Mandatory Reconsideration

i_like_cats

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81958736#Comment_81958736

Thanks everyone for all your responses!

Regarding overwhelming psychological difficulty in travelling somewhere, I understand the bar is very high, and the fact that I can walk fine may stop me getting points here. Although it's absolutely the truth that my binge eating kicks in when I go into a noisy environment, whether that's a nearby market town or the big town centre. I get on the sugar rollercoaster to numb myself, and then am not really in control of it. (It's not so much 'I have a coffee and cake when I go into town', more 'And then I'm wolfing 250g of fudge, followed by 3 ice-creams', etc. This connects to binge-spending and not really being able to budget as I have this imperative to 'fix' my mood/feelings immediately regardless of cost / whether it's on a card. (I used to go to eating disorder recovery groups though haven't since before Covid.) These binges do NOT happen on the rare occasions I've gone to those places with my parent or parents, so perhaps it could in fact be argued I need someone with me to avoid OPD.

Regarding transport, along with my personal difficulties, it's not safe to ride a bike around here due to narrow roads, aggressive drivers, and no cycle paths. That's irrelevant for the purposes of a PIP claim, I know. Based on the past couple of years I ride a bike maybe 5-6 times a year, short journeys in summer to the train station or supermarket.

As I said I have zero hearing in one ear, and have high frequency hearing loss in the other (which affects speech, but not traffic). I wear a CROS-AID device which acts as a microphone on the deaf ear, sending sound over to the hearing ear. That's generally useful but doesn't solve the issue I have around sound localisation. I don't experience sounds in space in anything but a very broad way. My judgement of sound / distance / location is absent or askew. I can't rely on hearing to know where vehicles are around me, or if there is an emergency vehicle coming from behind.

I know that people who are totally deaf can still be issued driving licenses, but for me my hearing loss compounds with my anxiety and tendency to space out / withdraw from my surroundings into my head. So just can't imagine it being possible. I actually had 40 lessons in the mid-1990s but was never considered ready for the test, then 50 in 2024-5 before failing heavily, & can't imagine taking it again.

I think it will be useful to make clearer how my issues are not new ones, & also the extent & seriousness of the therapies and treatments which I had before, in years gone by, which did help to some degree. But I am poor at monitoring my own declining state or taking actions to turn the battleship round.

I know lots of people these days are 'dissociated' if that means that what's happening on their devices is more real than what's going on around them, and they are not really able to participate in the flesh-and-blood possibilities of life around them (or they're depressed because they feel that life offers few possibilities, so they've sort of involuntarily given up and retreated to the virtual). Also as a previous poster stated, lots of people are terrible with money and spend money they haven't got, even if they are able to function normally to a high level in many other ways. But I think my issues are more serious / long running than that.

My ability to interact with others & to manage my conditon/s may be stronger points for me to argue as both are really limited. I understand it's not the job of the PIP adjudicators to look for reasons to give it to you, but from the outside it just seems obvious I have a very limited life and there has to be something up! But obvious it comes down to whether it fits their categories and can be expressed in terms that are meaningful to them.

Incidentally there's a history of dementia/Alzheimers on one side of my family and I do suspect, darkly, that my tendency towards rumination and fixating on ancient or future regrets, to the exclusion of the day in front of me, may be an early indicator of that predisposition lurking in me, too. Anyway, it's clear I need to articulate the anxiety side better.

I just heard I have a face-to-face work capability assessment coming up, too, for UC, so that will be another thing I should really prepare for, as obviously I shouldn't hope to be understood on the terms I want to be if I've not made the case.

peteuk

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81958802#Comment_81958802

As far as PIP is concerned you do not have OPD, OPD is not about travelling it’s about leaving the house. You binge eat because of the noise when out, but you can leave the house. Because you’ve had no binge eating treatment since 2019, it will go against you.

You need to read and fully understand each activity and it’s discriptors before you challenge your outcome.

teaselMay

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81959057#Comment_81959057

What's OPD in this context please?

peteuk

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81959088#Comment_81959088

overwhelming psychological distress is noted in two discriptors for the activity of planning a journey.

Descriptor B (4 points): Needs prompting to be able to undertake any journey to avoid overwhelming psychological distress to the claimant

Descriptor E (10 points): Cannot undertake any journey because it would cause overwhelming psychological distress to the claimant

OPD means distress related to a mental health condition or intellectual or cognitive impairment resulting in a severe anxiety state in which the symptoms are so severe that the person cannot undertake a journey without being overwhelmed. The threshold is a very high one - a claimant who is anxious, worried or emotional does not meet it.

The threshold is a very high one - a claimant who, without prompting, would be left feeling anxious, worried or emotional does not meet it. OPD may occur in conditions such as generalised anxiety disorder, panic disorder, dementia or agoraphobia.

Any journey’ means that in order to satisfy the descriptor on a day the person must require prompting when undertaking every single journey on that day to avoid 

If the person can manage to leave the home to make a journey once without prompting then on that day the descriptor is not satisfied. For example, a claimant who can make visits to the local shop or collect their children from school without prompting on most days will not satisfy this descriptor, even if they’re unable to undertake other journeys without prompting during the same day

teaselMay

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81959127#Comment_81959127

Thanks, couldn't make the acronym make sense, more coffee