Published on 12, July, 2020
I really must vent, today I received my PIP decision.
I request a telephone assessment due to some of my perhaps shared autistic traits, in the assessment I divulged the most intimate aspects of my life, how my Autism effects my life in the most detrimental way.
I explained about my Dyslexia, Dyspraxia and my overwhelming anxiety and stress that damages my health and life in general.
I must say this assessment left me feeling very vulnerable, something I rarely admit to being, I have spent my adult life coping as best I can mimicking NT life and accepted norms to the best of my abilities.
Being at the age I am now it is detrimental to my health and well-being to continue as I have, which quite honestly dispite my best efforts has left me penniless and dependent.
So I plucked up the courage for the second time and request a personal independence Payment from the DWP.
The letter I received from the DWP today left me shaking with rage not just because I was rejected but for how they rejected me.
In the most intentional way, what I had communicated had been ignored or twisted.
With a grand total of 2 points for the entire assessment, I truly feel dehumanised and dismissed by the whole thing.
This is now exactly my situation as of opening my letter today. Two points only, after one of the most exhausting and forensic divulgences of my day to day I’ve ever had to go through. Particularly hurtful are the following two statements:
1. ‘you work full time and seldom take a sick day’ (this despite all the PIP literature saying that working or not doesn’t affect the assessment either way)
2. ‘You communicate effectively and articulately’ I expressed even in the phone call itself concern that that very fact would be misinterpreted to mean something it doesn’t about how much I struggle.
Even though I thought I’d prepared myself for the abusive gaslighting that at least round one of this process would deliver to my door, I’m not sure anything can truly prepare one guy or the bluntness of the ‘you said x but I believe y’ bald statements that comprise the final write-up. I will be resting up for the rest of Christmas (none of the advice lines I tried today are open until new year anyway) and then resuming the struggle via the mandatory appeal process. That will apparently require additional evidence, so I’ll have to ask my parents to write a bluntly honest letter about their adult son’s financial mismanagements and general square peg/round hole-ness. All very uncomfortable but necessary if I’m not to just roll over and accept being called an imposter.
Anyway, rant over -sorry! A question though if anyone can please help: is it advisable to point out the contradiction addressed in point one above? That is point out that they have cited as a reason for withholding points a fact (that I work) that all the PIP literature said would be neither here nor there in tens of a decision? It feels like a blatantly illegal move flaunted at me in black and white. Appalling really.
Yes i would say to draw their attention to the contradiction. Work could be considered an essential task to provide some wellness, but not without its challenges. Like me having a dog, she keeps me going, but i have to get out of bed, i would prefer nit to, but the benefits outweigh the negative impact. What we do is nit without suffering but we are intelligent enough to recognise the benefits. Explain this in your appeal letter x