Benefits form 'did not care' about poor mental health
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Billie Gray fears she will end up homeless or dead if the assessment find her fit for work and stops her benefits.
The 29-year-old who has post traumatic stress disorder, severe anxiety disorder, depression, an acute health anxiety disorder, and alopecia, believed to be stress-related, said the thought of losing her benefits was leaving her with suicidal thoughts.
She said she "doesn’t trust the system" and believes too many people who are genuinely mentally ill are being denied benefits and put back into work.
She spent Thursday afternoon at the Citizens Advice Bureau filling out a fitness for work form the Department for Work and Pensions.
She said: "I went to the Citizens Advice Bureau yesterday to fill out the form and it’s just as I thought, there was not one single question about mental illness in it. It was all about my physical health. Very disheartening. But I’m so glad the Inverness Courier is helping to get the word out, this has made me feel like I’m being proactive."
Billie, who has not worked since a mental breakdown four years ago, fears the review will brand her well enough to go back to work and "push her over the edge".
"I’ve never had suicidal thoughts before but it feels like I’m losing the will to live," she said.
A spokeswoman for the DWP expressed concern for Billie’s wellbeing and urged her to get in touch. She said the assessment was to make sure ensure that people get the level of support that they need "rather than just writing them off on sickness benefits as happened in the past".
Billie stays in supported accommodation in the city but hopes to secure her own tenancy and although hopeful that with extra support she can get well and return to a normal routine, she strongly believes going back to work right now is not an option.
"If I could work I would," she said. "I’d give my right arm not to feel the way I do. But I can hardly go out of the house unless it’s over to my mother’s, A 10-minute walk will sometimes give me a panic attack – I’m holding my breath and people in the street are watching me and wondering what’s wrong with me."
Billie’s story was highlighted by the Inverness Courier on Friday and posted onto the website.
Online comments were mixed.
One reader’s message said: "This women has mental health issues which employment would certainly help - even volunteering in Oxfam - as it gets her out of the house and ending a closed cycle on inward reflection and thought."
Someone else posted: "Mental health can be hugely debilitating. It can often feel like a mountain needs climbing before achieving something as simple (to others) like getting a job. Someone suffering mental health does not equate them to being a "benefit cheat" or lazy."
