When I got back from holiday there was the usual pile of post on the doormat that needed sorting out. But in amongst the bills and the take away menus was an A4 brown envelope. Anyone receiving benefits knows that brown envelopes strike fear right into the very heart of you and this particular letter didn’t disappoint.
Oh joy of joy! It’s time for my PIP review!
PIP, or Personal Independence Payment, is a benefit paid out to anyone with a physical or mental disability, regardless of whether or not they’re in work. It’s designed to mitigate some of the expenses of being disabled in an ableist world. For example, if you’re unable to use public transport as a result of your disability you might need to get taxis to appointments or to the shops and obviously that costs more. So you use your PIP money to help with that.
But as is the case with any benefit you apply for the hoops you have to jump through are ridiculous. The forms you have to fill out are very long, repetitive and require you to disclose all your medical information. You have to talk about what it is you can’t do and the ways in which your illness or disability affects your life and I personally find it quite distressing. It’s like living the very worst parts of your life all over again and I hate it. I find it so emotionally draining that I have to get Hubby to help me and I can only do one or two questions a day otherwise I get completely overwhelmed.
Because this got delivered while we were away it meant that I only had 2 weeks to fill it out and post it back to them. For the first time ever I decided that I would get some help to fill it out as I’ve been feeling really crap since getting back from holiday. Physically I’m exhausted and I’m finding it hard to bounce back mentally from this last admission. So I made an appointment with an advisor at a local community centre that specialises in supporting claimants with their paperwork.
I went along to the appointment and straight away had major concerns. The document from the previous person was still up on the computer meaning I could read all about their medical issues and the difficulties they were facing. Instead of using blank template documents she used other peoples and then typed over their information! It really worried me that any information I disclosed would be saved to her computer and could then potentially be seen by goodness knows who. The other issue was that I was having to explain to her all about my medical conditions and how they affected me, correcting her when she spelt things wrong or made assumptions based on how I looked or maybe what she thought she knew about bowel disease.
And in that moment I realised that I was the best person to fill out that form because I was the expert on me. And that seeking help from someone that didn’t know me wasn’t going to make the process any easier. So I made my excuses and left.
Since then I’ve rang the DWP and requested an extension so I have more time in which to complete the form. They very graciously gave me another 14 days but I don’t know if I will get it done by then. I’m hoping that if I provide enough information in the review document I won’t get called in for an interview because I really don’t think I could deal with that right now. This illness touches so many different parts of my life it’s making sure I explain all that and the effects it has on my ability to do even basic everyday tasks. But when you see it all written down in black and white it’s soul destroying.
So this week I will be trying to get this form filled in. Wish me luck!
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