About benefits

Autisticlad98 said:

I am worried about the new government stopping my benefits

I used to worry about stuff too - it is a pretty common autistic trait and hard to break.

I came to realise that worrying about big picture stuff like this was pointless. You cannot influence it so all you can do is watch it. If you worry then you are hurting yourself over something you cannot change.

You may as well worry about it raining in case your roof leaks.

Once I came to this realisation then I understood that I could continue to be the victim of my anxiety or shut it down and save the energy for something more useful. Mindfullness gave me the tools to be able to do this and it has loads of applications in other things in life too.

I realise this doesn't help you in thinking about what will happen so I will share how I would approach this.

I would write down a list of the possible outcomes, eg 1) No change, 2) PIP is reduced, 3) PIP is removed altogether.

For each of these I would then work out how this would affect me as things stand, then work out what I would have to do to respond to it in order to maintain the same standard of living.

Lastly I would plan the steps needed to take in order to be able to cope with the worst case scenario and work out if they were practical to do now without risking losing out if the best case scenario happens instead.

For example if I would have to get a job to be able to live then I would work out what I would need to do to be employable and start doing these steps. You may need to dust off some skills you haven't used, get fit, do a training course to update your skills etc.

By being proactive then IF things turn out bad, you are ready for them. If they turn out good then you are able to probably do a job or two on the side to make some extra money - a win-win situation.

That would be my approach anyway.

It is very hard not to worry as that money helps me in my life. Surely they wouldn’t take it away from anyone or there would be a massive riot wouldn’t there?

It is very hard not to worry as that money helps me in my life. Surely they wouldn’t take it away from anyone or there would be a massive riot wouldn’t there?

Autisticlad98 said:

Surely they wouldn’t take it away from anyone or there would be a massive riot wouldn’t there?

If they took it away from those who have a challenge being out in public, who have challenges in socialising or who may have a fear of confrontation - these people are not likely to riot so are a low risk group to target for them.

The point I was making in my post was you cannot change what is going to happen, only prepare for the different eventualities. If you can do this you will feel more in control and be less impacted by whatever happens.

A wiser person than me once told me that worrying about something is about as useful as chewing gum really hard when trying to solve a difficult puzzle.

It consumes energy and gets you nowhere closer to the solution. It may even pull your fillings out if you are unlucky.