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.

I’ve come across this a lot. Unfortunately the key word here is reasonable and the definition of that is subjective. For those with complex conditions/multi faceted disability finding a solution acceptable to both parties can be challenging.

Or someone is talking shite ?

Many are awarded by assessors with 0 further evidence such as GP factual reports and consultant letters. Majority of assessments are telephone. How can an assessor truly do their job properly, award correctly and weed out fraudulent claims without even seeing someone? Especially with mental health. To suggest strong medical evidence is needed to score is false. The assessor provides justification for their scores in their report, this should be based on medical evidence but often there is no evidence provided, other than what the claimant reports verbally during assessment.

So essentially the award is based on everything the claimant tells the assessor in these cases. It’s hardly robust.

I’m disabled. Spina bifida. Been in a wheelchair most of my life. I have two stomas because I’m doubly incontinent, lost a leg to vascular disease connected to my disability, have various spinal injuries caused by osteoporosis and just to top it off I received a diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis in 2022 and an invasive lobular breast cancer diagnosis last year. I’m also retired, having worked full time for over two decades as a disability outreach worker - not because the DWP were compelling me to work, but because I wanted to. I also claim PIP - which I know you’ll find interesting given that I’m now retired and you regard it as an out of work benefit.

I’d be interested to know where I’ve made these wrong assumptions you speak of. Oh and one more thing - it’s long been my experience on these forums that those who resort to laughing emoji’s do so because they have no cogent argument.

I can only speak as I find, and again, this is not my experience. And I’m definitely not defending the system because it’s so deeply flawed in so many ways I wouldn’t know where to start. The problem is that successive governments have shied away from a complete root and branch reform and opted for tinkering around the edges, which solves nothing and in some cases makes things worse.

Coming from someone who has diagnosed general anxiety disorder, it is NOT a disability and it DOES NOT warrant tax payers handouts.

Agreed the system is completely flawed. I couldn’t shake the feeling so many people who needed support were being denied PIP as they sadly didn’t meet the strict criteria.

You've made plenty of assumptions about others.
I have not detailed my issues as I have nothing to prove and I don't need to convince anyone of anything.

And yes you got me, not wanting to bother flogging a dead horse with the two most disabled people on planet earth who will compare their issues to prove their point, so I put laughing emojis making me less of a human.. Whatever helps. Happy to take it. I have my opinion you have yours, I'm not going to post my medical history to prove anything to the two who feel the need to do so. You're issues are remarkably different to what the thread was though so kinda not the same thing or relevant if we really need to pick posts apart.

Anyway that's me out without "cogent argument" when the truth is I get so blunt I have to keep rewriting my posts to try and be more general.. If only I posted what I was going to but I'm not THAT much of a cunt... And it's not worth the time.

Enjoy.

Well wait until you meet the poster earlier, they will argue that point and tell you that you aren't as anxious as them then (it's a competition apparently).

With PIP whilst it is awarded to those in an out of work, when claiming for mental health working is likely to reduce chances of an award, as working would suggest motivation and reasonably managed mental health. Problematically there isn’t much incentive for claimants with mental health to return to work as many know this likely will affect their claim when reassessed.

If they were to do that, that would seem like a perfectly valid and intelligent point as it's the whole basis of the system - awards are not based on diagnosis but on the severity in your own individual case, as evidenced by the documentation etc you can provide.

I suffer with anxiety and depression
last year it was so bad I could not answer the door, drive, go to a supermarket, eat, sleep, run, get dressed , look in the mirror ,respond to any friends or family
I still had to do my full time job, luckily from home

not Once would I have considered claiming pip. I’m much better now, helped by medication
you have to take personal responsibility

My insomnia prompted some googling:

UK population is 69.3m
Economically active - 34m
Total weekly hours worked - 1088m
LFS: Total actual weekly hours worked (millions): UK: All: SA - Office for National Statistics

This means that one economically active person works less than 32 hours per week average. Translate it to 35h/week FTE and we have only 31m of economically active population, which means that every single worker has to support 1.2 economically inactive people. This includes children, pensioners and those on benefits.

Whichever way you cut it, this can't be sustained. Yes, triple lock will go, but the entire welfare will be fundamentally reformed. It's not a question if, it's a question of how soon and how deep.

not Once would I have considered claiming pip. I’m much better now, helped by medication
you have to take personal responsibility

Exactly how I view my situation.

