).

Ive learned more about Motability in the last few weeks- from researching it! - even though I lease a WAV for DD for the last 4 years.

Given that Motability started in 1977 and continued since then (ie before social media) the model worked well for both the economy and the end user. I’ve learned that an average weekly salary in 1977 was £70. The lease on a Motability vehicle was £7 (the full mobility benefit that existed at that time). it’s still the same in that the full mobility benefit goes to Motability.

Now a median UK wage is £730 a week. If ratios had stayed the same (costing 1/10 of an average salary) a M car would be £73 a week. Which it more or less is.

I think people think that Motability sprang up as a new Labour idea and needs to be put back in the box. That’s one cause of discontent (absurdly so in my view).

As to what do we do with all the severely disabled people… why do we have to DO anything? Eventually, like everyone else they will die. People will probably terminate babies with apparent predictable disability (won’t stop severely autistic people being born).

Why does any Joe Bloggs think they have to solve a “problem” of disabled people?

Just for clarity I am not in anyway agreeing with the PP but your statement about sanctity of human life is simply incorrect. Those who oppose abortion would argue that we do not value the sanctity of human life, many countries still have the death penalty and we all live in a country that is fully signed up to killing people when we deem it necessary (such as during wars). The idea that there is a hard line is simply not true, different societies at different times have drawn that line in quite different places. I think that may be the point the pp is trying to make.

You need the medical evidence to back up what you put in the forms though.

There's nothing wrong with showing people how to fill in the forms as they are complicated and can be incredibly overwhelming as long as what you are putting in the forms is the truth.

I was helped with my sons DLA forms but I wouldn't have got anywhere without the pages and pages of medical evidence I also had to provide.

We have two longtime family friends who don’t work and receive disability benefits.

#1 is now in her early 60s, and has quite literally never worked. She has 6 (now adult) children, and has relied fully on benefits to raise them. She claims she has agoraphobia and struggles to leave the (large council funded) house. Yet she found it easy enough to fly out to Memphis to visit Graceland, and is planning a second trip for next spring?

#2 is late 40s, and was a thalidomide baby, and has a short arm as a result. He has had adhoc jobs but hasn’t worked since 2006. His parents bought him a house, which he essentially pays the mortgage with UC under the guise of it being rent as the property isn’t in his name. He has a mobility car, with no adaptations aside from a removable spinner knob that can be fitted to the steering wheel. He goes out drinking almost every night, and plays cash poker games, sometimes netting him £1k+ a week (sometimes significantly more if it’s a tournament).

These are the types of claimants that people are taking offence to - the ones that milk and flaunt the system with no shame.

I can understand why people find it galling that there are others that take advantage of a system that should be a safety net, and not a career choice.

Unfortunately there are always going to be people that take out significantly more than they’ve ever put in, at the expense of people who work damn hard for their money and are left with a pittance at the end of the month.

I agree with this. I have cptsd (diagnosed by the NHS after many, many forms and interviews with clinical psychologists). The whole process was very stressful and upsetting and now I'm on a waitlist to get individual schema therapy. They had originally hoped I could go into a group schema therapy but they decided I needed individual therapy.

I have never claimed benefits for my mental health and it never stopped me working either. It has without a doubt impacted my life (poor decision making, trouble regulating emotions, depression, anxiety, OCD, eating disorders etc).

I have no doubt I could make a claim for PIP and surely based on what everyone is saying I would get it. I don't though. Why, because although I have some issues for sure I could still get a job of some sort if I needed to (or had to).

We just can't afford to pay money for so many 'disabilities'. The ironic thing is I believe there are probably quite alot of people who have real mental health issues that keep them hidden and plod on, horrified at the idea of them being made public.

We seem to be in a new era of lifestyle mental health. The trouble is some days I sit and think well you're an idiot (myself, me) for not claiming when everyone else is. I just don't think I should be entitled to benefits. The NHS is giving me therapy (eventually) and I'm on a high dose of AD's. I saw the MH nurse at my local doctors surgery for a while too (can't get near a GP but was summoned to the MH nurse when I upped my own AD's to the max dose without talking to a doctor because I couldn't get an appointment). I had absolutely no intention of killing myself, I was just trying to help myself by increasing my dose to the maximum which I know is 'allowed'. This must have triggered an alert at the doctors though.

For people like the OP who's life sounds very stressful indeed I don't think anyone minds the benefits (although I do worry what happens when the country just can't afford to pay them any longer.......I mean the UK is on a real downward spiral)

The resentment is absolutely all the benefits for anxiety, depression, mild autism and the likes.

OP - you said you hope your kids die before you. I can totally understand that - the worry must be crushing of what happens after you are gone. What do you think the solution is - I mean nobody knows better than the people on the front line.

It's a "first they came for", and as another poster has already pointed out the horrors of 1930's Germany did not begin with the concentration camps, they began with propaganda and the term "useless eaters" to influence the mind set of the population against people with disablities. Nigel Farage can be seen as testing the waters with his comments about children and SEND He has claimed that doctors are “massively over-diagnosing” children with mental health conditions, and special educational needs and disabilities.

I'm glad for you. Where I live, it's got worse. Let me give you an example. I care for 2 autistic young adults and a husband with terminal cancer. I used the LA's 'Bridge-it' tool to identify sources of help and support. Got referred to a none existant Alzheimer's group 30 miles away that was put in so there were no nil responses in testing.

The good news is that I can now challenge the well meaning to look for themselves.