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.

Who says they’re too low? You? Those working in the sector have explained that every lead is followed up - robustly.

I was only referring to someone with GAD.

Because people who have been through the pip process understand how hard it is to get. So its hard to believe people who say my neighbours, cousins girlfriend gets pip and there is nothing wrong with her and she sent in no evidence and they just gave it to her.

I can't imagine anyone would get pip for gad alone

This whole thread is titled 'pip for anxiety'

I get PIP. When I had my original interview I described things exactly as they were for me and let the assessor decide whether I was eligible. I didn’t add in anything, I didn’t leave anything out. I was just factual and that was that. I got mobility but not daily living 🤷‍♀️

Do you understand there are many types of anxiety disorders panic disorder, ocd, agoraphobia, selective mutism, ptsd.

Define Disabillity ?
Like any condition it affects people differently
Many people suffer with anxiety including ,me im 52 and i think in my case its linked to menopause , i struggle with the thought of getting out and about and avoid it if i can
But if i have to go out i can do so inpendently , does this make me disabled and eligible for PIP no,
But there are other people whose anxiety is so bad they are housebound and cant independently care for themselves
I woud say that makes them disabled
PiP has never been about the diagnosis ,because they can vary so much its about how that Diagnosis impacts a person
For you to say well i have anxiety and im not disabled by it therefor no one is is pretty ignorant .

the claims have gone up by £4.1 bn in a year. How many claims is that? There aren't enough people working at the DWP to robustly follow up those claims. There is a direct correlation between the rise in claims and a lack of face to face interviews. There is no proper assessment for a lot of people.

Hence you needing robust paperwork evidence.

Which covers a very broad spectrum.

Im not being ignorant its my opinion. And I define being disabled as being physically unable to do something a human is meant to. Depression probably counts in its severest form. I agree there is different levels of Anxiety but coming from my personal experience of myself and others not facing the problem head on and trying to manage it, avoiding work and claiming benefits etc increases the problem. Then you just get stuck. I believe Anxiety of all levels can be managed.

Do you not understand that there are Facebook groups teaching people how to build that evidence with medical professionals? how to describe exactly what anxiety or ADHD does to their life and how debilitating it is in order to then get evidence for PIP? I know of such groups and at least one person I know personally. It takes some advance prep

There are other reasons besides fraud for the increase in PIP expenditure. Since Covid the number of mental health diagnoses among young people has been steadily rising.

There has also been a huge rise in the number of people diagnosed with spectrum disabilities. Many of these people will have become eligible for PIP as a result.

It doesn’t mean those claims are fraudulent, simply that there are more of them. And every year children who claim child DLA reach the age of sixteen and are migrated onto PIP. That increases the expenditure on PIP but doesn’t increase the overall benefit bill because the DLA claims are subsequently closed. Successive governments when pressed, have admitted counting those claims twice for the overall benefit expenditure figures.

I too tend to take with a pinch of salt the claims of friends/family members that they know their friend/relative is cheating, for one simple reason. I’ve worked in disability support for over two decades and I’ve seen more than my share of genuine claimants lives turned upside down by malicious reporting. What you see on the surface is rarely all there is. Unless you are the carer for the claimant, or live with them full time, know their medical history and have the medical knowledge necessary to understand it, are familiar with the content of their claim and privy to the details of any assessment they’ve undergone in connection with their claim, you can’t possibly know whether their claim is genuine or not. I’ve also seen a definite trend for malicious reporting in particular cases where a claimant has a motability car, which l find concerning.

And as for the posters who come to these threads saying they know people who are quite open and will admit to all and sundry that they are cheating is something I’ve only ever come across on MN. In real life it doesn’t happen. In my experience claimants keep quiet about what they are claiming because they live in fear of being reported and investigated even though they are doing nothing wrong.

Do you not realise that no Facebook group can manufacture robust evidence. Robust evidence is not a self written logbook!!

Ive been through the incredibly arduous process twice so don’t lecture to me as to what robust evidence is.

Spectrum diagnoses do not get you pip, only need does and even then it more often than not doesn’t Autsim amd ADHD are actually underdiagnosed in the uk. .

There are of 4 of my family with significant spectrum diagnoses with high,well documented needs. Only 1 gets PIP.

To start with - not aggravating your symptoms by engaging in difficult internet discussions for hours, fighting with other people online. Surely there are healthier ways to spend time and feel less anxious as a result ?

Your basing your opinion on your personsl experience and assuming because you manage everyone can
That makes you ignorant.

Said children don’t, they have me to do that and fight their corner when faced with ignorance and ableism. 😊

Going by all the responses is it possible that each cases outcome depends on whoever is processing it? And how generous/empathetic they are??

The same could be said about yourself.

Do you not understand you are talking about medical professionals. Do you not think a psychiatrists, cpn, crisis team would see straight through this. When you are severely mentally unwell which you have to be to get pip or even to get under secondary care that you sepnd a lot of time with these people. Cpn and the crisis team specifically are in your home. Its not like spending 10 minutes with a gp

How?

“How does somebody who has repeatedly tried to kill themslves, who is battling CPTSD after severe trauma, EDs, several NDs, depression and severe anxiety needing intensive treatment supposed to take responsibility for themselves? How does that get rid of all the above?”

Come on you could save the tax payer £££££. How does somebody as described above just manage it particularly when the vast majority aren’t as fortunate as my children who actually get treatment.

Except she clearly isn’t ignorant.

Err no it’s dependent on robust evidence as those processing it have strict threshold criteria as regards points for each section.