Had my PIP assessment today, am I overreacting?

Personal Independence Payment

Good evening,

I literally just got home from my PIP assessment (England) and even with all the preparation and horror stories I have read and prepared for I am just in shock.

Context: I have severe AdHd, autism, depression, anxiety, Cptsd, chronic fatigue

I don’t even know where to start because I’m so horrified.

The woman who assessed me was so condescending and mean. I am 22 and I took my mum with me who cares for me 24/7. When I kept bringing up that no I cannot cook and my mum cooks for me she just looked at my mum and laughed and said ‘you have a lot of work on your hands don’t you’ excuse me??????? I didn’t even react because I was so shocked and obviously in full on masking mode from how anxious and stressed I have been the past week leading up to this assessment.

When asking about going out she asked about going to the supermarket to which I replied ‘I am unable to go to the supermarket due to my autism and how overwhelmed I get etc etc etc ….’ and she just looked at me, tilted her head and said ‘you don’t help your mum with shopping?’ AND THEN POUTED AT ME?? Like i’m disabled and depressed and you want me to feel worse about myself ?

Every answer I gave she then reworded it to make me sound like I was able to do the things I just said I couldn’t do.

Everytime I asked a question and started to reply in a way that uses their terminology she cut me off for example:
her: what about following journeys?
me: i cannot reliably follow…..
her: no, tell me what happens if you try to follow a journey

Was that her trying to not get me to say their terminology? I obviously was going to then expand as to why and what happens but idk maybe i’m overreacting.

She asked about pets to which I replied there’s a cat at home but I don’t look after her and she then asked a bunch of questions as to why don’t I look after her… because I can’t look after myself?

Maybe I am over reacting but I’m now just dreading the report and everything like that I’m so anxious and I’ve had the worst week building up to this that I just feel so lost and empty. Why do they have to be so mean?

Posted Aug 10, 2026, 4:19 PM UTC

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