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.

Well they do, because there is no access to mental health care, so prescribing is left up to GPs with a limited range of medications to prescribe.

No they don't they can prescribe medication and can refer you to talking therapies if you have mild anxiety and depression if its severe its a completely different pathway you will be referred to secondary care

They must have thought that poster met the criteria for the enhanced rate previously though, and given they are now having adaptations made to their home it’s hard to imagine that posted has improved since their last award.

That's not my experience at all. Perhaps it's just that my area is particularly bad.

Possibly or that you didn't need secondary care at that time

For mild anxiety and depression, not conditions like bipolar and hearing voices which has to be initiated by a specialist team. There are only certain medications that GPs can prescribe and they’re cracking down. In our area they won’t even do shared care with adhd meds even nhs prescribed and are even refusing shared care with CMHT.

That’s nothing to do with the OP. The type of anxiety you get PIP for is a world away from that.

My son did after a suicide attempt.

Wouldn’t it have been crisis who initiated it and then handed over to the gp?

The difficulty with anxiety is it almost entirely self reported. Ultimately there isn't a test for it, a doctor can only go on the fact a patient comes to see them repeatedly and reports severe symptoms of anxiety.

Its relatively easy to look up what severe symptoms of anxiety are, go to your doctor and describe those symptoms. It's also very easy to be experiencing mild to moderate symptoms of anxiety and go to the doctor and exaggerate your symptoms when talking to them.

I'm not saying everyone with anxiety on pip is doing this, of course they aren't, but it's extremely naive of people to imagine that nobody is doing this.

The only reason it's claimed that fraud for pip is almost zero is because investigation into fraud is almost zero.

It's almost impossible with conditions like anxiety, fibromyalgia, chronic pain and chronic fatigue, where diagnosis is based almost entirely on a persons self reported symptoms to their doctor, to prove they are or aren't suffering those symptoms.

That’s you making that up.

I have loads of evidence for my DD’s anxiety which hasn’t been self reported at all. Not once.

Usually mhls/crisis team do it in these circumstance at the hospital

What’s how much tax you pay got to do with PIP? It’s not means tested. On what grounds where you thinking of claiming?

She started a thread yesterday saying she was turned down for pip that she has eupd and has got to go to a tribunal so I don't no what she's going on about with this comment.

I’d say that’s massively low and I worked in PIP this year. There is nothing robust about it the assessment process.

What did you do as regards pip?

A friend of mine didn’t get pip for anxiety (severe) despite having psychosis, insomnia, being hospitalised twice, and tried to kill herself a few times. She did have severe agoraphobia but has improved with this in recent months.

And the problem is that people are being influenced to believe that any anxiety is abnormal - a condition . So I don’t think applicants are swinging the lead so much as honestly thinking that feeling anxious at times makes them different. You only need to scroll through a few threads and the OP will claim anxiety. I remember one where a poster was saying they didn’t want someone to sit next to them on a (full) bus and not moving their bag was ok because they had anxiety. This kind of thinking - and, worse, validating it - is leading to increasing numbers of people believing they are not only suffering from a disability but should be able to claim for it.

I really don’t know why posters deny anything like this is happening. Surely the deluge of claimants now can only be detrimental to those who really require help.

I literally know 3 people who claim pip for their kids because they lied on the forms about how much assistance they need. No diagnosis of anything, waiting for ADHD diagnosis that might never come. So from my experience it is easy to get pip if you know what to say.

I am aware of an indirect family member who receives PIP for mental health issues. She received support from a relevant individual for supporting information on the application.
That person works cash in hand and Imo is a functioning human being, unbeset by mh challenges.
This is evidence of the misuse and fraud of the system.
We can't pretend it isn't happening.

Nobody says it isn’t only that the numbers are low as backed up by gov figures.

So they have no diagnosis and no need for PIP. You need robust evidence, how have they provided that?

You don’t get PIP for feeling a bit anxious. Do you even know what PIP is and how to get it?

The poster addressed that by stating:
I'm not saying everyone with anxiety on pip is doing this, of course they aren't, but it's extremely naive of people to imagine that nobody is doing this.

Acknowledging the existence of people gaming the system doesn't negate the experience of genuine claimants.

How old are their kids?