I'm ****, have COPD, can't walk now and having recently had the call to switch from DLA to PIP, I'm currently waiting to hear what the assessors made of my application! With DLA I had Higher Mobility for many years and Middle rate Care for 4 or 5 years.
When I lost the ability to walk a couple of years ago I reckoned I'd qualify for Higher Rate Care, but that would have meant switching to PIP, and given the reputation that process had, I felt it wasn't worth the risk. I might end up worse off, and didn't feel up to coping with all the stress and anxiety of rejection, appealing, maybe tribunal - and still getting nowhere. So I did nothing.
Now, after 6 weeks (I got two extensions) of struggling with their carefully worded and misleading form, I'm angry. Angry at the tricks they pull to cheat people, the debilitating fear and panic they create in people, angry at the stress and anxiety they caused me for 2 months of my life, and I'm livid at the government's and the oft-replaced minister's statements that everything is working perfectly. If that is so, then they planned to bully claimants, to lie, cheat and cause so much stress and anxiety as to make already vulnerable people more Ill than they already were - and beyond, as suicides have proved.
The relief I felt when my form went in was enormous. Now it's invigorating, and I'm spoiling for a fight, so if they reject my claim I'm ready for them. I'll enjoy appealing, a tribunal, whatever it takes. I'm angry at myself too, for allowing their practices to intimidate me into foregoing 2 years of higher benefits.
Well, that's me - I think that's enough for an introduction
