Need to vent, sorry - PIP Assessment appointment

Hi, I'm new here.

Firstly, I'm really sorry if I accidentally say the wrong thing or break a rule or mess up somehow. It is not intentional.

I just wanted to vent if that's okay as I'm very upset.

I had my PIP face to face assessment earlier today. My advocate from the local autism charity came with me and he was great.

The assessor seemed to completely skip over certain descriptors, e.g. for Communication she said "well, you can talk" and that was it for that topic! My advocate challenged her but she just snapped at him and then said we could make a complaint if we weren't happy with her.

She also kept snapping at me to slow down my speech. I explained repeatedly that I couldn't and said I was sorry (I have a speech issue called Cluttering, diagnosed) but she just ignored me and re-asked the same question which confused me.

She also said I was functioning too well (what does that even mean?) and when my advocate challenged this she just said "well, that's all the DWP care about, they don't want to know any more".

I feel very dismissed and misrepresented and like I failed.

I suspect it is likely I'll have to appeal and possibly go to tribunal if I want to try to get any award (I currently get DLA and that took a tribunal too).

I have to say that from this experience I don't feel that this assessor (or indeed much of the PIP process so far) is set up to consider autistics with accompanying mental illness (and other stuff too that she just dismissed).

Sorry again to vent, I just needed to get that out as I have no-one to talk to.

Thanks, sorry.

Hi aliengirl,

Welcome to the forum, you might want to have a look at the following FAQ which explain where everything is

Welcome to Benefits and Work

I am sorry that you are going through this and finding it so stressful

May I suggest that you bookmark/favourite this on your web browser now so that you can find it easily in future? This will allow you to return with further comments or questions about your PIP without having to start a new topic each time. We ask members to keep everything relating to the same claim in one topic as it helps us enormously - and I hope you will find it useful too