Forced to attend PIP f2f with agoraphobia?

My MP secured me a home visit Wobblin but I don't think I will be able to cope with one of those in future because she told a pack of lies

Oh, one final quick question, Gordon (at least for now!):

While failing to let them know I won't be attending might not impact on making another PIP claim later, would it have any detrimental effect on my current ongoing ESA award? Would they try and stop that?

I suppose I'm willing to be polite and let them know I won't be going on the day, if there's any danger to my ESA award (seeing as that's going to have to keep me alive now for a few months).

Thanks again.

Ellen wrote: Are you under the care of a community mental health team or community psychiatrist for your SA and agoraphobia? I've found that a letter from a psych dr has more clout/impact than a GP.

I was under the care of my CMHT and had a fantastic CPN (who at one point quite literally saved my life), but incredibly they discharged me because - wait for it - 'they could no longer help me'. They were essentially saying that I'm incurable. My GP has expressed her own dissatisfaction with their final report and offered the opinion - off the record, naturally - that discharging me was much more likely down to funding cuts in the service than any diagnostic decision. My GP is great though and is trying to get me referred back to them, or anyone who will offer me treatment.

Asbo wrote: My MP secured me a home visit Wobblin but I don't think I will be able to cope with one of those in future because she told a pack of lies

Yeah, I'm prepared for them to lie, but for me the difference between a home visit and attending at one of their centres is the difference between just being very uncomfortable with them being in my own home and leaping through a glass window in an unfamiliar office block through sheer panic.

Thanks Gordon, I think I'll do that.

"Yeah, I'm prepared for them to lie, but for me the difference between a home visit and attending at one of their centres is the difference between just being very uncomfortable with them being in my own home and leaping through a glass window in an unfamiliar office block through sheer panic."

Me too, Wobblin. I just couldn't go to an assessment centre. But having a home visit the assessor just didn't see the extreme anxiety I felt beforehand or the awful week I'd had running up to the home assessment or being in bed afterwards for a week, succumbing to a debilitating virus. My GP recommended a paper assessment and another family member who's just having her DLA migration to PIP (also agoraphobic) was given a phone number by DWP re paper based assessments. They said that it depended on the condition e.g. learning difficulties or autism etc. Well I would agree that the people who need a paper based assessment most of all are those who suffer from sever anxiety. I mean, it's like making people in wheelchairs, leave them behind and have to walk. Oh hang on, yes, some of the assessment centres did this in the past. But I suggest you write to your MP and ask her or him to contact Amber Rudd and ask why aren't people with severe anxiety and agoraphobia flagged up as needing a paper assessment? PIP is about the impact of your disability and not the disability itself anyway, so why do they then list certain disabilities for an exemption? I mean my GP recommended one for me and she knows me best. She said it would be detrimental to my health if not and she was right.