But you have that luxury because you're still able to work. Most people claiming PIP are too disabled to work even if some people manage to earn something.

I made one post simply stating that's how I view my situation.
Nothing more.
There was no room to assume anything about what my situation entails and I'm not planning to disclose it here.

I have a lot of opinions about this and after reading the last few pages chosen not to post any details.
It's amazing what's been assumed from the post with the least detail so far. How rude of you.

(Also a few posters were saying they work as well as claim it which is what I'm referring to replying to that post so among poor assumptions your post was extraordinarily irrelevant.. So there's that too).

I am a carer for someone with severe anxiety.

Frankly her condition is too debilitating to allow her to go through the PIP assessment process. She can't fill in forms. She can't answer questions about what she can and can't do because she finds it too distressing. There's no way she would give permission for me to answer on her behalf. Phone calls and face-to-face meetings with strangers? Yeah, that's not happening. I can't even get her to the GP.

It's essentially a catch 22 where if she had the ability to navigate the system to get the help she's entitled to, she probably wouldn't be entitled to it in the first place.

And if it wasn't for wankers all over the media claiming that anxiety is a made-up illness and everyone claiming to have it is a fraud, maybe she'd be a little less ashamed and a little bit braver and she might have a shot at getting help..But we don't live in that world, unfortunately.

Sorry, I meant to respond to the person you were quoting who has made the general statement that "you have to take personal responsibility" as if this option is open to most people disabled enough to claim PIP.

Anxiety is real no doubt but this sounds absurd.
Like not even believable. There isn't a way to survive living like this.. Wouldn't be possible.
Almost sounds like a made up shock story to outdo the other severe anxiety stories only this one is the least believable.

If it was real there is a new kind of medical help created for something that debilitating.

But for one second I do not buy it. It's like the suggestion of the competition going on in this thread just got ridiculous.

I've read and seen hundreds of examples of mental illness this extreme over the years - many are not people claiming benefits at all (many accounts are from times before welfare existed). Why would anyone make it up? That makes no sense at all. One hundred years ago somebody with mental illness this bad might have ended up in an asylum. Certainly if you read accounts of people living in asylums the world over they present very similarly.

As a disability support worker l had several people on my caseload with mental health problems which presented in exactly the way this poster has described, and if you have a look at the PIP scoring descriptors for mental health they score claimants on how overwhelming and debilitating their conditions actually are.

And the problem is that for people with conditions like these, even with cast iron evidence of diagnosis, the PIP assessment is a catch 22 situation because just making the monumental effort to cope with the interview and not presenting as a gibbering wreck throughout can be used by the assessor to deny that the problem is as severe as the claimant says. In many cases just turning up for the assessment is enough to disqualify you. I’ve also seen many of these decisions overturned at tribunal and the DWP severely criticised by tribunal chairmen for putting the claimant through unnecessary stress, often exacerbating their condition.

it’s long been a criticism of PIP that it unfairly discriminates against those with severe mental health conditions because when they are turned down for PIP they are less likely to appeal because they’re won’t cope with the stress, so they have to accept an unfair decision without recourse to an appeals system that should be accessible to all.

Agree. Some of the uninformed opinions on the thread are really concerning.

Beautiful example of the disbelieving wankery I was talking about. Thanks.

It is perfectly feasible for people to survive without cooking or driving or filling in forms or talking to strangers, because people like me exist to do this stuff for them. They don't end up in asylums because those places don't exist any more. They don't end up in psychiatric hospitals because they're not psychotic and lack the level of executive function necessary to attempt suicide. If CBT and SSRIs don't fix you, tough. You're not getting anything else out of the NHS until you're a danger to yourself and others. Probably not even then, to be honest.

You don't know how lucky you are to have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. For the sake of those around you, I hope it stays that way.

I used to do short pieces of online work for a company - cant actually remember the name of them now- but I found out about them ( and similar outfits) on the earn £10 a day thread.
Basically they’d send me a few bits of work a day, most taking no more than an hour each, and I’d do as few or as many as I could manage.
You can do surveys, test apps, all sorts, and some people do several hours a day, some just an hour to supplement another job.