PIP for Anxiety

[IntelligenceIsFree]

AIBU to clear things up?

The current nasty rhetoric around disabled people at the moment is astounding. Society needs to be reminded that we are ALL one illness or accident away from disability.

Everyone knows someone who is gaming the system, yet the PIP fraud rate is extremely low. The public demonising, does not match the reality.

The hot topic is “anxiety” and how people with “anxiety” are gaming the system, getting “free” cars and robbing tax payers; this is being constantly fed through media, news articles and so on.

This is simply not true. The people spouting this nonsense clearly have no idea how PIP works. Nobody gets PIP without strong medical evidence. Nobody.

Before anyone posts “my neighbour got PIP just by telling lies”. No, they did not. That’s not how it works.

People need to be educated properly on how benefits work, how they are awarded and what the criteria for mobility cars actually is; the cars are not in fact free.

People need to be educated on the fact that there is anxiety, which every human suffers from at some point, and then there are anxiety DISORDERS which are entirely different and can be life changing and debilitating. Hence, the need and entitlement for PIP.

Brenda down the road who feels too anxious to go to Bingo on a Friday night is NOT getting PIP ❌

Mary up the lane who has such severe OCD that she cannot leave her own home for fear that she will die, IS getting PIP .✅

There’s a huge difference.

The current turning on disabled people is shameful and we are living in a country full of hate because Bob (and his Uncle) are annoyed that they are paying tax to “support all of these scroungers”.

Bob (and his Uncle), needs to hope that they never get cancer, or suffer life changing trauma or have an unfortunate accident to avoid being served a huge scrounged humble pie.

I do not suffer from anxiety but as a human, I am pleased we have a system in society to support the most vulnerable people who need it. Life can happen to anyone.

Everyone knows someone who is faking it! I have one in my team at work. He took a day off each time to prepare for his interviews and got diagnosed with ADHD and Autism. He said himself that he read the right things to say, I was totally speechless! He isn’t get PIP yet but I am sure he will try now. He also claims to have anxiety when it is convenient. He went to Disneyland for 3 weeks and managed just fine but if we ask him to work he has anxiety, ADHD, Autism etc. Honestly he is just work shy. There are people who actually have these conditions who need support, but this is one guy who is really playing the system. But once diagnosed by a medical professional as an employer we are stuck. He self referred himself.

No i get what you are saying and agree - of course everyone should be able to access leisure time and activities , including drinks with friends , partying etc.
But it was the being well enough to do that and then not well enough to volunteer when that was the deal really. It is a bit like life generally. If you only have so many ' spoons' , energy, whatever but have some available some of that resource should be used to work / make a contribution. Because as a society we rely on that. If benefis can be misused by some as an alternative / opt out that is damaging and wrong.

Exactly. The lack of critical thinking is astounding. Someone with a mobility problem who qualifies for a motability vehicle will typically have a high degree of difficulty in getting around for a variety of reasons. The motability scheme represents the most cost effective way for them to get around. PIP is designed to support disabled people to better take part in society/leisure and work by addressing some of the extra costs they face in those areas. The clue is in the name personal independence payment.

Dunno about PIP specifically but I have witnessed family members who are perfectly capable of movement but put on a real show of being unable to walk unassisted for the medical assessments for benefits. This was many years ago in the 2000’s and 2010s. It does happen and more often than the stats show.

Yes, I agree the spoons should have been used for the volunteering if she'd agreed to volunteer.

I'm a teacher, I eat ready meals because I'm too tired and time short to cook because I work long hours, I have a long hot bath before bed to relieve work stress, and I need to wear clean clothes daily because I work with snotty, messy young children.

If you wet yourself regularly surely you wear incontinence pads rather than urinate in your clothes?

