MR stage and a big old rant about PIP!

luckyscope
luckyscope Community member Posts: 2 Listener
Hi everyone, hope you are all doing well! I am hoping someone can help me as I'm feeling very stressed about this situation.

I have Bipolar type 1 and PTSD. This impacts my daily living greatly, sometimes I am mentally ok but the majority of the time I'm either severly depressed and unable to do much or im on a high and on top of the world but in a danger to myself kind of way. I am highly medicated now and in intense therapy which is hugely helpful and I'm now having longer periods of being stable.

Anyway, my mental health worker applied for PIP for me back in December 2020. I had a telephone interview which was just awful, I was actually on one of my highs at the time so I was extremely chatty and talking absolute rubbish that didn't make much sense and my mental health worker was in the call and was correcting and explaining everything to him, he made a couple of very judgey comments during the call about myself so I knew the outcome wasn't going to be good. In the end I received 0 points for both daily living and mobility. Some of the reasons given were that I was able to go to the hospital alone after having a baby. (I had just given birth unexpectedly at home and had to deliver my baby alone) paramedics took me to the hospital after they arrived because me and baby were unwell, this went against me in the report. Also went against me because i received GCSEs at school. My illness started years after I had left school so irrelevant really. Another reason, I used to medicate myself before I was diagnosed with alcohol to feel better, apparently because I am a recovered alcoholic and not an alcoholic anymore that this doesn't help my case either. Another reason being that social services are not involved with my child (they were involved but because I took all the steps possible to ensure her safety when I do get unwell they are not involved now). Also because i sounded fine on the phone and spoke. And lastly the one that really upset me was that because there had been no suicide attempts since I was pregnant so I am cured and doing fine/lying. 
I have worked so so hard to get to where I am today and I feel like its just been thrown in my face. I have genuine struggles, my mum pretty much lives with me when my partner is at work to help me with everything and when I do get sick she has my child full time until I am better, I pay full time nursery fees so she has somewhere fun and stable to be during the days as the majority of the time i just cannot do it. On my depressed days I will just sit in a dark room and not do anything on my high days im a car crash and a danger to myself.

Im sorry for the rant I am just so angry every time i think about it. 

So anyway my mental health worker sent out my mandatory reconsideration, ive waited 6 weeks and not heard a thing, just rang them to see what is going on and they've told me they haven't recieved it. Im devastated. This is never ending and torture having to go through things over and over again and its just making me ill. I guess I just needed to get this off my chest somewhere. Is it always this stressful? Do they always twist everything you say to go against you? Is 6 weeks now to late for a MR? I dont know what to do next?!
Thankyou and sorry again for the rant.

Comments

  • janer1967
    janer1967 Community member Posts: 21,922 Championing
    Hi and welcome to the community 

    Don't apologise for the rant that's perfectly fine we all understand the stress pip process can be 

    You can still put in a mr they say within 1 month but you can actually put it in within 13 months if good reason for delay and you would j6st say you sent one and not received 

    They may still get it as there are huge backlogs the post goes to a mailing centre and has to be scanned on the system before it shows as recieved and this can take weeks 

    However I would suggest putting in another one 

    But before you do get some expert advice from welfare rights and help with it for your best chance of success 

    Mr success rate is quite low so don't be surprised if there is no change you can then go to tribunal which has a much greater success rate