It’s very interesting, u won’t get anyone to help, it’s to hard, to time consuming and cost to much to money. Few people care enough. I was done for fraud, I had letters from my doctor and a psychologist supporting me that I have many probes, and can’t deal with letters, bury my head in the sand, suffer from anxiety, depression, panic attacks and more, in a nut shell, I had my housing benefits stopped and stopped for 6 years, till 2020, I’ve had to buy an old boat to live on, I’ve had no power for 5 weeks, no electricity, no water, in thick snow. I went to tribunal , basically a waste of time. The judges in my opinion r judgemental, they don’t look at the root causes, they have no sympathy. There will b millions more with mental health issues, and more suicides, I’ve considered it myself. Life for many is getting harder and harder.

@Jeannie Harrison -; a rare touch of public humanity from me as I usually keep to the info advice side of things as believe me with what we are all (advice/info Admins etc) having to read daily is very harrowing, however I felt I reaally had to say how humbling I found your story? Not that it was that very different to 100’s of others weekly, but something now just stired in me, and woke me up to the rather more human side to all of this!! I also don’t really tend to advise upon benefits (more BT/Housing etc) however I am myself disabled, currently living in a SH, and currently dependant upon state benefits and handouts ,!!
My first thoughts on this would be first to sympathise with you, my god how degrading and barbarack a manner in so dealing with you, and then to take that treatment to appeal and to have it overturned also, and this is them making MH issues far easier to claim for and under.- God I hate to think what it may previously of been like then if this is a far easier way for such affected patients to claim.? Don’t they understand just how easy it is to make such an affected claimant suicidal, I’m now wondering how many suitably afflicted claimants there are in the same or similar situations who if they all got together and as an group sued our Gov (not sure what for or how?) surely some young hotshot lawyer that’s on the way up the legal ladder would take on a multi case pro-Bono case on for one and all, as your surely allowed the same access to benefits and services as any other cases will currently be and if your not that’s discrimination there alone, let alone anything else they may have done?? It’s a sheer travesty that such obviously personally quite normally well hidden deceases are now being denied with as far as I can see the correct and right supporting evidence from the right professionals.
I sadly fit into a similarly treated category as you do with one of my main illnesses in that it’s invisible, many believe it’s all in the head of the stufferer and that there are NO actual symptoms nor illness to treat thus it’s making such claims equally hard, we have fully GP and specialists/consultants evidence and proofs yet this is being ignored WHY?? Are we in the habit of ignoring the advise of our Drs specialists and other health proffesionals? We know of late that our GPs evidence I.e. Sick notes/fit notes most certainly DO NOT have nearly the same sort of clout as only a few years back they would have, as I can easily remember handing in a sick line which without question would have my benefits paid out to me every two weeks (I’ve been on HR Care Motobility and now SG in ESA that was HR SDA for some 20 years and ESA for past two years or so) but NEVER can I recall any time period when clients were en-masse made to feel as if we were lying to them??? I simply don’t get it, what we need is mass class act taken out against them if for no other reason but to show them we mean business!!!
What really rubs me more is that it must be thousands now of highly educated doctors have allowed this to carry on unchallenged? As I would of respectfully thought that IF these Gov employees were going to insist on telling us that we are lying to them, surely it then goes that said Drs, Profs and other health professionals are equally lying to you as it is them that is ultimately carrying out all the tests? All the examinations that ultimately lead to the final diagnosis, upon which all act on ………………. In my own case I have been on a series of very highly additive, high in content opiates, which I would not be surprised if I was to be addicted to, as I have done “cold turkey” on a these as few time whilst changing from one to another, barbiturates, opiates, heroin based all one in the same if they are coded CD (controlled drugs) from your pharmacy they are bad news!! And I am pretty sure from having a physitsoptenic afflicted friend all through my school years who was on a whole load of tabets (poor chap at about 12 and in 1st year at a new upper education school as if that in itself wasn’t enough to deal with, by third year his tablets were up to 18 a day, when suddenly and for no apparent reason we suddenly took his own life) a lot of my own arguement would be IF I am as ATOS/MAXIMUS will doubtfully claim then WHY is it that I’m on such high doses of the currently opiate based pain relief, oh yeah that’s it!! Sorry forgot again (that brain fog I suffer daily now where I have periods where I can’t now mind even recall my own name as part of my overall symptoms!! ) it’s because I surely just don’t need such pain relief as I am sure you my friend equally don’t actually require your I am sure the numerous meds ??? It’s GOT TO BE STOPPED before we loose anyone else!!
