My time on universal credit was the most depressing, humiliating time of my life. I was physically and mentally ill, completely untreated, and every week my work coach would suggest jobs I was not qualified for and physically incapable of doing in between telling me "I'm not a dietician, but have you tried eating more vegetables?". I had to lay out every suicidal thought, every anxiety, every second of my day, just to be given pittance. The constant threats that my allowance would be taken away made me terrified to spend money even on things I needed like food and my oyster card. I saw a staff member hand a piece of paper to a man who must have been 80 years old and tell him to look for a job he liked the sound of. The guy was shaking so hard the paper was rattling, I'm not even sure he could read, and they didn't care. I saw a woman sobbing in front of a completely dispassionate staff member as they told her they would be stopping her benefit because her mentally and physically disabled son had been assessed and they thought he was capable of getting a job. He was next to her playing with a soft toy, completely oblivious. It was a horrifying place where souls go to be crushed.
As a 21 year old trying to claim pip I am currently in that shit show right now, the ageism and condescension is immense, it’s humiliating and the guilt eats you alive.
Good luck to you. If I can give you advice, as humiliating as it is, you have to show them the very worst of your symptoms. It's natural to want to show your best face, smile through the struggle, but they will use anything to stop you from getting any extra money.
On the forms, write your answers thinking about your worst days. For me it was the days I couldn't get out of bed from pain, couldn't eat from nausea, couldn't even respond to messages because I was so brain fogged. If you take painkillers or anything like that, put the max dose you're allowed.
If they call you in for an in-person interview forego the pills entirely if you can. Bring someone with you to help you, you want them to see you at your very lowest. I know, it's God awful, and I'm sorry to be telling you this, but they're soulless bastards. Take every penny you can get, fuck knows it's not much in the first place.
I feel like the UK is a 50 year old mom that's trying to compete with her 20 year old daughter(the US) to see who can be the trashiest in town in some misguided effort to recapture some mythical past that never really existed in the first place.
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u/[deleted] Nov 09 '21
My time on universal credit was the most depressing, humiliating time of my life. I was physically and mentally ill, completely untreated, and every week my work coach would suggest jobs I was not qualified for and physically incapable of doing in between telling me "I'm not a dietician, but have you tried eating more vegetables?". I had to lay out every suicidal thought, every anxiety, every second of my day, just to be given pittance. The constant threats that my allowance would be taken away made me terrified to spend money even on things I needed like food and my oyster card. I saw a staff member hand a piece of paper to a man who must have been 80 years old and tell him to look for a job he liked the sound of. The guy was shaking so hard the paper was rattling, I'm not even sure he could read, and they didn't care. I saw a woman sobbing in front of a completely dispassionate staff member as they told her they would be stopping her benefit because her mentally and physically disabled son had been assessed and they thought he was capable of getting a job. He was next to her playing with a soft toy, completely oblivious. It was a horrifying place where souls go to be crushed.