Worried after phone assessment

Rin1472

Hi everyone,

 I’ve lurked for a long time, but never posted. I have severe mental health issues, disordered eating, autism and medicated ADHD. This was my first time applying for PIP.

It was incredibly difficult discussing the difficulties I have, but at the end the assessor said DWP would be more concerned about my mental state than anything physical. I understand my mental state is concerning, but I’m so worried now. In all my time scrolling these forums, I’ve not come across someone who has had the assessor indicate this. She said DWP might want to share information with my GP. 

I have two small children, and I fight on for them alone. My mind likes to catasrophise. It’s throwing me images of my children being taken away. Why do they make you sit there and tell them all your issues anyway? Why is it fair that I need to verbally back up the medical documents I sent to them as evidence? I suffered severe childhood trauma, including my mums suicide when I was 4. It seems so unfair that I had to bring back so much trauma while someone madly typed on a computer in the background.

 The assessor sounded lovely, but at the same time it felt so wrong that she just sat there typing as I spilled out my broken soul. I feel shaken, anxious and worried. :-( 

Alex_Alumni

Hello there @Rin1472 and well done for reaching out this evening, welcome to the community

Thank for being so open about how you've been feeling lately, I'm sorry the assessment has caused you distress. Where the assessor mentioned potentially sharing information with your GP, this is a standard part of the safeguarding procedure, to help ensure you're getting access to the right help and support. 

It can feel very stressful talking about our conditions to people we don't know, particularly when they bring up trauma we've experienced, even if it's unintentionally done. We'd like to support you as much as we can with how this has made you feel, so keep an eye out for an email from community@scope.org.uk with more information. 

Please know that you are welcome to reach out for support here on the community, that you are worthy of this support, and that we are here to listen. If we can help with anything in the meantime, let us know.

Alex 

poppy123456

This is all part of the safe guarding rules they have and rightly so. Just think about it for one minute, if something happened to you after your assessment and the assessor did nothing at all and didn't pass on the information to your GP then this would be terrible.

You won't have your children taken away from you at all, so please don't worry about that.