Disability benefits for aspergers?

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I did write that on the forms.

There are several problems with the forms and process.

1) They are not backreferenced. Each form is read like a new claim. No previous information is referred to. This cuts both ways, as not only does the claimant have to make sure that he supplies exactly the same details as the last time, he will be placed under the scrutiny of a different decision making officer. The DWP have no real way to know if your claim has changed in a fraudulent manner or not, barring accident. You could claim AS in one form, then three years later claim polio and diptheria, and they wouldnt have a clue.

2) The forms are bent more towards physical disabilities, making it appear that you are relatively sound, when in fact you are not. (Though the most recent set I saw do seem to have corrected this issue a little, so there is hope.)

3) Despite their claims to me, there are NO standards or set marks for any given disability. Thus, being a degree more self-sufficient will actually lose you money. This is the case with ALL disabilities. Thus the fact that people are often prosecuted for gardening, when they claim DLA.. it does not take into account the amount of effort people will put into a beloved hobby that they find relaxing and entertaining, and of great benefit to their general well being, as opposed to sitting in an office for hours on end, typing inanities onto a pc. Example.. I wargame, and will go to places and engage in what, from the outside, appears to be a social pursuit, despite my varying anxieties and lack of skills. A DWP investigating officer would only see "you are with people, ergo you must not have an issue with people." It would never occur to him that a) I might simply be sucking it in for the sake of an hour or so of something I love, because it NEEDS a second person, and that b) its not as social as it looks. Not to mention c) a lot of people who do it are essentially socially inept geeks. Unlike the workplace.

4) They rely on phone and first person contact to deal with them. Thats not an easy trick when you despise phones and have great difficulty using them, and end up having a meltdown when they monkey on the other end cant answer a simple question. Been there, done that. Likewise, the DWP buildings are full of smackheads and chavscum with a hundred mewling rat offspring dangling from their sagging Elizabeth Duke festooned teats, gathering around the free TV to gaze in a bucolic fashion at Trisha, in between bouts of scavenging tabends outside the doors, or begging for change for busfare home. This is NOT an environment I thrive in.

5) No-one seems to know what the Decision making officers qualifications to make decisions about complex mental disabilities actually are.. if he even has them.

6) Literacy skills are actually a dsiability when filling in the forms. If you are articulate, you suffer. If you fill them in with crayon and spell every other word wrong, you're obviously a mong....

7) The forms are filled with questions that make no sense to an Aspie mind.. or at least not mine. Too many tick boxes asking you to work out averages and explain what you WOULD DO if you COULD.. not what you cant do.
I am no more likely to want to go out "when accompanied" than not.. and i fail to see how they figure out that the small amounts of money they parcel out are going to pay for that anyway.

They seem to have focal point issues. A claimant with ONLY depression gets more money.. yet a claimant who gets depressed ON TOP OF having AS does not? Surely my depression is just as debilitating as someone who is "depressed", and possibly worse, given that Ive got AS to deal with as well?

Ahh well.. I'll wait til we sort out LadyM's claims before I try mine again. Its too much stress to be dealing with the f*****g DWP TWICE for the same damn thing.

I swear the next lot are getting done in Crayon and i'm getting my 8yr old son to write them for me.

Half the time they never seem to bother contacting the references. I'm tempted to add a few, as one of my mates is a psych nurse ata high security mental hospital. Couldnt hurt lol.

I just noticed you said civil servants are not paid very much? I was on £6-20 an hour when I worked there.. that was the STARTING wage. Not bad for an 18 year old tbh. It's when you work your way up that it gets a bit crappy.

Oh yeah, the other day I got refused DLA, despite the fact that I'm worse than Macbeth, and showed that on the forms. Going to appeal that one. I think I'm going to have to go to the doctors about my depression and anxiety, just so I get proof.

Heh.. now i have to phone the buggers and fake being her carer to get s**t done, because LadyM hates phones. So do I, but I'm also a consumate actor, and given a run up, I can manage it. Its f*****g annoying that we have to mess about so much to get what she is due.

I have been on benefits most of my life Income Support, Job seekers the worst, an this year disability allowace also always had my rent paid which is £75 a week Ive never had any problems dealing with DLA buts its only my first year.
The money I get now is the same if I was on jobseekers allowace which is enough for me to live on sometimes I feel bad that I'm a tax burden to rest of the Working NTs but if I was pushed into working like my last job I would kill myself so they have a choice give me benefits all pills to kill myself with.

Hope in time with help from my shrink which have only been seeing this year to sort my life out, meds to improve my depression an anxiety then be well enough for a part time job then later full time work so will be off benefits for good.

At this time my disability allowace is just for depression an anxiety, but also have a lot of AS symptoms.
You should all pray the Tories don't win the next general election they want all people with disability working! Helps pay for their posh lunches an massive wage increases when they come into power an of course tax breaks for the rich.

I never had much of an issue with being disabled and working, and in fact have a job. My concern is that I end up in employmeny suitable to me, that will not drive me mental. I have been fired from previous jobs through AS-based problems, and I am aware of what I can or cannot deal with in a work environment. Actually, a little assistance from the Governmnet in finding the rght job would not go amiss.

Time will tell if the finances hold up when working at a lwo wage job, rather than with benefits, and I have the sense of impending doom that I always get when I know I'm going to have to disrupt stability, and deal with the DWP.

The thing with disability in the US is to get approved you have to keep trying over and over. My uncle has very severe Mariners disease and it took about two years to get onto partial and another three before he was approved for 100% even though several doctors said he was more than qualified for 100% (one actually said if there was a 200% on the scale he'd beat that mark, he's laid out from it about 4 days a week on a good week). If you really believe you qualify you have to fight tooth and nail for them to believe it too. Most people with AS wouldn't qualify for 100% because we can work, we're just limited on the type of work we can do well at because of the social aspect of most work environments. I assume partial is possible to get in most cases though if you are willing to slog through. In some cases the delays end up paying off because they will pay back pay from when your case first opened and interest when it can be proven that you were wrongfully denied disability benefits.