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.
The trick is to idea-deflect. NEVER mention good days, always focus on the bad.
I’m sorry man, I feel for you, it’s not easy to complete that application, it is not easy to separate the person from the condition. I hope you appeal.
If you do appeal, it may be worth trying to separate the psychological and behavioural, from the root cause. As in the eyes of the assessor, your feelings and manifested behaviours, are both items that can be changed. It is the neurological-stuff that will be applying the points.
The solution to building a case for your claim, is to base it on the life-long and permanent risks that your condition does, will, and has presented. Then you can layer on psychological-distress and manifested-behaviours, over that foundation, if you still need to.
Again I feel for you, it is does no good to have your psyche commodified in that way, even if you get awarded PIP it’s hard not to feel a-little cheapened by the process of self-deprecation. But you've just got to try to keep that stuff in the periphery of your mind, because you’ll be able to build on yourself once to bureaucracy is done, I hope you take on an appeal with neurology primarily in mind. See if you can’t talk with CAB as well..