Upcoming changes to benefits

My guess this could take years, and will end up getting wattered down before they become law.

I’m sorry if it came over as though I was/was trying to initiate infighting in any way (if that was directed at me.) That absolutely wasn’t my intention and I did say in my comment that we need to stick together, regardless of our disabilities, whether physical or mental or both.
The thing is, if these “young idiots” are posting saying they have PIP, then their conditions must be severe enough to be awarded, because we all know how much of a struggle that can be! I’m fairly young (25, first applied aged 22, awarded at 23) for mental illnesses and I felt as though it took until the tribunal for anyone to take me seriously. So it does bug me when people (no one here, but politicians) talk about all these young people being on PIP for “mental health issues” when it is a significant and catastrophic thing.
You don’t belong in the bin, and please don’t let these bstards try and convince you otherwise. It sounds really difficult to have all the physical AND mental conditions you have, and I hope you have an adequate support system and medical input. You deserve that, and you not only deserve but have a RIGHT to live the best life you can. These out of touch, idiotic politicians will never understand. But we do.

Again I’m sorry if my comment came over as dismissive or diminishing — I just think it’s important for the wider public to stand up for those of us with invisible disabilities too, and I’m sick of mental illness not being taken seriously by people in power. They could not live a DAY in our brains. They just couldn’t. And if they managed, I have no doubt that their attitudes would be significantly different!

We need to stand together. They want us to be divided. And if they focus on the mentally ill, next they’ll come for the physically ill who have some degree of capacity, and so on until everyone is stripped.

We’re in this together!

She definitely needs to be reminded that the most deprived constituencies are overwhelmingly Labour ones. Hammer the poor is rarely a popular policy with poor people, regardless of what a poll in the Daily Mail told them.

Think you might have intended to use someone else's quote there!

Please, please don’t apologise! You didn’t say anything wrong at all, and your sense of humour is great ;)

I’m autistic so I struggle to read tone, but I absolutely wasn’t trying to be rude there and I’m so sorry if it came across that way! I’m just so incandescently angry with this government and their spineless MPs (bar the ones who are actually giving an F about our rights to exist.) And I’m tired of mental illnesses being diminished in general. But I know that’s not what you were doing and again I’m so sorry if it came over like I was insinuating you were!

I think a lot of it is also exploitation by the media. I keep seeing articles staying nonsense like “mum of six claims £3k in benefits a month is NOT ENOUGH” when in reality it’s a vulnerable disabled person who is genuinely struggling (and is likely on that much from enhanced PIP, being in a couple, having kids etc.) But the media take advantage of these people who have real concerns and publish them with the intent of making them seem like scroungers wasting hard earned tax. And then folk see these headlines and decide that mindset is true and they’re personally paying us to sit about watching tv all day (which is sometimes how I spend the day, because I’m too fatigued to do anything else or my paranoia is too bad to leave the house, and believe me I’d rather be up and about!)

Sorry for that slightly off topic rant! I also just wanted to say that you have been through so much, and I’m so sorry to hear that. Your experiences and illnesses are valid, and I know that’s a given and also sounds cliched but I feel like sometimes it’s good to be reminded, even if by a stranger, considering everything we’re hearing about ourselves right now. You are stronger than these weak-willed cowardly politicians ever will be! We all are. We should never forget or doubt that.