The inews website carries a story of someone struggling with ME/CFS who made a successful application for the PIP benefit and tells of the difference it has made to her life.
Extracts
I first started my claim back in February this year. It is a simple process, you just give your name, national insurance number and a few other personal titbits. A form swiftly follows for you to fill out in detail about your disability and how it affects you. You have a month to fill it in and return it.
A month may sound like a long time, but filling out the form for me was like a form of therapy. I had to write down everything I can’t do for myself anymore, and how hard basic things like washing my hair, or draining a saucepan can be.
Writing it all down was cathartic but also very upsetting. I have twin daughters who are about to turn five. Writing everything down made me feel so desperately sad that I have been too tired to do many fun things with them.
The benefit helps massively for simple things such as having a cleaner to help in the house or getting the windows cleaned. Despite the long wait to hear I was successful, the good thing is you get backdated payments from the time you applied. I got my payments backdated to February, so I had a lump sum of just shy of £2,000 paid to me in early September. PIP payments are all tax-free.