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Agoraphobia

diana8
diana8 Community member Posts: 5 Listener
hi does anyone with agoraphobia understand why pip make you go for a face to face when you can’t leave the dam house.help.

Comments

  • Pippa_Alumni
    Pippa_Alumni Scope alumni Posts: 5,793 Disability Gamechanger
    Hi @diana8, have you considered requesting a home assessment? 
  • Topkitten
    Topkitten Community member Posts: 1,285 Pioneering
    Agoraphobia means different things to different people. The exact description is "A fear of panic attacks caused by the environment". Consequently many who suffer it are able to go out but have other difficulties. In my case I have a fear of strangers and strange places so, in theory I have had the same problem as you except that if someone I trusted was with me I could cope.

    If you cannot go out then contact them and request it be done at home which is what I will need to fo if it happens because I am now physically unable to go out.

    Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that some people with Agoraphobia CAN attend a f2f in their offices albeit with difficulty and I suspect that they just send a standard letter without bothering to check if the person can or cannot go out.

    TK
    "I'm on the wrong side of heaven and the righteous side of hell" - from Wrong side of heaven by Five Finger Death Punch.
  • diana8
    diana8 Community member Posts: 5 Listener
    Thanks for your advice TK,well last year even after letters off my doctor and psychotherapist pip still would not back down,my friend took me I’d already drank a large glass of wine,I had bad stomach pains due to the anxiety,had my medical which to my amazement I failed,I then appealed to the courts with a paper hearing and eventually won, I was awarded the low mobility rate,so now here we go I’ve had to fill another medical form out and I’m worried sick I’m going to have to go through all this again,agoraphobia is a debilitating illness,these people don’t have a clue.diana.
  • axwy62
    axwy62 Community member Posts: 142 Pioneering
    In my experience, none of the assessment providers ever read, never mind take notice of, any of the information in the box headed 'help you might need to attend an assessment', hence after 10 years of these assessments there are still people being asked to attend assessment centres which they cannot even get into, assuming they can go out in the first place.
    My strategy is now to tape a piece of paper with 'I can't get to/get into any of the assessment centres within 45 miles of my home. Please DO NOT ask me to do so again.' over the bits they do read - name etc, list of conditions. Having now been asked to attend a centre I can't physically get to three times before, this last time they just did a home assessment without arguing.
  • diana8
    diana8 Community member Posts: 5 Listener
    Thanks for your comment axwy62, it’s nice to hear what other people have gone through.

Brightness