Cancer of any type is automatically considered a disability and therefore enables the sufferer to apply for PIP. The caveat to that is that unless the diagnosis is terminal (life expectancy 12 months or less) the claimant is assessed under normal rules, so the cancer has to have been diagnosed at least three months prior to claiming. It also has to cause demonstrable disability to actually qualify and with many cancers there isn’t any debility in the early stages. PIP isn’t awarded just on the disability you have, but the effects on your daily life. And this is why some cancer patients find they aren’t awarded until later stages when effects start to appear or the treatment itself causes difficulties.

If you are diagnosed with terminal cancer and a life expectancy of less than twelve months you are automatically awarded the higher rate of PIP daily living component. The three month waiting period doesn’t apply, there is no need for a face to face assessment and the award is usually in payment within two weeks. However, in the case of terminal illness an award of mobility component of PIP is not automatic but based on whether the patient satisfies the conditions for a mobility award. This is because not all cancers will affect mobility to a degree where an award would be made. Not saying I agree with these things, but that’s basically how it works.

In my experience there isn’t an incontinence pad capable of fully dealing with any type of incontinence without a degree of leakage. Unless you go for the specialist pads, which are becoming more and more unaffordable. The NHS will supply incontinence padding free of charge for the most severe conditions but even these are not the best quality and frequently leak. The kind of anxiety that qualifies for a PIP award isn’t alleviated by a long hot bath because it’s totally different to work stress.

I'm repeating what I once wrote in another thread, but I was told by an assessor that I didn't qualify for PIP, in spite of having a chronic movement disorder and fluctuating symptoms of post concussion syndrome, even now a decade after my head injury.

I think being an invisible injury doesn't help, and my movement disorder called tardive dyskinesia is closed as mild, but if it flares up, it's quite distressing and gives me huge social anxiety as the movements are so bizarre.

I remember thinking when I had my assessment that I looked a fairly normal, functioning person and if you'd met me, you might never know that I'd had three concussions with a medication induced movement disorder on top.

I'm pretty sure the assessor knew bugger all about both head injury and movement disorders, but obviously as she was assessing how these symptoms impacted my daily living abilities, the assessment at my home probably didn't reflect how awful a reality bad day is.

Regardless, I know there are absolutely some poor people who genuinely need PIP, and do qualify. They fully deserve to get help. Then of course, there's those like my DH's friend who'd claimed benefits since her adult daughter was born, and all of this time, I have seen her claim and not have any real health problems that restrict her from work. Possibly a back problem. Cognitively and mental health wise, I think she is fine

I genuinely can't fathom how she had milked the benefits for 18 years.

And it wasn’t until 2013 that PIP started to replace other disability benefits. You can’t just rock up at a PIP assessment with a bit of a limp and expect to be awarded benefit without a shred of medical and other evidence to support what you’re saying.

This is so scary hearing is first hand from someone who worked in the department. And definitely more reliable than narrative based only on one or two cases.

Unless you know the person inside out and live with them 24/7 you can’t possibly know the full extent of any disability, and a PIP award is not dependant on whether or not you can work. But in your description of your own situation I fully agree with you. The problem is that PIP assessors will also look at how you present on the day of the assessment and will use it against you if there are no outward signs of the symptoms you describe. And you’re absolutely right when you say that some assessors don’t have the experience to recognise the full implications of many conditions. The system is flawed - assessors are not doctors but are made up mainly of nurses, physios/OT’s and paramedics who won’t necessarily be familiar with an individual claimants’ condition. This results in many claimants with severe conditions slipping through the net and having to go to stressful and expensive tribunal to obtain a fair award.

For all of those saying that they have friends or family that are claiming fraudulently, can I ask why you don't report them? Just to sit back and not do anything about it if you actually know for sure that someone is milking the system, is almost as bad as doing it yourself, as the more people that get away with it, the more the word gets around, and then even more people lie in order to claim, so it becomes a vicious circle. Report them and make an example of them, and word will get out, and make others think twice about claiming fraudulently.

I agree to an extent. But as someone who has family members on disability where we are who absolutely shouldn't be. Being close family members at the time, I know very well their situation and they should not be on it. I no longer see these family members.

