I genuinely cannot take the endless battle with the government to be able to afford to live.
I was diagnosed with Asperger’s in January 2020 and found out about PIP around October the same year.
I applied, was rejected because I didn’t know the process but the woman lied in her report about my medication and the fact that i didn’t ask questions (even though i did) so I won my appeal.
I never actually saw the points they awarded me, I was just happy to have some money to live on.
a year later I needed a copy of my PIP point breakdown for something and I noticed I’d still not been marked correctly, so I asked them to reevaluate. I also developed long covid in this time.
they did an unplanned intervention and have now decided that I’m no longer entitled to pip, despite my condition worsening.
the most frustrating thing is the assessor took the notes and purely ignored the marking criteria.the assessment notes literally state that I have sensory issues with water so I require multiple Prompting to force me in, i struggle to remember to change clothes without prompting and dress appropriately, I don’t eat without prompting etc. they acknowledge that I hyperfixate and neglect everything else.
I do not have the notion in my brain to do anything outside of my fixation.
I also am still suffering from long covid. I struggle to breathe on one side of my chest, my brain is all over the place and my memory is awful. I’m also exhausted by the smallest things. I have good days and bad days (or weeks).
the assessor has also stated that I only receive support from my gp, when I know for a fact that I told her that I speak to my gp, the mental health lady at my gp, the long covid clinic who in turn referred me to the crisis team. I mentioned that I speak to SCOPE and that I have a social worker currently being assigned to me too.
The crisis team sent a note to my gp to request my medication from the pharmacy in blister packs because of my memory issues. That’s noted but no points for help with managing therapies. They said I have medication that I stated helps me, but I rarely take it due to memory issues so it doesn’t help at all. The doctor is aware, he says I need to work on consistency. They then go onto say I receive no anxiety medication?
they say that I have no support for long covid but I told her that I’d recently been booked in for blood tests for long covid but fainted during them, I’ve been referred to a consultant on Christmas Eve but no mention of that either. They’ve said no mention of breathlessness and although anxiety was noted there was no signs of psychological distress. I’ve not been able to stop thinking about the assessment since then, I’ve called them multiple times to say I have extra evidence (mainly my long covid letter from the specialist nurse) and that I want my social worker involved last week and they said I had up to 8 weeks to send it in still. I received the decision to remove my pip today.
the thing that gets me most is that they say that I had a good rapport with the assessor but I felt like she was quite intimidating on the phone. I remember her getting frustrated with me a lot.
The government is going to push me to kill myself because I can’t handle the stress of their obvious desire to prevent people who are struggling from getting help. I couldn’t afford to live in the first place and now my pip is gone.
I know I will win the mandatory reconsideration because they’ve completely disregarded everything in the notes, but that’s another month of not being able to afford to eat and the mental anguish that comes along with it. I can’t take it any more.
