Thank you, that all makes sense. My daughter takes me shopping, I sit in the cafe while she gets the shopping. It gets me out, otherwise I would get deliveries and not get out much. . It takes a day to recover from doing that. He did get that right in his report. They said the award is based on how I am for 50% of the time. Not sure how they have worked that out.
PTSD, anxiety do not fit the descriptors apparently. I can go to a familiar place, but can't go to places I don't know well alone. I panic. I tried once, about a year ago. My daughter put me on a train. I got off at the wrong stop. It was a small station with no cafe and a metal seat, it was winter and very cold. . I didn't know what to do and. A guard came to help, and told me the next train was 2 hours. I just froze, I didn't know the place. I was shaking and sweating. He suggested getting a taxi, there was one outside. I got the taxi and went back home and it cost a fortune. I was as scared in the taxi but it was warm. I was sobbing as I told the assessor. He reported that I had got off the train at the wrong station but got myself into a taxi so was unlikely to have been OPD. I cried when I told him how I had a panic attack and couldn't breathe in a car park, and when I was with friends and couldn't move when a crowd of people came down a flight of stairs. I was thrown down a flight of stairs by a gang of youths when I was pregnant and the terror was as real as it was when it happened. My friends looked after me. That apparently doesn't fit the descriptors. I am thinking that maybe I should not try and push the MH and just go for the physical limitations. It is shocking that mental health is treated this way, I feel so sorry for people who are trying to claim for MH. Thankfully I got the enhanced award for getting about.
