A worked example showing how the 12 PIP activities can be described for someone living with post-traumatic stress disorder. Every answer is written in the first person, in the plain wording assessors look for, and each one weaves in the reliability factors that decide how an activity scores.
PTSD is not simply being upset about something that happened in the past. It keeps the trauma live in the present: intrusive memories and flashbacks that arrive without warning, nightmares that break up night after night, a body stuck on constant alert for danger, and a strong pull to avoid every place, person or sound that might set it off. Some people also lose time to dissociation, where they go blank or feel detached and afterwards cannot account for the last few minutes. None of that is visible on a scan, and in a short assessment on a calm day it can look as though you are coping.
That is exactly why a PTSD form has to describe the cost of a task, not just whether your body could perform it. An activity only counts as something you can do if you can do it safely, to an acceptable standard, repeatedly and in a reasonable time. Dissociating at the hob or in a hot bath is not safe. A task you abandon halfway through because a trigger hits is not done to an acceptable standard. Running on two or three broken hours of sleep, with the exhaustion and poor concentration that brings, is why so many things cannot be done again later the same day. Fluctuation is judged on your worst and most common days, not your best ones, so write about the majority of days.
Two things are worth stating plainly. The first is what a trigger actually does to you: name the noise, the crowd, the smell or the date, then describe what follows in concrete terms, whether that is a flashback, freezing, shaking, panic, going blank or having to leave. The second is the trusted person you depend on. If you can only face people, appointments or leaving the house when someone you trust is with you, that reliance is a recognised difficulty, and needing it without having it counts too. Avoidance is a symptom, not a preference, so describe what you no longer do and why rather than leaving it out. The example below does this activity by activity. The DWP always makes the final decision, but describing your day accurately gives your form the strongest chance of being understood.
What to cover for each one. Your paid form writes the full answers for you.
Explain that a kitchen full of knives, gas and hot pans is not safe when you can dissociate or be pulled into a flashback partway through cooking, and say if you have burnt food, left the hob on or cut yourself. Mention the prompting or company you need before you will start at all, and how exhaustion from broken sleep means a meal does not get made on most days. Say plainly whether you could prepare a simple cooked meal safely and repeatedly rather than once on a good day.
This question is about getting food and drink to your mouth, chewing and swallowing it, not about cooking, so the difficulty with the kitchen belongs at the preparing food question. What can count here is needing someone to remind you or sit with you before any food goes in, because a lost appetite, nausea or going blank at the table means meals get skipped for days at a time. If eating itself is fine once a plate is in front of you, answer honestly and leave this one alone.
Describe how sleep deprivation and poor concentration make you lose track of doses, and mention the prompts you depend on such as a dosette box, phone alarms or someone checking. Cover any therapy you are having and how draining it is, and be honest about sessions you have missed because you could not face going or could not leave the house. Explain what would happen to your medication without that support.
Say if being undressed, enclosed or unable to hear what is happening outside the bathroom leaves you too exposed to wash, and describe what you do instead, such as a fast wash with the door open or going days without. Mention any risk in being in water when you can dissociate or lose time, and whether you need someone in the house before you will get in the shower. The point to bring out is that you cannot keep this up to an acceptable standard on most days.
This one is about getting on and off the toilet, cleaning yourself afterwards and controlling your bladder and bowel, and PTSD often does not reach any of it. What can count is stress-related urgency or accidents, needing pads or a change of clothes because of them, or needing someone in the house before you will shut yourself in the bathroom at all. If none of that is true for you, answer honestly and leave this one alone, because an honest form makes the difficulties you do describe more believable.
Explain that on the days you are not going out nothing gets changed, so you stay in the same clothes or sleep in them ready to move, and mention how many days that runs to. Describe any prompting you need to get dressed at all, and if being undressed brings on distress or memories, say so in your own words. Make clear whether you can do this reliably without someone encouraging you.
Describe how hypervigilance and going blank mean you miss what people say and have to ask them to repeat it, especially anything detailed like an appointment or a phone call. Mention needing a trusted person with you to take in important information and answer for you when you cannot get words out. Focus on understanding and being understood rather than your hearing or your speech.
Explain that exhaustion and intrusive thoughts mean you read the same paragraph over and over without it going in, so anything complex has to be read to you or gone through with you. Mention post left unopened because official letters set off dread, and who deals with it instead. Keep this about taking in and holding on to written information, not your eyesight.
Describe how poor concentration and avoidance mean bills, statements and budgeting decisions do not get dealt with, and mention anything that has been missed or gone into arrears as a result. Say who sits with you to open post, work out payments and make any bigger money decision, and what happens when they do not. Make clear whether you could manage complex money matters reliably on your own.
This question is only about physically standing and moving, so give the distance you can genuinely manage on a normal day and say how long you have to stop for. What can count is a physical injury left by what happened to you, or freezing or losing time outdoors so that you cannot keep going without someone with you. The distress of being outside belongs at the journeys question rather than here, so keep the two apart and let them back each other up.
The tips above are general pointers. Your paid form gives you a full, ready-to-copy answer for all 12 activities, written from your exact conditions, medication, aids and bad days, not a general example. This is a worked example for PTSD; yours is written for you. £99.99 one-off.
This is a worked example, not a script. It shows one honest way a person with PTSD might describe their worst and most common days, so you can see the level of detail and the plain wording that assessors are trained to look for. Please do not copy it word for word. Your own answers should reflect your trauma responses, your triggers, the nights you do not sleep, the help you actually get from a trusted person and the help you need but go without, because that is what the assessment is about and that is what makes an answer ring true. Write only what you are able to write; there is no need to set down the details of what happened to you to explain what it does to you now.
Not every one of the 12 activities will apply to you. Being honest about what PTSD does not change makes the difficulties you do describe more believable, so there is no need to stretch every question. The suggested descriptor on each card is only there to show which difficulty the answer is pointing at; never write a descriptor letter or a point number on your real form, because the assessor works those out and the decision is always the DWP's. If you would rather start from your own words, tell us about your health and we will write your answers from your own conditions, in the same first-person style, ready for you to read, edit and copy onto your PIP2 claim form or AR1 review form.
Tell us about your PTSD in your own words and we will write one full activity for you, free, before you pay anything.
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