So it's minimal but it does happen that people who have no business being on it can get on it at times. There is no answer to stopping this but I do think it should be harder and more people should be pushed into paid work.
Since covid there have been more creative ways to work and more opportunities for those who once could not. Some of the people I have known with very debilitating and obvious disabilities are still working and working in jobs that suit what they can manage.
I could have gone on disability for several things but chose to find a job that suits what I am able to manage. I get more money doing that.

So yes I think disability schemes should be there for those who are seriously disabled enough to not even be able to manage work at all and then to compliment incomes for those that can manage different levels of work but I really don't think people should be encouraged to do nothing at all for themselves if technically they are mentally or physically able. Anxiety can be extreme. I know this from experience. But it does not make you incapacitated to function in life as a human and find a way or job you CAN manage.

Anyone physically able should and shouldn't be using treatable or manageable things as a get out of work free card. Get out there and find something that does suit your situation.

I strongly disagree that able bodies and minds should be using manageable excuses not to work then complain the benefits don't pay enough.
If some of the people I have personally seen in paid employment can do it then most others can as well. It's pure laziness and entitlement not to.

I say this as both someone with severe anxiety as well as having debilitating pain etc from an accident and I can't imagine ever lolling around on benefits instead of in a manageable work from home job that suits my health situation.

You are exactly who should be supported and if it was up to me I would double PIP in your circumstance. The people who need it should get more, but unfortunately far too many people are claiming it.

I use to think i had severe anxiety until I actually had severe anxiety and it was completely debilitating and I couldn't leave the house for 2 years

Intelligent enough to be a teacher but not enough to understand that urinary incontinence can and does cause leaks and smells. How peculiar.

She also doesn't understand work stress and mental illness are not the same thing. I wish having a nice hot bath cured my bipolar disorder and bpd.

As I have experienced. That's why I work from home... Found something to suit instead of being a burden on society.. 🤷‍♀️
Not hard to figure out. Can take time to find the right job but they exist for people who want to support themselves instead of living off benefits and making excuses for it.

I’d agree with you if it wasn’t for the fact that this poster appears to have been a case worker, not an assessor. Hopefully that poster will correct me if I’m wrong and if so I apologise. DWP case workers make the final decision on the PIP award but they not medically qualified themselves. They rely on an assessor’s report based on examination of the claimant and collation of any independent medical evidence they have supplied to support their application. It’s that assessor who ‘ticks the boxes’ awarding the points.

The case worker makes the decision on the level of award based on the points awarded by the assessor and the medical justification they have provided for their decision. So quite how a case worker with no medical qualification would know whether a claimant they had never even met was genuine or not is beyond me.

For starters I do have a job so let's get past that at that time I was so unwell I was having up to 10 panic attacks everyday I could barely form sentences my meds where constantly being changed and increased. My cpn was coming round daily. You are massively underestimating how unwell I was. There is absolutely no way I could have worked at that time

One issue you raise which I would challenge you on, is when you say PIP fraud is recorded as minimal. That’s not strictly true. There are barely resources to investigate fraudulent claims, so whilst there may not be many convictions, it’s purely down to the fact that whilst they catch some people, there are many more who are probably getting away with it due to insufficient funding to source fraud investigations into claims.

How could you work from home between panic attacks,crying, the inability to do basic self care the cmht and crisis team daily appointments. Medication changes that make you a zombie until they get the right one and the right dose.

I think the simple answer to that is that they’re actually not 100% sure that they are fraudulent. Knowing someone is openly claiming fraudulently is one thing but reporting someone you suspect, and who may be doing nothing wrong is an entirely different thing when you consider the consequences to them. Thankfully the DWP are moving away from anonymous reporting to try to reduce the number of malicious accusations.

You might want to explain this to the government because they too seem to think that working from home is the magic cure and the route back to work for all disabled people.