So with the badge someone sort of told me, Why don’t you just get one of those blue badges and I was like, Well I don’t know how to get on, and they go, You just go online and they give it ou, and I’m like, They just give it out? They don’t want to have like proof or anything and they go, No, it’s quite trustin, and I was like, Wow, that’s a firs, because everything now you have to have evidence of your disability and if you don’t have, like a PIP letter then you kind of aren’t treated as if you’ve got a disability even though you do, and I’m still waiting on my results for that.

Yeah, so I kind of put off applying for it for a very long time, and people were just like, You could get help here, you could get monetary help, which would allow you to pay for things like the chiropractor and therapy that you can’t afford and stuff and it will just give you that help with dealing, with managing your condition and it will help you pay for your prescription, and everything like that. And, so they were just, kept advising me and advising me and advising me and they were like, Jus, and then it got to the point I was like, You know, well I will tr.

And, so I applied for it and I’ve had a friend who’s got cerebral palsy helped me with it because she kind of understood how it works and stuff. So I filled out the thing and there was a point where my hand couldn’t write any more so she then took over, so there was a point in the application where my handwriting just changes because it’s no longer me. And it was like with the how my mental health affects working and my daily life, as well as how fibromyalgia affects my daily life.

So yeah, I mean I have a feeling that they’ve declined it because apparently it’s really difficult to be awarded PIP, but. I mean particularly at this moment in time it would be very, very helpful, and then when everything’s back to normal I can seek chiropractors and go back to the therapist and go back to my osteopath and everything like that. I don’t really, yeah, so it’s just a case of waiting and it should be any, any week now that I hear back.

And the first of all, when I was seeking benefits I thought I’d committed a murder. And, but I told everybody it’s all right for them getting their [smiles], their salaries, but I’ve got bills to pay as well which is very important.

Just coming back a bit, so you talked about earlier, you know, that it had been a bit of a difficulty with the benefits. Can you tell me a bit about that, what made it difficult?

My doctor.

What do you mean with your doctor?

My doctor was the main one. I’m, I wrote him a letter and I just said, it’s all right for you and your fantastic salary and your expenses. But I’ve got to pay the bills it’s really ludicrous that the way we’re behaving, even today, people are struggling. They’ve got to eat, they’ve got to pay the bills. I know, I’m not complaining, really. There’s people worse off than me.

Yeah, I’m on disability living allowance at the moment, but I’ve just been through the process, I had a home visit a fortnight ago, to go through PIP. That was stressful, I wasn’t sleep, and I still haven’t had a result, I still don’t know if I’m getting my benefit or not because I still, I don’t have the result.

That’s caused a lot of strain, a lot of stress, what I went through that, and I just, that has cause a lot, an awful lot of strain, and that, see situations like, like a stressful thing, that’s got a big impact on the fibromyalgia. Like if some, like if, an anxious time like that, and this has been going on since July when I first got the letter from DWP to say, Your DLA’s coming to an end, you’ve got to go through the PIP proces, and this is now November, still haven’t had a result. All that stress for it, and my mind goes away, What if, what if, what if My rational brain’s saying, They can see you’re ill, they can see your pain you’re i, and I’ve been on mobility since 1992, the irrational brain says, Well what if they take my car off me, I can’t stay her, all that. And that causes a big on, knock on effect, and when your anxiety takes over like that, I mean, it has a big impact on your pain levels, it definitely does.

The woman that was doing it was really, really lovely. I tried my best not to get emotional, like I did today, but unfortunately [laughs]. And then, and, so she asked me those questions, but I feel like some questions I should’ve worded differently, because she asked me a question and I gave like a quick answer rather than the long winded answer.

And then I had to do a physical thing, so she had, she had to check my mobility, and I’m relatively hypermobile because I was a gymnast when I was younger so I can like bend over and touch my toes with my legs straight, and that’s not, that doesn’t cause me any problem because my issue isn’t in my lower back, it’s in my upper back, arms, neck mostly and it does sometimes affect my legs.

But, so I was like I did that and I was like, I shouldn’t really have gone all the way down to the floor, I should’ve just gone almost ther, just in case she thinks, Oh, she’s absolutely fine with her mobilit, because of that one particular movement, but I was having a really bad pain day that day anyway, so after that, all the things like holding up my arms and stretching them and putting them behind my back,, she could see the physical pain on my face and she could see like the fact I was shaking with pain.

I was seeing my GP maybe every month, then I was still on the books for my, where I worked, but eventually after my time run out, six months, or, I had to leave my work. So then I had to try and go through the benefits system, which wasn’t that great. Originally I had a assessment and I was awarded 14 points but you needed 15 points, so I was, all I was getting was like £40 a week, but I appealed and somebody from the Citizens Advice Bureau, they helped me from my appeal and I won my appeal. So I was put back on to incapacity benefit, it was that at the time. So I had no more problems with the benefit system then.

How did you feel initially about you know, needing to go through the whole process?

It was, very stressful and it made your condition worse, and you felt if it was your word against the assessor’s word, then they write a report and it goes to the DWP decision maker and sort of they decide. So they don’t really get to see you, they just have to take the word of the person that did the assessment.

Yeah, it’s like, a personal independence
Payment.

payment thing, yeah, yeah, because that can help, especially if you’re not working and things like that, or even, I think even if, if you do work you’re able to claim that to get help, yeah.

I thought that was brilliant because I wasn’t aware of anything like that, so yeah, that was really helpful, and I did look into it and, and I have been successful. I went for, a review with a doctor there after I filled out the, well I went to Citizens Advice and they helped me fill out the form, and then, I had the assessment and I’ve been granted, I’ve been, I’ve got PIP now, which is, a great help. But no, I thought that was really, really helpful.

No, when I got, when I got the form, Facebook it was because a lot of the people on Facebook, the fibromyalgia group there, advise you to apply for it, and then, so I think I went on and I don’t know, I might’ve put on there that I’d received the form and they advised that I went to Citizens Advice, which I did do, and this gentleman went through it with me, which was quite embarrassing for some of the questions it’s quite, I don’t know if derogatory is the right word, but yeah, it’s not, it’s not a nice form.