PIP Tribunal Hearing and ADHD

Hi all,

I suffer with a great amount of different issues including severe chronic migraines, severe insomnia, IBS/occasional incontinence, anxiety/depression, and I've now been diagnosed with ADHD, which I've known for quite some time I had, but getting a diagnosis took a long while.
My past posts can explain things in more detail, but now that I have my ADHD diagnosis, I am wondering if my battle to score points will be easier, and I'm looking for ways to attribute it to all the social, learning and cognitive difficulties I've always had, whereas before the diagnosis, it was really difficult to articulate how or why things were hard for me.

I seem to suffer all of the common ADHD symptoms including hyper-overthinking, being easily distracted, godawful short-term memory, bouts of anger/frustration (I have fights with gravity every single day). I can't concentrate or focus on anything for more than a few seconds, brain noise, I do everything on impulse, and planning/organisation is really exhausting, I never know what I want or how I want to do something, I run my life on mental coin flipping. I get bored constantly, I pick up new tasks with drive and excitement and leave them unfinished for months/years because of what I now know is called "ADHD burnout". I can't follow or absorb instructions, especially when given verbally. I get so embarrassed and angry with myself about asking people to repeat simple things. The list goes on and on, and until recently I didn't know why I was like this, and then I stumbled upon ADHD and did some research. It was like I was reading the blueprints to my whole life!

So my query is, can anyone help me attribute this stuff to the PIP descriptors? I find it difficult to do this, and I go into too much detail and write down 100s of unnecessary things.

I have to prepare for my hearing next week.

Thanks all!

Hi BIS,

Just to let you know, I did as you suggested with the paragraph and added it into my statement for the hearing, and they awarded me standard rate for both components. I think it is a good result and I wouldn't expect to get more with mostly mental issues. But I do think that issues like mine need to be considered more seriously in future, as my migraines are absolutely crippling and so is the insomnia. Together with the other aspects of ADHD, (like I didn't even remember to mention it makes me quite deaf), my life has been severely hindered for decades. But because most people solve these problems with pills, I feel it's just not looked at like it's a big problem at the moment.

Thanks for all your replies with advice during the last few years!

FYI, I took advice from here a good while back and contacted Kester Disability Rights for help with both my appeals, Kester was only able to help me with the PIP appeal, but I can't recommend him enough, he's been terrific and I'm MORE than happy to give him a portion of the backpay to ensure he can continue to help others in future! So this is my official endorsement.

Cheers,
Mike

Oh Mike1878, today after years of wait I got my ADHD confirmed, like you it's the blueprint of my life! What a timely post, someone up there IS helping. And thanks so much BIS for the observation about it affecting every descriptor/question. And I have recommended Kester based on a PIP expert friend's checking them out, don't know if it was one of my posts you saw but no matter. If I have to go to appeal thanks for the reminder, I'll see if he can help, as you say, the backpay split is in a good cause. D.