Cabbie21
If someone’s anxiety is so overwhelming that they have panic attacks when they try to go out of their front door, or freeze with panic whilst trying to cross a road, they are not fit to work. If someone is so wracked with pain that they cannot think straight, they are not going to hold down a job. Or someone, perhaps with long covid, is very soon exhausted by trying to live a normal life and has to give up. It is easy for others who have not walked in their shoes to be judgemental.
Mental illness and pain are not immediately visible or obvious. Some are able to work through it, but for others it is totally debilitating. Unfortunately the latter are not always successful in getting the disability benefits they need. Those I have helped eg with PIP forms are all genuine applicants. Too many people have to wait months to go to Tribunal to get the award they deserve. If someone clearly does not qualify, I have advised them against applying.
The system does not work as it should, and yes, there are some claimants who do not merit an award, but it is not easy to jump through all the hoops. Many people give up. I believe there are more people who qualify for benefits who do not apply, eg for Pension Credit, or who fail to be awarded PIP, than there are fraudulent claims. The system does not need to be made any harder to navigate.
Cabbie21
If someone’s anxiety is so overwhelming that they have panic attacks when they try to go out of their front door, or freeze with panic whilst trying to cross a road, they are not fit to work.
No one Cabbie - but no-one can know the horror of a full-on panic attack unless they have experienced.
I have only experienced it once in my life. It came completely out of the blue. Yes, I was under duress and depressed - but coping.
I have never known anything so frightening. I was shopping in a small supermarket with my mother in a little village somewhere in Lincolnshire musing over the various items on display with her when, from nowhere, came this completely overwhelming sense of fear and dread. It completely engulfed me and I broke out in a terrible sweat, the room span, I thought I was about to faint, and I could feel my heart pounding in my ears. My mother, who was an SRN, thought I was having a heart attack at first. I ran out of the shop in blind panic and fear and just stood there frozen to the spot, shaking and trembling. I felt so afraid - but of what, I had no idea... I was literally panic-stricken. And the worst thing was that I had no control over it at all.
I truly believe that unless you experience it, you cannot possibly understand how utterly debilitating it is, nor that you cannot control it.
For a long time afterward I lived in fear of having another attack - which I never did. There is no way anyone could work under those circumstances. I'm tough and always fight against illness, pain, etc... but that would have floored me.
... because, you cannot control it. You can't talk yourself out of it, or rationalise it away. I remember how my body - legs in particular, became almost paralysed, I was, literally paralysed with fear.