Shame also must fall at least in part on the vast amount of a health proffesionals that are supposed to be looking after our needs, surely this is as important as any treatments they can collectively suggest, surely it’s by no small part up to these self same HPs to support us against these barbaric, inhuman, unfeeling robots that carry out these F2F examinations as they surely must be as they not only “see no evil” but they also clearly “hear no evi” but most certainly speak and type evil every minute they work on any reports for either AtosMaximus as all almost are works of fiction, surely it’s long overdue that even just a few should take them and the Gov to task over, these total overturnings in diagnosis I know they have done it to me almost twenty years after my Top UK Prof in the field in Scotland diagnosed and completed all my application forms I may add :) that sunsequenly gained my HR benefits right up and until this trainwreck that is Wefare Reform/ATOS & Maximum rolled into town, one question for all the health proffesionals dealing with all our daily issues, who happily dispense often highly addictive drugs, treatments and various in truth scary and life threatening operations, the one question is thus Dr how can you firstly allow your proffesion and secondly your own reputation to be destroyed like this day in and day out by those that are NOT even suitably trained to do so?? Yet your ALL by NOT standing up en-masse for your patients are hardly sticking to your own motto of “first Do No Harm” are you as your by your NON action are most certainly doing a LOT of harm to a lot of very fragile people such as the OP here ITS ABOUT TIME YOU ACTED as much to save your proffesion as to try and limit any further deaths and harm arising from this action, it would only take a few of your high level buddies to stand up to these “monsters” to make a great big difference, surely were collectively worth that ??? One lawsuit is all it would take as it’s as I say making a mockery of your until now held in very high estime proffesion, then if a few big name Drs came out in support of all claimants then maybe a few more claimants might be willing to get together a class act of own, as I could like so, so many I am sure take a case on the fact that I have been fed a cocktail of really highly addictive, highly harmful drugs for in excess of twenty years W.H.Y??? If as ATOS/Maximum and our Gov state there is nothing stopping me from working??? Really have they even bothered to read the warnings on Any of my or of the many 1000’s of the others so fact affected!!! NO has to be the answer to that question as had they of, they I’m sure would already know, that apart from sleeping on a desk possibly there is prescious little else that it would be safe for me to do!!! Let alone NO company insurance would cover me, nor any of my other similarly affected friends it has too and said !!!
Where does this all leave us? Badly needing a really high powered professor or DR to publically demine this whole sorry state that is Welfare Reform and make it clear that he or she shall rapidly take a high court rite out against them to stop any further damage being caused !!! Now who is going to stand up for us any takers ???
And finally to the OP I ammore sure like all Admins here-in I would suggest if you have NOT already done so, you find your local “Advocacy” group who will I am sure happily support you in many, many ways both physically and mentally, let alone form filling and such like, a small word of warning from me myself we have found through the groups I run it to be good practice to get into, to, always when conversing with any of the Gov depts that you do so via letter or email and retain a copy ALWAYS likewise with any application forms always retain a photocopy of the entire form, and any proofs, support letters ONLY send copies detailed in a list on form I.e enclosed ——— and lastly when sending to the relative depts do so via registered guaranteed mail, that at least goes some way to ensure your letter never gets lost !!
Sorry this post has gone on a bit longer than I had anticipated, I shall conclude by saying if I can help in anyway don’t hesitate to PM me :) :) good luck ………

P.s. @Mike Sivier sorry buddy didn’t intend post to be this large